There is every likelihood that you may be acquainted with Trance Formation Neuro Linguistic Programming and The Structure Of Hypnosis. You can learn so much knowledge from this publication and it is based around Bandler/Grinder who speak and teach on the ever so popular subject of hypnosis, therapy, NLP and Milton Erikson. This category of hypnosis is just so amazing in respect of the fact that you can hypnotize using what is known as embedded commands. I mean let’s stop and think about this for a moment, the majority of all communication, beliefs and thoughts are hypnosis. Everything is actually hypnosis. You begin thinking that you’re clumsy and at some point you will find that you really are clumsy! The key here is that we must choose to hypnotize and input beliefs that are helpful to us, not anything that might hold us back!

Defining Neuro Linguistic Programming.

Let us be clear about the definition of Neuro Linguistic Programming. According to Bandler, Trance Formation Neuro Linguistic Programming and The Structure Of Hypnosis is an attitude and methodology which leaves behind a trial of techniques. NLP author Robert Dilts defined it as study of structure of subjective experience.

Looking At The Basic Idea

The fundamental concept is that human senses are somewhat limited. It is not possible to perceive all parts of the world through these senses. Neuro Linguistic Programming says that the human body and mind complex which is called linguistic interact to form perception of the world and programming. In straight forward terms we can say this that people act and feel on the basis of their perception rather than the actual world around them. This is actually quite interesting when we look at it in this light because plainly what this means is that people will create destructive patterns of thought. In a bid to enhance the experience of clients , practitioners update, change or upgrade the thought patterns to achieve effective and desired behavior patterns. Of course we can add further to this school of thought but out sole intent of this article is to familiarize you with the fundamental concept of Neuro Linguistic Programming.

Methods That We Employ

1-Modeling

It is a method of adopting behavior, language and beliefs of the others to build a model of what they do. If we get the same behavioral outcome from the person that we have modeled, the modeling has been successful. Modeling is not a therapy; it is applied to a wide range of learning. Understanding the patterns of one’s own behaviors in order to model is also an aspect of modeling.

2-Meta Model

It is composed of specifying questions and languages. There is a verbal pattern and its purpose is to facilitate the estimation of restrictive beliefs and thinking. By responding to the language patterns, the practitioner may aid the client to recover the information.

3-Milton Model

In order to contact the hidden things in the personality, there is a way of communication based on hypnotic changes as well as a way of using language called Milton Mode

Techniques

1-Anchoring

Neuro Linguistic Programming supporters say that the people make association between sensational and emotional conditions. If an individual is exposed to a certain stimulus in an emotional state, there will develop a connection between state and the stimulus. If this same stimulus for example occurs again, the emotional state will therefore be stimulated. So anchors can be created and stimulated to find a key to the target states.

2-Swish

This pattern is designated to disturb the pattern of thought from one that leads an unwanted behavior to one that leads to a more desired behavior.

3-Reframing

The function of perceiving is to metamorphosing the way of perceiving events hence differentiating the meaning. As the meaning differs, the optimal response and behavioral pattern will also differ due to the change of meaning. Reframing is the backbone of the most creative ways of thinking

NLP is used in conjunction within some industry association and has been utilized as an approach for some mental health officials. Neuro Linguistic Programming methods are built on modeling the medical practitioners who communicate with the patients successfully.

I trust this information has provided you with a greater insight regarding NLP and hope the content here has been both beneficial and informative.

By: Miles Jacobs

By: Richard Butler

There are four key corner stones to NLP. These cornerstones will help you understand more about NLP and why it works so effectively.

Cornerstone 1: Outcomes

This cornerstone is concerned with what you actually want. The outcome can be from a business meeting, a project you are working on or a personal goal. Many people don’t have outcomes and don’t know what they want. When this happens they “go with the flow”, suddenly end up in a place they don’t want to be in and then wonder how they got there.

Outcomes are important, as once a person knows what they want they can then put processes into place that will help them reach and achieve their goals. When looking at outcomes NLP refers to them as Well Formed Outcomes – something you will see later in this course.

At this point one thing to remember is that getting what you want will affect your whole life in some way. It is important to understand that there is a price to pay for each outcome. For example if your outcome is to be promoted in work you may need to work harder and longer hours. This can affect your personal/family life. We will examine this in more detail during the Goals and Well Formed Outcomes module.

Cornerstone 2: Sensory Acuity

How much do you notice about a situation? Some people will remember every detail others will remember very little of a situation. Sensory acuity looks at improving your skills at observing situations more closely.

Exercise 1

Take 2 minutes to describe your watch in detail (without looking at your watch!):

Does it have a second hand?

If so does it move smoothly around the watch face?

What colour is the watch face?

Is there writing on it?

If so what colour?

Is your watch analogue or digital?

In the case of analogue are the numerals roman or standard?

In the case of digital is it 24 hour or are the letters am/pm displayed beside the time?

Is there a date function on your watch? Where is located on the face?

How many links are on your watch strap if metal?

If your watch is leather or made from another material what colour is it?

For many people the above exercise is quite difficult. Their watch is something they use everyday but may take little notice of it. Sensory Acuity looks at making you more aware of everything that is important going on around you. When you increase sensory acuity you tend to see things that others don’t.

Application to Business

Sensory acuity can help you in business as you will more aware of little movements in the body, or change in tone of voice, or perhaps when meeting a client you will see something on their desk or in their office that will help you understand them better. In a sales situation you will see the hesitant customer as you talk to them. You will see the subtle changes in skin colour that may indicate that the person is open to what you are saying or not!

The more observant you can be the more you will be able to identify use situations to help you get closer to your outcomes.

Cornerstone 3: Flexibility of Behaviour

There’s a saying “if you do the same things the same way you will get the same results” seems obvious but many of us follow this procedure time and time again and then wonder why the results achieved are always the same.

In order to reach your outcome you must be flexible in your behaviour. If a particular process you are using is not working reflect on what is going wrong and then change that behaviour, if this does not work change your behaviour again. The downfall of many people is that they do the same thing time and time again and never get different results.

Application to Business

Tom works in sales. He is very successful in the sales pitch but finds that he can’t go for the yes and gain closure. He wonders why this happens and does not realize his problem with the process he is running. After a while he decides to get help and is shown where he can improve. By changing one small part of the process he can now close sales in an effective manner.

In the fictional example above Tom was doing the same thing and getting the same results. When he decided to change part of the process he reaped the rewards. It is important to remember that you should continue to use what works for you but always be prepared to change what does not work. Remember that every client, business meeting will be different, therefore there is not a one fits all solution.

Cornerstone 4: Rapport

Have you been out and met someone and just clicked with them? You don’t know why but you just get on so well. There may be someone in your workplace who you can’t get on with, or in fact someone may not get on with you.

Unless you plan on not dealing with anyone except machines you will need to develop the skill of rapport. In the first part of the example above you just clicked with the person, in NLP terms you were in rapport with the person. You were both comfortable in each others company. If you look at two people who are getting on really well you will often see that they walk at the same pace, or pick up their drink at the same time or sit the same way. When two people are not in rapport it is easy to tell by their body language.

NLP sees rapport as an essential part of human communication and believes that there are subtle ways of ensuring you build rapport quickly and easily. When you develop your rapport skills you will see people warming to you instantly. In a later module you will see how to develop rapport with another person.

Application to Business

When you learn to build rapport quickly you will see that it will be easier to communicate with people and close that sale or finish that project. Good sales people are masters of building rapport – although they made do it unconsciously. Once you are in rapport the other person will be more willing and open to your suggestions.

It is important to study the above 4 cornerstones and to internalize them. These four cornerstones are the key to your success with NLP and your life.

NLP presuppositions

A presupposition is something that is taken as a fact without proof. Presuppositions are constantly used in the media and advertising. Take the following sentence:

Do you want a cup of tea now or after dinner?

