5 years more - perspectives in time

Notre Dame with flying buttresses - photo by scaredsquee

A friend and Yoga teacher Gary Carter once told me a story. He had been in a class where they were practising the lotus posture in a headstand. The woman next to him kept falling out of the posture and giggling, then getting back up giving it another go and ….. not quite making it. Somewhere between giggling and picking herself up the floor she would say to ‘another five years’.

She was about 80 at the time.

Our perception of time can make a huge difference to what we do and what we achieve. The question is, what is a long period of time for you?

Probably that depends on the context. Arriving at the post office, seeing a line of slow moving people can make five minutes seem looooong. Arriving at an office with a full task list to be completed for a much loved, and rapidly approaching project can make eight hours seem short. Our perception of time can vary immensely.

The significance of an event shifts with the passing of time. What makes us cringe with embarrassment one day, when remembered several years later becomes trivial or funny. Some day you’ll look back at this and laugh…why wait?

Culturally we have a tendency to look at our projects in terms of years, and rarely more than one generation. Compare that to the people building cathedrals. Down the road from me is Notre Dame, which took 185 years to build, or approximately six generations of labourers and craftsmen.

Lord John Brown re-branded BP from British Petroleum to beyond Petroleum on the basis of the question 'What will BP be doing 100 years from now?'. Petrol was not part of the answer.

Recently I read a book written about a Native American who complained ‘The white man’s culture steals from his grandchildren to give to his children.’ Which is an interesting statement from an NLP point of view. It acknowledges the positive intention – being a good parent, without condoning the shortsighted nature of the behaviour.

As someone interested in Sustainable development, based on a fascination with biology it is easy for me to have a sense of inevitable planetary doom. For all the changes of heart and environmental initiatives, it may be too late for us. We may well have upset the balance of the planet enough that we will wipe ourselves out, and many, many other species at the same time. We may be in the space between pulling the trigger and the bullet arriving.

However, even if we wipe ourselves out, even if we destroy every complex eco-system on the planet, in a few tens of million years life will have built itself up to a new flowering of diversity.

Sometimes when my daughter draws on a chalkboard, or her etch-a-sketch she cries if someone wipes out her pictures. Mostly she erases them gleefully, and gets to work on the next one.

In that perspective global extinction is just the planet getting ready for some more drawings.

But how can we apply these philosophical ramblings, apart from having some comfort in the face of inevitable loss?

All these perspectives, from five seconds, to five billion years are perceived in the present instant of our subjectivity. The problems start when we get stuck in an inappropriate perspective. Either too long - 'well all I do is ultimately insignificant in the vast expanse of time.' Or alternatively too short 'just one more beer...'

Or thinking a five year project is a failure because of the events of a single week.

There could be situations in which those events definitively kill the project, but given the greater space that perspective over years offers can turn the sense of the unfortunate events into a learning experience, rather than a defeat.

To practise flexibility in time perspective, you can deliberately exercise it in relation to decisions. I'll write it as a step by step exercise, but once you get the principles practise it as you like.

1. Think of a particular project or decision.

2. What will your perspective on it be in one week year, in five years, in ten years, by the end of your life, in one generation, in three generations, in the proverbial seven generations.

3. What about from a perspective of millions of years.

4. Consider these different perspectives. Do they give you new information, or a different sense of the project/decision? How does the decision/project match with your values or sense of life mission?

Can you get a sense of balance between the different perspectives?

5. Returning to the present moment, what seems right to you now?

It seems paradoxical, but taking these multiple perspectives regularly helps me stay more present. It helps me be more present, but not necessarily in an opportunistic ‘live for the moment' sense.

Rather present to enjoy the moment. The sun shining in through the window and illuminating my hands on the keyboard, the ache in my back, and a sense of openness in my chest that is warmed by the same sun that falls on my hands.

So wherever you are present reading this now, ask yourself if there is some perspective of time that you have been ignoring. Taking that into consideration, what is important to you now?

Three freedoms

photo of Freediver at the North Pole by Fred Buyle, www.nektos.net

Recently I was chatting with a coach, who observed 'Whenever anyone mentions freedom in relation to a goal, they are motivated in an away from direction.'

I agree that often people want freedom as an away from, I also think that we can distinguish three kinds of freedom.

We have already looked at the first one - what I call freedom from. As a motivation it can work pretty well. People ache for freedom from war, injustice, poverty, their boss, their job, their spouse(!). You can probably think of quite a few variations, and think of the lengths people go through to escape from the constrictions of their life or society.

