Day: 4 May 2007

Categories
Eating Out

Tea with Milk

Today I met with an acquaintance who offered me a cup of tea.

Ah, I love a cup of tea, especially after waking up in the morning, a good hot cup, or should I say, mug of tea sets me up for the day.

Coffee I tend not to drink. Whilst working in Saudi Arabia, on a Friday, the day off or weekend, I would often feel spaced out. I could not work this out, until I realised I was drinking over six cups of strong coffee on Fridays only, the rest of the week, 2 or 3. I cut out coffee on a Friday, and I felt fine. So, if six cups made me feel that way, what was one doing to me?

So I am a tea drinker. Typical British I hear people saying. Well no, tea is drunk in most countries, but in different ways, strengths and tastes.

My acquaintance asked what tea would I prefer, Green tea, Earl Grey, Raspberry, Turkish, English Breakfast?

Not much choice really, English Breakfast, with milk.

“With milk? You must be joking.” Came the reply. “You cannot put milk in tea.”

How often do I hear that statement? I am British, and that is how we drink it, as my mind went back to the blog I wrote yesterday, NLP Now – Cheese and Onion Sandwich (click to read).

As people know, language and me do not get on, I speak only English, even though I travel to so many countries. The first words I tend to learn are tea with milk. As my hosts and translators will verify, it takes a lot of effort on their part to teach me these words in a foreign language.

Tè con latte (Italian), çay ve süt (Turkish), thé avec lait (French).

I must have milk in my tea. It is not tea without milk.

Well in Turkey and the Middle East, they tend to drink tea in a small glass, and loads of sugar, and I enjoy that. It tastes nothing like real tea, and it is not a mug of tea. If they serve tea for a cup, it is usually brewed in a pot, and it comes out like tar, it is thick, you have to water it down with hot water, but no milk.

A glass of Turkish Tea
Categories
NLP

NLP Now – Transderivational Search

From the previous blogs of perceptions and the Map is Not the Territory, we have seen that we learn from our past experiences, and that we react to the world with the filters we used store the information and the filters we use to access and use that information. Our beliefs, culture, religion, language.

To understand how we communicate, use language and behaviour, let us see how we process information.

EXTERNAL INFORMATION  From the external environment we are fed information about the world about us.

SENSORY FILTERS  This information passes through or accepted by our sensory modalities, these are known in NLP as V,A,K,O,G, being Visual, Auditory (hearing and speech), Kinesthetic (touch, feelings, both internal and external), Olfactory (smell), and Gustatory (taste).

INTERNAL PROCESSING  How we pass information from one modality to another and process the information in our brain. 

INTERNAL STORAGE How we store the information, how do we represent the information in our mind.

ITERNAL RETRIEVAL  This is known as the Transderivational Search, how do we access the information.

INTERNAL REPRESENTATION  How we filter the resultant information.

FEEDBACK  How the resultant information affects our behaviours and feedback, verbal and non verbal.

So, often in communication, the spoken or written form, the sender will miss out a lot of information. For example, “it rained yesterday”  is enough to convey a concept of the action of raining, but we say this is at the surface structure, there is a lot of missing information, i.e. how heavy did it rain, at what time, where, for how long, etc.

The listener has to go inside to recover from their experiences examples that will fill in the blanks, the missing information. This searching is called the Transderivational Search. The listener has to go into the deeper structure to get complete understanding. 

In usage we will see that when a communication is made and:-

The referential index is missing, that is the person to whom the metaphor or story is missing, then the listener will go to their deeper structure, substituting their own self, their own situation to make an understanding. Milton Erickson was the master of using metaphors when working with clients.

If the predicate, violates the referential index, ie, the car felt good as it won the race, the car can not have feeling so the listener will most likely to substitute themselves into the situation to feel good.

If part of the sentence, the deep structure, has been eliminated, the listener will go on the Transderivational Search to find a suitable situation. ie You are satisfied. The listener will substitute by what, how satisfied.

If a predicate is changed into a noun or in NLP terms a nominalisation, again the listener will go on the Transderivational Search, to find an understanding. In the above example the predicate satisfy becomes a nominalisation satisfaction. So the sentence could become You find satisfaction. The listener has to go to their deep structure to understand satisfaction.

See blog on the META MODEL (click)

Categories
NLP Travels

NLP Now – Cheese and Onion Sandwich

The 4th Duke of Sandwich, an 18th century English aristocrat, has much to answer for, whether the name sandwich is attributed to his name because he played the card game cribbage for hours on end, and did not wish to dirty the playing cards because he had eaten meat with his bare hands, or because he wanted to eat whilst working long hours at his desk.

I like a sandwich sometimes, especially the deep filled ones with lots of content, they are convenient to carry when wrapped up, they keep fresh when wrapped in cling-film, they are easy to handle, and are not messy.

The sandwich is not a British institution of course, it would be presumptuous of me to think so, in fact the sandwich goes back to the time people started travelling and wanted to take food with them. There is mention for example of Hillel the elder, an ancient Jewish sage, putting lamb meat (Pashal) and herbs inside flat bread, or the Egyptians feeding their slaves matzos (sandwiches) perhaps as they built the pyramids, the Romans calling the meal “cibus Hilleli” or Hillel’s Snack.

