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

One’s thought patterns, beliefs and attitudes can be used to “preprogram” actual experiences that are yet to happen. NLP is very focused on how we think, what influences the way we think, and how we structure what we think. Subscribers to the science are encouraged to closely study and then model those individuals who do things well.

When studying them, you don’t ask them how they did it—just what they were thinking when they did it. For example, if you asked Michael Jordan how to play basketball, he could give you a big list of dos and don’ts. He might outline a series of necessary drills, but that is not what NLP is about. Instead, you would find out how Michael Jordan perceives basketball in his mind. What are his beliefs and attitudes about basketball? When he makes a decision on the court, what is he thinking?

NLP is made up of several different models, each then having different techniques associated with it. Let’s break NLP down further and take a basic look at some of its major models.

Sub-modalities: The Five Senses

Perhaps the foundation is, simply enough, our five senses. Each of us takes in the world around us through our five senses: seeing, hearing, feeling (both tangible and emotional), tasting and smelling. Everything and anything we think about in life, and the resulting beliefs and attitudes we form, can be based on what we receive and then interpret through these sub-modalities. Taking it a step further, with the entirety of our life experiences encapsulated in our memories as we experienced them through our senses, we can recreate those experiences in our minds, alter them if need be and thus gain tremendous power over our thought patterns, beliefs and ultimately the outward manifestation of such through our capabilities and achievements. The way you structure these representations in your mind determines how you will respond.

Try a basic experiment. Picture someone in your mind you hold very dear to your heart. Now, in your mind’s eye, enhance and intensify the colors of the image and observe how you respond. What happens when you turn up the volume of what has been said? What about if you visualize the image in shades of gray instead of color? For most people, “turning up” the colors or sounds also intensifies feelings, while turning them down diminishes those feelings. Cultivating your ability to fine-tune the way you perceive things, or the way your mind represents things, can be used to make powerful changes in your life. Once you realize that you can, in essence, create your world, you also realize that you also have the power to change it.

Meta-Model

A meta-model is a set of questions that are developed for the specific purpose of finding the exact meaning in a person’s communication. For example, often when we communicate, we generalize, or we may even distort information or leave it out altogether—intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or subconsciously. Individuals who use meta-models are able to systematically verify and clarify both verbal and written communication in order to communicate even more clearly and precisely.

Sensory Acuity

Our thought processes are very closely tied to our physiology. For example, people can sense that you’re happy, scared or angry without you even saying anything. Body language sends out strong cues about how we’re feeling. That is, our posture, our eyes, our head position, etc. all say a lot about us. Most body language is fairly obvious, but sensory acuity takes these observations beyond the obvious and uses physical feedback in addition to verbal communication to be as discerning as possible. Verbal cues even give some suggestion of which sensory modality a person operates from most strongly. For example, if someone says, “I hear what you’re saying” versus “I see what you mean,” it suggests that his or her auditory sense is more dominant than his or her visual one. It is helpful to give this concept consideration since miscommunication can often simply result from two people trying to talk about the exact same thing, only in different ways. Some experts argue that if certain thought processes are reinforced enough, over a long enough period of time, they can actually alter a person’s physiological state.

Milton-Model

The Milton-Model, named after Milton Erickson, the father of modern hypnotherapy, is a set of linguistic patterns that are designed to guide an individual without actually disrupting the way s/he is experiencing the particular activity internally. For example, the command “Recall a time when you were crying” doesn’t dictate whether the person was sobbing uncontrollably or weeping softly in the memory. This skill of describing feelings, places, events and activities in a manner that is specific and yet still universal allows the user to develop rapport with his or her subject. It also helps move the subject into a trancelike state. As a result, the Milton-Model is commonly used to induce hypnosis.

Meta-Programs

Meta-programs are essentially the “looking glasses” through which we view the world. The classic “Is the glass half full or half empty?” is a perfect meta-program example. Meta-programs control our personality and therefore how we behave. For instance, do you tend to be more of an active or passive person? Do you focus more internally or externally on the world around you? Is your orientation more focused on the past, the future or the here and now? Two people may regard the exact same thing from totally different angles, to the extent that that “exact same thing” may actually become a very different thing altogether. For example, do you move towards your goals, or do you move away from the things that are not your goals? One may simply seem like an inverted restatement of the other, but each has its own distinct nuance.