Then we also have what I call freedom for. Which can you can also think of as freedom to. Freedom to love, to sing, to dance, to dream, to act. Again you can add in what you'd like to freedom for.

Finally there is simply freedom. I think of this as the ability to simply be in the present moment, accepting whatever is there, neither trying to get towards something, nor get away from something.

I realise so far I have defined this freedom as a negatively. It does not make it an away from. Towards and away from cease to mean anything in this state. I think of it as beyond towards and away from.

This kind of freedom is not something that can easily be talked about in words.

What has this got to do with NLP? I suppose this freedom is a state, and NLP has a lot to do with moving through states, becoming a connoisseur of states. In this state the old rules are suspended, perhaps removed. NLP values flexibility. In developing the flexibility, the ability to suspend rules is a useful skill.

It is a state that has been pointed to in many traditions through the ages. In yogic contemplative practise people talk about 'not this, not that'. In Zen they talk about cultivating doubt, the ability to doubt and go beyond a limited sense of who you are.

I could think of many worse ways to spend some daily time (or daily timelessness) laying aside desires, fears and even identity. Some people get scared by this idea, who will they be? What will the point be?

But in my experience we usually find our lives, habits and identity still there at the end of practise. Still there, but with greater choice as to what to do with them. Old motivations drop away, like clothes becoming looser and finally falling off. At the same time we get sensitive to deeper motivations calling. With that comes the possibility of deeper satisfaction, deeper pleasure and deeper happiness.

If we do not spend time doing this how can we examine where our motivations, our freedoms from and freedoms for come from? They might be from parents, from friends, from peer pressure, and from advertising. They might even be, heavens forbid, from NLP teachers!

Do you know what you want freedom from? What you want freedom for? and when you are free to accept exactly what is there, what is there?

Habits

We all have habits, we cannot get by without them. The question is whether the habits we have serve us or not. The next question is how to change a habit?

Read on…

Paris Sans Clopes – the energy of habit

Xmas xcess and rich pickings for a coach

How to be a regular Exerciser

Book Review - the Potent Self by Moshe Feldenkrais

Moshe Feldenkrais was born at the beginning of the last century in Russia. At the age of 14 he moved to Palestine and worked as a labourer, going on to study engineering. He then moved to France, escaping to Britain on the eve of the second world war, where he worked on Sonar resarch in Scotland.

Moshe was not only an engineer, but also a martial artist - practising Jujutsu and then Judo with it's founder Jigoro Kano. The combination of his martial and scientific background, along with an injured knee lead him to develop a method of bodywork which is gaining in popularity today.

Feldenkrais wrote the Potent Self in the 1940's - though it was not published until the 1980's for various reasons. As I read it in 2006 I was amazed at how well the book stands the test of time. There are some details that research has shown to be not completely accurate, but the overall theme of the book and it's style holds true.

But what is the theme? Feldenkrais talks about the development of the individual, how in human beings almost all behaviour is learned, and depends on patterns of muscular tension to be enacted. These patterns of tension are intimately bound up with emotional sensation. As such he shows that the mind and body truly act as a single system.

His idea is that these patterns of tension become automatic, and often inefficient for the task at hand. But because these patterns were often learned at a time when we were dependant on adults for survival, trying to change them requires overcoming the survival anxiety on some level. The result is that people get hemmed into patterns and behaviours, not daring to go outside of them, and in time forgetting that there is an outside.

Feldenkrais contrasts this with the mature or potent self, who has relearned how to learn, and can change these patterns, act efficiently in the face of anxiety and in doing so lose the anxiety. A fair amount of the book is about sex, and how it is affected by the gap between the age of biological sexual maturity and the age of socially condoned sexual behaviour.

While Feldenkrais acknowledges that the origins of problems may be in the past, the patterns that maintain them exist in the present, in the way the muscles are held now. So treatment of these problems is through movement - creating a new awareness of possibilties that have been forgotten.

Feldenkrais was an influence on NLP, I believe that Bandler modelled him. Feldenkrais met up with Erickson in who's methods he saw a parallel - Erickson working with words (and obviously non verbally) while Feldenkrais worked directly with movement (often explained verbally).

I found this book excited me intellectually, clarified certain ideas for me and has also led me down new avenues of research. If you are curious about the NLP presuppostion that 'mind and body are one system' then this book is well worth a read.

