NLP School European blog

Rehearsing pain, rehearsing pleasure

2007-11-19T11:48:00.000+01:00

photo: Bike to work by e.wilder

Last week a car door gave me a lesson in NLP. The cyclists among my readers will already be sighing...

It was Tuesday morning, I was pumping up a steep hill working desperately to get my daughter Jyoti to school on time. Then with a timing I could not avoid a man in a smart car opened his door. Pieces of bike cracked off as we skidded and fell to the left.

My body and the wrong part of my training took over. I had hardly hit the ground and I was up again. There were no cars or buses about to crush us and my daughter seemed unhurt. In front of me was a an open car door inside of which was the target of 15 years of bottled cycle rage. My right fist felt like it could smash metal, and there was an open line between it and the scared face of the driver. My lungs were supplying plenty of volume to a mix of obscenity, incrimination and threat. The driver shrank in his seat.

I do not know how long I stood there, perhaps two or three seconds, but it felt a long time.

A better part of my training took over. I saw fear and regret on the driver's face. I was aware of passer's by coming to help, my daughter was crying. I turned to lift her off her bike seat and comfort her.

Jyoti was ok, my bike was mostly ok. The passer's by brought the pieces of bike that had flown off on impact. The driver, upset, went to hug my daughter as I held her. I let him.

Jyoti told me she was fine to get back on the bike. We even managed to get to school on time. As we pedaled off I saw that the driver was having trouble shutting his car door.

Later as I thought about what happened I felt a little ashamed. Yes I looked behind and saw my daughter was Ok, but I tended to my rage before I tended to her well being.

I understand how I did that. I have been an urban cyclist almost daily for since the early 1990's. Many times I have nearly been killed and injured by the thoughtlessness of people piloting 1000 kg steel clad fists through the streets. Most of the time it was just thoughtlessness, lapses of awareness, moments of carelessness. Occasionally it has been malicious, people deliberately cutting close, swerving and aiming for me.

Insulated in their steel fist most drivers do not think of what is like to be on a flimsy wheeled frame powered by lungs and thighs, seeking the safest route between unfeeling obstacles.

When some coddled driver, in their impatience and thoughtlessness nearly kills you, it is hard not to take it personally. As a result I built up layers of self justification.

I had created a scenario where at last I would be able to express my righteous anger....

...Not nearly hit this time, but hit. The driver would be out of their armored casing, they would have already struck the first blow, and at last I would be able to strike some back. Self defense, clearly, little me armed only with my hands (elbows, knees, head and possibly a D-lock), against 1000kg fist man. Every blow would come straight from my belly, a whole body communication saying: PAY ATTENTION TO CYCLISTS

Variations include disarming my attacker by throwing their car keys down the nearest drain.

That is what I had been rehearsing mentally. It is nearly what I did. the pained shock on the driver's face is what stopped me. If he had been aggressive he probably would have been toast.

The positive intention in my hitting back scenario clear. But is hitting people the best way to get the message across - pay attention, drive safely, respect the fragile, fleshy two wheelers?

Every time I got a little satisfaction from imagining demolishing a dangerous car I was making it a little more likely to happen. Rehearsing this way I was loosing flexibility in getting my real message across, and putting myself in a legally dangerous position. I was also filling my body with stress hormones and missing out on what is actually happening and important (like bad driving), and what I might take pleasure in, people, weather, light.

So I am going to change my mental rehearsal with cycling. Change it from some fixed scenario, to remembering what I consider important. I will rehearse the qualities that allow me to say 'we are all human, let's look out for each other, and maybe even have some fun.' I will rehearse awareness in the place of rage. This is something my life depends on, literally. Fortunately, I am well trained to do this.

It is more than just cycling. I am also looking out for all the other unhelpful scenarios I am rehearsing. Lots of relationship arguments are based on this kind of imagined scenarios 'if she says this I am going to lose it...'

How many other stupid situations will I be able to avoid and turn into possibilities for pleasure? That is all very well for me, what about you?

Injunction scans

2007-11-12T20:27:00.000+01:00

photo: civic injunction by jbartok

I believe it was Timothy Gallwey, the father of executive coaching who originally said

'performance equals potential minus interference.'

He first used this idea in a sporting context, especially with reference to athlete's doubts, distractions and negative internal dialogue.

But for the purpose of this article I want to apply this principle not so much to individual performances, but to the larger scope of what people decide to perform in.

People usually perform the best when they have a maximum of enthusiasm. They also seem more dynamic, attractive and convincing to others when they are enthusiastic. Naturally I can think of exceptions to this. Enthusiasm is not a substitute for skill. But it often precedes and leads to skill.

Children often show great capacity for enthusiasm. At least when they are left to play. Adults often show less enthusiasm. Somehow in the civilizing process education can damp down enthusiasm.

Let me give a personal example from that messy ground between being a child and an adult.

As a teenager my dream was to go to Taiwan and study Chinese martial arts as my Taiji teacher had done. My parents did not really understand why this was so important to me. They encouraged me to go to University and get a degree. Eventually I gave in, partly pushed by my parents, and partly lured by tales of student parties - something I could also feel enthusiasm for.

So I spent three years studying Environmental Biology, but my heart was not completely in the work. Biology fascinates me, whispering to me about the miracle of our interconnected lives. Despite this I did not appreciate what an amazing privilege it is to be able to choose to study a subject like that. At the time University seemed like an extension of school, but with beer, girls and scuba diving.

So after I graduated it was not long before I left England and found myself on wandering the streets of Taipei, knocking on doors and looking for teachers.

That's how I first met Luo De Xiu in 1991. He impressed me not just with his fluid power and skill, but also by his infectious enthusiasm for the arts he practiced. Sixteen years later he still lights up like a child when talking martial arts. A living example of how skill and enthusiasm go hand in hand.

Excuse me, I am digressing a little. My point is that I had been temporarily deflected from what I felt truly enthusiastic about. Once I got back into the groove of what was important to me, my life was felt magical and my energy soared, not just when I was in Taiwan, but when I was on my way too. I hope that you have had some experiences, made some choices that had this effect on you too.

Now my question is what interferes with us living more of our lives this way? What stops us going from what we really want?

I describe one kind of dampener as injunctions. These are rules, that come from different sources that say how we should and should not live. They can be subtle, or brutal. We often internalize them, so that we forget how they limit or potential options. They guide our lives, invisible and unquestioned. People live without enthusiasm for what they do, because they are unable to even see anymore what they are truly enthusiastic for.

So in the story above my parents injunction was something like 'good boys get degrees.' That one is fairly benign, and there is a pretty clear positive intention and assumption behind it - a good education leads to a good living.

But there are plenty of other injunctions. Often they apply to getting what we want.

My sister in law told me that in the school she went to she was discouraged to ask for things directly. If you wanted someone the salt you were expected to ask someone 'Would you like some salt?' to which they were expected to reply 'No, would you like some salt?'

Some typical injunctions include

It is selfish/rude/arrogant/greedy to ask for what you want
If you ask for something you will not get it
Saying what you want gives other people power over you
Good boys/girls do not do that
It is your duty to sacrifice
What makes you think you deserve...
People will be jealous if I get what I want
I will probably just be disappointed

I could go on, and on, and on...

Of course all of these injunction have some kind of positive intention. They are taught as a way of maintaining the structure of societies and families.

I believe that once we have the ability to to think reasonably, rationally and ethically then they are up for questioning. Society is changing with technology. People have higher levels of education than ever before, and given more choices I believe that people will tend to act more generously towards one another. A lot of the old injunctions simply do not apply anymore, and they certainly deserve the scrutiny of intelligent mature people.

So if you want to liberate some extra energy, widen your options, and charge up your enthusiasm then give yourself an injunction scan. Perhaps some of the ones above seem familiar to you. You can probably find others.

To find them ask yourself what you should or should not do. Think of the people around you in your culture, what are the rules they live by implicitly? Have you taken them on too? Contrast these with the rues of other cultures you may know, and what do you learn? Do the injunctions stand up in the light of awareness? What are their positive intentions, and can you find other ways of fulfilling them?

The more you clear your internal landscape of weeds like this, the easier it will be to see clearly what is important to you, to what you really want, hear it calling and feel the pull of it into the pleasure of bringing more and more of your gifts to the world.

And what do you really want?

Stillness and ideal movement

2007-10-23T10:37:00.000+01:00

Photo: Baguazhang master Luo Dexiu demonstrates focussed attention with a relaxed, extended and balanced posture

I must be doing something right. Despite only writing here intermittently I seem to be attracting an increasing number of readers.

Anyway before I start patting myself on the back I thought I can offer you an adapted extract from the manual of a training I offer called Practical stillness.

The idea of the training is to distill years of martial arts and meditative training, combined with NLP to give people tools that they can use in communication, coaching, difficult situations and in decision making.

Ideal body use - martial arts and coaching

What we are looking for (not mention listening and feeling for) is the most relaxed use of the body possible. Emotions, positive or negative require tension and movement to express.

Being increasingly relaxed allows a kind of quietness, a stillness and a receptivity.

Also excess tension is both tiring, restrictive and wearing on the body.

If the body is relaxed the spine can lengthen and we can stand increasingly upright. The more upright the spine, the less tension is needed to stand, the easier it is to relax. Thus a virtuous cycle is created.

A simplistic biomechanical view of the body is muscles attached to bones, which act as levers moving around joints held together by ligaments. To an extent this is true, the reality is far more complex, and subtle.

A more interesting and accurate image is a dome tent. There are some rigid struts in the body, but they are held in place by sheets of fabric that balance tension in many different direction simultaneously. This allows the tent to be springy if pushed. Inappropriate tension in one part of the body is like pulling the fabric on one part of the tent. The fabric is only pulled in one place, however the whole tent loses its capacity for springiness.

In the body the tent’s fabric is not just muscles, it is multiple layers of connective tissue, under the skin, in the tendons, throughout the internal organs. The major lines of pull that these make map across loosely to the meridians of Chinese medicine.

Also all these structures are tied into the nervous system, which is also tied into the endocrine system, which baths every cell of the body in chemicals that effect the way they function.

How these systems all interact is beyond the scope of this article. Essentially making a change in one effects all the others, and the ones that are most available to work with are movement, and breathing.

When we return to an upright and relaxed posture the body becomes more receptive. The bodies of people around us leave subtle echoes of their postures and emotions in our own. To notice and work with these it helps to be still.

I remember a friend, a Karate champion who was discovering these sensations of sensitivity. He was more interested in kata (solo movements) than fighting. In fact he was completely fascinated by body movement. He had recently placed very well at a major tournament in which he had to fight, and since he did not like to fight this surprised him

He explained that because he was sensitive to the possibilities in his own body, he could read the possibilities in his opponent’s body, and thus predict his opponents next movements and defeat him.

For coaches and communicators being able to return to some neutral and sensitive state is extremely helpful in modeling the world view of others.

Of course you can second guess intellectually, and it is great to have intellectual models you can play with. If this is all you do though, you miss out on a very ancient and sensitive method of getting information. You will also miss out on many important channels through which people connect with each other

Many people equate sensitivity to other people's emotions as weakness, and in some cases spaciness. It does not have to be this way. Going via the body allows people to be both sensitive and grounded.

One of the reasons I choose martial arts as a model of ideal movement is that it is one area that places great demands on the body, the need to move freely, predict and act, and in which there is no space for overly weak sensitivity.

In martial arts the body needs to be able to accept impact while staying balanced, and transmit grounded force. The same characteristics that allow you to do this physically also map across very well to accepting emotional impact.

Developing this kind of body use takes some time and practice. There are aspects that can be realized instantly, and other parts that require the gradual lengthening of muscles and connective tissue. It all works best with gentle attention to key areas of the body - the spine, the pelvis and centre of gravity, as well as the flow of weight downwards, balanced with the support of the ground upwards.

So can you attend to this gently as you sit at your computer and read this blog?

Right and Easy

2007-10-07T19:29:00.000+01:00

photo: Right is easy by LN

A conversation I had at a training recently stayed with me. Perhaps because I felt quite happy to quote an unusual and famous person. Perhaps because there was something unclear about my answer.

But before I offer the quote, let me set the scene. In the course we asked the attendees to remember a time just before they made decision that they later regretted.

Additionally in the moment they made the decision, they had some sense of warning, some signal that told them they would regret their choice. Which they did.

We do this to help sensitize our clients to their own inner warning signals, and those of the people around them. Something I consider useful in any decision making process.

A woman whose gaze alternated between intensely still, and sparklingly mischievous came up to me afterwards and asked

'I do not understand. If someone knows that they will regret a decision, why would they make that decision?'

Looking at her super steady eyes I saw the genuineness of the question. Here was a woman with a clear decision making process, and strong resolve. She struck me as someone intent on moving forwards. She was genuinely puzzled how other people might waver in the face of tricky alternatives.

Fortunately I have some experience in that area. Her question sent me on an inner search through my bad decisions in search of an answer. I managed pull myself out before too much time had passed.

'People have conflicting beliefs, and interests. Sometimes the decision you regret is less painful in the short term - or more pleasurable, or less complicated.'

She did not look convinced to me. I decided to try an appeal to authority, a quote from someone famous. "Do you like Harry Potter?'

The gaze turned mischievous.

'Well, at the end of one of the books Dumbledore says something like 'Soon we will be called to make the choice, between what is right, and what is easy.' Sometimes the right choice just seems too hard.'

Now she looked more satisfied. The trouble was I was less satisfied. I was still in the context of getting a warning signal. Getting that signal would not make the things that seem to hard any easier.

But that is just one piece of the puzzle. The reason we engage in personal development is so that we can develop our planning skills, and find ways to make what is right, easier.

Just as importantly, we train and study, and serve others so that what used to seem too hard is something that we can do with increasing skill and confidence.

The ideal is to make what is right, easy.

I appreciate that from one perspective the world is already absolutely perfect. On the other hand you need to be pretty blind to not to be aware of the suffering that people inflict on each other for one reason or another. Knowing that, what right choices do you want to make more easily?

A review in reverse

2007-10-03T21:15:00.000+01:00

photo: Mangroves Mafia Island by Karin Osterlund

I almost feel this is a bit of a cheat. I know that it is some time since I sat down to write on my blog, and this seems like an easy way to start October.

Yes I have a review to offer you, but it is not a review by me, it is a review of a recent London training by Robbie and I.