By: Kurt Mortensen -

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Learning to persuade and influence will make the difference between hoping for a better income and having a better income. Beware of the mistakes persuaders commit that cause them to lose the deal. Go to www.PreWealth.com and explode your income!

By: Jordan Matthews

Everyone who wants to learn NLP should start with an NLP workbook or a seminar where you can learn about the wide range of applications that NLP has for your daily life. The NLP workbook will give you the methods, and the seminar will allow you to practice. But with this article, I will give you the NLP workbook, and all you need to do is practice this belief changing NLP system and put it into action.

Richard Bandler starts off almost every lecture and seminar in the same way. He works with a person’s inner beliefs about themselves, and the world around them. He has a philosophy that anything is possible as long as you believe it is. Working with NLP, or Neuro Linguistic Programming, is no different. This science, or art, if you so choose to see it, has proven to be inexplicably beneficial to people, changing lifelong patterns in a single instant. But to most people, regardless of the results they can see before them, this is an impossible task. Many times, it can seem almost like actors at a magic act, and they simply sit waiting for Mr. Bandler to pull a rabbit out of his hat. It’s not magic, and it does work, but only if you believe it to be so. If not, you’ll convince yourself to find a way to return to your old habits, and all will be for naught.

So, of course, the first thing that one must do is to work on a positive, optimistic outlook. This does not come easily for everyone, but some people may feel that they already have a positive attitude and can skip this step.

Using NLP techniques on yourself requires the use of submodalities, which you can read about in my article on the Basics of NLP. For a quick rehashing of the main topic, submodalities are the distinct qualities of your mental images, voices or feelings, that help you to subconsciously differentiate between good experience and bad. Things like the tone of voice, the direction it comes from, and the volume, would be examples of auditory submodalities.

Since most people are visual learners, and since everyone relates some part of their experience through visual images, it is typically most useful to think in terms of pictures to begin with. They are also the easiest to manipulate, so it is a good way to learn.

The first step in changing your beliefs, and in working almost any NLP techniques within your own experience, is to compare and contrast the differences in submodalities. First, imagine a really powerful, and really good memory. It can be of anything. Watch that movie play out in front of your eyes.

Now, do the same thing with an unpleasant memory. Play it like a movie, and begin at this time to notice the differences in the movies. The location where you look to see these two movies is often the first noticeable difference, but look to see if one is larger than the other, or if one is more colorful than the other. Do they both play back with sound? Write all of these things down on a piece of paper if it helps. Remember, it’s the differences that matter, any similarities you may find are not particularly useful.

Knowing this information, you’ve now figured out how to create a happy and pleasant memory. Play back that bad memory once more, and notice how you feel. Now, rewind it to the beginning, but this time, before you play it back, shift that movie screen to the same position where your happy memory was. Stretch or shrink the frame of the picture to be about the same size as the pleasant memory, and add color or sound if necessary. The idea is to look upon that unhappy memory as if it were a happy memory.

This can take some practice, and working alone without a guide, it may take a few tries to get it right. You may find that you have no idea what I’m talking about with these different submodalities. If this is the case, take it slower, one step at a time, and look closer into what is going on inside your head. For most people, this can be very difficult, and may require a lot of practice. If you get it right, you should be able to play back that unhappy memory in happy-vision, and notice that you have a much better feeling about the experience. Best thing about it? This technique will work for almost anything you want to do. If you want to boost your confidence, examine the differences in your memories. If you want to stop doing something, manipulate the submodalities of the memories.

Once you get used to the technique, you’ll notice some startling differences. First and foremost, you’ll begin to feel better about your past experiences, and most people find that this alone is good enough to make them more confident and feel better about themselves. But as you build up on the good experiences, and those that you have manipulated to help yourself feel better about them, you’ll notice that you begin to automatically assign new experiences and new memories the same, beneficial submodalities that you assigned to your first memory. By changing the past, you’re effectively changing the future.

Go ahead and try this. There’s nothing to lose except for feeling a little silly at the idea. But, if it works for you, there’s much to gain from the experience.

About the Author:

My name is Jordan, and I am a certified NLP trainer who believes that these techniques should be made available to everyone. Because Bandler’s books are so expensive and hard to find, I recommend that for any further NLP work, you should check out the NLP toolbox or Forbidden Patterns.