What is presupposed is that the other person wants a cup of tea. The person many not have been thinking about having a cup of tea however you have suggested it to them, that it is a fact that they are having a cup the only choice they have is whether to have it now or later!

Application to Business

People in general are open to suggestion. The person who knows this and suggests things can often get to their outcome more successfully. A sales manager may say to his team: “I don’t mind which method you use to reach your monthly sales target.” The presupposition is that the person will reach their sales target – that is the given. This type of language can be more motivating and encouraging. The sales person now is thinking ok I am going to reach the target it just is up to me to select the method.

Advertisers use presuppositions a lot. When a person grasps the concept of using presuppositions they can be come very persuasive as the open people up to suggestions

NLP has a number of presuppositions. Again they are given as fact, however it is not claimed that they are true. When you begin to study them and use them you will see that they are in fact very useful and true.

Below are listed some of the main presuppositions

The map is not the territory

This is the most famous presupposition of NLP. Any books that you will read on NLP discuss this very important metaphor.

Think of a map. The map is simply a representation of the area it is depicting. It is not what the real area actually looks like. It is close but not the same.

Think of a menu in a restaurant – is that the actual food or simply a representation of the food? It is true to say it is only a representation.

This is relevant to our lives as we have a map of reality – the way we think reality is, however since everyone else has their own map they may find that their reality is slightly different from yours. Conflict occurs when one person uses their interpretation of the territory and says it is the correct view and the only view.

If a business person, a teacher and a doctor visit a medical lecture each will see something different. The business person may see how inefficiently run their training session is. The teacher may not see any inefficiencies but may see that the methods used in the lecture to convey information is wrong. The doctor may be appalled by the content.

Which view of the above is correct? Each one is correct for each individual.

It is very important to be open to see things from another perspective. When you can see that your way may not always be the correct way for everyone you begin to be a better manager/sales person/leader.

Application to Business

As a business person you must be open to all views of the business world. When you can’t see what someone else sees in a situation this can easily be because you both have a different map. This does not mean the other person it wrong, simply they see things differently to you.

The more flexible you are in your views, the more you will see why people are coming up with objections. Remember one of the cornerstones of NLP is flexibility of behaviour.

You can not not communicate!

One aspect of NLP is communication. One way people will know what you are saying and how they judge you will be on the words you use. Some of the most influential people in the word are where they are due to their ability to communicate clearly and effectively.

However it is important to remember that we can also communicate to others through body language. Those subtle changes in posture, that sideways look, a change in skin tone, getting hot under the collar. Many people not even see these things but now that you are being to develop sensory acuity you will begin to notice and pick up these body language cues.

It is important to understand that even if you say nothing others may pick this up as a sign or signal. Always ensure when you communicate you communicate as efficiently an clearly as possible.

Application to Business

By looking out for and becoming aware of changes in body language you will be able to “read” situations better. When you are at a meeting and ask if anyone has any ideas or objections look out for small movements which may indicate that someone does want to say something but may be afraid to speak up.

Once you refine your skill in detecting body language you will be able to build up rapport faster as people will feel that you “know them” and be amazed at how you seem to know when they wish to comment or discuss a comment.

The meaning of your communication is the response you receive

Language is a powerful tool and you need to ensure that you use it carefully. When you communicate you need to ensure that you are clear in what you are saying not only verbally but also physically. You may make a comment to a co-worker and they may take it in a different manner than it was meant. For example a co-worker does a great job resolving a problem for you. You say to them that was well done, however the manner you say it may be in an informal manner. The other person may interpret what you have said as being flippant and perhaps not sincere. Since each person has their own map they also interpret what is said differently. This can result in different people reading into situations correctly. Therefore you must always be clear on what you mean and how you say it.

It is also wise not to read into what is said to you. Take it at face value. What can happen is someone says something to you and you place your map onto it and begin to read into it and take a wrong meaning from it. This often happens in relationships. One comment is misinterpreted and this causes a argument, things are said that are not meant or are taken the wrong way

Application to Business

Remember that everyone has a different map of the world that we have. This is also true when it comes to communication. Picture the following situation. Your boss says “Tom can you come into my office I need to discuss something with you” Your boss simply wants to discuss an idea with you, however, you may read into the situation and think that you are in trouble as perhaps the report you submitted was not up to the usual standard. You then begin to formulate what you are going to say to your boss to defend yourself. What does she know about what you do? Heck you’ve been longer here than she has. By the time you go into the meeting you are on the defensive when in fact there is no need to be! Have you been in one of those situations.

People make the best choice available

NLP believes that people make the best choices available to them in any particular situation. Although the choice they may not have been the best choice in your opinion. The person who made the choice believes it was the right one.

NLP seeks to help people find more choices and therefore become more flexible in their behaviour, In later modules you will learn about how you operate and “work” as a person. Once you know how you operate you will become more flexible and have more choices at your disposable.

Application to Business

People within your team may not make the best choices, but at the time they made it they believed it was correct. For example a person may make a costly mistake, however they believed it was better to take a risk than to discuss the matter with a superior. The person believed that the only choice they had was to take the risk. Remember the person in question was also working from their “map” and personal history. Perhaps they don’t work well under pressure and this is their typical response. Given NLP training they could open up and see that they can change how they react or act under pressure.

People are not broken

Unlike therapy NLP believes that everyone works perfectly. Everyone is perfect they way they are however sometimes their behaviour can be improved or the way do things can be refined.

Application to Business

If someone within your team is not working the way they should perhaps it is the system that is broken for that person. The majority of the team may be able to work in a set way as directed by the company. The “broken” person may like to do things slightly differently. However if they can get the intended result then it may be better to let the individual work the way that works for them.

This can often be an issue in companies who are more concerned with the process of how things are done rather than seeing that the product and allowing each team member to achieve their target the best way that suits them.

Practice makes perfect

The more you practice a technique the better a person becomes at it. The more times you make decisions the better you become at decision making. The more times you try to look for more choices and more choices you will find.

Application to Business

The entrepreneur complains they are not good at cold calling. Therefore they try not to cold call. When they do cold call they don’t do it very well, therefore they stop cold calling, therefore they don’t get new customers.

A better choice is to keep cold calling but be aware and reflect on what is working and what is not. Then make another call and another and another. You will then become better at cold calling. If you don’t practice you will never improve

There is always choice

People often say they had not choice but to act they way they did. If we become more aware of what we are doing and what consequences it may have we will begin to realize that there is always choice. The choice is either to do something or not to do it. That in itself is a choice. The more choices you have the more freedom you gain.

Application to Business

Always look for another choice in every situation. Don’t accept only once choice as this reduces your freedom in a situation. For example in a business deal if you are not happy with the negotiations don’t close the deal because there is no other choice – look for another choice or walk away. You don’t want to make a choice that you will later regret.

Begin to look for more choices now.

There is no such thing as failure only feedback

Too many people see that when something goes wrong they have failed. They then decide I won’t do that again so I don’t fail. This is one way of looking at situations. The other way to look at it is to eliminate the word failure and replace it with the word feedback. Look at every situation and see what you can learn from it and then decide not to make the same mistake again. Once you see failure as feedback you will be stronger and make better decisions. Never give up, always learn from what might not have worked.

Application to Business

Thomas Edison is often quoted with regard to this presupposition. He had hundreds of failures before he invented the light bulb. Every time another light bulb did not work, he learnt from his mistake and got valuable feedback. From this he refined the invention. Luckily for us he did not give up.

He knew he would eventually run out of failures!

If one person can do something you can learn how to do it too

NLP believes that people use processes that get them to where they want to be. By following the processes somebody else has used you can also learn to do what they do. Very often we perceive we can not do something and we do not try to do it.

How many stories have you heard of people overcoming all odds to achieve something they wanted. In a later module you will learn about modelling. This is looking at how a person thinks and acts and then emulating them. This was done very successfully by the founders of NLP Richard Bandler and John Grinder more of which you will learn.