Seminar review - Provocative Therapy with Frank Farrelly

After reading the book Provocative Therapy by Frank Farrelly I was intrigued enough to want to see the man in action. The seminar was with Tranceforming NLP in Leeds. Since Leeds is a city I have good memories of living in, that was an added bonus.

I wasn't sure if I was going to get a weekend of stand up comedy - or something practical. In fact I got both. Frank is very funny, and I laughed until my cheeks got cramp. Yes, the cheeks on my face.

The seminar was essentially a lot of stories, some of which Frank finished, and some of which he didn't. I wondered if they were cunningly designed nested loops. But he claims he says the first thing that comes into his head, and I believe him. Of course both could be true.

Watching and listening to him it's clear Franks style (and some of the content of his stories too) has had a great influence on Richard Bandler (Richard Bandler is oe of the founders of NLP).

In between the stories there were interviews where Frank provokes the hell out of the lucky/poor person up on stage with him. After the interview people get to ask questions about the what the experience was like for the victim/client and about Frank's techniques.

As I watched I found that though there were similarities between what Frank was doing and NLP or hypnosis there were also great differences. I thought the best way to learn from Frank was to deep trance model him rather than try and analyze what he's doing.

He has deeply refined skill and he does so much at the same time that consciously there is a huge amount to miss. I was picked for the last interview of the weekend - which was the biggest learning experience for me.

While watching from the outside I thought I had a clue what Frank was doing. From the inside it was something else again. I remember reading about doctors descriptions of how they did lobotomies in the 1950's- inserting a pick into the front of the head and swishing it about a bit. Being interviewed by Frank felt a bit like that - with Frank as the twinkling eyed pick wielder.

Sound gruesome? It gets better I also remember reading about how you can cut open a newt, liquidise it's heart and close it up again. Instead of dying the newt regenerates its heart. That's the other half of my experience.

Sure I felt that parts of my brain had been liquidized - I also had the sense that the liquid would reconstitute itself according to a wiser and healthier pattern.

Now I have no idea if Frank ran a provocative pick through my brain, or made some more directed and precise intervention.

One thing I was glad to find out was that he has a very large frame of reference. Though he often explains his work in terms of social dynamics, he also has a sense of the spiritual and non-material in what he does. In Stephen Gilligan's terms he's working very much with 'the field.'

Alongside this Frank came across as an exceptionally warm and big hearted human being.

It has been a week since the seminar and my perceptions of many things in my life has changed. I'm glad I went on the seminar. I am incorporating parts of Frank's approach into my work and enjoying it immensely.

I have bought the dvd's of last year's seminar but have not had a chace to watch them yet. I suspect that when I do the learning and lauging will continue in equal measure.

Book Review Transforming Yourself by Steve Andreas

'Transforming Yourself' by Steve Andreas is one of a long line of NLP books based on seminar transcripts and demonstrations. It deals with something Steve calls self concept.

What is self concept? Well if you think of yourself as a 'kind' person then 'kind' is part of your self concept. The book goes into some detail into how you can examine self concept, looking at the structure in terms of sub-modalities, and ways you can change self concept.

If you have studied NLP the book provides a clear explanation of how to work with self concept both formally and conversationally. I found it easy to follow and it covers many of the questions that came up as I read it.

As well as being practical there is also an interesting discussion of what a healthy self concept consists of which touches on various older traditions like Buddhism without being at all religious.

The larger divisions of the book include

strengthening a wanted self concept
Creating a new self concepts
Dealing with the not self (self concept defined by what one isn't for example 'not cruel')
Transforming an unwanted negative self concept
Personal boundaries and sense of connection

Overall I think these are very useful techniques and principles that you can readily apply in coaching. I hope that they are recognised and appreciated. I have used some of them with my clients and had good results. The next step for me is to organise a workshop with them.

Book, Video and Seminar Reviews

I will not be reviewing every book I read, or every seminar I go to. But there are some that make enough of an impression on me and that I think are relevant enough to the content of this board that I will want to share.

Some of these come from the old nlpschool.com discussion board.

Book Review Transforming Yourself by Steve Andreas

Seminar review - Provocative Therapy with Frank Farrelly

Book Review - the Potent Self by Moshe Feldenkrais

Book review Tricks of the mind

Video review The Secret - not everyone's cup of tea

Stories, Commentary and opinion

Stories are a basic unit of human communication, and so you will find them as part of many NLP trainings. This section contains links either to stories, or ways of using stories.

