Origins Of NLP

The Origins Of NLP

Richard Bandler and John Grinder the co-creators of NLP credit 3 exceptional people as the foundational  ‘models’ used to base their investigations into human excellence upon during the first few years of NLP.

They were:

Fritz Pearls, Gestalt Therapy
Virginia Satir, Family Therapy
Milton Erickson, Hypnotherapy and Brief Therapy.

The extraordinary therapeutic change work that these 3 people were able to consistently generate were modelled and their skills replicated and then codified into what we now understand to be NLP.

Originally NLP was conceived as a modelling system, NOT the results of that modelling system. Most NLP taught today is the result of this modelling project that took place in the early 70′s.

Modelling Defined:

Modelling is the effective elicitation, replication and transfer of human capabilities from one person to another. The intended outcome of modelling is to provide a template upon which the effective uptake of a skill, talent, behavior can be experienced at the level of unconscious competence.

Many people in the NLP community have heard the names of these three people but have never seen them in action.

So, I have attached a video of each in a new blog post.

For those already familiar with NLP you might enjoy recognising elements of language, physiology and thinking styles expressed by each of them?

For those of you without any NLP experience, I wonder what insights into change work and the human psyche you will enjoy most as you watch the videos?

 

Fritz Pearls

Virginia Satir

Milton Erickson

Abundance is our future

An optimists guide to the future… enjoy

Happy Ahead Of Time

Here is a lovely simple story that adequately illustrates just how simple life really is, and what a mess we can make of it sometimes.  So the next time your day isn’t heading in the direction you would like it to, remember this simple story.

The 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud lady, who
is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock with her
hair fashionably coifed and makeup perfectly applied even
though, legally blind, she has been moved to a nursing home today.
Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the
move necessary.

After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the
nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was
ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I
provided a visual description of her tiny room, including
the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window. "I love
it," she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old
having just been presented with a new puppy.

"Mrs. Jones, you haven't seen the room...just wait."

"That doesn't have anything to do with it," she replied.

"Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time.
Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the
furniture is arranged. It's how I arrange my mind. I
already decided to love it. It's a decision I make every
morning when I wake up. I have a choice: I can spend the
day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts
of my body that no longer work, or I can get out of bed and
be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and
as long as my eyes open I'll focus on the new day and all
the happy memories I've stored away...just for this time in
my life."

What beautiful wisdom – ‘happiness is something we decide ahead of time’

www.themindacademy.com.au

The Door Knob Test

In order to function with any degree of certainty in the world, we develop what’s termed a perceptual filter.  This perceptual filter is developed when we are young and once set in place forms the rules of our life.  It is the glasses through which we see and interact with our version of the world, I say our version of the world simply because everybody has a different experience of reality, an experience that is uniquely theirs.  To illustrate this, think of a time when you went out with family or friends to a play, show, movie, etc.  Upon post play, movie, show, etc analysis you discover that your friends or family took different things away from the experience, or saw different things in the experience to you, they may have been very minor, but never the less this was the case.

A function of this perceptual filter is to reduce the amount of nerve impulses we are consciously aware of at any given moment.  It is estimated that your brain receives about four billion nerve impulses every second. Are you consciously aware of all of this information? No! For example, are you aware of how your shirt feels on your back? Unless your shirt is particularly tight or uncomfortable or you are sunburnt, I suspect that you were not aware of how your shirt felt until I mentioned it. Why? Because it was not important at the time and it was filtered out. Of the 4 billion bits of information, you are only consciously aware of about 2,000 bits, or about 0.00005 percent of all the potential information. To take in and process more of this information would either drive you crazy or be such a distraction that you could not function.

One of the fascinating filtering aspects of our mind is known as generalising.  This means that once we learn something, we can apply it to all like things so we don’t have to re-learn the same thing over and over again when we encounter something that differs slightly.  An example of this would is, a door.  At some point in the past we learned how to operate a door, twist handle and push or pull.  We also know how to operate all different types and variations as well, thanks to our minds ability to generalise information and experience.

Most of the time this filtering process is good and helps us out, but it can also cause problems for us as well.  In an experiment, researchers put the doorknob on the same side of the door as the hinge. What do you think happened when they left adults in the room? They would go up to the door, grasp the doorknob, twist and then try to push or pull the door open. Of course, it would not open. As a result, the adults decided that the door was locked and they were locked in the room! Young children, on the other hand, who had not yet made the generalization about the doorknob, simply walked up to the door and pushed on it and exited the room.