Here it is.

The reviewer Peter Kenworthy is and HR director with over 25 years of experience.

You may be wondering why I have a picture of Mangroves with this review. They are not just any Mangroves, they are Mangroves that fringe and protect the edges of Mafia Island, which is set in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Tanzania.

When I read that Peter had a background in Tanzanian fisheries it took me back to when I was a researcher gathering data for the Mafia Island national marine reserve. Some of my best evenings were spent swimming through the mangroves at dusk or by moonlight enjoying the depth of the spring tide.

I'd like to draw some conclusion, a helpful educational metaphor to relate to that time. But all I remember is the pleasure of it, the joy of seeing fish swimming in trees, the intimacy of the light and water. I think that is enough.

Book Review - Blink

2007-09-13T08:57:00.000+01:00

Blink, the power of thinking without thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink is a book that I picked up several times, having read the Tipping Point by the same author.Finally I bought before boarding on an international train. It is short, and I found it both easy to read, and full of ideas.

From an NLP point of view Blink is about calibrating decision making, and modeling decision making in different contexts. The basic ideas in the book are that we human beings are very good at making quick decisions or judgments. This capacity is based on the ability to read a lot of information, unconsciously instant by instant. It is also based on the experience in a field that we have developed over time.

One of the interesting concepts touched on is that when people are asked to justify a decision, they perform less well than when they make quick decisions. When we start to rationalize we often interfere with the intuition that has access to both our memories and the experience of the current situation.

Which is not to say that Gladwell advocates giving up thinking,and deciding rationally. Rather he suggests that the decision making process largely takes place outside of awareness, but can be refined through practice, and analysis.

For example through analyzing data mathematically, it was possible to decide which of the many indicators of cardiac arrest were the most important. This resulted in a decision making flow chart by which patients could be sorted as the entered hospital ER rooms.

In the beginning this idea was resisted by many doctors, who did not believe or accept that a computer generated flow chart would be better at diagnosis than them. However in time it was sow to be more accurate, thus saving lives, money and energy. By knowing what the critical factors to pay attention to were, doctors had more attention to use their human skills with the patients.

Continuing on a medical theme and relevant to rapport, insurance companies found that they could predict the likelihood of a doctor being sued for malpractice through listening to the way they talked to patients. This was a much better predictor than the actual quality of their practice.

The Doctors who took a little more time, especially at the start and end of a consultation were much less likely to be sued. Essentially patients do not sue the doctors they like.

Another area that I find disturbing and fascinating is how people will make decisions based on associations that they already have. This happens outside of conscious awareness and can be demonstrated using Implicit Association Tests. You can do some online here and here.

If you do the test you will probably find that you make a lot of associations that differ from the views you hold consciously and rationally. Disturbing, and at the same time educational. Knowing that we are implicitly prejudiced in a way we cannot consciously control, can help us to consciously take steps to minimize the effects of that prejudice.

There are many more interesting anecdotes and examples, that left me thinking of the implications. There are a great many parallels with NLP, modeling the difference that makes the difference, refining sensory awareness to become aware of non-verbal cues that people give, and learning to deliberately make the conditions to allow the highest quality of decision making.

In many ways I would have liked the book to give more examples of how to use the concepts it gives. But there are references that you can follow, and I am happy to start experimenting and incorporating some of the concepts into my work and life.

States and stages

2007-08-14T18:09:00.000+01:00

Photo: Amdo province in Tibet, my lack of recent blog articles was in part because I was traveling there.

In NLP we talk a lot about states. Resourceful states, and unresourceful ones, states that are good for specific situations, and others that would be useful, but in another context.

NLP does not just talk about states. It has some very good ways of analyzing, developing and triggering states. The state that you need to have a wild time in a night club is not the same as the one you need to negotiate a deal. Of course the two may have some overlap depending on your style... NLP has a lot of techniques to help you have the right state at the right time.

I want to add another distinction that NLP does not really have, that of stages. States arise and disappear quickly, whether through NLP's anchoring, during meditation, or in some kind of spontaneous peak experience. Stages are more stable, they are more like cognitive structures through which experiences are interpreted. A person will interpret such a state in terms of the stage (and culture) in which they live. A scientist will interpret such as state in terms of neurophysiology, a shaman in terms of spirits, and a religious person in terms of God's grace.

According to Ken Wilber, based on reviews of studies in psycho-social development, ( and in particular spiral dynamics of Dr Clare Graves) these stages follow a regular and predictable pattern of unfolding. They range from the biological survival urges of the baby, to tribal-familial bonding, right up to experiencing the entire world as an interconnected unit in which choices are made for the good of the whole, rather than individual, family, tradition or country.

These are fascinating models that I believe have a lot of application in education, politics and society. For example this model asserts that for a country to sustain a democracy, a high proportion of the populace need to rational-scientific or higher world view. Without this a country will fall back to the stricture of religious thinking/law, which in itself was a way of controlling and bringing together ethnocentric/tribal groups.

When someone moves from one stage of to another they will typically pass through a period where they experience the previous stage with a degree of hostility. Similar to children seeing their old favourite toys or TV programs as babyish, or adolescents rebelling as a way of gaining independence from their parents. Eventually the stage below can be integrated into the overall development of the individual. I just say that because I like watching my 6 year old daughter's favourite cartoons!

From an NLP point of view people at different stages will be motivated in different ways, and will understand different kinds of concepts. Each stage needs a different tailored style of communication.

NLP itself is a result of particular stages of development. NLP sprang from the minds of the people in a academic environment who were versed in mathematics, and linguistics. These are both what we can consider rational or scientific mindsets. However they moved into a more pluralistic post-rational view of the world. This is one way of interpreting the distancing from scientific methodology that still exists in NLP. As an ex-scientist who experienced the same rebellion against science I can appreciate the motivation. However these days I am glad that there are people in the NLP community who are making a genuine effort to scientifically investigate NLP.

From the stage below the stage above can only be interpreted in terms of what is already known and understood. So scientists-rational types will often view the individual-subjective aspects of NLP as the closest analogue in their experience - which is a kind of magical-egotistical thinking , and thus dismiss NLP as wishful thinking.

These days as NLP gains more popularity there are an increasing number of people who actually approach NLP with this kind of magical thinking, and others who conform to rules, and approach it as kind of religion. The former people often create some of the more bizarre offshoots of NLP. The latter become worshipers at Bandler's altar, and engage in flame wars as to what is the 'one true NLP'.

Naturally people can be uneven in their development. Intellectually they may have reached one stage of development, emotionally be at a different level, and physically be at a third. Different contexts may also tend to move them up or down levels.

In our egalitarian and democratic societies people often do not like the idea of some people being at a higher level than others. This is particularly common with people who embrace the NLP presupposition 'a map is not the territory', or everyone's reality s equally true.

However when you give the example of children it usually becomes clear that whatever wonderful qualities they have, certain concepts and qualities need to be learned. On the other and most of us still have at least occasional access to the ways of thinking we had as children. Why should this kind of development stop after adolescence, or early adulthood? In fact these stages are continuously unfolding. There were no societies that had a predominantly rational world view three hundred years ago, and though there are many that still have not reached this, there are still others that have gone beyond it. There is no final stage with nothing beyond it, anymore than the software on computers has a final version beyond which no development is possible.

So now the question is how do we progress along these stages of development.? The answer is study and practice. States are not stage dependent, and deliberate immersion in states that are beyond or outside the normal structures of thinking seem to have the effect of loosening one stage and facilitating the arrival of the next.

Meditation is an example of a practice that has this effect. NLP has a number of techniques that can work in a similar way. As a metaphor I imagine that we are tied to certain stages by a many threads. Certain techniques can cut one or sometimes many threads. But there are a great many of them, so it may take a number of years to go from one stage to the next. If these state techniques also supplemented with intellectual study, and physical exercise, then the possibility of advance is even greater.

Each stage transcends and includes the one below it, using it as a foundation for something subtler and more complex. If you are reading this article, or interested in NLP then chances are through culture, study and education you have already progressed through a good number of stages. The question is now what are you doing to embrace and encourage your continuing evolution? What are you doing to encourage the unfolding development of others around you?

a generous frame

2007-06-06T08:13:00.000+01:00

photo: framed world by youngdoo

The frame with which you approach a situation will make a big difference to what you do and what happens. Here is another martial arts example.

There was once a martial artist who worked in the military. He trained hard, and was tough. he would also get into lots of fights. His frame in any situation was 'Am I the toughest person here?'.

This is a common attitude for people who have a skill that they are proud of.

I really appreciated this when chatting with a musician. I described an old internal dialogue of mine which went something like this 'Well he may be smarter/more charming/richer than me, but I could kick his ass in a fight!' He smiled as he listened and replied 'You know I do exactly the same thing, except I do not tell myself I can fight better, I tell myself I can play the trombone better.'

So when this martial artist walked into a bar he would eye up anyone he thought might pose some kind of threat in a fight. Not surprisingly many of these people were similar to him. Human animals being exquisitely tuned to non-verbal signals - especially those that suggest danger. The people he eyed up would perceive his presence as a threat. His attitude told them he was planning a fight, and they were the kind of people who were more than willing to oblige..

So there would be a fight, and someone would get hurt.

Many martial artists have a great capacity for re-framing fighting injuries as learning experiences by the way. They also use them as justification for training harder, being sneakier, more ruthless and hitting first so as to avoid further injuries (you can learn from someone else's injuries too).

One day this martial artist met a teacher who would change his life. The teacher gave him a different frame for his martial skills. Instead of being caught in the constant stress of 'Am I the toughest fighter here?' he offered him an alternative that meant that he did not have to prove and test himself at every occasion.

That frame is 'Everyone in this room is a little safer because I am here.' Now his martial arts training is about contribution, rather than survival.

So it is interesting to think what kind of frame you put on different situations. when the frame is around proving yourself, not making mistakes, maintaining distance,or not looking stupid then there is a good chance that you are in for a hard time.

Change the frame to how can I contribute, or how can I learn, or how can I have fun, then both the perception of the situation and your actions are likely to lead to a very different result.

Sometimes making a change is as easy as recognizing a destructive frame, and putting something more pleasurable in its place.

What are your favourite destructive frames? What would you like to change them with?

Cycles of work and strength

2007-06-04T14:39:00.000+01:00

photo: Calderwood tree stump by Auchinoon

Some years ago I used to work as a personal trainer, and at the same time competed in full contact martial arts tournaments. Both of these activities required a level of fitness, especially the latter.

But however fit I wanted to be I knew that I couldn't train 24 hours a day, even if I was not training very hard.

To maximize the effects of my training I took another approach. I trained very intensely, then rested intensely.

What I told my clients with respect to exercise was this. You do not get stronger when you train, you get more tired and you get weaker. You get stronger when you rest, which is when the body adapts to the demands placed on it during training.

It applies when recovering between sets of an exercise during a session, as well as the periods between sessions. There are longer cycles of rest and recovery as well.

The same is true of non physical activities. Work too hard, do not rest and it results in burn out, and loss of effectiveness.

Many hard working people would like to be more productive. They try and fit more and more into the day, and cut out periods of rest. For many of the people I coach they benefit from keeping the rest periods, but improving the quality of relaxation.

Quality of relaxation is a skill. That is why so many people turn to Yoga and Taiji these days - to learn some of that quality. Breathing exercises and meditation are other ways to develop it.

Sometimes I catch myself half resting, half working, and not getting much done. I am making it a discipline to really go for my rest now, not even bother with a tea, but sit and relax. Sit and let go of everything. Maybe fall asleep for a few moments.

It is not always socially acceptable to do nothing, especially at work, but focused nothing is the purest form of rest, and can lead to the swiftest recovery. It may take some time to learn to relax deeply and quickly, but once developed it is a great ability.

There is a lovely Zen story that touches on this.

A master is lecturing the meditating monks 'If there is anything in your mind then throw it out.'

One young monk asks 'But what if my mind is already empty?'

'Then carry it out!' the master replies

Daoist traditions use the image of being motionless, silent and inert like an old tree stump. Somehow that is an image that works for me, you can find what works for you.

So stop now for a moment, still yourself, and how still are you now? What else can you let go of knowing that it will be there when you come back?

Overlaying Maps

2007-06-01T08:23:00.000+01:00

photo: Alum Rock Park Map - Google Maps Overlay by Victor Solanoy

A theme that I keep coming back to in NLP is a map is not the territory. It applies on all kinds of different levels, two friends chatting and not quite understanding each other, two cultures not getting on, to someone lost somewhere because they cannot read a map - literally.

As people take on this idea they leave the certainty that comes from the knowledge that 'Science proves' or that 'the scriptures say'. It is not always comfortable for them.

Probably the majority of people that I work with are either moving into this area of uncertainty, or are already there. There tends to be a progression in how people structure their world views, and the relativistic map is not the territory one is fairly advanced.

Once people pick it up then they can often cross cultures more easily, and work with people very different from themselves more elegantly.

One of the ways to develop this ability is to deliberately take on, learn, and at least temporarily believe different maps. On our trainings we teach different communication models for exactly this purpose. The different models contradict each other. All of them are useful, but which is right?

Jumping between maps and models is great intellectual exercise, and as an athlete I like all kinds of exercise. With time it develops a higher level capacity to notice similarities in structure as well as content.

Partly with this in mind I am developing a blogroll with links to other blogs. These blogs have styles and content which can be very different from this one (though for now they are all blogs). You may follow some of the links and like what you read, or you may hate it, or be scared by it or a combination of these and other emotions.

My question for you - especially if you do not like what you read is whether you can take on the opinions of the writers as if they were your own and therefore true?

You do not have to spend the rest of your life believing what you read, just be able to take something else on for a while.

Colour change card trick

2007-05-31T14:00:00.000+01:00

I found this recently - I think it is a great illustration of how we filter information. Well it got me anyway! How do you think you will do....

It makes me wonder how many other pieces of information we miss in everyday conversations that might be important? What kind of states could we enter to start noticing what we missed before?

Rapport, mirroring and the brain

2007-05-29T10:42:00.000+01:00

photo: Modes MRI headlslice from the Swedish Brain mirror exhibition

On courses at NLP School Europe we often teach a number of rapport exercises which involve mirroring the body of another person. Doing this on purpose can seem artificial, and done poorly it can be pretty creepy.