NLP is sometimes defined as the study of the structure of subjective experience. NLP recognises that being objective is challenging for human beings.

Since I do my best to own my subjectivity I try to be honest and transparent about it. I find that makes for clearer communication, if not always a jigsaw fit of agreement. You will find my opinions in this section, as well as anecdotes and metaphors.

Take with a pinch of salt and enjoy.

the fool in the laboratory

presenting NLP,I knew someone who...

the French attitude to Sects

Intoxicating new years resolutions

Paris Sans Clopes – the energy of habit

Three freedoms

5 years more - perspectives in time

Underemployed Coaches

politically correct for you're a *****er

Living treasures

Techniques, Methods and Practises

NLP contains many techniques that can be applied in different situations and contexts. These techniques were developed from modelling people who were excellent in their fields, and playing with the principles of excellence to generate new techniques.

Consequently within the field of NLP there is an increasing range of techniques. Most experienced NLPers have created techniques at one time or another, or at least improvised them on the spur of the moment. This improvisation is a little like jazz musicians jamming, or actors well, improvising.

So you will find some of my improvisations here.

You will also find practises here. I distinguish these from techniques as they are there to build skill rather than necessarily have a direct application.

Skill and change require practise. It usually takes some repetition before a concept gets sufficiently into the muscle before it can be applied in the changing conditions of the real world.

The act of practising not only helps make a skill habitual, it also informs and refines that skill. There is a saying ‘practise makes perfect’. My old martial arts brother Tim Cartmell once told me ‘Practise doesn’t make perfect, perfect practise makes perfect.’

What is perfect practise? I’m not exactly sure, but I suspect it includes

1. A maximum of attention and absorption
2. Openness for ways to improve – thus a doubt in the perfection of the practise.

Sometimes it is useful to separate out the doubt until after the practise has ended. but without the doubt progress will eventually plateau, and learning will become stifled. Too much doubt and learning never gets started!

People often advertise their seminars as the 'cutting edge' of NLP or whatever skill they teach. I hope that they are teaching at their cutting edge. I think that a more relevant question is what is your cutting edge, and how are you working on it. I any of these are useful to you then great!

Pass this on to any boring coaches you know (but don't tell them why...)

NLP, magic wands and smooth moves

the submodalities of meditation

An exercise to increase Physical Intelligence

Three kinds of questions

Three freedoms

5 years more - perspectives in time

Shadows and Light

Fish and Piranhas

Getting into your Skull

Some positive double binds

An outcome you cannot argue with

Two moments to change your life

Explaining NLP

One of the challenges of being an NLP trainer is explaining what NLP is. A definition which came to me recently during a presentation is this.

NLP is a flexible framework that allows the exploration and integration of many different aspects of human experience.

NLP creates a language of experience that allows poetry to converse with business, art with science, values with profit, dance with Descartes, and spirit with matter.

Since individual humans, and human societies are full of contradictions and divisions, I think it is a pretty good thing to practise the capacity for integration. When we can’t yet find a means of integration to have a means to hold our contradictions in a sane way.

NLP is not the only discipline which is attempting this, but I think it does a pretty good job. Whether your interests are business, therapy, creativity, sports, coaching or health people have successfully used in NLP that field.

Given this flexibility it is not surprising that different practitioners and teachers have widely divergent styles – though linked by some key principles.

Readers also arrive here with a variety of interests, desires and preconceptions.

Articles in this section go some way to catering to these different needs. If they pique your interest then live practise will probably be even more interesting for you.

What I have written here contains a mix of metaphors, examples, ideas and methods. It is not so far a comprehensive introduction or explanation to NLP. These are my views and opinions that may add to the understanding of people already acquainted with the subject. I have included links to explain technical terms that I use.

On to the articles….

NLP manipulation, psychic attack and the 42nd Rolls Royce

presenting NLP,I knew someone who...

Only for people of a certain development

Pass this on to any boring coaches you know (but don't tell them why...)

Three kinds of questions

Three kinds of questions

When I teach NLP I get to observe what people find challenging within it. Perhaps top of the list of challenges is how to move from the content of what people are saying to the process, the patterns in how they say it.

People start off with good intentions of sticking with process, then get sucked in by content, and veer off into everyday conversation. The juicier the content, the easier it is to lose sight of the process.Most people live so much in content, the rich details of their stories that even the idea of process eludes them.

I have a set of distinctions I like to give that helps some people to get it. I like to tell people there are three kinds of questions.

