Certainty and Uncertainty
by Steve Andreas - NLP Trainer
The following is a very interesting exchange between Richard Bandler and someone who is very sure about something.
B: Are you sure?
P: Yes.
B: Are you sure you’re sure?
P: Yes.
B: Are you sure enough to be UNSURE?
P: Yes.
B: OK, Let’s talk.
Before reading further, I strongly recommend that you think of something that you are very certain about, and find someone else to ask you this set of questions about your certainty, so that you have a concrete personal experience of their impact. At the very least, close your eyes and imagine that someone else asks you these questions, and take the time to carefully notice your response to each one, so that you can experience their effect on you.
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Use Your Buts Well
by Steve Andreas - NLP Trainer
One powerful aspect of NLP is to discover what kind of internal experience is elicited by the use of specific language. This enables us to use language in a very directed way in order to get the results that we want. Often the careful examination of a single word yields great dividends, and the word “but” is certainly one of them.
“But” is a negator (Fritz Perls used to call it a “killer”) of whatever experience immediately precedes the word. For me, the image preceding the word “but” quickly slides to my left, disappearing out of my field of internal vision. So “but” is very useful any time you want to (or have to) mention something to someone, but then you want it to diminish in importance or even disappear from their awareness altogether.
Notice what happens in your internal experience when you take any two contents, connect them with “but,” and then repeat this, but reversing the two contents. A tired old joke illustrates this nicely. The mother says to the daughter: “I know he’s ugly, but he’s rich.” and the daughter replies, “Mother, you are so right. I know he’s rich, but he’s ugly.”
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Cognitive Therapy And NLP Approaches To Combat Depressive And Anxious Thinking
by Karen Hastings, Hertfordshire
Changing the way you think in order to improve the way you feel, forms the basis of cognitive approaches to mental-wellbeing. Cognitive therapies recognise that our thoughts can affect our understanding of the outside world. Depressed people (i.e. people that practice depressed thoughts!) experience the world in a different way to others. For example, they may perceive colours less vibrantly, food can seem bland and unpleasant, and safe everyday situations can seem threatening. They often predict bad outcomes from actions and events where others would expect positive consequences. A depressed persons world is likely to be experienced significantly differently to a happy person’s. However, to an observer their circumstances could appear the same.
Cognitive therapy and related approaches such as NLP (neuro-linguistic-programming) are very effective at helping people recognise the thinking habits behind problems such as depression, anxiety, panic disorders and phobias. There are many cognitive techniques for testing negative thinking patterns and developing new more adaptive ways of thinking. If you are considering cognitive therapy, expect to commit to homework tasks and regular practise of these techniques.
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Persuasion Techniques You Can Try Today
Have you ever tried persuasion techniques to get what you want? Consciously, I mean, because smiling and many other simple persuasion techniques are used unconsciously all the time. You might think that intentionally using a technique is somehow unethical, but I would argue that it depends on the purpose and the circumstance. In any case, here are some you can try at your discretion.
The technique of “mirroring and matching” involves changing your verbal and body language to more closely match the person you are with. You slow or accelerate your speech to match his or hers, and sit in the same position. You use the same facial expressions, and laugh when he or she laughs. Done well, you can use this technique to establish rapport quickly and easily with most people.
You can try this on anyone. With practice most people won’t notice you’re doing anything unusual. People will simply feel like you’re like them, that you can “relate” to them. We tend to trust those who are like us. A bond develops between you, and you can test this bond by “leading.”
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NLP and Business
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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