Having said that it is something that people who get on with each other do naturally most of the time. What we show is that you can do it more purposefully to expand the range of situations whee you can feel comfortable, communicate clearly and influence people.

Here is a link to a study from UCLA that used brain imaging to observe the effect that mirroring had on brain activity. Though it used a small sample size it scientifically validates the exercise. Also the study confirms my experience that using mirroring helps create empathy for the person with who is mirrored.

The greater the empathy and connection, the more likely you are to use any influence gained through technique to the positive benefit of all parties involved.

Fun with space

2007-05-28T21:02:00.000+01:00

Photo: Power lines by shoothead

One universal human characteristic is the tendency to sort and organize our understanding of the world spatially. We are born into space and time, and our internal world is build around space and time too.

If you watch someone talking they will tend to gesture to where information and objects are in their imagination. Some of these gestures may be in corporal space - pointing to parts of the body when referring to emotions for example. Other gestures may refer to where they imagine events in the past or future to be, or to concepts that float somewhere in mental space.

As quantum physicists say time is what keeps everything from happening at once, and space is what keeps everything from happening in the same place.

There is a huge amount of information available for people willing to observe, and you it can be used in all kinds of ways, in teaching, sales, therapy, communication and influence.

In this article I am mostly interested in ways to use the tendency of the mind to code in space to explore characteristics or self concept.

For a long time in NLP people have used the tendency to code time spatially. A lot of people think o f the past behind them, or to the left and the future ahead, or to the right. Like anything else in NLP there are plenty of individual variations in these patterns.

This resulted in people explicitly laying out time as a line along the floor, which can be walked on to explore conceptions of the past or future, and stepped off to get some perspective on the whole flow of time. This has great application in planning, coaching and therapy.

Recently I stumbled across another related idea. You can code a quality spatially along a line. For example confidence, or patience, or playfulness. Choose what you would like to increase.

If you imagine a line stretching in front and behind you. Where you stand is your current level of whatever quality it is. If you take a step back that quality will diminish, and if you take a step forward it will increase.

To play with this I recommend starting slowly to explore along the line. Take a step back, and notice how your sense of the quality can decrease. Why back? Because most people find it easier to imagine regressing in terms of their desired qualities than progressing.

So take a step back, and notice the difference. Then take another step back, and notice the difference. Then step forward again, and again. Doing this begins to establish the sense of control of these qualities, and builds a relationship with intensity of the quality and the distance along the line.

Once you have the sense of control, then you can begin to walk forward beyond your baseline level. Keep walking forwards and backwards, playing to develop an increasing sense of freedom on what is personally possible for you with this quality.

The aim is to familiarize yourself with new levels of a particular quality. At different points along the line you can ask yourself what it would be like to be in a particular situation.

If you have a small space to walk in then you can imagine that a short distance is a large change in quality. If you have a big space you can still imagine that a small distance is a large change in quality. Establish the relation between distance and quality firmly, then walk way beyond your old limits...

Ideally you come off the line with a new baseline level for the quality, and greater choice and comfort at a whole range of different levels.

Now as I write this up I have had another idea of how to use this concept. But I will need to test I before I write it down. So while I test my new idea, you are free to test this one. You could pick curiosity as a quality to explore. The further you walk the more curious you can become as to what my new idea is!

OK so I am keen for you to come back and visit my blog, but curiosity is genuinely a great quality to develop, for all kinds of reasons.Of course you do not have to go with my recommendation, just be curious enough to wonder what quality could you really enjoy sharing sharing with the world?

Who will you be when?

2007-05-21T09:40:00.000+01:00

Picture: You know who I am, by oxfordshire church illustrations

In most standard NLP goal processes there are various checks. Checks on whether achieving the goal will cause all kinds of havoc with friends, family and other vital systems. Checks on whether the goal is worthwhile in terms of time effort and money. Finally there is usually a check on whether the goal fits with your sense of self.

It is that last check that I'm interested in today. One way to look at our lives is that they are to a large extent created by our sense of self. We do the things that we do, make the choices that we make because we are who we are.

At the same time our sense of self changes with the circumstances of our life. Major events like becoming a parent, changing professions, or country of residence have a fairly clear effect on how people think of themselves.

This means any large goal is likely to result in a change in the sense of self. So if someone sets a significant goal for themselves and really considers the consequences of achieving it they are likely to notice a gap in their sense of self.

For some people and in some situations that will be fine. However our sense of self is also something that we protect, fiercely. Many people get depressed or die when they retire because they have so identified with their work role. Loss (and that can include) change of identity can be an intensely frightening and disturbing experience.

Now how can we work with this?

Well to start with you can ask 'Who will I be when I have achieved this goal?' Picture yourself as this person, change your posture and move like this person, describe or talk like this person.
Then notice two main groups of reactions or observations.

The first is what emotional tone that you have with respect to that 'new' you? Are there any physical reactions that come up? Or perhaps internal voices that encourage or discourage you from this. You can become curious about these.

If you have some some strong negative reactions then you may need some kind of integration practice, coaching or therapy before you can achieve the goal smoothly. If you do not have access to any of these then simply observing the voices/feelings with curiosity, compassion and the discernment is a good start as a practice.

The next is what do you notice about how you act differently as this future self? Some of these differences will be obvious to you as part of your goal. It is the ones that are not so self evident that are interesting? Do you wear the same clothes, talk the same way, spend time with the different kinds of people? Whatever you do differently you can begin to take on these differences as a way to become the 'new' self.

As you become the new self the kinds of actions that lead to your goal will flow from you more naturally. People will also increasingly perceive you differently, and act towards you in different ways.

As well as being a pragmatic aid to achieve your goals, working with your identity in this way has a deeper component. In many spiritual traditions clinging to a limited sense of identity is considered a source of suffering. By observing and modifying your identity with awareness it helps create a more expansive and open sense of self. So as well as going forward to a new identity with the 'who will I be when?' you can also be moving beyond with the classic Zen question 'What was my original face before my parents were born?'

Do you know?

a million wishes

2007-05-15T09:04:00.000+01:00

photo: who has lost a magic wand by Pσrcelαΐηgΐrl°

Having lunch with Chris West, and discussing an NLP book I wanted to a way to get across the optimism, and humanity that I find in NLP. I offered Chris the following thought experiment.

Think of all those stories where someone receives three wishes - and is either filled with contradictory urges about what to wish for, or wishes for something that ends up messing up their lives.

Now imagine that somehow a million wishes had been offered to you (and if you think that a million is not enough, you can always use one of that million to wish for a billion more...). Now what would you do with those wishes?

I can summarize what the people who I've offered this experiment to say as

'Well I'd wish for certain things for myself, then I'd start thinking about what I could do for other people.'

I have not met anyone who genuinely put themselves in this imaginary position, and who would use their wishes to wreak havoc in the lives of others.

Perhaps I should ask this of some of our society's demons - murderers, fundamentalists, terrorists. I have not done that yet.

I can imagine that certain people would go through a period or wrath and revenge with their wishing. I can also imagine them coming out of it into something more generous.

One of life's questions is how do we navigate those situations where the fearful and angry have the power to wound and kill. Soldiers, politicians, therapists, scientists, and philosophers all have different ways of answering that.

Of course we live in a world where we do not have the power to simply wish anything into, or out of existence, even though we may have more power in changing aspects of our lives than we think.

For me NLP, or any other form of genuine personal development, is about moving in a direction where we have more choice. That choice leads to greater compassion and greater generosity.

We may live in a way where we have three or fewer wishes at our disposal. But we can still aim for the expansiveness of a million wishes.

NLP and coaching can help us in this journey by developing increasingly effective methods that to navigate and transform the dangers of our current reality.

So what would you first ten wishes, your hundredth, and your thousandth wish be?

Book Review - the Mandala of Being

2007-04-30T14:20:00.000+01:00

A month or two ago I received an e-mail from Robert Dilts recommending (or was it promoting) the Mandala of Being by Richard Moss. Robert described the book something like the Heineken adverts of my childhood. The Mandala of Being refreshes the parts many NLP techniques cannot reach. Since I like Robert, and respect his opinion I decided to buy it - and read it.

Now I've read it I've decided to review it. After my paraphrasing of Robert's summary I will offer my own.

The book is something like a cross between Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now, combined with techniques that make use of our mental tendencies to organise meaning spatially, and in terms of stories.

Now a slightly more in depth version. There is a lot more in the book than I have described here.

Richard Moss writes that we humans are born into the present, and while we are present we are exquisitely sensitive and connected to life. However being so sensitive we are also susceptible to pain, and since life doles out plenty of that, we learn strategies to flee the pain of the present. Some of these we learn ourselves, and some we learn from the people around us - like our family. Some of these patterns get passed down across generations

These methods of fleeing the present become or form the basis for our personalities or identities. However in fleeing the present we restrict our experience, our depth, and ability to act. Not only that, we also tend to perpetuate the circumstances and the pain we try to avoid by fleeing the present.

Richard writes that we have four basic directions we can go when we leave the present. Into our limited identities, into opinions about others, into the past, and into the future. All of these places are held in the form of stories. We tell ourselves stories about the kind of people we are, or the kind of people other people are. We tell stories about the past that justify the present, and we tell stories about the future that are either elating, or depressing - or alternately both.

In contrast to the limited identities related to our stories, we have 'true identity' in the present. that identity is the timeless space of awareness - which has no limits.

Returning to this timeless awareness is easy - be present with each breath, feel into what is happening now. Track anything that is happening to the awareness that it is happening in, that is always there.

This is easy...except that we are identified with the stories that are designed to protect us from pain, and in fact perpetuate pain. In remaining present the pain we have been covering through our personalities arises. It can seem overwhelming.

So we need to remain aware through the pain - emotional or physical, without falling back into the old stories. We need to stop 'thinking at' the sensation as the author puts it. Instead we need to accept and hold the sensations with the tender acceptance of a loving mother holding a crying child.

Beyond this the book is based on the practise on a mandala - a circle on the floor divided into four directions. At the centre is Now. To the outside are the directions by which we flee the present. To the left is me, to the right you, with the future ahead, and the past behind. Spatial anchoring in NLP terms.

Using the Mandala involves centering in the Now position, then moving out to one or more of the other directions. Once here the idea is to tell the story of the position "I am a....person, and ....' but not just tell it mentally, to feel the emotional consequences of each story in the body. From here the idea is to return to the present, the pure sensation of being, and leave the stories behind.

To facilitate this each direction has a number of questions to help explore the stories, and to help exit the stories. In some ways these are similar to NLP meta-model questions.

What really differs in this book to (most) NLP is the idea that the identity is a source of suffering. This is the view of many mystic traditions, and many of them are referred to throughout the book.

Most mainstream psychological approaches (including NLP) involve replacing negative self concepts with positive ones. In this book the idea here is that even the most optimistic, positive ideas about the self, or others, or the future are limited compared to the presence of Now, and are most likely covering some pain that the identity does not want to face.

The author does concede that it is probably better, or at least more pleasant, to tell positive stories than negative ones. However he believes genuine spirituality comes from giving up all the stories to awareness of the present.

As such it gives a much less saccharine view of the practise of spirituality than the majority of new age material - such as the Secret.

This is a book about awareness and spirit, rather than ways to change what you do not like into what you do like. As such it probably will not appeal to people looking for step by step solutions to specific problems or challenges.

Having said that it is also about recovering the resources to make genuine and positive change in life. I'm glad that I read it, and am happy to recommend it to others as Robert did.

Fish and Piranhas

2007-04-20T15:09:00.000+01:00

photo: Piranhas by doubl

Fish are one of the tools that we use on our trainings. In case you are wondering what that means, and have images of conference rooms full of flapping Tuna, rainbows of angelfish, or cod and chips these are a different kind of metaphorical fish.

The idea of fish comes from Gregory Bateson, who observed that dolphin trainers never punished their charges for not doing what they wanted. Rather they waited for the dolphins to do something they liked, drew attention to the moment and action by blowing a whistle, then at the next convenient moment gave the dolphin a fish. They would also sometimes just give the dolphin fish for no reason in particular, just for being. They found human-dolphin relations worked better that way.

So in our trainings we encourage people to wait until a fellow student does something they like then give them a fish. That is tell them what they liked, when it happened, and how it was good. Again we do not punish our trainees for getting it 'wrong.'

The result is an atmosphere that is cheerful and playful, and in which people can experiment without fear of being told off. It creates a great space for learning, and trying new behaviours. It also shifts people's attention away from what they do not like, and towards what they do like.

Recently, perhaps influenced by my interest in shadows I also decided to introduce a variant of the fish - the piranha.

The idea of the piranha is that we do not always have the time to wait for people to do something that we like. From the outside we have a capacity to see how other people limit themselves in ways that they are not aware of.

A well placed piranha simultaneously brings awareness to, and eats away at the unhelpful mental or other habits that people have. But for a piranha to be helpful, rather than hurtful it needs often needs to follow certain guidelines.

1. Piranhas are best delivered with rapport and connection.

2. Piranhas bring awareness and greater choice for the person receiving them.

As a sample structure for a piranha I suggest the following

'I'm aware that you (unwanted behaviour), and I have also seen that you (alternative and wanted behaviours), and I think that you have more choices in the matter than you believe you do now.'

Of course there are many opportunities for piranha abuse, in which the piranha giver savagely rips into their victim, and leaves feeling satisfied while blood seeps into the water all around them.

That is why I preface the idea of piranhas with that of fish. I think that it is worth learning to create an entirely fish based environment to develop the sensitivity and goodwill to place piranhas well.

Personally I am happy to bring metaphorical fish to our trainees, though I also have plans to do it the other way around. That is bring our trainees to real fish. If that has intrigued you then keep checking on this blog, and I'll explain more.

Until then what has someone done around you that you would like to compliment them for?

Some positive double binds

2007-04-04T14:26:00.000+01:00

Knotted Catenoid by Arenamontanus

I'll see if I can write a short post...

Double binds come from the work of Gregory Bateson, who hypothesized that they were often instrumental in the onset of schizophrenia. Here is a simplified set of conditions for a (negative) double bind.

1. There is an injunction form a person in a position of authority power on a someone of lesser authority or power. It may take the form 'do/don't do x or I will punish you.'

2. There is a secondary injunction that contradicts the first, and exists at a more abstract level. This might be something like 'only do x spontaneously.'