How many times in your life have you tried to do something, but because the door didn’t open you just assumed it was locked.

Article: Craig Jamison

www.themindacademy.com.au

In The Zone With Sports Hypnosis

The peak state that all athletes chase is ‘The Zone’ or the ‘Flow State’. When the mind and body align, resistance ceases and effortless ability ensues. The only problem is that athletes are never quite sure when it is going to happen. They do their best to set themselves up for it with planned exercise, eating and rest period prior to the big event, but it is still a hit and miss affair.

Hypnosis has shown significant possibility in creating easier access to the flow state by athletes and sports people who use it. It is well known that Tiger woods learned hypnosis when young and used it throughout his career to train flow states, focus states and relaxation states.

The Center for sports Science in Yorkshire, UK provided a research study on golfers chipping ability while in the flow state using hypnosis and the study showed that hypnotic intervention increased feelings and cognitions associated with flow.

The Journal of Sports and Exercise Physiology also found similar results when hypnosis was used on engaging the flow states in cyclists.

Although not scientifically researched, NLP is used in some form by most top athletes, commonly through the process of anchoring a specific word, physical movement or mental imagery to a desire state.

I am amazed that Australia does not have a top ‘sports hypnotherapist’ or ‘sports hypnosis centre’ being that sports is the heart and soul of the nation and hypnosis is quite well accepted.

Now there is an idea….

Article: Alistair Horscroft

www.themindacademy.com.au

Reffs:

Centre for Sport and Exercise Science, Sheffield Hallam University, South Yorkshire. J.Pate@shu.ac.uk

Grove, J. R., & Lewis, M. A. (1996). Hypnotic susceptibility and the attainment of flowlike states during exercise. Journal of Sports and Exercise Physiology, 18(4), 380-391.

Are Beliefs Believable?

Beliefs are formed when we are young and are fashioned from the guidance and teaching of our primary care givers and influential people in our lives at that time, such as our parents, teachers, older siblings, aunts, uncles, etc. Media also plays a significant factor.

Fast forward to adult hood and those beliefs we formed can provide us with strength and confidence, or undermine us with stress and doubt.  The interesting thing is, all beliefs are based on interpretations that made as young children about experiences we saw in the world around us.

This was a major load off when I discovered this, because this means that anything that I believe is limiting me, isn’t true, it’s only an interpretation I made when I was a lot younger, and now that I’m not that younger me anymore I can look at things differently, a lot differently.

The next time you want to do something but feel you can’t, remember you have a choice… The way you are looking at the problem is only an interpretation, it’s not the truth about the situation.

The video below taken from TED TV is a shining example of exercising choice of interpretations in action…enjoy!

Flying Phobia

Public Speaking Phobia

Hospital Phobia

Stuck Is Stopped

Many of us get stuck on the ‘how to’ of achieving a goal to the detriment of the goal itself.  It can literally bind us up to the point of being stuck.  Movement is the key to achieving your goal, and any movement at that.

Take this simple analogy, you want to move your parked car, you know where you want to go next, or rather, you have a goal that you’re heading for.  But you can’t drive the car forward to begin getting closer to your goal, if you do this you’ll crash right into the car parked in front of you…so what do you do?

Of course, everyone understands that you have to make the car go backwards first in order to move forward, but the backwards movement was actually a forward step toward your goal.

When we find ourselves stuck and not sure how to move toward our goal, any movement is a step forward toward our goal, because stuck is stopped.  So whether you’re moving forward or backwards, so long as you have a clearly defined goal, and measure your progress toward that goal, you’ll arrive.  It might be earlier or later than expected, but never the less you will arrive.

Here is a simple and smart way to help you begin moving toward your goal

1)     Clearly define what your goal is and why you want it, be specific, including what the direct benefit you’ll receive by achieving it.  Be sure to write this down.

2)     Be sure you can measure your progress toward your goal.  For example, if you have a goal to lose 10kg, every kg of weight you lose is a measurable step toward your goal.

3)     Make sure your goal is actually attainable.  If you want to turn your business into a million dollar enterprise, setting a goal to achieve this in 3 months could quite possibly set you up for disappointment.  However planning to achieve it over a 2 year time frame and setting your measurable steps along the way makes the process far more attainable.

4)     Your goal must be realistic.  If you want to increase productivity in the work place, but have no plans to implement changes, can make the goal unrealistic.  With progress comes change.

5)     Be sure to put a time frame on your goal.  This assists with maintaining momentum.

Article: Craig Jamison

www.themindacademy.com.au