Application to Business

If a sales person wants to learn how to be like the top sales person in the company they would be well advised to study how they structure their sales pitch, how they talk to the customer how they dress and how they act.

If you want to be the best in an industry you need to model the person who is at the top.

Richard Butler is a trained Practioner of NLP and Life and Business Coach. He is previewing his new NLP e-course at http://www.richardbutlerthesuccesscoach.com/nlp.htm. He is available for web coaching.

I get asked all the time, “Lorrie, how can I make my copy more persuasive?” Well frankly it helps if you can speak your prospect’s language. But writing persuasively is more involved than just saying the right words. You need to say them in the right order…and in a way that lowers resistance to new information and is acceptable to his or her mind. One discipline that translates nicely to writing persuasive copy is NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming.

NLP isn’t a replacement for good copywriting. It’s a turbo boost. Meeting a person on his or her own level by using familiar words puts YOU in control of the communication almost immediately.

Have you ever been moved to buy a pair of sexy shoes instead of the sensible, comfy shoes you really needed? But when you got home you didn’t know how you got over the resistance of spending the money? See, people understand the RESULT of making a purchasing decision, but are often unaware of the internal recipe that gets them there. We all know we tend to buy based on emotion over logic. In fact, most buying decisions are largely emotional.

WHO’S RIGHT ANYWAY?

We can all agree there are two sides to the brain, correct? The left (logical) and the right (emotional). Interesting fact: information is first perceived by the emotional right brain. Then within a fraction of a second, it shoots over to the logical left. Then finally, once again, is reflected to the emotional right. In other words, every message we get is influenced by the emotional right brain. Pretty fascinating, huh?

Here is the basic principle of NLP as I understand it. There is no mental resistance to an idea you perceive as your own. And whenever any of us engages our imagination, we think we came up with the idea ourselves. So it must be great!!! It aligns with our own beliefs so it’s unconsciously accepted as being the truth and you act as if it’s true. So NLP always prefers to presuppose that changes can be made quickly and automatically. So let’s cover some NLP principles and how to use it in the art of persuasive writing.

PACING

Pacing is putting yourself in the prospect’s shoes through languaging. Look at David Ogilvy (one of the greatest advertising masters who ever lived) as an example. His first headline for Rolls Royce didn’t come from HIS mind, but that of an engineer at the factory. Ogilvy was told, “You know David, the loudest noise from this Rolls Royce comes from the clock on the dashboard at 60 miles an hour.” And David thought this man, this engineer must know something because he’s constantly in the flow about changes and revisions and everything happening at the Rolls Royce factory. So David did his research and made a connection. I’m not suggesting the engineer was deliberately using NLP on David, but it’s an illustration of how we as humans connect the dots and are able to write persuasively as a result.

Though similar to empathy, pacing is a bit more complex. In pacing, you actually encourage the prospect to use visualization or other accessing cues in a very subtle and vague way. These are the same communication skills of matching, mirroring and rapport that allow you to pace and lead someone to the sale.

NLP Master Ross Jeffries says, “People will not accept that you are an authority on where they should go unless they accept you’re an authority on where they are at.”

In other words, if you’re reading a letter or listening to a podcast, it makes sense for me as a writer to mirror that experience for you. Then you subtly relax:

• “As you’re sitting there reading this letter…”
• “As you are sitting in front of your computer…”
• “While you are listening to this broadcast…”

Any of those phrases have you and the prospect share an experience, which moves him or her toward the sale. Have you ever met someone and felt an instant kinship with that person? Or on the other hand, met someone who you just could never quite get on the same wave length?

What if you knew how to get on that person’s “wave-length”? You would have a totally different outcome – the outcome you wanted! That’s the importance of defining your target audience (or my own term, TAR-KET). You can communicate with that one person because you have already defined him or her.

PRESUPPOSITION OF AWARENESS

This technique also ties to speaking directly to your own target market. (If people don’t have their target market nailed down, it doesn’t matter how good their copy is. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to sell beef to a vegetarian. It’s just not going to work. So you really have to zone in on your target market.)

The way you do that is to understand your product. Figure out where they shop, where they eat, what they look like. Are they a family or are they single? Do they have dogs or not? Do they live in a rural area or the city? These keys make a huge difference when you are trying to figure out who your target market is. When I write my copy, I write to one person. I visualize everything about them so it’s very real to me when I start to write. I would suggest that you funnel down your target market to your TARKET as much as possible. That’s how you’re able to give them the illusion. You’ve given them information and the mind fills in the blanks. The more specific the better is what I’m saying.

In this technique you direct the conscious mind of the reader by assuming something is true. So you speak to him or her as if something has already happened. Here are some examples:

• “As you become aware of…”
• “As you recognize …”
• “I’m not sure just how excited you can get about this offer but…”

The proper use of language patterns in written words means you communicate by tonal shifts, tempo shifts etc, following the patterns of a question, a statement, or a command. We invite people to share our certainty about our product or service by using an intonation of a command or a statement like “Do you agree?”

PRESUPPOSITION OF TIME

This concept piggybacks onto the previous one. You build on the prospect’s experience of awareness by adding in the element of time. Examples:

• “Before you order today…”
• “After you make your decision to order…”
• “While you are filling out your order form…”

Use language patterns to move yourself and others in a direction that results in a win-win situation. The truth is that we are selling ourselves every day, all day long. Doesn’t it make a lot of sense to use communication skills like NLP to lead someone where you want them to go? And the more that happens, the more successful you will be with your copy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

International copywriting trainer, author and speaker, Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero has been a freelance writer and journalist for over 25 years. Her words have made her clients hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now she focuses her vast experience on teaching others the skill of copywriting. Lorrie is the author of an award winning copywriting course, creator of the Red Hot Copywriting Bootcamp and founder of Copy Campus, a unique membership resource site designed to support copywriters and entrepreneurs on all levels. Visit her site to learn more at http://www.red-hot-copy.com .

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lorrie_Morgan-Ferrero

Do You Believe You Can Stop Eating?

Think about your belief in your ability to break this simple habit. The habit of eating when you’re not hungry. The habit of needing to feel stuffed to be satisfied. You can break the pattern, even if you don’t believe you can. It happens when you first simply stop eating a little sooner. You may still have over eaten, but your level of stuffed can be qualified, and you know when you’ve had enough, too much, or way too much. Start by learning to leave one bite on your plate. (Even a smear counts, whatever it takes to leave a teeny bit, it’s a start).

I know, that idea may seem radical, but it’s a great way to discover how you’ve eaten everything on your plate because it’s a habit to do so. Even if you only leave one pea, leave something on your plate. Secondly, just because there is more on the serving plate, don’t think you need to take more food. Wait a few minutes. Settle in. Get comfortable with the feeling of satisfaction. Get in touch with your hunger levels.

Do You Recognize Hunger Signals

I remember learning to recognize my hunger levels and the shock (and dismay) when I’d realize I’d had enough but half my food was still on my plate. I learned to ask for a doggy bag, take it home and eat in the next day. I learned to sometimes fix myself less food. I learned half a sandwich is sometimes enough. I learned a piece of fruit can satisfy my greatest hunger, for now, while I wait for dinner to cook. I learned, and so will you, when you just start to pay attention.

You can still have it all, but maybe you’ll eat half now and half later, and that’s okay.

Small Shifts Equal Big Change

Small shifts in your beliefs about what you can accomplish may take a bit of time, but when you do make the shift it will seem sudden and it will be permanent. Ask anyone who’s lost a lot of weight and kept it off, and they’ll tell you, “I don’t know, something just suddenly clic.ked.” You can experience this sudden shift too.

Start today by noticing how much food you’re being offered when you aren’t hungry. Can you take some and save it for later? Just because the holidays are here is not an excuse to eat everything in sight. Thinking you’ll start your diet in January is a cop-out. Why put it off until then? Why not get started right now?