The sandwich is worldwide. I found out that the fillings probably are not.

I will make the  sandwich the night before. I take the loaf of bread from the freezer, yes I freeze the loaf when I buy it, as each slice is quick to defrost when needed, and the loaf stays fresh for weeks as I only take out what I need. I create my sandwich, wrap it in cling-film, and the morning you can relax as it has already been made.

I made a favourite sandwich of mine a cheese and onion. I prefer Cheddar cheese and a freshly cut onion. Later I gave one of my sandwiches to a Turkish friend who said

       “WHAT!!! ONIONS IN A SANDWICH!!!!” He must want me to stink all day!!

promptly took the onions out throwing them away into a bin.

My filters of what is right and wrong are influenced by my filters, my culture, my beliefs, my upbringing, my understandings of the world, my likes and dislikes. (See NLP Now – Transderivational Search)

When having wine with a meal, convention states that you drink red wine with meat, and white wine with fish. I like wine, I do not drink much as I get drunk too easy, and I especially like white wine, therefore I will drink white wine with all meals.

I like hot chocolate drinks. Often when I go out for a meal after a course with colleagues or participants, and the waiter takes the order for the food then asks what I would like to drink, I will ask for a hot chocolate, with the meal. One of my translators in Turkey, Halil, thinks I am insane, how can I do that, Donatella Stefanini who was an assistant at my last PhotoReading course in Milan, felt the same way as I drank my thick hot chocolate with my meal in New York New York buffet near the Central Station.

Yet again Donatella and other people on a NLP Practitioner course I was running in Rome thought how strange it was that I had chips, (British chips, not French Fries), with my pizza. I happen to like chips.

The Chinese love noddles, I travel to China and Malaysia a lot, and have to eat noodles. The way they eat noodles with chopsticks is to suck them up with the mouth, allowing any unused to fall back onto the plate. Lots of slurping.

Donatella whilst I was in Rome, invited me to a friends restaurant for a special spaghetti meal. When the meal was placed before me I instinctively eat like I would in China or Malaysia, until I heard a strong voice from across the table, “Phillip, don’t do that.”

Note :- A noodle includes all varieties from all origins, whereas Pasta refers specifically to Italian style noodle products such as spaghetti, penne, fettuccie or liguine. They are the same.

We all have our filters our understandings of the world.

Perhaps you have a different cat in the tree. (see Peter and the Wolf).

We have to learn that other people have theirs.

Categories
NLP Videos

NLP Now – Our Minds Eye

After a days work, I often like my own space, where I can relax, reflect, plan, and consider the future. It is at this time that sometimes my mind is at its’ most active, and it is a time when we can “make a mountain out of a mole hill“, by exaggerating a small thing or situation into something that is totally out of proportion.

Note:- A mole hill is that small mound of dirt/soil that is left by a small fury animal, a mole, that burrows under a lawn.

Someone says something to me, or does some action, and you know, you dwell on that situation, reliving it, adding more to the situation by saying to yourself “if I had have said this or that” or “if only I had done this or that”, or “they don’t understand me, why did they say that or do that”. We all do it, make mountains out of mole hills. We all have our cat in the tree. (click here to see blog).

It is at these times when I have to distract my inner mind, to be strong, because it is only our own internal voice, we have to be rude to it, and tell it to stop now. But that internal voice has not done with us, it wants to frustrate us, it keeps coming back to the surface to torment us.

Perhaps you have a strategy to cope with this situation. The more I work with people and the more I model them, the more ways I have at my disposal to cope with the situation, to stay calm, relax and at peace.

Try talking back to that internal voice, but in a stronger voice, not out loud, else people will think you are insane which you are not. Swear at it, the most rude words you can think, tell it to “shut the f–k up.” Take control of the internal voice. You are the boss.

At night in the UK, I have a little ear piece so that I can listen to the BBC’s Radio Five Live. It is a news and information radio program with very little music, I listen all night. It distracts my mind, stops me dwelling on an issue, and I sleep like a baby.

I have one particular CD set that I love, called The War of the Worlds by Jeff Wayne, based on the book of the same name written by H.G. Wells.

It is a musical work on two CD’s, with the story being narrated by Sir Richard Burton. It is very similar to Peter and the Wolf (click) in it’s concept and construction. Each person or element within the story, has its own theme music, and they intertwine and play with each other to create this wonderful work.

The Martians have their music, the soldier, the clergy man, the journalist have theirs, and each character has a narrator, David Essex the soldier, Phil Lynott the clergy, Richard Burton the journalist.

It tells the story of how the Martians came to earth to take-over, killing everything in their path as they traveled through the English countryside of Surrey where I live, into London and beyond, down the river Thames. It tells of the futile efforts of the army, with their inferior weapons to stop the Martians advances. It is only when the simplest of things finally defeats and kills the Martians that mankind is saved.

As I listen to the music and words, in my minds eye I can see like a film the Martians, the battles, I can hear the heartbeats and the fear, I can feel the emotions deep inside me, I can smell the stench of war and taste the sweet taste of freedom. I am there in the story.

The simplest change can make the difference.

Your mind can create whatever you want.

Take control of it, make your own positive situations.

Your mind, buy now you should listen to it.


    The two CD set.      The Collector’s Edition seven CD set.