3. The secondary injunction need not be stated clearly - indeed is often more powerful if unstated.

A typical example is the tension between children and their parents. A parents says 'do what you're told, don't argue or I'll get mad.' while at the same time there is a background message of 'You need to be more independent.'

To get beyond a double bind it is helps to see not just the individual elements clearly, but also the context in which they occur. James Lawley explains this in more detail here

A positive double bind, on the other hand allows the person to have a set of injunctions that support them in a wide variety of situations, whichever choice they make. I would rather offer one of these.

Below is a short recording, based on Robert Dilt's work with sponsorship and creating positive double binds. If you want to listen to it, I suggest down loading it, and listening to it on a repeating loop with headphones. You can focus on some stuck or bound area of your life, as you listen and be curious as to how you change the way you understand.

To finish here is a positive double bind offered by Brian van der Horst at recent seminar I hosted. Whichever way you answer the question I like to think you can enjoy the answer.

Do you know how adorable you are?

The Secret - not everyone's cup of tea

2007-03-28T22:15:00.000+01:00

Now there are plenty of people out there who seem to loooove the secret, a film that has become an underground best seller, if that is not an oxymoron, based on the 'Law of Attraction'.

Now it is not hard to see why so many people like the secret. In lots of ways I do. It is well made, with pretty visuals, consistent special effects, short sentences, stirring music, period costumes, rampaging mobs, conspiracy theories, love interests and boundless, boundless optimism.

Basically the Law of Attraction says, if you truly ask for something from the Universe, the universe will grant your wish....

That's right, anything.

The film is full of happy stories of people who have had their wish granted. The delighted witnesses explain having spent some time putting their attention on the things that they do not want, struggling with illness, debt and hate they learn to shift their attention. The moment their thoughts turn to love, health and wealth (lots of that) it arrives by the bucketful.

Interspersed with the secret success stories, various authorities explain how the secret works according to the laws of the universe as proved by quantum physics, feng shui etc.

You may detect a circumspect and unconvinced tone to my words. Well, I did say I quite like the film, and I do. I also think that I have an anarchist streak that dislikes the idea of having yet another Law imposed on me, however attractive it may be.

Also I tend to like things simple. Why use a magical explanation when a simple one will do?

I agree that if you focus on what you want, rather than not getting what you do not want then you have a much better chance of getting it. However we can easily explain a lot of this in terms of cognitive strategies. Things like noticing opportunities, or having a pleasant personality, and good non verbal communication can explain much of what is going on, possibly all of it.

To not take this into account is to encourage sloppy thinking, and I value the ability to think clearly.

Coincidence could explain a lot more, at least if that is something you believe in. I would recommend Derren Brown's book Tricks of the mind - and the section on pseudoscience if you want to get a different juicy sense of the way 'our thoughts create reality.'

I do agree that our thoughts create, or at least effect reality. All inventions start with thoughts, and so do many arguments, wars etc. If I didn't think that the way we think has an huge impact on how we live, I wouldn't be in the line of work I do. But the correlation is not 100%. I recently read a man propose this little test for people who think that thoughts create reality.

1. How many people have you thought about sleeping with
2. How many people have you actually slept with?

You may find some discrepancy between the thoughts and the reality...Naturally manifesters will have some arguments to defend the LoA against this test, and I agree it's hardly conclusive. But it did make me smile, so I thought I'd share it.

I think getting people to notice a relation between their thoughts and the life they live is a pretty healthy intention. I question whether dressing up the idea in terms of dream houses, jewelry, money and magic is anything more than a shallow commercial decision. I also wonder if it will lead people to do lots of affirming, and not much action, followed by disappointment both in the world, and the value of their thoughts.

More optimistically all the shiny promise of the video could lead someone out of a mechanistic view of life and create all kinds of new possibilities. It can also open the door on the hall of mirrors of believing and seeing, seeing and believing. I believe that loosening up people's grip on truth and reality is in most cases a step in a good direction.

Some people dislike the Law of Attraction, because if it is true then all the people dying horribly around the world, and around history are suffering because they willed it upon themselves. Perhaps a consignment or two of the Secret DVD's would swiftly lead to a new era of peace and enlightenment in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan...I'm certainly wishing them peace...

Now, being a relatively rational NLP person I propose a Law of Attraction technique/experiment, neatly summarized in a few numbered steps, with clear instructions, and some feedback to see how the experiment is going. It is not ready yet, but I can see it manifesting very soon, honestly.

Here is a clip of the secret for you to get some of the flavour...If you want to watch the whole film, I recommend watching it with the whole of your brain.

An outcome you cannot argue with

2007-03-28T16:49:00.000+01:00

Death & Life by Darius twin

A wide range of psychotherapeutic, spiritual, and extreme sports traditions all have one thing in common. In fact we all have this in common, and no it is not skin, or taxes. It is death.

In our culture death is a strange subject. We are all going to die, but it is not something many of us like to think about very much. Naturally we get reminded fairly regularly as people we know come to the ends of their lives.

We also get to see plenty of death in the media, usually at an abstractly comfortable distance. It could be in the news, or in a TV series where the bad guys are little more than targets for the hero.

Now I have no idea what happens when we die, though I have met plenty of people who have beliefs in this area. Given this uncertainty about our only certainty, living people use death in a number of ways.

Obviously death gets used as a threat, which works less well if you believe that you get some kind of celestial five star service on the other side.

Others use death as a leveler - it links Presidents and beggars, it is something we share, a common facet of our humanity. It can bring us together.

The extreme sports people use the imminent possibility of death to add spice to life. People nearing the ends of their lives often talk of the extraordinary delight they have in the most ordinary things that they encounter.

We can also use death as a way to examine our priorities and values. As Buddhists put it 'the only certainty in life is death, and the time of our death is uncertain. Knowing that, what shall I do now?'

As a recent training came to a close, I used a meditation on death to mark its ending. It is something that I learned from the fool while we were training people in a petrochemical company. I don't know where he learned it, he may have simply made it up.

Some of the students asked if I could record some the meditations that we use, because they find it easier to follow this way. It seems a little perverse that the first one I record should be on death, but as Stephen Covey puts it, begin with the end in mind. Also I recognize that it is something that I could benefit from doing more often.

You can listen online, or download and share, as you will.

Tricks of the mind

2007-03-28T14:25:00.000+01:00

If you are UK, or Youtube, based there is a good chance that you know about Derren Brown.

Derren has made several television series that mix Hypnosis, stage magic, cold reading and NLP to some very amusing effect. Well amusing to me anyway.

Here is an example of Derren at work on TV this one showing how easy it can be to trick martial artists...

One of Derren's values is to state clearly that he is using tricks and skills rather than special powers to do some of the amazing things that he does.

His book, tricks of the mind is written in what I would describe as a 21st century Victorian style. I found it quite amusing, but it may not be everyone's taste.

Derren is scathing about mediums, and people who believe in psychic powers (especially his own). He covers his interest in magic tricks, hypnosis, memory, NLP, the nature of belief, and pseudo-science. He has particular disdain for people who use built in human gullibility to take advantage of vulnerable people.

All of this he mixes with anecdotes from his time as Christian with the annoying habit of trying to convert his friends, as well as stories stemming from his TV series and the consequences of his public image.

There is a chapter on mnemonic techniques which I he combined a largely narrative style with a description of the techniques. Reading it I tried out some of what he suggested, and it worked well enough for me to want to read more. It is an area that I have not really looked into, so I had a rapid and fruitful learning curve.

I also enjoyed the chapter on pseudo-science and the nature of beliefs - which is a themes throughout the book. He gives some very clear and lucid examples of how science works, the nature of statistics, and how it is easier to believe something vivid but false, than prosaic but true. Plenty of food for thought for me there.

Another part of the book skims through his brief time with NLP. He points out that NLP has it's ow brand of 'true believer' and that there is an infuriating percentage of NLPers who insist on applying their techniques whether people want them or not. Another theme that runs through the book is the tendency of people to depend on special skills (hypnosis, magic etc) as a substitute for personality and human contact.

Derren describes his experiences and disillusionment on following one of Richard Bandler's trainings (RB was one of the founder's of NLP). He cites the large number of people, the lack of assessment, and the use ofcharisma of to dominate reason.

On the other hand he values NLP enough to include a number of concepts and techniques, notably the phobia cure, swish, some aspects of eye accessing cues and sensory language.

I tend to agree with many of his criticisms of NLP. Still I think it is a shame if he is basing his comments on the one 4 day 400 person training with the field's most controversial figure. There are people offering NLP training with high standards of ethics, tuition and assessment. I would say that, naturally.

If you read the book expecting to learn how Derren does some of the things he does on TV, you will be disappointed. But he does give hints and pointers that you could use to develop skills either to do it yourself, or make some pretty informed guesses as to how he manages it. He also gives some useful information so that you can avoid people doing some of that tricky stuff on you as well.

I liked the books mix of first person narrative, passionate opinion, bizarre humour and examples. I finished with some new ways of looking at the world, some old ways refreshed, and a list of questions I'd ask if I ever met Derren in the pub.

Two moments to change your life

2007-03-12T16:08:00.000+01:00

photo: in between drinks by paoliina

Have you ever found yourself in a situation, repeating some behaviour that you do not like? It could be something like acting shy, hesitating, getting angry, hopelessness, turning on the TV, reaching for junk food...The list could be endless, and is most likely uniquely personal.

Even if you do not have anything you actively dislike,you may find something that you would like to improve.

Now once you get into the situation, and the behaviour that you do not like many people find that there is a certain momentum, or unconsciousness to it. Either it becomes hard to change in the moment, or people do not realise that there is actually a choice to be made.

So what are the two moments where you can change your life? There is in between, and there is during. As I mentioned above, during is not easy. The moment slips by, and is gone, leaving you cursing, stamping your feet and saying 'Oh no, not again!', or whatever it is that you do and say after whatever it is you did or didn't do or say.

But during is possible, especially if you do some work in between. In fact many NLP techniques are designed for in between - that is after the last situation and before the next one.

What I'd like to introduce as an in between practise is something that can easily slip in during. Let us have a look at what happens during. You find yourself in a state that is not appropriate to the situation, and there is little sense of choice about it in the moment.

So the in between practise is to cultivate the ability recognise and break state, then to choose a new more appropriate one.

If you are looking for a way to change your behaviour then you probably are already aware enough to recognise the unwanted state, sometimes at least. So I will not focus there. I will mention that one of the roles of meditation is to have discernment in the recognition and tracking of states.

Now I'd rather concentrate on breaking from one state and moving into the next.

There are many ways to break state. Doing something different with your posture is one. Deliberately changing internal dialogue is another. Going from associated to a meta position (looking at yourself as if from the outside) is another. If you practise all of these in between, so that you can do them more easily during.

So you can practise giving yourself a clear command to stop!, or change!, while changing your posture or gesturing and taking a step to position where you could see yourself in the unresourceful state, as if from the outside.

From here you can begin to choose a new state. Now what state would be a good state to choose from? For now I will recommend curiosity, and I will talk about it later. I hold a lot of store by curiosity - and will probably write more about its virtues in another post, along with the components of good decision making states.

With curiosity then you can really ask 'What do I want here?' with the possibility of getting an original, and useful answer.

Once you have an answer you can begin to take it on. You can go back into memories of when you had the quality or behaviour that you want. If you have no memories you can think of someone else who could be that way, or imagine as if you could be that way. Use your imagination until it changes your posture (or change your posture directly), your voice tone, and your state altogether.

Then get on with things in your new state - et voila you have changed your life!

Like any new skill or technique it is often helpful to start by rehearsing in a clear, even exaggerated fashion. Unless your are training yourself to stop being self-conscious, or embarrassed in public you may choose to do this phase in private.

As you practise this in between, it will become increasingly reflexive to interrupt and choose more resourceful states. With further practise the whole process of breaking state, choosing a new one and taking it on becomes smoother and more discrete. It need only take a moment or two.

Our states can change very quickly. Why not change them in a direction of your choosing?

How to be a regular Exerciser

2007-03-09T09:16:00.000+01:00

Photo: Akuzawa Minoru demonstrates his body control and balance with the assistance of a heavier partner

Whether or not you are motivated by sport, the condition of your body makes a big difference on your daily experience, your health, and how well you perform in other areas of your life.

On top of the actual experience of enjoying a well conditioned body, there is also a host of statistical evidence that positively relates regular moderate exercise to health. It makes sense to exercise.

At the same time many people do not exercise regularly. I am not going to ask why not? That question has the wonderful effect of helping entrench people in their reasons 'why not.'

Rather I am going to to go over some of the mental strategies that regular exercisers use.

1. Enjoy exercise
Enjoyment and pleasure is a state, an attitude. There are certain kinds of exercise that are probably beyond my ability to do, so I will not do them. However there is plenty within my range that I can do safely, and at a level of effort that is not simply excruciating.

Then I can simply take satisfaction in the fact that I am doing the exercise.

I was talking to a fellow coach recently who has gone through a revolution in her attitude to exercise. She used to be overweight and started to see a personal trainer, and is now light and happier.

She stopped seeing the trainer regularly (a good trainer, like a good coach seeks to make themselves redundant after a short time) and someone asked her if she was still doing her exercises. She replied with a smile 'Yes I am, and I shall continue to do them for as long as I'm living' .

Then she explained ' I used to see slim people running, and I'd wonder if they are slim why do they have to run? Now I understand, it is because they run that they are slim.'

Incidentally this transformation took place when she was in her sixties.

Health and fitness are as much processes as goals. You do not stop doing them because you have 'arrived'. If they are a process that you continue through your life you may as well enjoy it.

2.Take pleasure in physical effort
This is an interesting illustration of how the way we interpret physical sensation determines our attitude to a situation.

When people who do not enjoy exercise train any effort is considered tortuous misery. Effort is proof of how unfit they are, and possibly a reminder of childhood humiliation. I was the last to be picked for the team as well, I know that feeling.
When people who like to exercise train the sensation of effort remains the same, however the interpretation changes. Exercisers link effort with their goals. Effort is proof that they are moving in the direction of how fit they would like to be, and thus becomes a source of satisfaction, even in the moment that it is happening.

An extreme example of this is the saying 'Pain is weakness leaving the body.' It is probably a little too extreme for me though.