Get more in tune with what you do day-to-day and you can let go of the fear of either suffering through another diet or gaining more weight, or losing it and then regaining it. You don’t have to choose between stuffing or starving. You can learn to eat good food, enjoy it more, and melt into the shape you truly are meant to be.

~~ Kathryn Martyn, Master NLP Practitioner, EFT counselor, Weight Loss Coach and owner of One More Bite Weight Loss is the author of “Changing Beliefs, Your First Step to Permanent Weight Loss.”

Learn to use Kathryn’s One More Bite Approach with The Daily Bites: Mini lessons in using EFT for weight loss http://www.OneMoreBite-WeightLoss.com/getnews.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kathryn_Martyn,_M.NLP

By: Michelle Rowley
How to Be Happy -20 Tips That Really Work!
from Michelle Rowley, author of “Personal Growth Strategies”.

Tip 1 Have a positive attitude. One of the most significant, contributing factors to happiness is optimistic thinking. Although you won’t always have a choice in determining what goes on around you, you will always have a choice in determining how react to what goes on around you. This will largely determine the extent to which you are, or aren’t happy.

Tip 2 Make happiness a priority. If happiness is not at the top of your list then other things will take your focus. We become what we think about all day, so think, positive happy thoughts. It’s a choice, moment by moment.

Tip 3 Live your values. Be true to yourself. By living your life according to your values, you will develop an attitude of true acceptance of yourself. You will realize that you are fine the way you are. You may choose to make some changes in your life simply because you realize that you have greater potential than you have utilized so far.

Tip 4 Love Yourself. High self-esteem is crucial for a happy life. Healthy self-esteem means relying on what’s on the inside, rather than what’s happening in the outside world to make you happy. Self-esteem is the core of your power and all else stems from this.

Tip 5 Set goals for success. Give your mind a positive goal to focus on. Just like in any other life area, the successful pursuit of happiness requires planning. Planning requires effective goal setting. And don’t forget to make sure your goals are SMART (specific,measurable, achievable, relevant and timed).

Tip 6 Do things that make you happy. Although this sounds obvious, many people simply forget to do things from which they gain pleasure. And do them as often as possible.

Tip 7 Live in the present moment. Remember that life is finite. The author, Henry Miller once said “Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. ”The only moment in which we can truly be happy is the present moment. The only moment over which we have control is the present moment. So be happy now! Because if not now, then when?

Tip 8 Have a laugh Laughing is one of the quickest ways to send our happiness levels soaring. A Stanford University study showed that one minute of laughter equaled 10 minutes on a rowing machine in terms of warding off stress.

Tip 9 Engage in random acts of kindness. Did you know that by simply being kind to another person or witnessing a kind act boosts your serotonin levels in you and the other person? It also increases the levels in another person witnessing the act. Happy people are more generous and altruistic.

Tip 10 Eat your way to happiness. Fuel up on fish: Fish are high in omega-3s which boost your happiness. Eat complex carbohydrates – this means wholegrain bread, starchy vegetables, beans and pulses, and wholegrain cereals. MIT scientists say these boost the brain’s levels of serotonin, which plays a big role in how happy we feel. Take Tryptophan. Found in turkey, avocados and bananas, tryptophan promotes the production of serotonin. A study published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity found a lack of tryptophan can lower your mood levels. Don’t forget to take a good amino acid supplement- more and more information is coming out that we need to be supplementing our diets with the building blocks of protein- amino-acids.

Tip 11 Go, go and keep going all the way. We all face obstacles and problems at times. Happy people expect this and adapt to them. All of the components outlined above are skills that can be learned. Just like any other skills, you’ll get better at utilizing these strategies with practice and perseverance. Stick at it and happiness will be yours.

Tip 12 Focus on your strengths, not weaknesses. Work out what you’re good at and find ways to do it as much as possible. Happiness is not as much about fixing your faults and overcoming your weaknesses as it is about finding ways to focus your life on and around your talents and qualities.

Tip 13 Have fun and enjoy humor Take delight in life and create fun experiencesfor yourself. Don’t make life be too heavy!

Tip 14 Control what you can control. Cultivate the feeling that you are in control of your own destiny. Happiness can be enhanced by maximizing the control you have over your life. So learn and practice skills such as problem solving, time management and meditation and communication. At the same time, however, no one has complete control and so it is also important to be realistic and to accept that over which you have no control. Accept what youcan’t control. And learn to change problems into opportunities for growth and development.

Tip 15 Invest time and energy in to your key relationships. Happy people spend more time working on, and in, their relationships. Happy people tend to be more supportive of other people in their life.

Tip 16 When a problems arises see what you can learn from itEverything you do and every person you meet, in every situation, presents an opportunity to learn, change and grow. Every situation you find yourself in can be a great opportunity to expand yourself. There is always something to learn from a problem. This is the same for problems in a relationship. Look at problems as challenges to learn and grow from both for yourselves and your relationship.

Tip 17 Replace negative self talk with positive self talkThe Dalai Lama has been quoted saying that “The central method for achieving a happier life is to train your mind in a daily practice that weakens negative attitudes and strengthens positive ones.” Learn first to identify your negativethoughts and then begin to challenge those that are negative and unhelpful.

Tip 18 Ensure you get adequate sleep, rest, exercise and waterListen to your body and what it is telling you. You need to take care of yourself and this also involves getting plenty of rest, drinking at least 8 glasses of water each day and relaxation and/or meditation strategies. Exercise regularly. Exercising produces endorphins or “happy” hormones.

Tip 19 Develop a sense of life purpose. Developing a sense of life purpose will also markedly increase your chances of experiencing true happiness. As well as working out where you want to get to, make sure you have a good reason for why you’re trying to go there.

Tip 20 Be grateful and appreciate what you have. We all have many choices in life, one of which is whether to focus on all the things we don’t have (of which theremight be many), or to focus on all the things we do have. There’s no doubt, that gratitude and appreciation will significantly increase your chances of experiencing happiness

Many of the tips listed here are described in more detail in the ebook,Personal Growth Strategies http://www.personal-growth-strategies.com/

About the Author

Michelle Rowley is a Master Practitioner of NLP, Timeline Therapy™ and Hypnotherapy and is certified by their respective American Boards. She is the author of Personal Growth Strategies. http://www.personal-growth-strategies.com

Article Source: http://www.articleonlinedirectory.com

By: Kris Hallbom

Before he passed away, someone asked an ailing Gregory Bateson, “Who will carry on with your work, once you’re gone.”

Gregory, being the great philosopher, anthropologist and systems thinker that he was replied, “A man by the name of Humberto Maturana out of Santiago, Chile. He has been doing some very interesting research that compliments my work.” (Ruiz, 1997)

Bateson and Maturana, both contemporary philosophers and systemic thinkers, spent a good part of their academic careers searching for the “Patterns of Life”. Both men have strong backgrounds in cybernetics and were colleagues of the great cybernetician Heinz Von Foerester, who originated the legendary Macy conferences in the 1950′s in which cybernetics developer Norbert Wiener played a great part in. Bateson and Maturana found each other in the same circles over and over again throughout the years, which probably prompted Bateson to make such a powerful statement about Maturana in the final months of his life. One would think that it was Gregory’s hope that someone as brilliant as he, could continue on with the genius of his work.

Humberto Maturana, a neuro-biologist and professor, co-developed the Santiago Theory of Autopoiesis with his student and colleague, Fransisco Varela. Together, the two men developed a theory for living systems that is very similar to the work of Gregory Bateson. While Bateson’s work concentrated on the overall “meta pattern” that connects all living things, Maturana and Varela’s work focused on “Autopoiesis” the pattern to be found inside of all living systems.

Autopoiesis has to do with how systems create, sustain and generate life while maintaining their overall structure and organization. Autopoiesis explores the internal occurrences that happen within a system and the parts that make up the system; the relationships between those parts; the boundaries that surround and contain the parts; how information emerges from the system via cognition; and how external information triggers the structure of the overall system.