The first kind is the normal conversational kind. I ask you a question because I want information about what your life, for me. For example 'Where do you reccomend for lunch?' because I am hungry, or 'How did you make that curry?' because I want to be able to make it too, or 'Then what happened?' because I want to know the next part of the story.

The second kind of questions are asked so that the person answering can get the information. This stems much more from the Socratic tradition of teaching, and so is a common part of coaching.

For example I could ask 'Which of the choices do you prefer?' or 'Can you think of any examples of success in this field?' or 'What haven't you thought of yet?' or 'What would happen if you did?'

I am not invested in the answer, I don't need the information. I am moving from content to process.

The third type of question is asked to direct attention often to create a change of state. These can overlap considerably with the second type of question. '

For example 'Can you remember a time when you felt completely relaxed?' or 'Have you ever had the experience of being really excited or motivated by something?'

The person may give you a detailed answer, or they may just go silent revisiting past memories. Getting the details of where, when and with whom in the answer is not the point. Getting the person to re-experience something that changes their physiology is the real intention.

There are much finer distinction we can make about questions than just these three categories. Recognising and using the distinctions is a big part of NLP. People who are familiar with NLP may notice some overlap between the Meta-model and the Milton-model in the second two types of questions. People familiar with Clean Language will also notice parallels. My aim here is not to go into the details, but give people a broad and easy to grasp frame.

I think that I have covered most of what I wanted to. Naturally I will conclude with some questions, and I do not need to know your answers!

What kind of questions do you tend to use the most? Given your objectives what kind of questions would be the most helpful to you? Finally, what would asking those questions be like?

An exercise to increase Physical Intelligence

I recently started doing this in a quiet moment. It is very simple exercise I've put together and decided to call Kinesthetic streaming. It is similar to a number of other techniques. In doing it the first time I gained some interesting insights into how I think about and use my body.

But first what do I mean by physical intelligence? Well I’m talking about awareness of the structures in the body, bones, muscles, tendons, and visceral organs. Parallel to this is an awareness of emotions, energy and metaphors within the body. Finally there is a linking between awareness of these structures and the ability to move and therefore act, in the world.

I’ll describe the exercise, then write a little about some experiences I associate with it and then about some techniques that are similar.

So now the exercise…

1. Close your eyes
2. Describe to your self your physical sensations, in as much detail and as rapidly as you can. Carry on for from 5-10 minutes.
3. Notice if there are parts of your body that you simply did not notice? Notice any other patterns.
4. Deliberately begin to include those parts of you that are normally outside of your awareness.
5. Re-orient to the outside world.

In doing this you may find you are aware of more than pure feeling. Images, memories, metaphors, synesthesias may well all be woven in. The important thing is that you find yourself discovering more about how you represent your body to yourself, you update your map of your body, you gain faster deeper access to sensation.

The use of words in this exercise act like a bridge between different parts of your mind. They are a focus that helps keep you in the exercise rather than drifting into a daydream. Another consequence is an increase your ability to use words to describe the realm of interior physical space.

For variety you can do this exercise in different postures (sitting, standing, cross legged and whatever else you might want to try). Observe how the postures affect your attention and sensation.

You can also experiment with longer, or shorter periods of practise. The shorter ones could just be a way of checking in with your state in the midst of daily activity.


Some experiences sources and parallels

When I think of this exercise I remember a conversation I once had with the fool. He explained how he would meet various Yogis and martial artists, and they would talk about qi, or prana or use other names for subtle energy. He often didn’t find these people either grounded or practical, and challenged them.

‘So you can feel your subtle energy. Mmmmm, now tell me, what is the sensation on the inside edge of the third toe on your left foot. If you can’t tell me that, if you not aware of your physical body how can you talk about your subtle body?’

I agree. In martial arts we can talk about qi, but in the beginning it's more helpful to think about, time and measure, angles, momentum and vectors. Once these are clear it's time to get into 'energy'. If you focus on qi without getting past some basic physical training then anyone with a half decent straight left will be quite capable of dishing out a revolutionary experience for you!

Another person I associate with this exercise is a man who I met on an NLP training. The trainers (not me in this case) referred often to paying attention to somatic information - feelings. This man had been trained from an early age in the Cartesian tradition in which somatic information was of no use, an animal illusion.

It is not that he did not have feelings. He just had lost his ability to notice them, or value them. However his thinking mind was still able to notice that the apparently intelligent people around him did have feelings, did value them, and could use them in ways which intrigued, but escaped him.