3. Get curious about movement and the body
The body is wonderfully complex. There are so many possibilities of movement, and these link in to your mental state. You can never exhaust the possibility of learning from movement.

Moshe Feldenkrais distinguished between two kinds of exercisers. One kind equates exercise with raw effort. The harder you exercise, the better it is. The second type gets curious about how relaxed and efficient they can be when they move.

The first type tends to perform poorly, get injured, and create muscle imbalances across their bodies. When you see them run there is lots of movement, but not much speed. The result is that they try harder. As they age they accumulate bad habits.

The second has a sense that they can always improve their performance, that they can relax a little more, become slightly more efficient, slightly more graceful. So they constantly pay attention to how they are moving, how their body works. In this refinement they have many opportunities for enjoying the sheer flowing pleasure of movement.

For this reason I do not like health clubs with their habit of distracting people from what they are doing using music and video. It is the possibility of improving the quality of an exercise through attention that makes it interesting.

Take a Yoga or Taiji class where the exercise is slowed down enough to really put the mind into the body. That way you can make distinctions between different ways of doing the same external movement.

If you do not know what I'm talking about find someone with some skill and enthusiasm for movement and get invite them to share their fascination with you.

In making these kinds of changes you can explore all kinds of possibilities for physical pleasure. Yes, you can read that last statement in any way you like.

Being able to make distinctions in physical movement/sensation is also a great way of increasing emotional intelligence and sensitivity.

4. Use a mix of motivations
You can motivate yourself towards what we want or away from what we do not want.

As a competitive martial artist I used to live in a unspoken arms race with my my classmates. If we let the others get fitter or more skilled than us, then we would be literally beaten. It was a good motivation strategy - we worked hard to escape black eyes and humiliation. But it was also stressful, partly because there is always someone bigger, fitter and possibly more skilled who could well hit you.

A more reasonable away from is to move away from the bad feelings associated with being unhealthy and out of shape.

I have also motivated myself towards what I want, whether that is the image of me looking a particular way, or feeling a particular way, or receiving a particular compliment on how you look or perform.

Personally I believe that health and fitness are much more of a feeling than a look. So for me appearance is more a result of something deeper than an end in itself, however ripped and glossy the images in the fitness magazines are.

These days I picture myself blissfully freediving, having longer to enjoy the wonders of the ocean, and that makes me want to cycle faster climb more stairs and work harder on my circuits.

Another motivation is the way exercise and food relate. I like food, and food tastes better when you are really physically hungry. Therefore exercise is a way of enjoying food more. More accurately it is a way of enjoying more food more!

Comparisons with yourself and others can be motivating sometimes, but not always. I know people who I will probably never be as fit as, and also I probably won't be as fit as I was when I was a professional martial artist. If I compare myself to those times I risk being disheartened.

However if you compare yourself to some standard that you consider both possible, and worthwhile, then it can help get you going. The good thing about this is that as you reach one goal, then you may believe another is possible.

The expense of a health club membership does not work for many people as a motivation. think it is better to cut out the middle man and go straight to a personal trainer if you have the money to spend.

5. Integrate it into your life
Do you mind if I have another rant about health club culture...I used to cycle to a club I taught in that was couple of miles outside of a small town. I would be passed by a number of cars that I would find in parked a few minutes later. The people in the cars would be on stationary bikes, peddling away. It is the same with people who use stair machines and then take lifts. Not the most efficient use of time or energy.

Life presents all kinds of opportunities for mild to moderate exercise, whether stairs, carrying objects, using your body as a means of transport - cycling, walking, jogging. The latter can save you money, not to mention cut down on CO2 emissions while getting you fitter.

Considering it only takes 10 seconds to for an Olympic athlete to totally exhaust themselves in a sprint, exercise need not take a long time. Ten or fifteen minutes here and there can maintain a reasonable fitness level, boost metabolism and mental function. Even busy people can fit that in.

I have a friend who decides he will have a press up day. He sets a timer to go off every 40 minutes or so, and when it does he finds a place where he can (relatively) discretely pump out a set of press ups. He treats it like a game. You could even invite people to join in!

You can also integrate exercise with being sociable, dancing, playing football. When I lived in Taiwan people gathered in parks for all kinds of exercise, in the early morning and also in the evening. You could see ballroom dance, hip-hop, aerobics, and martial arts. You can also find people training in the wide corridors of shopping centres and underpasses.

They would also spend a chunk of that time chatting and getting to know each other. The younger ones would be displaying themselves to members of the opposite sex too. Exercise is very much built into that culture.

There are scores of opportunities for integrating exercise into your life, and if you have some influence you can make it easier for other people around you at the same time.

So whether you are have a long neglected sport, or never liked sports the key to regular exercise in attitude that it can be enjoyable, that effort is itself a pleasure, and that there are always a opportunities for both practise, and improvement.

I have deliberately not gone into the technicality of exercise, just the attitudes that sustain it. If you are already a regular exerciser and have some other attitude that you would like to add to this then I'll be happy to read it.

In the mean time train well and have fun!

Living treasures

2007-03-08T11:59:00.000+01:00

Luo De Xiu pushing me at his seminar in Rennes 2006

There are people I meet who inspire me. They have such knowledge, grace or skill that I think it would be a great loss to humanity if they were to disappear from the planet.

Some of my martial arts teachers fall into this category. I always feel amazed when I see the grace, power and clarity of their movement.

Some of my NLP or Hypnosis teachers as well. They have a combination of refined skill, and a deep humanity. Most often they have a sparkle to their eye and a shining enthusiam for life.

Probably you know someone, or you know of someone who you view this way. If you do not go out and find someone, and spend some time with them.

Our society honours these people, or at least some of them. They may receive prizes and awards. Their funerals are well attended. This is doubly true if the area of their mastery is something that the media finds it easy to sell.

Yet I think it is strange that I and others may value these people more than others. I have difficulty with the idea that intrinsically one person is worth more than another.

However amazing these people are to me, they are also just people. If you have no interest in martial arts, my teacher Luo would just be a personable man with big forearms. If you had no interest in therapy or change Frank Farrelly would just be a charming grandfather figure with a knack for stories.

Yet I believe there is something that comes when people dedicate their attention, their presence in a deliberate way. This could be to an art or skill, to social networks, business, or family.

Contrast this with the attentionless consumption of food/television. I will include in this the accumulation of money - with the sole intention of using it for mindless consumption described in the sentence above.

Somehow the first has the possibility of creating something, of contributing to humanity. The latter ....

Of course I think there are very few people who fall purely into one camp or another. I know that I dedicate a good amount of time developing skill I can pass on, share and I intend can contribute to people's lives.

I also can drop into mindless consumption. I have been found at two in the morning, the remote control in my hand flicking between the world's worst police chases, and some science fiction film that I did not quite see when I was fifteen.
That usually happens when I'm tired. Changing channels feels a lot harder than climbing the stairs to my bed. So from an NLP point of view my behaviour does have a positive intention - to rest.

Still when I look at my life I think that I will not get much satisfaction or pleasure just looking for things to consume, whether crap TV, or great films, junk food or three star Michelin meals.

I think the sparkling eyes, the shining enthusiasm the deep satisfaction come from investigation, curiousity, a happily hopeless dedication to some kind of perfection.

Personally I am dedicated to the riddle of what it is to be human on this planet. I do not ever expect to get reach a perfect solution, just deeper levels of humour, subtlety and attention. Each client I work with is a source of fascination, because they tell me the riddle in a new way. Later I'll do some work in the anarchy of my garden. The plants there will join the riddling.

Just thinking about it lifts the corners of my mouth and brightens what I look at.

So what are you dedicated to perfecting? Where is your fascination, your curiousity?

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

2007-02-27T13:28:00.000+01:00

Studying NLP or hypnosis it usually gives an extra dimension to the appreciation of language. NLPers become increasingly aware of embedded commands, hypnotic suggestions or unwitting implications that slip into their own and other people's language.

This is great. It allows for really precise communication, sometimes...

On the other hand since some NLPers can be relentlessly positive there can also be a shadow side to this. Intelligent, sensitive aware people who are still often human in some of the most petty ways. So just like the euphemisms used in Human Resources or the military, I have observed some interesting ways of hiding barbs in NLP based language.

Below are some examples of the correct NLP way to say something, and its translation into something more... sincere

Not all NLPers do this, and not allo f the time. But when they do you can usually tell by the slightly forced quality of the smile they put on while speaking.

'Your map is different from mine' = 'You're wrong!'

'You're map is really quite unusual' = 'You're mad'

'Our values do not align' = 'I don't like you'

'If what you're doing isn't working, try something different' = 'Please, please, please do something else!'

'I realise that you have a positive intention' = 'Do that one more time and I'll punch you'

'You cannot not communicate' = 'You are rude'

'The meaning of the behaviour is the response it elicits' = 'It's your fault'

'There's no failure, only feedback' = 'You screwed up.'

'I detect a lack of congruence' = 'I don't trust you.'

'You have a highly developed capacity for deletion' = 'Pay attention, stupid.'

If you catch soemone doing this challenge them with the translation 'You said xxxx, don't you mean yyyy.'

Done just right the effect is delicious. As the person squirms, and their smile becomes a little stiffer, casually add in

'Perhaps you didn't mean yyyy at all, it's just...the meaning of the communication is the response it elicits.'

Knowing a cup of tea

2007-02-27T00:14:00.000+01:00

Photo Nice Cup of Tea by snappysmashingbloke

This is another thought experiment. I like this one as a way of getting less certain about how much we know. I like being less certain about how much I know, because it loosens up my mental models, and helps keep me enjoying life in fresh, new ways. Loosening mental models is also a good exercise in developing new ones - also known as learning.

Simply take a household object (a cup, a pillow, a book...) and spend 20-30 minutes noticing everything about it you possibly can. Look at it from all angles, touch, listen to and smell it (taste it?).

Do you think you know everything about it yet? Are there parts that you cannot see - can your senses really catch everything about it?

Are there details too small, too subtle, too hidden to notice? If you think you know everything then ask yourself this...

Would a dog/electron microscope/dolphin or amoeba have a different knowledge of this object than you?

Can you know everything about where it came from and how it was made?

In which case can you still say you know everything about it?

And if you can't know everything about something as simple as a cup what can you be certain that you really know?....

Thought Experiments

2007-02-27T00:01:00.000+01:00

A thought experiment can include any deliberate application of the imagination with the aim of testing a theory.

Einstein used thought experiments in developing the theory of relativity - he imagined he was sitting on a photon travelling at the speed of light - and the consequences that would have for perception.

Nikola Tesla the inventor who in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries discovered and designed much of the technology that we take for granted today (accumulating over 700 patents on the way) used a sophisticated form of thought experiment. Before building a machine in his laboratory he would construct in his imagination, run it and see if it developed any problems or unanticipated effects.

You can choose to think of NLP's presuppositions as thought experiments. Also 'as if' frame statements can serve as thought experiments. You can ask what would it be like if ....

I've described a few thought experiments in the posts below. Try them out if you like, and you can write about your experiences too. If you have any thought experiments that you like then please share them...

Getting into your Skull

Knowing a cup of tea

Getting into your Skull

2007-02-26T23:12:00.000+01:00

Photo Frazier Mtn~ 12/09/05 by FrazierMtnMom

In the Norse creation myth three brothers Odin, Vili and Ve made the earth from the body of a giant called Ymir. They made the sky from his skull and the clouds from his brains. Norse stories do not skimp on blooody anatomical detail.

Neuroscience suggest that what we perceive as being outside of ourselves is actually a model constructed by our minds. In other words everything under the sky is actually inside our skulls...

In this thought experiment try to remain conscious of this idea. Whenever you experience something as outside of you remember that you are creating the representation of that thing in the space between your ears.

Do this for a day and notice what happens.

Then as the zen saying goes, you may be able to drink the Pacific ocean in a single gulp.

Photo: Pacific Ocean by shesnuckinfuts

Underemployed Coaches

2007-02-16T10:19:00.000+01:00

ruby slippers and phone by gwENvision

I do not know if you have noticed, but the world is full of underemployed coaches. Go to almost any networking meeting and you are sure to meet one or two coaches a little too eager to explain how you can be and achieve so much more.

I am curious about this. It is partly a result of all the hype. There has been so much hype about coaching. In France the word hardly means anything. If you are not sure what the word for a coach is in French it is le coach (and yes there is also le coaching). It covers everything from personal trainer, to personal shopper, with some potential for psychologist thrown in.

I blame the training organisations. For years now training organisations have been telling people ‘Coaching is the fastest growing profession in the world…’ with all kinds of promises of being able to earn hundreds per hour while sitting in slippers at home and asking open questions on the phone.

What happens is that people take a training, get hooked on the heady rush of watching people become aware of their deeper desires. Then they get business cards made, some really comfy slippers and a new phone, and then….

…then they find it is not so easy. They head to their local networking breakfast and meet a bunch of other coaches with cards and whose slipper softened feet are struggling with their business shoes. Eavesdrop on the conversation between them and you'll hear allusions to abundance, cooperation, and it 'not being a zero sum game'. Watch the body language, you'll see their eyes scanning for the signs of eligible clients and their thighs tense to pounce.

The next step for these people is to do more courses, to unleash some more potential. Some coaches end up taking so many courses that they decide to teach courses and sell the same attractive dream of slippers and phones that they fell for however many trainings ago. In a gold rush the people who get rich are the ones selling shovels.

But isn’t that what we are doing at NLP School Europe?

Well we do talk about coaching, and we do train people who are coaches. Quite a few coaches come to us because they recognise that NLP underpins many coaching training courses and and they want to better understand the core of their technical base.

In fact I really like training coaches. They often understand what we are doing very quickly, and come back with great stories of how they have applied NLP with their clients.

The difference is we want people to apply NLP I their lives, not make NLP their life. We do not want our trainees to pack in the day job and set up as coaches. We are selling tools, not necessarily a new career.

Here is an analogy. Some years I remember a friend saying that in an ideal world there would be no Green party. All political parties would have integrated an ecological, sustainable agenda. Asking a politician if they were green should be like asking a fish if they could swim. Pretty self evident, and not really a question worth asking.

Back then the sustainable agenda was mostly talked about by people with long hair, and dismissed by people in politics.

Today we are closer to the ideal situation. If you ask pretty much any politician if they are green they will answer 'yes'. The difference between the politicians and the fish is that the fish are telling the truth. Watch the body language, the fish really can swim.