The Greek meaning of the word auto is “self” and refers to the autonomy of self organizing systems. The Greek poeire means production or creation, such as poetry and refers to the ongoing creative processes that exists within all living systems. Thus autopoiesis means “self creating”. I remember the first time I came across the word autopoiesis. I was fascinated with the promise that this concept offered for understanding not only the systemic nature of human beings, but also the possibility of becoming attractors for what we want in life through the process of “self creating”. Autopoiesis is important to the field of NLP because it offers us a deeper understanding of the structure and organization of our human experience on this earth.

According to Maturana, the “organization” of a living system represents its identity, while the “structure” represents the components that make up the system. A system may change its structure without loss of identity, as long as the organization remains the same. An example of this autpoietic principle can be seen in the art work of 16th Century Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who created portraits of faces which were composed of fruit, vegetables and seafood. The organization of the portrait is represented by the image of the face, while the structure of the face is composed of food. No matter what kind of food or element Arcimboldo made his faces out of, the organization/identity stayed the same. It was the structure that changed by simply changing the components that represented the image of the face.

A person’s life is organized around their identity, yet the structure of their life is always changing. The pure essence of who they are will always be the same, it’s the structure of their experience that changes. Moreover, the actual process of creating structural changes is as important as the changes that take place, for the process represents ongoing relationships between the components that form the structure of the system. It is the nature of these relationships that demonstrate the various patterns of organization which constitutes the structure of the system’s identity. (Maturana and Varela, 1987)

The central characteristic of an autopoietic system is that it undergoes continual structural changes while preserving its web like pattern of organization. The components of the network continually produce and transform one another, and they do so in two distinct ways. One way is through the process of “self renewal”. Every living organism continually renews itself. When you clip your nails, they grow back. If you cut yourself, the wound will heal. When you trim your hair, it grows back. In spite of this ongoing change, the person maintains their overall identity or pattern of organization.

The second type of structural changes in a living system are changes in which new structures are created, thus new connections in the autopoietic network. These type of changes occur because of environmental influences or as a result of the systems internal dynamics. A living system interacts with its environment through “Structural Coupling”. Moreover, the environment only “triggers” the structural changes, it does not specify or direct them. (Capra, 1996)

According to Maturana and Varela, structural coupling establishes a clear difference between the ways living and nonliving systems interact with their environments. Kicking a stone and kicking a dog are two very different stories, as Gregory Bateson was fond of pointing out. The point that Bateson was making is that when you kick a stone you can predict exactly how far it will go by calculating its weight, it’s mass, the pressure exerted on the stone by your foot and so on. However, when you kick a dog, it will be a totally unpredictable event. You will have no idea where the dog will go. For every dog might have a different internal response to being kicked. Some dogs might run, others will howl or bark, and others might wag their tail with excitement because they like being kicked.

Our experience of life is truly an internal experience. Maturana says that the map is the territory. Ultimately, the structure of our internal experience of reality is the only map we’ll ever know. Beyond that, it’s all perceptual illusion. External occurrences may happen outside of the self bounded system and may trigger an internal response, but given the structure and organization already in tact; the experience will ultimately be determined or distinguished by the history of the organism and how it chooses to represent reality through its perceptual filters. The structure of the internal response is what determines the experience for the living system.

References:
Ruiz, Alfredo, The Contributions of Humberto Maturana to the Sciences of Complexity and Psychology, Santiago, Chile; The Institute for Cognitive Therapy Abstract, 1997.
Capra, Fritjof, The Web of Life, New York, NY; Anchor Books, (A Division of Bantam Dell Publishing Group, Inc.) 1996.
Maturana, Humberto & Varela, Fransisco, The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding, Boston, MA, Shambhala Publication, Inc., 1987.
Bateson, Gregory, Steps to an Ecology of the Mind, New York, NY; Ballentine Books, 1972. _________________________________________________
Kristine Hallbom is the co-director of the NLP Institute of California and is a professional writer. She is a long time student of NLP and Systemic Thinking, and holds a degree in Psychology and Languages.

By: Kris Hallbom

There is a presupposition in NLP which states that you already have the resources that you need to be successful. NLP developer, author, and trainer Robert Dilts has taken this presupposition one step further on the evolutionary path of NLP, by developing a process called Generative NLP.

The concept of Generative NLP is that if you focus on your resources and how you can enrich them, instead of focusing on your problems, you’ll automatically attract the resolutions to your problems at an unconscious level because you’re operating from the resolution space to begin with. Hence, you can prevent and solve problems before they even come into your conscious awareness. Essentially, what Generative NLP does is it gives you the opportunity to unveil, release, and strengthen your latent capabilities and resources by making them more holographic and systemic.The following interview took place in 1994.

Kris: What is Generative NLP and how do you see it fitting into the future of psychotherapy, health and well being?

Robert: One of the ways that I see it is that solutions and problem solving come from having resources, and the purpose of generative NLP is to take something that is a resource and to make more of it, to expand it and to enrich it. So I think minimally, what Generative NLP does is it allows people to “build” resources instead of trying to select or rely upon resources that they had in the past or something that they have in the present. They can actually take something in the present and expand it.

Secondly, I think that there is a possibility of using Generative NLP itself as an approach. The idea of it is if you build a strong enough resource, that resource will attract the problems of the symptoms that are ready to be solved by that resource. So in that sense, by developing resources, problems become solved. But not because you have to go out and seek a problem and then solve it, but because the resource is available. It’s now able to solve the particular symptom or problem.

Kris: How did you begin to develop this process?

Robert: There are several influences. One is that I was thinking about the ways that I use NLP with myself. Because when I think about using NLP, I think in terms of mastery and modeling. I don’t just use NLP and say “OK, where are my problems and how do I solve them?

Whenever I discover a new thing, then I immediately ask, “What can I do with this? If I had it even better than this, what would happen? If I did this, what would happen?” It wasn’t a problem solving approach; it was more like an exploratory approach to see how things would work out.

Some of the other influences have to do with also being more and more involved with integrating systems and systemic ways of operating in NLP and the particular influence that was bringing it together was the influence of self organization and taking very seriously that systems self organize and self develop. If we really took to heart the belief that NLP purports, that people have the capabilities that they need and the only reason that they are not already using them is that they need to be mobilized, drawn out or activated, then certainly one of the most important things we can do is to have tools and ways of activating and developing those resources.

Kris: The concept of time seems to play an important role in Generative NLP. What is your concept of time in general, taking into account Aristotle’s and Einstein’s view of time, and how does time relate to the generative process?

RobertAristotle thought that it was interesting that people were so caught up with time. Aristotle said, “that time is made up of all the things that use to be and aren’t anymore, and the things that aren’t yet and may never be.” So time is made up of things that are not and yet we get all involved in it. I think Einstein basically perceived time as a construct. And certainly I perceive the perception of time as a tool.

In the same way that we want to use all of our representational systems, we want to have many ways of approaching time. Not to find the right map order, but to think of time as a tool that can actually lead us to punctuating our perceptions of things differently.

One of the generative NLP processes involves stepping into the future and asking, “How would this resource change?” And when the person can feel the change in their body as their future self, you then say:

“Well of course, the feeling that you’re having in your body really isn’t in the future, that’s really in the present. Take that future resource and realize that this resource should really be the present state, not the future state because it’s really in the present.” And so you’ll begin using the “conceptions” of time to change that person’s future resource experience into their present first position. Speaking of conception, there is another place you can explore, like preconception. A lot of times people limit themselves to their perception of time and to their memories of their own life and of course, time is not only limited to our own personal memories. We can create spaces for perceptions by using time. Like the idea of the preconception place which allows you to view your life not just as perceiving time as a line, but as a landscape of possibilities. Because a lifetime isn’t a line, it’s more like a landscape and a particular life is a pathway through a very broad landscape that has many choices.

Kris: If there is one thing that you would want readers to know or one thing that you would want to emphasize regarding Generative NLP, what would that be?