By: Arman Darini, Ph.D.

Good to be connecting with you again. Our topic for today is common and deadly decision traps, and how to avoid them. Recall that in the previous article we spoke about the structure of extraordinary decision making, and I explained the steps you have to follow to make excellent outcomes happen. As you follow the steps, it’s important to watch out for a handful of places where most people consistently make mistakes. I will point out two of them today, explain how to sidestep each one and top it off with a simple way to turn hesitation into decisiveness. Your job, of course, is to be honest with yourself, notice what you need to work on, and learn how to improve your decision muscle.

FIRST TRAP of plunging in:

Ok, the first major trap happens even before the deciding starts. It’s the trap of plunging in headfirst into the deciding without pausing to answer one critical question: What’s the essence of the problem?

Let’s take our decision example from last week: “How do I double my salary?” If you jump in to answer this question without thinking, you might answer the wrong question altogether. Ask yourself first: “What’s the essence of the problem?” Are you even seeing the different possibilities? Consider these and notice just how much they differ:
- You need to make more money.
- You want to feel that your work is valued appropriately.
- You are looking for another challenge.
- Your spouse is beating you over the head demanding that you earn more.
- You want to bolster your self-esteem.

Do you see how each of these completely changes the underlying decision, and will necessarily lead to different alternatives and outcomes? For example, if you are looking for another challenge, then you won’t take up the job washing dishes in a restaurant. If, on the other hand, it’s about your self-esteem, then the simplest solution might be invest in a couple of hours of NLP coaching to quickly improve your self-esteem that way.

If you are not aware of the essence of the problem, then you will randomly pick one and it’s often the wrong one. Just think how many times have you thought you really wanted something, went out and bought it, and a few days later felt as dissatisfied as your were before the purchase. You’ve been solving the wrong problem!

SECOND TRAP of frame blindness:

The second major decision trap is frame blindness. Recall from the last newsletter that framing the decision happens in languaging the question that you pose. Framing is inevitable, and it brings some aspects of the problem into the focus, while pushing others into the background.

One subtle and influential frame effect is hidden inside the unspoken beliefs you have about what is possible. These beliefs form the boundaries of your map of the world. If you don’t believe it is possible to triple your salary, then your decision frame will exclude this alternative. If you believe that it is hard to find someone who will love you wholeheartedly, then you will refuse to consider the easy opportunities to meeting such person.

Your beliefs frame your reality. And you know what? Most of them are arbitrary. What’s even worse, most of the beliefs you’ve got were installed into your mind without your awareness by your well-meaning family, friends, school, and culture. Unfortunately well-meaning is not the same as wise. All this happened when you were a small child and quite gullible. If we laid out your beliefs on a flat table in front of your eyes and you examined them right now, you would find many of them silly, outdated and false.

So, how can you avoid this trap of unspoken beliefs? Whenever you pose a decision question, ask yourself: “What will always remain true in any answer to this question?” Take, for instance, the decision: “How do I double my salary?” Regardless of the answer, you will be looking for ways to increase the salary and not to save the money. And you will be looking for a job where someone pays you a salary. Once the beliefs presupposed by the question become clear, choose whether you want to expand the frame or leave it as it is. (As an exercise, count all the unspoken beliefs inside the “Where can I find the love of my life?” decision.)

All right, enough about traps. You’ve listened attentively, you’ve learned well, you followed the extraordinary decision making steps and you carefully avoided the traps. Now is finally the right time to make the decision and take the first action. BUT, what’s that? What are those unbidden questions in your mind: “Have I really thought this through?” “Is there something I haven’t considered?” “What else could I do?”

Stalling. Hesitating. Feeling afraid of closing the doors on other opportunities. Because by making the decision you commit to one path and close off all the others. If you are of the kind that likes to keep her options open, then deciding means trouble.

Oh-oh. What to do? Well, if I was your coach working with you 1 on 1, then there are a few hundred of different possibilities we could explore to find the right solution for you. But, not having this luxury, here is a cookie cutter approach that often works right out of the box. Ask yourself: “How many opportunities am I missing right now by deciding to become rigid with hesitation?” Most people rarely consider the cost of not making the decision right away, and so rarely feel the urgency. This question moves you beyond hesitation into action. And, as you well know, decisions are lifeless until you take the first step. NOW.