During a break he confided to me

‘These feelings they are talking about, I don't know what they mean. I think that feelings are accessible to women, but not to men.’

I nearly choked on my tea. I’ve spent years immersed in physical awareness, swimming in kinesthetic as one person described the experience. It has taken me a some time to balance that strong kinesthetic with other ways of thinking and acting in the world. I am a man and I am aware of feelings – who was he to imply that was impossible, dammnit!

I didn't choke on my tea because I recognised that under his blanket statement was a yearning. He recognised somehow that much of his energy was caught up in keeping out the perceived chaos of the body. That meant keeping out much of life at the same time. He chose me to talk to because he recognised me as an exception to his rule, and thus a way into a different set of possibilities. I can't remember what I said, and I did not have this exercise to offer then. It will be a regular part of my training from now on.

Kinesthetic streaming is quite similar to self hypnosis exercises where you make statements describing sensory reality, interspersed with suggestions to go into a trance state. One difference is that typically in trance exercises is the rhythm, which is linked with the breath and tends to slow down. In this exercise the idea is to maintain a rapid pace, and no suggestions are involved.

It is also a very similar to Win Wenger’s image streaming exercise – in which internal imagery is described as rapidly as possible. Win claims that daily practise of image streaming permanently raise the IQ.

It's too early to say for sure, but I think that regular practise of this exercise may permanently change the way you relate to your body. Since our bodies are the medium through which we experience the world, and through which we act on the world that could mean a lot.

This is a new exercise. I'm interested in how people can use this and develop it. If you decide to try this out I'll be very happy to read about your experiences.

So if you close your eyes now, what do you feel?

Intoxicating new years resolutions

It is January, 2006 has clicked into 2007 and the champagne bottles have been dropped off to be recycled. It is resolution time. So here is something I wrote with the aim of offering you your heart’s desire this year – or at least a method to identify and develop it.

Keep reading and you will find a set of ideas and instructions. You can try them on your own, or what is more fun is to get a group of friends together and try it with them. Actually they don’t even have to be friends, just people you know. But be warned, you could have a magical time doing this and find yourself with a bunch of new friends.

Before you get on the phone to your friends here is the basis of the method. Often we start making our resolutions based on what annoys us. Because we feel frustrated at not having done something, or because we keep doing something that we (or others) think that we shouldn’t.

What I propose here is something else. Rather than starting with a unfulfilled desire, I’d like to start with an experience of something that you value deeply. The way into that experience is through stories. Stories are a basic unit of human communication, and they allow us to access states, emotion, motivation and information in a way that more ’rational’ methods fall down with.

Stories are best told within a group, and that’s why I suggest doing this with friends. The presence of your friends makes what you do much more real than the presence of a notebook. It is a privilege to be able to offer the same quality of witnessing back to them.

As you follow the steps, you will ideally enter a shared space with some really pleasant qualities to it. Operating from this space will allow the dialogue and scripting below to flow more naturally.

From stories into values
Tell yourself, your partner or your friends a story about an experience that you value in some way, a story that is special to you

When you tell the story, let yourself re-experience it as fully as you can. Three or four minutes should be enough.

It doesn’t have to be an epic tale. One of the last ones I chose was about the pleasure of taking my daughter on the back of my bicycle. Someone else told a story of learning excel with ease, instead of frustration. Of course there were also stories of moonlit coral reefs, helipads and luxury.

At the end of the story your partners can ask:

‘What was important to you about this experience?’
or ‘What is it about this story that you value or is special to you?’

feel into the answer, and give it simply without a huge discussion.

When asking these questions be minimalist. You ask them to help the person to go deeper into their own experience, rather than explain their experience to you. Frankly it doesn’t matter whether or not you understand their experience or not, just that you witness it with as much presence as you can.

You may come up with words to label your values. For example excitement, or connection, or contribution, or love. Make a note of them if you like.

Once you do this allow the next person to tell a story and repeat the process, and cycle through the whole group 2-4 times.

Since each story with its appreciation will take about five to ten minutes you may want to keep the groups small, unless your are happy to do this for hours. But since this is likely to be a very pleasant experience you may want to take hours!

At the end of this you will each have a series of values, not just as written words, but as feelings, images, sounds from the memories of your stories and elsewhere. You may notice certain themes and patterns that repeat between the stories, which may represent especially important values for you.