Robert:The thing that comes to mind is number one, that the basic form of change in NLP is that you bring a resource into some problem space. But the whole crux of change is not which technique you use, but which resource you are able to activate. The focus of change, rather than on the problem or even the goals, needs to be on the kinds of resources that we have and the tools of NLP.

To me, the real value of the tools of NLP is like a lot of my recent books such as Skills for the Future or Tools for Dreamers instead of changing beliefs, fixing health, or whatever. It’s no so much the problems that you solve; it’s the resources that you have that are available. The time that we spend in developing our resources is what is going to really make the difference in the future. In that sense, part of the message of Generative NLP is that past and future are constructs. The whole purpose of change history is to “enrich the present.” The whole purpose of planning the future is to “mobilize resources from the present” so that we can live life from first person presentáand the rest of it is always bringing resources to that ongoing experience because that is the way we move to the future ˆ it is from being as fully ourselves and bringing as many past and future resources as we can into the present.

Kris Hallbom is the co-director of the NLP Institute of California. She has been writing professionally for 15 years, working as an editor and staff writer for various newspapers, magazines and journals. She holds a degree in Psychology and Languages and is a long time student of NLP and Systems Theory.

by Kris Hallbom

The whole notion of cause and effect has made healing for people in Western society more difficult than it needs to be. It would be much easier for people to heal if everyone in the world took a systemic approach towards health and well being. The whole nature of systemic thinking is about the laws that govern systems, the relationships, between the systems, outside of systems and the boundaries that separate the systems. Many of today’s physicians operate, with good intention, under the constraints of linear thought when they are trying to help a patient get better. They would be much better off is they thought systemically.

Systemic Thinking versus Linear Thought

Instead of focusing solely on the “cause and effects” of the client’s disease or health condition, physician’s taking a systemic perspective might focus more closely on the systemic factors revolving around the client’s condition such as their living and working environments; their relationships with the people around them; and their relationship with their self physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and spiritually.

The first and most important step on the path of healing, when taking a systemic approach is to have the client or patient clearly imagine how he would like to be in his desired state of health and well being. Setting an outcome will facilitate the change process because of the brain’s ability to function as a cybernetic mechanism. This means that once the client or patient is clear on his outcome, the brain’s natural response will be to organize itself towards whatever images or beliefs he has created in his mind about getting better. The client will begin to automatically get self corrective feedback and the brain will systematically trigger the necessary immunological responses to guide him towards the goal of health and well-being.(1)

According to NLP developer Robert Dilts, systemic models are different from statistical or linear models in that they deal with the feedback of total systems, systems in which events at any position in the system may be expected to have effect at all positions on the system at later times. A particular cause or effect cannot be isolated from its context. Therefore, each part must be considered and measured in terms of the whole. Human behavior, health conditions and experiences in general are undoubtedly the result of such a system. Therefore, any satisfactory model of human experience, behavioral, physiological or epistemological, must be systemic.(2)

Greek philosophers first turned their attention to linear thought in the 5th Century B.C. Since then, it has been almost universally accepted that everything that has a beginning must be caused by something else. The Scottish philosopher David Hume disagreed with the early Greeks. Hume held the idea that the causal relationship between two events occurring in sequence is nothing more than a habit of mind. In 1739, he wrote A Treatise of Human Nature which is an analytical rejection of the commonly established ideas of causation. Hume rejected the idea that everything that has a beginning must be caused by something else.

“All we can justly say of causality is that what we take to be a cause always precedes what we take to be its effect and that there is always contiguity between the two. Beyond this nothing an be claimed,” said Hume.(3)

Established ideas of causality among evolutionary biologists support Hume’s analytical rejection. For example, how can we describe the evolution of the reptilian egg in terms of cause and effect? According to evolutionary theory, the reptilian egg is the result of the random mutations. Numerous events must have occurred for the development of the reptilian egg to succeed. Between the mutations that produced the eggshell and those that produced the embryos heart, there could be no causal connection; all of these events occurred randomly. And if there were no such connections, then how was the whole process orchestrated? From this point of view, the reptilian egg appears as the result of a culmination of improbably and random coincidences. Hence, the most logical answer to the primordial egg dilemma is to view it through the lenses of systemic thinking.

The point of all of this is to note the difference between systemic thinking versus linear though; which is geared more towards the concept of cause and effect. Keep in mind that we are a system of interactions and we are also a system within a system within a system. The interactions that happen within a human being, between human beings and their environment are systemic and respond to certain systemic principles. Our bodies, our interpersonal relationships and our societies form a kind of ecology of systems and subsystems, all of which are mutually influencing each other.(4)

The interactionary process between all of these systems plays a key role in our personal health and well being. In the following sections, the interactionary process between mind and body will be further explored.

How Do Mind Maps Effect the Body?

One of the basic presuppositions of NLP is that the map is not the territory. Everyone on this planet has their own personal filters of reality and thus, their own map of reality. The filters that we wear through life influence our personal map of reality. Everyday we trek through similar territories, but because we wear different filters and use different maps, those territories appear different.

As human beings, we can never know reality because we have to experience reality through our five senses, and our senses are limited. Therefore, we don’t tend to respond to reality itself, but rather to our own maps of reality. We all have our own worldview and that view is based upon the sort of neurolinguistic maps that we have formed. It’s these neurolinguistic maps that will determine how we interpret and how we react to the world around us and give meaning to our behaviors and our experiences, more so than reality itself. Thus, its’ generally not external reality that limits us or constrains us or empower us, but it’s rather our maps of that reality.(5)

One of the primary constituents of our personal maps of reality is that of imprints. An imprint is basically a memory that is formed at an early age, and can serve as a root for both the limiting and empowering beliefs that we may form as children. Some of the limiting beliefs that we may develop at these early ages are not always healthy, and are created as a result of a traumatic or confusing experience that we forgot. How we unconsciously and consciously view the world in terms of health is generally based on those beliefs.

Having an imprint laced with unhealthy beliefs can create serious problems for the immune system. Keep in mind that the brain is systemic, meaning that if you’re creating unhealthy beliefs in your life based on unconscious imprints, the brain will attempt to self correct those images or beliefs in the form of an immunological response. Even if the limiting beliefs are repressed or forgotten, the brain is still capable of serving as a catalyst for undesirable health conditions because of its systemic capabilities.

Many unhealthy immunological responses are the result of limiting beliefs that were created through confusion or traumatic experiences. These types of limiting beliefs contain two aspects and those aspects exist within the imprint or memory. One aspect is the way you perceived the trauma/confusion as a child, the memory or feelings of the younger you still exist inside the imprint.

The other aspect that we incorporate when we experience a trauma as a child is the point of view of the other people who were there at the time of the event. Some of those people might include family members, teachers or friends. It is during the formation of these early imprints that the limiting beliefs are formed. These limiting beliefs are capable of systemically manifesting in the form of a disease or ailment in later years.(6)

How Do Beliefs Effect the Territory?

The notion of beliefs and health is a concept that goes hand in hand with maps and territory. If the mind is the map and the body is the territory, then the unconscious and conscious beliefs that we have about our personal health are going to effect us systemically; as well as throughout the neurological levels of change (i.e. environment, behavior, capabilities, beliefs and values, identity and even spiritually to a certain extent).(7)

Unresourceful physical manifestations and psychosomatic problems, which are generally based on beliefs, are made apparent through the interactions of the brain’s cerebral cortex, limbic system and hypothalamus in correlation with the autonomic, endocrine, immune and neuropeptide systems. And in the same breath, the ability to heal ourselves from such conditions by creating healthy beliefs in exchange for the old ones ? is also made apparent through the same cerebral interactions.(8)

At the center of all of this amazing activity is the hypothalamus which receives signals from all parts of the nervous system so that it functions as a central information exchange concerned with the well-being of the entire body.

