Neuro Linguistic Programming – NLP for short – can fill many a person with dread. What on earth does it mean? Am I to be brainwashed? Put under some sort of spell? Or worse, have my mind tampered with? Let me take some of the FEAR out of the perceptions of NLP for you.
Is a method of influencing brain behaviour (the “neuro” part of the phrase) through the use of language (the “linguistic” part) and other types of communication to enable a person to “recode” the way the brain responds to stimuli (that’s the “programming”) and manifest new and better behaviours. Let me explain that in simple terms. You see we are taught many subjects when we go to school, History, Science and Mathematics and so on. Yet we are not taught how to use our brains so we can improve our relationships and how we can feel good.
Think of NLP as a manual for running our lives. You can use the NLP approaches and insights to be more in control of your thoughts and feelings…drive our lives more successfully … communicate with other people more effectively. Some have even described it as the Science of Achievement! So minding our language, tonality, building rapport, use of body language and choosing our moods all add up to controlling our lives at a conscious level.
NLP is an ever-growing collection of information and insights into how we human beings function. And this is backed up by a huge range of mental NLP techniques that can enable us to improve how you think, behave and feel – and to assist others in doing the same.
Becoming skilled in NLP will enable you to:
- think more clearly.
- communicate more effectively with others.
- manage your thoughts, moods and behaviours more effectively.
- do whatever you already do reasonably well, even better.
- acquire skills and attitudes to do what you cannot do right now, but would like to be able to do.
NLP works at the Unconscious level to make significant and lasting changes. This level consisting of the primitive, instinctual wishes as well as the information that we cannot access. Many memories from our childhood are buried here. Our sub conscious mind is really like our memory recall. It is stored memories that we can access quite easily. Our conscious mind is our awareness of what is happening to us at any one moment. We access our conscious mind through our senses. This can be described as Mindfulness. Through the use of techniques such as Timeline Therapy along with the use of specific language patterns we can access the unconscious mind and release negative emotions (Anger, Sadness, Fear, Hurt & Guilt) and those limiting decisions we make during our lives.
P.S. – A little NLP in Action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANY8-_kqCZQ