Actually that probably applies to most of us. When was the last time you checked your ecological footprint?

A bit of my own agenda creeping in there, again. Skip over it if you find it clashes with your own worldview. In another few years it will seem very dated anyway. At least that is what I am working for.

I believe that coaching is a useful profession. The ability to work with people in a respectful, compassionate ways is very important. The capacity to look to look at what is important, in a deep rather than superficial way is also vital to our society. An ability to integrate our values with our day to day actions and effectiveness is equally important. All of these are the promises of coaching.

But the ideal is that they would be integrated into our lives. That we would not need coaches for this, any more than we would need a green party.

So whether you want to be a coach or not there is something valuable to be had from coaching training.

For all the underemployed coaches, some of them will keep plugging at it and find a way to get the clients that you want.

Some coaches will hang up their slippers and go back to what they did before - but differently. Others will discover actually that what they really want to do is not coach, but something much more juicy, at least to them.

If you've just met an underemployed coach, and think they may have something to offer, but possibly overpriced,then haggle with them.

They could probably do with the practise. Some of them are not so sure of their skills yet. Give them a chance, they might well be very good. If they do a good job then they may well have created a regular client and a source of referrals. If they do not do a good job you will probably at least have enjoyed some interesting conversations.

For the underemployed coaches among you, haggle back! Do not give your coaching away for free. Make sure you get an exchange which is satisfying to you, even if not financially.

How do you know if it is worth taking on an underemployed coach. It is probably not good to do it on the basis that you feel sorry for them. Better to do it on the basis that there is something that you've always wanted to do, but never have yet. Perhaps there is a nagging sense that you could do better in some way, or some kind of difficult situation at work or at home that seems stuck.

If that is true for you then the next question is to ask which kind of coach you would like? Perhaps you will decide prefer the investment in an experienced well employed coach with fixed rates.

Alternatively you may decide to sponsor new talent. You may prefer someone underemployed, inexperienced and negotiable. In which case just head to a networking meeting and watch the body language.

Shadows and Light

2007-02-05T21:46:00.000+01:00

Shadows and light: photo by barcalunacy

Here's a double bind for you. NLP is a set of powerful tools that can be applied to setting goals and accomplishing what you want in life. In NLP we apply the concept "a map is not the territory", that our understanding of reality is only a model, and not reality itself.

So what happens if we start applying our wonderful NLP techniques on the basis of a map that is severely flawed? What will that result in?

For example someone who as a habit uses force to resolve problems, physical or emotionally. If they encounter a problem where they feel weak, in their map of the world they will seek a method to be stronger. So they then apply NLP to be even stronger in that situation.... Seems doomed to failure doesn't it?

What about the inverse. Someone who always yields to others, deals with problems by being more generous, more sensitive, more giving. If they find themselves in a difficult situation, perhaps where someone is taking advantage of them in some way what will they apply NLP to. Probably being more giving, less selfish. The result?

Now let's get silly. Imagine someone sayig "I will use NLP to get over my hangovers quicker. I have at least 5-6 hangovers a week, so it should save me lots of pain."

This makes NLP a tool to dig yourself deeper into a habit. A bit like the people who drive faster and more recklessly because of the heightened sense of security that modern car technology offers.

What can we do about a paradox like this?

I have two kinds of answers.

If you believe that there is a force of evolution guiding us (whether internal from natural selection, or omnipresent and spiritual) then eventually, however man bad decisions we make are, the dice are loaded that we will make a good one eventually. So you do ot actually have to do anything.

This is OK as a stop gap, but it doesn't say much for our capacity to apply intelligence. I also sometimes think of as an abdication of authority. But on the up side it is an application of the idea that "the universe is basically a friendly place." Which I find much mor optimistic and useful than the opposite.

Alternatively we can develop practises that are designed to show up our blindspots, the parts of ourselves that lie in shadow outside of our awareness.

One way we can do this is to ask people we trust to tell us what we appear to be blind to. Of course we could still choose people who share our blind spots. The strong person above might choose his brutal barbarian colleagues, and the generous person might choose people with similar patterns, and the hangover man might choose his drinking buddies. So in this case it's good to choose people who are very different from you.

The danger then is that you get angry and fall out with those people because they are obviously stupid, and they have got it wrong. You know what it is like when someone asks you for advice and then does not like what you tell them....

There are also a number of other practises that you can do alone.

Ken Wilber of the Integral Institute has created the 3-2-1 Shadow process tm. I'm not sure I should describe it because it has a tm after it, and I've never seen it written down anywhere publicly.

On the other hand it has a great deal in common with Robert Dilt's Meta-Mirror . The Meta-Mirror was conceived to work with difficult relationships by moving through three perceptual positions. 1st position, me as myself. 2nd position, me as an other person, and 3rd position which is an outsider, or fly on the wall. It is a great pattern with a lot built into it, which is why we often teach it on our NLP taster days.

In Ken's process the emphasis is on working with a part of yourself that you have a problem with, rather than another person. Having said that he considers difficult people on the outside projections of your own internal "shadow" - parts of yourself that you have not been able to integrate.

A third practise that I think is useful is Core Transformation which was created by Connirae and Tamara Andreas. It is a very elegant process for appreciating an integrating those parts of us that we do not like. It involves identifying an unwanted behaviour or reaction, then moving up a chain of positive intentions to core state. The core state is extremely pleasant to experience, and if you are a coach a great privilege to witness. It is one of the reasons I like to use it, and variations of it in my coaching practise.

With any of these techniques when they are practised honestly there is an integration, the sense of reclaiming a some part of yourself. It creates a sense of greater peace within a given situation. It also leads to an increased range of choices, in terms of both state, and behaviour.

To use these techniques as part of a practise you first need to identifying something that you consider irritating, frightening, otherwise unpleasant. you could perceive it as internal to you, or externally - a shadow. It could be a person, a character in a dream, or an emotion.

Ken recommends that people practise this twice a day. Certainly it is something that is best done on a regular basis. That way it becomes a habit. It gets easier to get curious about people or events that trouble you, rather than angry or hostile or depressed. Curious because you know that there is something interesting to be learned, rather something evil to be defeated.

Your map may never be fully accurate, so these practises do not fully answer the issue of how best to apply NLP, but they do go some way to creating wiser decisions.

One of the good things about it is that it is easy to start. Just ask what do you find most irritating in yourself or in others?

5 years more - perspectives in time

2007-01-27T00:08:00.000+01:00

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

2007-01-23T13:58:00.000+01:00

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

2007-01-23T00:12:00.000+01:00

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

2007-01-23T00:00:00.000+01:00

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

2007-01-22T23:28:00.000+01:00

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

2007-01-22T23:18:00.000+01:00

'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

2007-01-22T23:16:00.000+01:00

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

2007-01-22T23:01:00.000+01:00

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

2007-01-22T22:30:00.000+01:00

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

2007-01-22T22:19:00.000+01:00

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

2007-01-22T12:13:00.000+01:00

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

2007-01-15T11:19:00.000+01:00

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

2007-01-12T14:06:00.000+01:00

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?

the French attitude to Sects

2006-12-27T21:56:00.000+01:00

Most foreigners in France will at some point notice that this country has a suspicion of les sectes – what we tend to label as Cults in English. If you are reading this as a foreigner then you may well say to yourself ‘ fair enough I don’t like those brainwashing weirdo’s either!’

What you may not appreciate is that this attitude extends far further, and far more often than it is in America, in England or any other European country. France has an official list of sects, which includes the usual suspects (Scientology, the Mooneys etc) and plenty of organisations I have never heard of, but also groups accepted as probably benign (if sometimes bizarre) like the Jehovah’s witnesses, and Transcendental meditation.

Apart from an official list, and laws to back it up the suspicion of sects runs broadly throughout French Society. I have friends in martial arts who are often asked if they are part of a sect. Then again if I think about it doing movements originating in China, then hitting each other is in many ways just as bizarre as chanting words in strange languages -whether Sanskrit, Japanese, or Latin. When I told a client I was going to a an alternative medicine salon and he told me to be careful because ‘those acupuncturists belong to sects.’ Mmmmm….

Now I’m going to do something quite unusual in the realm of NLP. I’m going to write a little about why I think this is so. It’s naturally relates to the nature of belief and if you have ever been eyed suspiciously for carrying a Yoga mat you may be curious as to why…

It all dates back to the French revolution and the imposition of the laïcité. In taking the immense and courageous step of aiming to thought, philosophy and progress from the control of the Church there was a strong desire to remove Religion from France altogether.

However strong the desire it is not such an easy thing to wipe out centuries of belief and culture. People have tried since, in Russia, China, Cambodia and no one has yet succeeded. Napoleon was wise to this. He did not want to have to fight a war against religion at home while he went off empire building. So he made a deal with the representatives of mainstream religion – the Catholic Church.

He gave them the responsibility to report of any new religious groups that might represent a threat to his power, and the authority to cooperate with government to deal with any such threats arising. He based this on the Catholic division of dioceses, a préfet de police supporting each Bishop, and the chief of the local Gendarmerie working with the parish priest.

Spool on a couple of centuries and you have the situation where anything that falls outside of the cosmology or theology of Catholic thinking is regarded with suspicion. Actually much Christian thinking is regarded with suspicion as well. France is a laïcité after all.

In the Academic world actual research and investigation of unorthodox religious organisations is discouraged. An academic here attempting to write a serious treatise on such an organisation is likely to be labelled as a an apologist for sects, and lose their post. The basis on which a sect is designated in France has been attacked because of insufficient research combined with unchallenged negative bias.

If you'd like the long version of this story I recommend the following link, with this story from the Montreal Gazette for dessert.

Of course it’s natural that people find facts to support their beliefs. That applies to whether their beliefs are that the world is a random occurrence in a universe that is slowly running down, or that the world was created in 7 days by a deity with an impressively bushy white beard.

This relates to NLP because NLP includes a pretty good set of techniques that you could apply to setting up a sect. I talk more about people's suspicion of NLP here. Still, we are not always helped by journalists.

Recently on French TV there was a program in which unscrupulous salespeople were filmed swindling old folks by selling them services that they didn’t need. When asked how they had learned to do this they answered they had learned through NLP. Not great publicity for us, but probably a good reason to learn NLP to help deal with that kind of unscrupulous person.

Practically speaking there is not much I can do about this situation – except be scrupulously ethical in how I teach and use NLP. Acting like a relatively normal human being helps. Not that I know what the definition of normal human being is of course.

Occasionally I get mischievous, I’ll admit. People have asked me if I’m part of a sect and sometimes I answer ‘Yes! But my sect has a maximum membership of one. So you can’t join, Sorry.’ It tickles me to imagine extending that idea in a democratic way. To adapt the old saying goes ‘one man, one sect’. Of course if you are a woman you can have your very own sect too. I have not considered if there should be a minimum age for individual sect leadership.

I think a more interesting set of question is: If you were both the guru and membership of your own sect, what would your teachings be? Where might they have come from, and how are you following them?

Only for people of a certain development

2006-12-22T13:43:00.000+01:00

I started this blog about a month ago, with a number of objectives. To offer ideas and techniques that can make a difference to the readers, for the pleasure of writing, and finally to attract people onto our courses.

For the last few weeks I’ve been questioning if I’m going about this the right way. I was thinking to be eligible for our trainings there are a number of criteria you need to meet.

You need a certain degree of emotional stability. Our trainings are to teach NLP, rather than to give therapy – though our students to have plenty of opportunities to resolve issues during the courses.

You need a certain degree of mental maturity. NLP isn’t magic. The use of it depends on certain cognitive skills that not everyone has developed.

Finally you need to be able to be able to pay. We offer discounts and exchanges in certain cases, but we are a business and we won’t stay around for long if that’s all we do. If you are a charity, or working on a voluntary basis then you’re the kind of person we will be more flexible with.

Now, the most profitable sector for us is businesses. Ideally big ones who can send a long stream of people on our courses. If I was to write for a business I might be better to adopt a more business like style.

I could include more figures, include jargon culled from my targets, and pull out examples relevant to their situation. There would be lots of articles on ‘maximising team motivation’ ‘6 steps to leveraging customer loyalty in a changing market’

But so far you won’t find many of these articles. Once I noticed they weren’t there I began to wonder why….I mean I could write them, I have the skills, the experience and al the resources I need. So why doesn’t this blog read like a business journal?

It’s because the people I’m writing for have a certain level of mental development. They appreciate that the objective measurable parameters that are required by business, and they also appreciate that there is much more to success than that.

The people who I’m writing for know that being able to work with differences in style, and differences in mindset can make a huge difference to success. It's one of the qualities of the most successful leaders. Some of these people will be working at different levels within the kinds of businesses that we provide training and coaching for.

Having a sense of the value of difference means that they can enjoy that I’m writing in the way I like to naturally. It is my capacity to foster an appreciation of difference rather than a resistance to it that they will value in my coaching and training.

What we do in our trainings is not get people to conform to some norm of ‘effective’ behaviour. Rather we help people to adapt their unique skills and innate capacities to be more effective by being more themselves, and do the same with others. That is something that I consider a ‘higher’ level of development. It’s also something that has a profoundly right sense to it. Right beyond simplistically defined rules.

So the people who are concerned mostly with conformity, and procedure will skim past this blog, or possibly be offended by it. The ones who recognise the value of being more present, more integrated in their work will find areas of attraction, points of resonance.

The conformers could probably do with our training most of all. Certainly the ones who have reached limits of their ability by trying to fit themselves and others into overly fixed structures or hierarchies. When we make presentations, in personal interviews we make sure we speak their language. If we didn’t we couldn’t communicate or motivate them, and we do.

So this blog is a message to people frustrated by opportunities that rigid thinking passes by. People who are pained by the gaps between values and action I'm writing written for the people who perceive the suffering that comes from trying to reduce human issues to mechanical, financial ones, and who recognise that more humanity in the workplace can make it more successful as well as more pleasurable.

If you are one of those people keep browsing. As I go along I'll include more tools you can use in different areas, with overbearing bosses, with intercultural conflict and misaligned communication. You’d probably enjoy our trainings, and know people who could use them to take that next step in their development.