You’ve just read TIP #85 FOR CREATING AN EXTRAORDINARY AND MEANINGFUL LIFE brought to you by Holographic University. To get the next Tip visit us at:

http://www.HolographicUniversity.com/magazinesignup.php?w=Tip85

May You Be Happy!
- Arman Darini, Ph.D.

Arman Darini, Ph.D. is the director of Holographic University, the author of weekly Tips for Creating an Extraordinary and Meaningful Life, and a certified international http://www.HolographicUniversity.com/nlpguide.php Trainer. As the leader of a dynamic team of Life Trainers and Coaches, Arman’s motto is “I don’t believe in your limitations”. To learn more about Arman, visit http://www.ArmanDarini.com

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Assembled by Steve Andreas

Placebos

First, here are some very interesting findings in relation to placebos:

“Asthmatic patients have been shown to exhibit bronchoconstriction after inhaling a placebo described as a bronchoconstrictor and brochodilation after inhaling a placebo described as a bronchodilator (Luparello, Lyons, Bleeker, & McFadden, 1968; McFadden, Luparello, Lons, & Bleecker, 1969; Neild & Cameron, 1985; Spector, Luparello, Kopetzky, Souhrada, & Kinsman, 1976).

“Placebo morphine is considerably more effective than placebo Darvon, which in turn is more effective than placebo aspirin (Evans, 1974). In each case, the placebo is about half as effective as the pharmacologically active drug. Similarly, placebos produce more pain relief when given after a more potent drug than they do when given after a less potent drug (Kantor, Sunshine, Laska, Meisner, & Hopper, 1966). Thus, the effectiveness of a placebo pain reliever varies as a function of its believed effectiveness.
“Placebo and active analgesics are more effective when presented with a well-known brand name (Branthwaite & Cooper, 1981).

“Placebo injections are more effective than placebo pills (de Craen, Tijssen, de Gans, Kleijnen, 2000).

“The color of a placebo can influence its effects (reviewed in de Craen, Roos, de Vries, & Kleijnen, 1996). When administered without information about whether they are stimulants or depressives, blue placebo pills produce depressant effects, whereas red placebos induce stimulant effects (Blackwell, Bloomfield, & Buncher, 1972). Patients report falling asleep significantly more quickly after taking a blue capsule than after taking an orange capsule (Luchelli, Cattaneo, & Zattoni, 1978). Red placebos seem to be more effective pain relievers than white, blue, or green placebos (Huskisson, 1974; Nagao, Komia, Kuroanagi, Minaba, & Susa, 1968).

“Finally, the magnitude of the placebo response has been shown to vary as a function of the dose that the person is asked to consume (de Craen, Moerman, Heisterkamp, Tytgat, Tijssen, & Kleijnen 1999; Kirsch & Weixel, 1988).”

A wide variety of studies over the years has shown that the rates of positive responses to placebos have been increasing over the years (Probably as a result of better experimental design, including active placebos that provide a detectable response unrelated to the problem, and double-blind studies that the subjects cannot penetrate). As one commentator remarked, “The increasing effectiveness of placebos raises the bar toward an impracticably high level for any treatment to demonstrate its effectiveness.” (Perhaps more research should go into designing especially powerful placebos, rather than psychoactive drugs.)
Antidepressants

“The Emperor’s New Drugs: An Analysis of Antidepressant Medication Data Submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”

Abstract (quoted from the article) ©2002 American Psychological Association.

“This article reports an analysis of the efficacy data submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval of the 6 most widely prescribed antidepressants approved between 1987 and 1999: fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft), venlafaxine (Effexor), nefazodone (Serzone), and citalopram (Celexa). These represent all but one of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) approved during the study period.

“Approximately 80% of the response to medication was duplicated in placebo control groups, and the mean difference between drug and placebo was approximately 2 points on the 17-item (50-point) and 21-item (62-point) Hamilton Depression Scale. Improvement at the highest doses of medication was not different from improvement at the lowest doses. The proportion of the drug response duplicated by placebo was significantly greater with observed cases (OC) data than with last observation carried forward (LOCF) data. If drug and placebo effects are additive, the pharmacological effects of antidepressants are clinically negligible. If they are not additive, alternative experimental designs are needed for the evaluation of antidepressants.”