Those values won’t be abstract concepts, but something you can be aware of living in the moment.


Values into the future
Now is the time to start turning these values into goals. Get your partner to start going into an imaginary future that is an expression of or in line with their values.

Before you do this imagine all the pleasure you are experiencing in the moment (and which is an expression of your values) moving into the year ahead. Take a few moments or minutes to do this.

For me this was a bit like inflating the time line of my future with wonder, connection, gratitude, curiousity, love, and service. That may not make any sense to you rationally. It doesn’t have to. But the important part is that it makes perfect (if non rational) sense to me, as your version will to you.

Now start exploring that rich future. Do this by asking yourself or your partner

‘Allow yourself to float into this future filled with (state values) where you are living as an embodiment of (state values)

When you ask this of your partner use their exact words for their values - it will be much more powerful for them that way. Again you don’t have to explain or justify this to anyone else, just experience it as best you can. Be present and witness.

If you like you can add in a discrete background patter to support their exploration, something like this

‘and in this time you are living as an expression of (state values), what do you see around you that shows you that (values) are present now.’ Repeat this with hear, and feel.

In doing this you get an increasingly detailed picture of a goal, or moment in this valuable future. But you may also be happy to have a hint of what lies ahead, with the details implicit, the exact surprise you want, for you to unwrap through time.


Goal ecology
If you wanted that goal, that situation from the future, so much you’d have it already. The situation your are already in has benefits that you may have to give up, or reorganise to get to where you want to go. In your desire for this delicious and juicy future dripping with the bliss of your values you may have missed something, something important about the way things are now.

I doubt you want to throw away your curret benefits, the positive byproducts of your life now. So ask your self or your partner if it’s ok to have this now, and be alert to signals from yourself. Sense if there is something, whether it is rational or not, is impeding your goal. It could be that you think something, say something to yourself, see something, or that you have a feeling somewhere in your body – possibly of closing off or clamping down.

If there is nothing, great. If there is something, great! Because now you have the opportunity to work with it. If it is some rational idea then you can work with it rationally. I won’t go into how to do that now.

If it is more metaphoric, something felt, perhaps a critical or disbelieving voice then you can treat that as a ‘part’ of yourself that you can communicate with. One presupposition of NLP is that every behaviour has a positive intention (for the person engaging in that behaviour), and the same applies to working with parts.

So greet that part with gratitude and ask something like this

‘Hello, and thank you. I know you’ve been doing something for me, something important, something valuable, and I’d like to know what it is. Can you let me know, what’s your highest, most important intention for me?’

Many times people get an answer like ‘to stop you looking silly’ which may well have the intention behind it of ‘security’, or ‘good connection with people’ or ‘confidence’ or a combination of these. When you have your answer you can negotiate. Ask:

‘Thank you for letting me know that. I value what you want for me, and can you find a way that we can integrate this in with (state previous values) and (the goal).’

All of this can be done internally. It can also be facilitated by a partner, who asks the questions with that quality of presence and benevolence.

The ability to work with parts like this, and harmonise their positive intentions with a goal is a fundamental skill of an NLP. It is found in a great many techniques. It uses non verbal communication, linguistic patterns, modelling and more. I don’t really have time to do it justice in this article. Better to get a direct experience at a training or with an NLP coach. You can read some more about parts and positive intentions in the Encyclopedia of NLP

Next steps
Now you should have a value driven, ecological goal. You can begin to embody the goal, to be the goal ask

‘If you are an expression of (values) now, how will you sit, look and talk? Allow it to move through you now, and show me in your posture that you are (state values) ’

The idea is that you rather than having to make lots of effort to get your goal, you move towards it easily, anything you need to ‘do’ to get there just happens naturally as a result of who you are. In fact if you do this you are your goal.

Once you or your partner have done this then you can ask:

‘Now as (state values) what is the next things that you can do in service of (goal)?’

It could be something that has direct relevance towards what you envisioned, or it could be something apparently unrelated like going to see a film, phoning an old friend, or taking a walk in the park.

The point is that whatever you choose you can do it as an expression of your values. This way the ends do not justify the means, the ends and the means are one.

All you have to do is keep living in this way…Of course you may get knocked off track and out of state. That’s life giving you more opportunities to deepen your capacity to live your values, and calling you to develop new ones.

But that’s enough reading me for now. Much more interesting are your stories. How are they important to you? What state does reliving and going into the value of them put you into? Who do you want to share them with?