Want to contribute to wisdom and compassion in the workplace and in the world? You are part of a network of people working overtly, or covertly for a more compassionate, sustainable world. There's something a little subversive here. Not subversive in a conflictual or destructive way. Rather we share an interest in being creatively subversive to make things better.

You have allies here. Now what can we do to help?

Xmas xcess and rich pickings for a coach

2006-12-18T13:58:00.000+01:00

In my previous life as a personal trainer in Paris one of my busiest times of year used to be January. I dealt with people who had gone overboard at Christmas. Having hauled themselves away from another scene of culinary carnage, weighed down by foie gras, good wine and a rich heritage of cheese they examine their lives with a faint feeling of nausea. Unable to move they had no choice but to reflect back on the previous year. On January 1st it’ll be time to change….

Actually things are not so different for me since I gave up the physical fitness side of my practise. People still get overdo it over xmas and want help to see the coming year in a new way, which often involves discussion and the putting together of plans with dreams or values.

I consider myself a good coach – that is I aim to do my job well and thus put myself out of a job pretty quickly. If the above scenario seems familiar to you and undesirable then read on as I plan to put myself out of a job.

Our perceptions of things and the decisions we make are state related. In a state of toxic overload it’s a lot harder to look at your life and feel good, resourceful and able to cope with challenges than after some exercise. I am not about to start praising the virtues of brisk walks, and bracing cold baths in the mornings – but I think you get the point..

So in preparation for Xmas here is a mental strategy you can apply in all sorts of activities, and works especially well with food. When you are choosing to do something expand the time frame of your decision . Whether it’s eating, asking for cigarette, staying up all night with that Calvados you brought back from Deauville. Don’t just think of how good it will as you relish the texture and the aroma of each mouthful. Think longer term. How will you feel just after you’ve eaten or drunk. Extend the time frame along to January 1st when you look at yourself in the mirror, or stand on the scales, or pull on your favourite jeans.

If you like the way you’ll feel longer term then go for it. If not choose something that you will feel good after.

Of course for this strategy to work well you have to start by feeling good. If you feel awful already then what’s just one more moelleux au chocolat?

So in the run up to Xmas make sure you do things that make you feel good, and keep doing them through the festive season. My choice is martial arts and meditation – but you’ll know what helps you feel light, clear and in tune. The idea is to feel so good from healthy activity that the tempting but unhealthy things simply lose their appeal. I recognise they feel bad in comparison.

So try it out, have a great Xmas and do not call me in January!

Paris Sans Clopes – the energy of habit

2006-12-11T15:55:00.000+01:00

Now if you are reading this outside of France the title of this post may not make much sense to you. Pretty much everyone knows what Paris is, but 'les clopes?' Clopes is colloquial French for cigarettes, and smoking (verb: cloper – to smoke). In February France follows America, Ireland, Holland, Norway, Montenegro and many other countries in introducing legislation to prohibit smoking in many public places.

Now the change in France is not going to happen overnight. Café’s and bars have a year’s grace period to adjust. But why am I writing about this in an NLP Blog? Well smoking is such a universal, experience and such a good example of a unwanted habit that we often use it as an example to illustrate certain NLP principles. So now that a whole country is aiming to get healthier I’ll take advantage of it here.

We use smoking as an example because there are a lot of people who want to stop smoking, but find it hard. One reason they find it hard is because they start off with a badly formed outcome in mind. They want to not do something. Well formed outcomes are stated something positive to be, do or have.

Wannabe non-Smokers are also at war with themselves. They usually have a string of reasons for smoking as long as their arms. But they are rarely aware of more than just a few of their reasons to smoke.

These are what we call the positive intentions of smoking, and typically include having a treat, having a break, punctuating the day, a way to start a conversation and part of a sense of identity. People often say that they are smokers, they define the world between smokers and non smokers.

If they do not address these positive intentions then in stopping smoking they find themselves missing out on a whole host of what makes life good for them. They don’t know how to have those intentions can be fulfilled in all sorts of different ways.

Not only do they have all these hidden reasons to smoke, they also have a lot of beliefs about smoking. Nicotine is very addictive, giving up is hard, and each time they light up after a period of laying off they consider themselves to have failed.

So now France is in the same position as many of those people. Smoking is (decreasingly) a part of the French national identity. Many Café’s have a tabac, a counter where there is whole range of tobacco products on sale – as well as stamps and lottery tickets. For many people sitting at the zinc counter of a café, ordering a coffee and lighting up a cigarette (perhaps a Gauloise) is a quintessentially French activity.

That is all under threat. That part of French culture is going to die, and people on the tobacco side of it are nervous.

Personally I’m curious. Not just curious, I’m looking forward to it. It’ll be great to be able to drop off my daughter at school, and have a cup of tea in café which has clean air. I’ve seen it happen before in other countries, in houses and households, and I've liked he results.

But when you are on the other side of that change, it can see strange and daunting. Like going from childhood to adolescence, or adolescence to adulthood.

Paris has already started though. I see a smaller proportion of people who smoke, and a general cleaning up of the city. For example there is much less dog mess on the street than when I moved here 6 years ago. Not that I want to draw any parallel between dog shit and cigarettes for the smokers among you. I mean what would you want to clean first, your fingers or your lips? Please don't think about that whenever you see a cigarette, it might spoil your pleasure.

The reality is that this kind of change can be easy. There are moments that people recognise that something does not fit their sense of identity, that they have moved on and the old ways are no longer necessary.

People readjust their actions when they examine their values. I know that when I stopped smoking one reason was I didn’t want to pay my money to companies with a long history of deliberately lying to sell damaging drugs to large sections of the population. What’s the word for those people? Scumbags I think.

No, that’s not very compassionate of me. People knowingly trying to hook other people on carcinogenic chemicals aren’t really murdering scumbags. They are just misguided and doing their best to make a living. Just like arms dealers, and the rest of us embedded in a society that invests money in destructive unsustainable activities. At what point do people own up to what they are doing as wrong?

But rather than getting all angry – which sometimes is justified and a useful motivator, we can also turn towards something more positive.

Something else that helped me leave cigarettes in my past was having something else that I really wanted to do. Once I discovered freediving I lost all desire to smoke. Images of myself playing in the ocean wiped out any temptation. We all have dreams that can motivate us.

Someone at a French NLP training I attended recently gestured to a non-smoking sign. It was the usual crossed out cigarette. He stated that there was no other way of giving the message of no smoking.

I disagree. Representing a positive goal that is not compatible with the unwanted activity would work. So a picture of blue skies, or mountains, or a windswept ocean with the words ‘keep the air clean’ or ‘enjoy a breath of fresh air’.

So you may not smoke, and you may not live in Paris – if you do both of these then you might think of visiting Mike Fink (Mike's site is in French and he also works in English). But you may have some activity or habit that gets in the way of what you really want to do.

When you talk with someone who admits that they want to give up their habit, it can be helpful to motivate them to change by kicking their ass, by pointing out the negative consequences of continuing as they are.

I also find that it’s helpful to recognise that even scumbags have reasons to do what they do. If I am going to help them find a new way forward I’d better have a sense of how to incorporate those reasons into any new plan, or way of being. It’s bit like blending with and using people’s force in martial arts. It makes life easier, less violent and takes the existing energy and channels it in a new direction.

So where might you have some energy that could use re-channelling? It may not be a conventional bad habit like smoking. It could be something as subtle as thinking negatively. Then the next question is, once you have freed that energy where would you like to see yourself put it?

NLP, magic wands and smooth moves

2006-12-07T23:00:00.000+01:00

Reading some NLP literature it's easy to get the impression that NLP is magic, or that the writers consider it that way. This is (mostly) either marketing or fuzzy thinking. NLP is very effective, and it can seem like magic in that how change happens is not always evident to either the client or an observer, but NLP is still a skill.

I can't resist another martial arts parallel. In Taiji there is an exercise called push hands. Simply explained, the idea is to unbalance a partner with a minimal use of force. People who have a good level of skill can throw bigger, stronger partners around with incredible ease. I have pushed hands with old men who repeatedly bounced me into walls without my ever understanding how they did it, or being able to stop them.

With hours of daily training I found that I could consistently replicate (with a degree less grace) what the old teachers were doing with people who had less skill in push hands. The people I pushed around didn't understand what I was doing either!

Now, if those people came to pushing hands with a superstitious sense of what Taiji is, perhaps with ideas of mysterious qi power - the ancient Chinese equivalent of the Force - then I could pass myself across as magical. A sort of short eared master Yoda!

But my understanding of push hands is probably 70% biomechanics and 30% psychology (awareness and mental state).

I make it a point of trying to make it as clear as possible to the people I work with what I am doing. That they can pick it up faster, and so the general level of play improves. Once certain teachers actually took the trouble to break down and explain what they were doing, my progress in Taiji improved immensely. That's an attitude I'm grateful for and carry on when I teach.

Some people, even without skill or experience would be tricky for me to push. At first I didn't like working with them. Then I understood that I could learn lots working with them. In my solo practise I'd analyse what went wrong with them and train the qualities that would help me deal with it in future. I used to work hard outside of class.

Before I could push hands consistently I had to work with a lot of people, change my body (through physical graft), get my ass handed to me, and learn to learn from it.

It's the same with NLP. NLP techniques are written out as clearly as we can. They still take skill to apply in a live situation. I run patterns with my clients and they don't always work perfectly. It's usually because I've missed some cue the client has given me, or ignored some aspect of my own state, or both. Then I know that I'm in for a good learning experience.

In fact I'll seek out the kind of client or the kind of situation, that will push my NLP skills.

Some students who come on our courses take their manuals home, read them overnight, arrange to practise with their friends and family and really apply themselves. They come back to class and tell us great stories. I remember one woman who sat next to a depressed person at a dinner party. Over the course of the evening I watched them move into a more positive state and view of their life.

That's what NLP is about. A learned skill to adapt the way you act in the world, which helps create the kind of changes you want in your life, and help others do the same. Part of learning the skill is real world application, and part is the controlled situation training and experimentation. The two sides overlap and compliment each other.

When I lived in England I trained in a boxing gym. Someone had written on the wall 'train hard, fight easy'. That's a great reminder for boxing, perhaps outside of the square ring we can say 'train smart, live easy'

If any of this article makes sense to you perhaps you can ask yourself if there are general areas, or specific situations where you could take a bit of time out to develop your skills. Perhaps it's with a person you don't have the most constructive or enjoyable relationship with. Perhaps it's a situation that you look forward to with dread.

The question is, how are you going to train for it?

the submodalities of meditation

2006-12-05T23:46:00.000+01:00

I recently read an article by Steve Andreas on the use of submodalities in the treatment of migraines. Briefly he talks about how a coach helped his sister suffering from migraines by getting her to move the sensation of the migraine to different parts of their head, and eventually outside of their head altogether. The paradoxical sounding result was the sufferer said ‘I still had a headache, but could no longer feel it.’

This story is a little simplified, I don’t know what else went into the coaching process, apart from curiousity, but the results have apparently stood for over twenty years.

As I sat down to meditate before going to wake up my daughter this morning that story came into my mind.

In meditation many people complain that they cannot quieten their minds. As I have mentioned elsewhere meditation is more about dis-identifying with thoughts than getting rid of them. As such having thoughts continually popping up just gives something to practise with.

Equally if there are no thoughts – in the form of internal dialogue, there is less to identify with. So I decided to apply some submodality play as I sat. I moved the location of the voices to behind my head, and turned the volume down. The result some enjoyable silence.

Every now and then a thought appeared, often arising from a different location. But somehow these thoughts took less of my attention, they seemed transparent, like the form of ripples on the surface of a swimming pool on a sunny day.

It was an interesting experiment, and I think I’ll repeat it. As a child I used to love diving up coins from the bottoms of pools. So I’m also curious what is at the bottom of the pool.

If you try this out or have done similar experiments I’d love to hear about your results.

presenting NLP,I knew someone who...

2006-12-04T12:46:00.000+01:00

If you’ve been reading this blog I like to think you have gone beyond the view that NLP is manipulative. You may also have added some arguments – or reasoning if you prefer that term to answer people who have that as an accusation.

The next question is how do you talk about NLP at dinner parties without attracting flak or putting people on the defensive. The problem here is that NLP is a little too good. What do I mean? Well NLP promises the ability to improve just about anything. That covers relationships, communication, performance, learning, sex and any other area you think about applying it to.

However, for many people suggesting that they can improve something in their life implies that they are not good enough. It’s a slap in the face that can put people subtly on the defensive, or actively on the attack depending on their character.

Recently an intelligent French student of ours was telling us how his friends have noticed that he is different in some way, and they are intrigued. But they are also wary because NLP comes from outside their Cartesian frame of reference. They ask questions, but distrust the answers, especially when he talks about what NLP could do for them.

So in the conversation we thought a different way of presenting NLP would be helpful in France. It has some parallels with those people who ask the doctor about a problem their friend has.

So instead of saying ‘NLP can improve your ….., and make you happier, healthier etc’ it makes more sense to recount personal experience of how NLP has been beneficial from a 1st person perspective ‘Since I have started NLP I have…’

You can also use third person stories ‘There was a person on the course who…’

That way the listener is less likely to get defensive and argumentative. Less likely because if you present something sufficiently alien to their model of the world, they may tell you what you saw and experienced never happened.

Self referentially, I could talk about how NLP helped me make the transition from a martial arts instructor, to a trainer and coach. It was something that I had struggled with because I didn’t recognise where I was caught. I identified myself so much with kung fu identity that I hardly noticed when the way I presented myself lead to people asking me for martial arts classes rather than NLP coaching. Once I made the connection, I asked a coach to lead me through a technique. Then the change happened quickly and easily.

A lot of people do get caught in transitions. Either they are not sure how to take the first step, or find themselves frozen between different ways of functioning. Most people I know have dreams that they aren’t living, or taking steps to put into place.

We often see people in our trainings who are unsatisfied by their work. Somehow their job doesn’t match their values, the way they see themselves, or put themselves in a position to really offer their gifts to the world. When we see that one of two things usually happen. We have seen some of them decide to leave their job, which is probably a good thing even if seems tough in the short term. Effectively they were only half present at work – it’s hard to be passionate about what you don’t believe in.

We also have stories of others who begin to apply their knowledge to change their working environment. That way they not only apply themselves more enthusiastically at work, they also begin to create the kind of working culture where their colleagues can be more present, more passionate and more effective.