The hypothalamus lies in the very middle of the limbic lobe. Although is a relatively small structure (comparable to the size of a pea and weighing no more than a few grams) it is an important structure. It controls the autonomic nervous system which is made up of the parasympathetic and sympathetic systems, creating physical excitatory and inhibitory responses within the body; and it controls the endocrine system and organizes behaviors that are related to the body’s basic regulatory and survival systems (hunger, thirst, fighting, fleeing and sex). The hypothalamus thus, integrates the sensory-perceptual, emotional, and cognitive functions of mind with the biology of the body.(9)

The most recently recognized regulatory function of the hypothalamus is its influence on the immune system. According to Earnest Rossi, author of The Psychobiology of MindBody Healing, there are actual psychophysiological mechanisms whereby the hypothalamus can alter both cellular and hormonal immune activity within the limbic system.(10)

Moreover, because the immune system is within the limbic lobe and the limbic lobe is basically the center for our emotional and cognitive functions; and certain emotions and beliefs are attached to various imprints within the unconscious mind, then it is possible to see and understand how we can become susceptible to unresourceful health conditions and diseases.

Rossi further states that the autonomic nervous system has been regarded traditionally as the major means by which therapeutic hypnosis is capable of achieving it’s biological effects.(11) If this is true, then it seems apparent that the autonomic nervous system would serve NLP interventions in the same way.

Based on all of the aforementioned information, it is only logical that if you change a person’s beliefs, then it is possible to change their physical state of being from an unresourceful state to that of health and well-being ? given that the new state is ecological throughout the systemic and neurological levels of change.

Using NLP to Create Systemic Change Within the Mind and Body

Neuro-Linguistic Programming can help a person through many of the roadblocks that keep them from healing themselves. One of the more common roadblocks for many people to overcome is their inability to believe in their own healing process. If someone believes that they aren’t going to get better, then they won’t take the necessary steps to get better.

In Robert Dilts’ book, Changing Belief Systems with NLP, he states that most people who have a difficult time recovering from an illness or condition usually adopt one of the following beliefs about their recovery process.
Hopelessness: If a person is hopeless he feels or believes an outcome is just not possible. A typical statement would be. There is no hope.

Helplessness: If a person is helpless he feels or believes that he does not have the capability of getting better. Some typical statements would be, I am not good enough, I don’t have the capability to heal myself. Healing is possible, but I’m not capable.

Worthlessness: If a person feels or believes he is worthless, then he thinks that he doesn’t deserve to heal. A typical statement would be, Maybe I don’t deserve to be healthy.(12)
When working with any limiting belief such as the ones mentioned above, the NLP Practitioner’s primary goal is to move the client from his present state of discomfort to the desired state of health and well being. This can be done by helping the client create appropriate beliefs for the way he’s chosen to heal from his condition. There are many NLP processes that can be used with the client to help him achieve his outcome.

Case Example

NLP trainers and co-authors Tim Hallbom and Suzi Smith used NLP methods to help a woman who had a cancerous thyroid. The woman had two biopsies and tested positive for cancer both times. Hallbom and Smith spent 4 hours working with her in two different sessions. When the woman went back to her doctor, he told her that the cancer on her thyroid seemed smaller than it did before, but that he wanted to go ahead and operate on her anyway because waiting could be dangerous. When he operated he found that it had, in fact, shrunk up and it was no longer malignant.(13)

During that 4-hour session, the NLP trainers did some reimprinting (14) with the client and they helped her to integrate some deep-rooted unconscious conflicts that she had within herself. They did this by assisting her to identify the positive goals and intentions behind her conflict.

One of the NLP presuppositions is that there is a positive intention behind every conflict, limiting belief or problem. This means that some aspect of the person is benefiting in a positive way from their limiting behavior, otherwise they would not be demonstrating the behavior.

(A classic example would be of the teenager who starts smoking to gain attention. Even though smoking isn’t positive or healthy, the mind might deem the attention that is gained form smoking as positive).

It was observed that the woman’s goals were in conflict. When there is a goal that is in conflict with another goal, you begin to fight yourself. One way of fighting yourself is by developing a disease such as cancer, according to Hallbom.

While working with the woman, Hallbom assisted her in re-identifying and integrating her goals. Once her goals were integrated, they were then able to assist her in moving towards her desired outcome of health and well being. Until you know what the positive aspect of the limiting beliefs or conflicts are, you can’t do that and that’s why NLP and systemic thinking are such valuable tools for helping people with health issues. (15)

References

1. Dilts, R., T. Hallbom and S. Smith, Beliefs: Pathways to Health and Well-Being, Portland, OR: Metamorphous Press, 1990.
2. Dilts, Robert, Roots of Neuro Linguistic Programming, Cupertino, CA: Meta Publications, 1983.
3. Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature, London, England: Longmans Green, 1874.
4. Based on an essay that Robert Dilts wrote on NLP Presuppositions and Creativity.
5. Ibid.
6. Hallbom, T. and K. Johnson Hallbom , Future Medicine Now, Beverly Hills, CA: The Holistic Book Project, 1993.
7. Robert Dilts is the primary developer of the Neurological Levels of Change.
8. Carlson, Neil, Physiology of Behavior, Newton, Mass: Allyn and Canon, Inc., 1986.
9. Rossi, Earnest, The Psychobiology of MindBody Healing, Makham, Ontario: Penguin Books Eanada, 1986.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Dilts, Robert, Changing Belief Systems with NLP, Cupertino, CA: Meta Publications, 1990.
13. Dilts, Hallbom, and Smith, Beliefs: Pathways to Health and Well Being.
14. Reimprinting is an NLP process that was developed by Robert Dilts.
15. Hallbom, T. and K. Johnson Hallbom, Future Medicine Now.

Kris Hallbom is the co-director of the NLP Institute of California and is a professional writer. She is a long time student of NLP and Systemic thinking, and holds a degree in Psychology and Languages. ..She also does private consulting using these media.

By Roger Ellerton Phd, ISP, CMC, Renewal Technologies Inc. www.renewal.ca

Double binds occur frequently in everyday life. A double bind occurs when we believe we have only two choices available to us. This perceived boundary – based on our beliefs and values about ourselves, about others or about the world around us – is actually an illusion as we always have more than two choices.

Sometimes the double bind restricts us from achieving our full potential. For example, a person who hates his job chooses to maintain his current situation because he sees only two choices – stay with his current job or be unemployed – a limitation imposed by his beliefs about his skills and abilities.

Other times a double bind gives us choice when we feel stuck or are in a space of no choice. A coach may say to a client, “Would you like to begin addressing your issue now or after you have read the next paragraph?” If the client accepts this limitation of choices, she will address her issue, the only question is when.

A double bind can also be used during a negotiation to assist the other party to move to a negotiated agreement or to focus on one of two acceptable alternatives. A parent can assist their child to go to bed at a reasonable hour with less fuss by asking, “Would you like to go to bed now or after daddy reads you a story?” Note: pick an activity that does not get the child overly excited and then has trouble settling down. Children often like to feel they have some choice over their activities. Notice the illusion that there are only two possibilities, when many others exist.

The key to double binds is to realize that they are an illusion. There are always other choices, if you take time to explore the beliefs and values that hold the illusion in place. The world you live in is an illusion based on what you believe is real/possible or not possible. Someone else standing in your shoes with exactly the same skills and with different beliefs about themselves and the world around them would see very different possibilities.

In the following examples of double binds, notice how the person’s thinking has been restricted, also notice which ones play a role in your life and which ones are useful:

* A couple are out on a date having a great time. Towards the end of the evening, the man says, “Your place or mine?” The implication is sexual relations at one of these places. Depending on her beliefs (about herself, how men and women interact), her values, etc., she may find herself in a dilemma – feeling that she has to choose between these two choices, when in fact lots of other choices are available to her: “Let’s go for a coffee and talk about what we would like to do tomorrow.” or simply, “I choose to go home by myself.”

* A woman believes that if her husband really loved her he would know what to buy her for her birthday. If he asks, he is in trouble and if out of all of the gifts that are possible, he chooses the wrong one, he is also in trouble. Notice how the woman’s belief has set this up and that she is making herself a victim of her husband’s actions no matter what he does.