In shorthand, the antidepressants were found to be only very slightly better than the placebo control group (and the placebos were NOT designed for maximum effectiveness as described at the beginning of this summary!). This confirms what many of us have long suspected–that the drug companies are getting rich on drugs that have only minimal effectiveness. And if the drugs are only minimally effective, the dangers of stopping the drugs are probably also minimal, despite many warnings to the contrary. Still, someone using such drugs would be wise to taper off these drugs slowly, just to be safe.

For the entire article, including several commentaries by others, go to:
http://www.journals.apa.org/prevention/volume5/toc-jul15-02.htm

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.

Recently, I gave a presentation on NLP and Motivation, so I’d like to share one of the processes I designed and included there.

Now, motivation is not a new concept in the field of personal development, nor in NLP. In fact, one of the ‘metaprograms’ we present in our NLP Practitioner trainings is ‘motivation direction’ – are we more motivated by things we move towards (e.g. rewards) or those we move away from (e.g. consequences)?

While you may be motivated more strongly by one or the other, we are in some measure, motivated by both forces. We move away from what we don’t want and towards what we do want – if everything is connected up and balanced correctly.

If we only move away from what we don’t want – it’s possible to end up anywhere else. If we only move towards what we want, there’s the possibility that we might flit from one attractive proposition to the next with little measure of consequences.

So both forces work together in what NLPers call a ‘propulsion system’. We move towards good feelings and away from bad ones at the same time.

The problem is that it doesn’t always work as a sustained motivation. So I considered it further and it occurred to me to ask – which good feelings specifically? And which bad feelings?

Usually, a generic ‘positive’ feeling and a generic ‘negative’ feeling are described and if those aren’t enough, the solution given is to increase the intensity of the feelings.

That fix can work for a little while, then it tends to run out of steam. However, we all have ways of motivating ourselves already. Otherwise we’d never even get out of bed in the morning.

So, which specific states motivate you?

What do you move towards and what do you move away from?

It’s important that you know what states already work for you. Then we can put them together and feed in all of the things we want to accomplish.

Let me give you an example. I tend to move away from boredom and a state of curiosity moves me forward. Your motivators will likely be different from mine and you’ll need to work them out for the next part of the process.

The next step is to ask – what do those two states have in common? What connects them together?

It’s good to do this because now is the time to start thinking of all of these elements as a complete system. What is that system about?

In the example I gave, boredom and curiosity are connected by learning for me. So my personal propulsion system in that context is a machine designed for learning. What is the propelling force that connects your motivating elements and moves you forward? It could be exploration, experimentation, adventure, passion or any one of a great variety of things.

Here’s how to put that machine together:

1. Determine your specific Towards and Away-From states within a certain context.
2. Ask yourself – what do those two states have in common? In your perception, what concept unites them?
3. Close your eyes and get a sense of the Towards state. This could be a picture, feeling, sound or just an idea. Position it in front of you.
4. Get a sense of the Away-From state. This can be a picture, feeling, sound or just an idea. Position it behind you.
5. Become aware of how those two states are connected and get a sense of the forward movement that comes with the connection.
6. Feed in some images, sounds, words or feelings related to something you would like to be more motivated about. Notice how the system moves them forward.

Now you can feed anything you want to into your personalised propulsion system as content.

Or put your propelling force onto your timeline. I personally find it easier to put ‘learning’ into the areas where I need motivation rather than building the propulsion system fresh each time.

And if you work with propulsion systems this way, they stay in balance. There’s no need for readjustment or cranking up states. It works because it’s been tailor made with your inner world in mind.

Now all you have to do is to decide what you want, check your outcome and feed it into the machine. Your Personal Propulsion System will focus you and supply momentum. Full steam ahead!

About The Author:Philip Callaghan is an NLP Trainer and Coach who has been working full time with private clients for several years. He is a Licensed Master Practitioner and Trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and a member of the International Association of Coaches.Visit Phil’s website http://www.resourcefulchange.co.uk/ for further articles and sign up for his free series of NLP articles here: http://www.resourcefulchange.co.uk/nlp_primers.shtmlArticle Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Philip_Callaghan

Being a former court-lawyer, I am extremely aware of the importance of language in expressing our thoughts and opinions. Using the wrong word in the wrong context can mean making or breaking a case. Using one specific word instead of another specific word can give a positive twist to my argument, or a negative one to the argument of my colleague at the other side of the table. Non-verbal language has much power as well. A specific look, a specific pose, specific hand movements, they all convey messages within court, and can be used to one’s advantage.