Some people love to help others, without necessarily wanting to become a professional helper. In which case, I could talk about how some years ago I’d spend part of the summer teaching Taiji at a Yoga centre in Greece. One of my my activities in between sessions of Yoga, freediving and teaching was finding out who had a phobia of water and dealing with it. Since I love swimming it was particularly satisfying to watch them come back from the beach exhilarated at the aqueous world that was opening to them.

For people motivated by the desire to succeed in more conventional terms we have reams of stories of how people have rigorously applied NLP in different areas. I can think of several students who used NLP techniques to prepare for presentations, then winning competitions or receiving standing ovations. Others have adapted their techniques and created tools that they use that improve their customer’s satisfaction and loyalty.

So rather than offering something frontally, the idea is more like two tuning forks resonating together. Pick something that you have an intuition might appeal to the listener – and use your NLP skills to refine the precision. Then as you tell the story your listener may well be thinking ‘That’s something I could do with changing too.’

It's also a useful exercise to list or learn from sucesses, whether your own or other people's, whether in NLP or in other fields. It can help to keep grounded in an optimistic state, and also provieds examples, anecdotes and stories that can help spread those states to other people.

So I wonder what have you seen working (recently)? Where else could you use some of that, and who else could benefit from something similar?

the fool in the laboratory

2006-12-03T02:12:00.000+01:00

Several years ago I was in a small park in Paris talking to the fool. The sun was shining on an ancient acacia, while undercover police were sneaking around to leap on a couple of lads smoking something more fragrant than a cigarette. A large group of teenage tourists from Portugal were joking around with each other.

Before I carry on I should introduce the fool. He got his name through an accident of birth. His life is a series of radical experiments, financed by the large fees he charges some of the world’s multinational companies for his coaching and consulting services. Funnily enough it’s the effects of his bizarre experiments that make him desirable to his employers.

He once stated proudly to me that he had been fired by all his major clients because he was committed to speaking the unutterable, and was willing to make a mess that employees of the companies were unwilling to do, if he thought that it was of service to do so. All of them had rehired him later on once they had realised the value of what he had said. All of them except one – a major department of the US government. They changed their minds and asked him back a couple of years after he told me that story. I suppose government bureaucracies often react more slowly than multinationals.

Though not a Buddhist, he is not afraid to talk about the roles wisdom and compassion to chief executives. He can do this partly because he is not afraid of being fired. Also because at the levels of management he works, his clients are very intelligent, very experienced and recognise linear thinking often doesn’t create the results they’d like. They appreciate that to look outside their usual sources of understanding and decision making is essential to keep progressing, and the fool lives far outside their frame of references, but can also speak in their language.

So we were in the park and the fool was recovering from an experiment which had exploded. Emotionally, it had had left him a little bit like a cartoon mad scientist staggering out from the smoking remains of his laboratory, clutching a test tube and with frazzled hair sticking in all directions.

After a period of silence he said wistfully "Ed, you know if there is one thing I’d like to have understood earlier, it’s how the way you are from moment to moment, over a period of years, creates your life."

I nodded. I was trying to work out where the fool lived. He had stuff in storage i
on a number of continents, I wasn’t sure if he had an apartment somewhere, or several, or who was living in them. To some extent he finances other peoples radical life experiments too.

"But I didn’t realise back then, and now I’m living with the consequences of years of the accumulated habits of thought and their results."

I nodded again and gestured to the young Portugese tourists ‘Do you think if we told them about this they’d listen? Unlike you," I teased, "it’s not too late for them."

The fool shook his head sadly.

"But what if we told them that if they paid attention to their moment to moment state of being they’d get laid more. Perhaps that would get their interest?" I don’t always raise the tone of the conversation, but to the fool, sex, death, business and spirituality are all so intimately linked that I can leap from any subject to any other and I know he’ll follow the thread.

He perked up for a moment "Well that has a better chance of getting their attention. I know a spiritual teacher who talks about sex for just that reason." After that he told me how he had an escapist habit of reading ancient Greek philosophers and proceeded to discuss the cosmological mode of a particularly obscure one with me.

I understand what he means about the moment to moment way of being. On the one hand it’s obvious. Spend four hours an evening watching TV and you probably won’t have much time left over for developing skills, doing sports, building your business or keeping up with your friends.

But on a shorter timescale our states and habits of thought also affect us. How do you track something as ephemeral, and as seductively involving, as a thought?

Well there’s a very old answer to that question, meditation. Taking some time daily to bring the attention back to a simple part of physical awareness like the breath can create a distance, a perspective that allows you to observe the act of thinking. It has some great measurable physiological benefits as well (lower blood pressure, and a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s disease among others, click here for a more comprehensive overview).

Of course meditation is not strictly speaking part of NLP, but the two are related in some ways. NLP has been defined as ‘the study of the structure of subjective experience’ and meditation is all about the observation (and possibly transcendence) of subjective experience. I certainly consider the two complimentary.

So while meditation is a great exercise to create distance between thought and awareness, NLP has great tools for acting on thought itself. The original language pattern of NLP, the meta-model, is all about teasing out the ways in which thoughts channel our attention. The meta-model provides an intelligent system of questioning to open the thinking, so attention can be paid to what’s more important.

It’s an interesting exercise to spend some time writing down or recording yourself talking about some set of issues in your life. The writing, or recording gives some distance, rather like meditation. Then you can look through to see the patterns of meta model violations in your language, and begin to ask questions, open up the fields of your awareness.

The fool may have wished that he had realised the importance of how his way of being from moment to moment created his life when he was younger. The aliveness and the intensity of the realisation he shared that day was the result of years of work, observation and experiment. I understood what he said, but I suspect the fool understood at another level to me. We can continually get to deeper, or higher levels of awareness and apply them to daily reality.

Perhaps in twenty years time we’ll be in park in Portugal watching a group of middle aged French tourists and after a period of silence he’ll say "Ed, you know if there’s one thing I wished I realised when I was younger…"

In the laboratories of our lives the experiment has already started for all of us. What results are you getting? Is it time to change the nature of how you are experimenting?

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

2006-11-22T06:03:00.000+01:00

Do you have your clients crying with laughter and changing? Would that be right - to be effective and have fun at the same time?

You know those moments when a client does something really annoying and you have to bite your tongue to stop yourself doing something unprofessional? Well wouldn't you like to do something much, much more satisfying than firing you patience anchor?

I notice a tendency in the helping professions for people to get quite earnest. Helpers are drawn to help because of their compassion, their capacity for empathy - those qualities are vital for good listeners.

At the same time they cary with them the capacity for a kind of earnestness and heaviness and, in extreme cases, a martyrdness.

At the end of the 1980's I was once asked to leave a seal sanctuary in Scotland where I was working as a volunteer. I think the main reason reason was because I refused be sucked into the general atmosphere of worthy suffering. During the short time I was there I remained well fed, rosy cheeked and cheerful. I hadn't discovered NLP yet so I didn't realise the importance of pacing. Of course the long hair, beard and tendency to wave a wooden Taiji alongside the road in a conservative area, may also have had something to do with their decision to let me go. That is another story and its not like I caused any car accidents or anything!

Recently I met a man who teaches a very different way of listening and working with people than the earnest and sincere and genuine and empathetic and concerned and respectful and.... way. His name is Frank Farrelly and in the early 1970's he wrote a book called Provocative Therapy. Richard Bandler spent a few days with him after the conception of NLP. Bandler still uses many of Frank's mannerisms, ways of delivery and stories. Frank is not news to NLP, but he has been and still is a rich resource of skill for us. He deserves plenty of acknowledgement for that.

Frank works by teasing his clients, relentlessly. From the moment he meets them - often before they open their mouths', until he leaves them. He is extremely skilled, highly effective, ridiculously funny and not very earnest at all.

Frank was a student of Carl Rogers, founder of Client Centred Therapy, who has had a great influence on therapy. However rude and offensive Frank is to the people he interviews - you also have a sense that everything he does is also connected to deep sense of compassion for the client, not to mention the client's family, friends and workmates. He has a wonderful balance of strength, humour and caring.

I promised something practical, not just the ramblings of a new Farrelly fan. Frank's work has a lot of parrallels to NLP and Milton Erickson's work. One of them is that it's useful to be flexible - more flexible than the client. If you as a coach are stuck behaving in an earnest and respectful way - while your client is not - then your client has the upper hand in flexibilty and may well begin to control the interaction. So being able to outrageously tease someone is a pretty useful way widen flexibility. Its also fun!

If I was to condense a Provocative Therapy session to a 7 step technique, easy to pick up for NLPers, then I would do it this way:

1. Get in state - up beat, up time, intuitive. You're not there to help the client, the client is perfectly capable of helping themselves. You're just there to tease them until they do.

2. Get into strong non-verbal rapport with the client.

3. Exaggerate the clients issues. Mimic / caricature their voice tone, posture and delivery. Take their map of the world and distort it in ridiculous ways. Give them plenty of reasons not to change. Play with the positive intentions of unwanted behaviours and give them ridiculous solutions to the problems. Be bizarre, ambiguous, confusing.

4. Notice where the client get's uncomfortable - and go there.

5. Notice what irritates you about the client - and dig into that too.

6. Maintain the rapport.

7. Debrief - and stay ready to tease.

This doesn't do anything like justice to Frank's skill and richness, but it does give a foot in the door for people who want to have fun and create change through teasing.

Most of us do something like this with friends, and siblings already. Add in attention to rapport, the idea of positive intention, an awareness of meta model patterns, the use of Milton Model confusion, and you have some amped up teasing that can really change lives for the better.

So are you ready to have some fun with your clients?

NLP manipulation, psychic attack and the 42nd Rolls Royce

2006-11-17T22:22:00.000+01:00

As a first post I’ll deal with what I consider the most common accusation I get as an NLP trainer – that NLP is manipulative and lacks values. There are other things some people dislike about NLP and I’ll deal with them another time.

If you’ve already gone beyond the NLP = manipulation then I promise, the next post will be more positive and practical.

If you think that NLP has no intrinsic moral values you’d be right. NLP is a tool, a technology - it has all the intrinsic morality of a machete or, more precisely, a scalpel…

You can do all kinds of lovely things with a scalpel. You can use a scalpel to cut delicately into sensitive tissue with the result of health. You can use it as a tool for cosmetic surgery – thus creating the appearance of health – a little superficial, sometimes pleasing, but taken to an extreme, quite grotesque.

In fact there are some people who apply ‘rapport and influence skills’ to create all the genuine connection of a silicone dancer during a lap dance. With all that jutting and gyrating it might be fun, it might be exciting and the dancer may succeed in creating a warm feeling. But you know why that dancer is dancing that way and it isn’t because they see the light inside of your wonderful being. It’s because they imagine your wallet being lighter.

I have met people who use NLP on rather than with business partners, customers and so on. They sometimes get away with it for a while, but sooner or later, you catch on and then the technique becomes transparent. Most of us have a sense of whether someone is genuine or not, just like being able to spot sales people on the phone within the first two words of their pitch. We can mistake or ignore the warnings for a while, out of curiousity or politeness, but those relationships rarely get very far.

Given that most of us can spot manipulators some way off, I wonder why people feel so strongly about the idea of NLP as manipulation. I’ve come up with two reasons.

The first is that they are scared that other people will using cunning NLP tools to manipulate them. Derren Brown certainly does some spectacular manipulation for his TV shows. What you don’t see of course are the times it doesn’t work or his use of stage magic which isn't a part of NLP training ( Derren in action). For me though this is an argument for learning NLP, so that you know how to defend against psychic attack by NLP. I put the 'psychic attack' part in italics because it seems so cheesy to me.

The other reason is that people worry that if they had this amazing mind power that they imagine NLP confers, that they would be tempted, ohhh so tempted, to use it. They picture strings of crying ex-virgins and weeping families barefoot in windswept streets after having been ruined by an unscrupulous mind trick. Perhaps they fantasise about having their own cult filled with adoring brainwashed adepts slaving to buy the 42nd Rolls Royce. Then there are the curses, NLP can get rid of phobias quickly and easily, so it can probably install them too. It is used to help heal people from a wide range of diseases so it could be used toxically too. It is that scalpel used as a deadly weapon. Those enemies won’t know what hit them (laugh evil laugh).

Of course if you’re not tempted by these things, then your moral fibre is probably sufficient for you to use the scalpel of NLP in a wholesome, helpful way (smile smugly).

Which brings me to the values vacuum of NLP. As I said, NLP does not have morals. There are no ten commandments of NLP – it is not a religion. NLP does have presuppositions, ideas based on observations that change the way you perceive and act in the world.

One observation of NLP is that in all cultures people have values and that given the choice they act in a way that satisfies those values. NLP does not need to prescribe values because people come with their own. As people develop, their values become increasingly clear, increasingly important to them as a guide and a choice for behaviour. Ignoring those values comes at the price of loss of happiness.

Sure I could use NLP to get people to do things against their better judgement and wellbeing, but it would leave such a bad taste in my mouth that the idea dies as soon as it appears and well before action.

With increasing development the perception through time and across the spaces of the world becomes more and more profound. We live in a culture that has developed to the point where people are willing to protest in the street for the sake of others that they do not know and many of whom would wipe us out if it was in their power.

That compassion is a triumph. In less developed societies the easy option of genocide is still being taken. That compassion isn’t the result of religious education as our society is becoming increasingly secular. It comes from rational thought that allows us to recognise that people are basically the same, whatever the race, they feel the same hope, despair, joy and pain that you and I do. It comes from the ability to imagine different perspectives beyond family, tribe, race or religion. Not that this triumphant compassion takes place in a perfect society.

You can probably think of some parts of your nation’s behaviour that you are unhappy about or even ashamed of - its unpatriotic not to. When you think of them you feel pain for those things that offend your values and by implication, however distant, you are a part of. As a result of your awareness there is the possibility of positive change.

It’s you who has the values, and that’s why NLP doesn’t. NLP doesn’t presume to dictate your values to you. NLP is a tool to use yourself more effectively, to uncover your values, to give you more choices to act in a way so that those values get honoured in the world.

So you could use NLP in a shallow, manipulative value free way. You could see it in a way that reaped some short term result and lead towards distrust, disillusionment and despair, but given all the healtheir ways you can use it, why would you want to?

Damn I’ve strayed some way from that lap dancer in paragraph 5. As I said something practical for next time.