* A therapist may assist her client to gain a more expansive view of the world so that he sees a more palatable and healthy choice than the only choice he was aware of until now.

* At one time or another, we have been subjected to bureaucratic red tape. On two occasions, I have used the following process to get resolution when others have said it was not possible. Each time I talked with someone, I was pleasant, explained my issue and asked for help resolving it. If the problem was not resolved, I documented the conversation and asked for the name of someone more senior who could assist me. On two occasions (different companies), I had written to the President with no success. I then obtained the names of the members of the Board of Directors (both were public companies), wrote a brief covering letter and attached my documentation that clearly indicated the situation was not resolved and the inappropriate actions/decisions that had been taken. My concluding sentence in each letter was the following, “Either you fully support how this has been handled, in which case do nothing, or commit to getting a mutually acceptable resolution.” Notice how I associated doing nothing with support for how things had been handled and created the illusion that there were only two choices.

* Sometimes we create internal conflict for ourselves, by seeing two desires as mutually exclusive: e.g. Successful career vs. freedom to do what I want or committed relationship vs. maintaining my individual identity. An NLP parts integration can be used in these situations to resolve the conflict and to become aware that both are possible.

If you find yourself seemingly trapped in a double bind, realize there are always other choices, you just need time or assistance to discover them. In some cases, you can do this yourself, other times you may need the assistance of a professional.

Author: Roger Ellerton is a certified NLP trainer, certified management consultant and the founder and managing partner of Renewal Technologies. The above article is based on his book Live Your Dreams Let Reality Catch Up: NLP and Common Sense for Coaches, Managers and You.

How many of us have set New Year’s resolutions or goals for our lives that all too quickly are forgotten or put aside until the next year? The following set of principles will help you achieve your New Year’s resolutions and much more. Read them over carefully. Challenge them, as at first reading you may not fully understand or agree with some of them. Now, or on January 1, select one of these principles and put it into action for a full week. Notice how things in your life improve and move you closer to achieving your desires. At the end of each week focus on a new principle until all seven are a way of life for you.

1. There is no failure, only feedback.

Have you ever done something that didn’t work out the way you had planned? How often have you interpreted this as failure and possibly beat yourself up or blamed others? Far too many of us have been trained to judge our results as either success or failure. How would your life change if you viewed failure simply as feedback – an opportunity to learn how not to do something and become flexible in developing new ways to achieve your intended outcome? The next time something does not unfold as planned accept it as feedback, get curious and ask yourself questions such as, “What do I need to learn about myself, others, my work or family environment, so that if a similar situation were to occur in the future, I can get a better result?”

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Thomas Alva Edison, scientist and inventor

How different would your workplace be if failure were viewed as feedback? Would you, and others, be more inclined to explore new ways to get your work done more efficiently and effectively, with more fun?

2. You cannot not communicate.

Often we think we communicate only when we speak or write. This is not so. Consider the following situations: 1. You are in a staff meeting sitting off to one side, with your arms folded and an angry look on your face, and not participating in the discussion at all. 2. You have chosen not to respond to telephone and e-mail messages in a timely fashion, or at all. Even no communication sends a message, and it is often not a positive one. Who are you really hurting?

Through your tone of voice, actions, facial expressions, gestures and body language, you are always communicating. Take time to step back and see the impact of your actions on the larger system. Is this really the impression you wish to create or the message you wish to convey?

3. Be flexible – If what you are doing is not creating the results you desire, do something different.

Have you ever been stuck in life, doing the same things repeatedly and each time expecting to get a different result? This is the widely known definition of insanity. If you want your life to be different, doing the same things more often, harder, or louder is not the way to change it. You must choose to do something different. If you try one key in a lock and it doesn’t fit, would you keep trying the same key repeatedly? Or would you be flexible and try other keys until you find the one that works?

It is the same for your life. Be flexible; explore different behaviors and strategies to unlock what you truly want in life or who you are destined to be.

If you are a parent, consider the following: There are no resistant children, only inflexible adults.

4. The meaning of communication is the response it produces.

Your intended communication is not always what is understood by the other person. And what is more important – your intention or what is understood? It does not matter what your intention is, what matters are the results you generate from your words, tone of voice, facial expressions and body language. By taking the other person’s response as feedback and being flexible, you can change how you communicate until you achieve your desired result.

Consider the following situation: as a man, I notice a female coworker is wearing a new dress, so I decide to pay her a compliment (my sincere intention). I say to her, “My, you look terrific in that dress.” However, her reaction isn’t what I expected. She seems annoyed and leaves the room. I do not know what is going on in her mind, but obviously she heard my message very differently from what I had intended. Perhaps from her experiences and beliefs, she interpreted what I said as “hitting on her” or being suggestive. The next time I see her, I can continue with the same behavior, or simply ignore her and harbor all manner of bad thoughts about her. Or I can recognize that my remark did not produce the result I had intended and find different ways to communicate with her so that we can have a productive working relationship.

5. Every behavior has a positive intention.

No matter how strange, hurtful or inappropriate a person’s behavior may seem to you, for the person engaging in that behavior, it makes sense from their perspective – their beliefs and values – and is predicated upon satisfying a positive intention for them.

The key is to appreciate that there is a positive intention behind the other person’s behavior – for them, maybe not for you. This does not mean that you must view the other person’s behavior as positive or acceptable. On the contrary, you may find it quite distasteful. You need to look behind the behavior to discover the positive intention or, if it’s not apparent, look for an intention that makes sense in their reality. This intention may be for themselves, for you or for someone else. Once you have an understanding of their intention, you can explore alternative ways to help the person achieve it.

As an example, let’s say you are having a discussion with someone and he suddenly raises his voice, knocks things off the table and runs from the room. From your perspective, this certainly cannot be viewed as positive behavior. What could possibly be the positive intention behind this kind of behavior? Now look at it from the other person’s perspective. Given his background – his experiences, beliefs and values – perhaps he felt unsafe or overwhelmed in the conversation with you. Given the resources he had available at that moment, this may have been the only option he felt he had in order to create some space or to flee to a place of greater safety.

What can you do to avoid a similar result next time? You can accept what happened as feedback, respect his perspective, explore the possible positive intentions behind his behavior and look at other ways to achieve your outcome while satisfying his positive intention. In other words, be flexible.

It is useful to take stock of your own behaviors on a regular basis. Notice the results you are achieving, identify the positive intention behind these behaviors and ask, “Is there a better way to achieve my positive intention that minimizes the negative side-effects?”

6. Everyone does the best they can with the resources available to them.

People already have the resources they need to succeed. However, their perspective of the world (beliefs, values and limiting constraints) or temporary state of mind (overwhelmed, sad or angry) may prevent them from seeing what is really possible or prevent them from fully accessing their capabilities and resources. In these situations, a person may make decisions or take actions that, from another viewpoint, are much less than they are capable of and that may even be experienced as hurtful.

With hindsight, that person could have done many things differently, but it was deemed the best choice at the time. We do not always make the “right” decision or take the “right” action; simply, decisions and actions are taken based on what resources we have available to us at the time.

7. You are in charge of your mind and therefore your results.

It was you who chose the beliefs, values and decisions that determine your perspective of the world and how you experience different events. It is also you who can change these to gain a different perspective and thus reap the benefits of results that are potentially very different, brining significant changes to your life.

In conclusion

You can simply read the above principles or you can begin to put them into action and make them a way of life. In doing so, you have the opportunity to change your reality, your results and your life!

Roger Ellerton is a certified NLP trainer, certified management consultant and the founder and managing partner of Renewal Technologies Inc. (http://www.renewal.ca) This article is an extract from his book Live Your Dreams – Let Reality Catch Up: NLP and Common Sense for Coaches, Managers and You (http://www.live-your-dreams.biz).Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Roger_Ellerton