Having stepped away from law, and being a Master NLP practitioner, the importance of verbal and non-verbal language is emphasised daily in my work with clients, in as much the same way as it did in Law. You have to understand that without language, we are not able to express ourselves. Without language we are not able to give meaning to what goes on around us, cannot set goals for ourselves, and cannot discern between emotions.

Our brain takes information in and processes it. Without language, the whole process would stop right there. Our brain would just be a ginormous hard-drive, storing information. Luckily we have language to create internal representations within this complex array of experiences, and label them accordingly. That’s how you can know a certain neuro-chemical “buzz” within your body as “being happy”, and another neuro-chemical “buzz” as “being sad”. It also makes you able to distinguish between experiences, so that one set of “brain-waves” means you have encountered a “tree”, while another bout of brain activity represents your seeing “a car”.

Language is not only the means to create these representations in our brain, it is also the only means to express them in the outer world. In order for someone else to understand what goes on inside us, we have to use verbal and non-verbal language.

As we speak, millions of synaptic responses are being fired off in the brain, as our brain tries to match the spoken words with the associated pictures, sounds and feelings. This produces emotions within us. When you talk about something that really excites you, for instance, you will feel your emotions going up in intensity. That is because of the association between the actual words and their meaning in your brain.

Over time, we form habitual language patterns, based upon habitual thought; we speak “a certain way”. This also means we start to develop certain emotional states associated with these words. This is why a “negative” person usually will speak “negative” language, and an emotional person will use emotional language.

What we need to understand is, that our prolonged use of our personal language has a profound effect on how we feel and behave now and in the future, even though we may not be consciously aware of that! If we keep using the same language, we keep getting the same (or similar) feelings! It is a vicious cycle.

Now that is obviously not a problem when everything is working for us, but can definitely be problematic when we experience difficulty in our lives. Very often we perpetuate these problems by virtue of the verbal and non-verbal language we use to describe them. This creates, because of the Law of Attraction, even more of them! Our futures are lingual repetitions of the past!

There is a simple, three way process to break away from this “Groundhog Day” experience; I’ll share it briefly with you, and will expound the theory in other articles.

Imagine a triangle, with on each corner a word: THOUGHT, WORD, ACTION.

In order to change your experience, you can first of all change your thoughts. Simply THINK different thoughts, refocus your brain! Think more uplifting thoughts, catch yourself when you think negatively, and your life will begin to change. You will speak different words, and contemplate different actions.

For some people this is too hard. They’d rather change their language, which also works. SPEAK different words, say things a different way, use affirmations and mantras. This will ultimately make you do different things, and will make you think differently as well.

The third option for change is behaving differently, which works better for yet another group. DO things another way, come up with new ways of behaving, strike different poses and other forms of body language, and you will slowly start to think differently, and will say different things.

Each way works, it is just a matter of finding which one(s) work best for you. Ideally you would want to work on all three of them! That’s powerful stuff!

In a subsequent article I will elaborate some more on the change of language, as this is a major part of Neuro Linguistic Programming.

Try one of the three ways of change on for size, and see how you go with it for the next couple of days/weeks. You will be surprised!

Marc is a certified life/business coach, master NLP Practitioner and Body Stress Release Practitioner on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. He specialises in restoring people’s health, and coaching professionals and small business owners at critical junctions in their careers and/or lives, using the all-encompassing Law of Attraction. Marc inspires his clients to find out what has been hindering them all along in achieving what they want, and to then make the conscious choice to take their lives and/or careers to the next level.Having been a lawyer for nearly 6 years in his “previous life”, before immigrating to Australia from The Netherlands, Marc knows exactly how daunting taking the first step in a new direction can be. On the other hand, he also knows how fulfilling taking that step is, and has the knack of imparting his knowledge and wisdom in a stunningly simple and highly effective way. Call him or email him at marc@landmarc.info to arrange for a complimentary face-to-face or phone session!Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marc_De_Bruin