Category: NLP

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English Courses NLP Travels

Again Sleep Eludes Me

After finishing a two day training in the Bosch company near Izmir, Turkey, I had not heard from the company who organises my trainings in Turkey as to where I was to stay in Istanbul. I was to return straight after the finish of the course on the 9:15pm Friday flight to Istanbul, and start another course 9am Saturday.
 
I arrived in Ataturk Airport, Istanbul, and still no message as to a hotel where I am to stay.

I called a friend, and asked for a bed for the night. But now I find myself wide awake at 3am in the morning. I will be in no fit state to start a nine day course. I am just like the previous night, fighting with my internal mind, and no sleep. If only I could talk to someone. 

On top of that, there are a lot of outstanding fees for my training sessions.

This is the last straw.

I cannot carry on working for nothing, and living on the streets.

So I go on the internet to answer my emails. and notice more invitations to join Facebook, a site that people join as a community, to link with other friends.

I am amazed how addictive it has become to many people. It seems to have taken over their lives.

It is the same as MSN chat lines or SMS mobile telephone messages. It seems that people would rather communicate in cyberspace, not to speak face to face with other people, even when they are sitting opposite to them.

It seems that people spend hours on Facebook, not communicating in the real world, but to virtual friends. Perhaps they neglect to do their normal day to day tasks, maybe, their work suffers, or relationships too.

How often are we absorbed in our own world (or cyberworld), and fail to see reality, the real world around us?

How often have we failed consider the people who rely on us for work we must do, commitments we must honour, friends and colleagues we should have paid attention to?

How often have we overlooked those that love us, that are near and dear to us, that want to give their affection, and dream of getting love and affection back?

Perhaps too often. It is only when we loose these loved ones, friends and colleagues that we realise how we have become so obsessed and addicted to the unreal world, of TV, video games and the internet.

Sleep well world. I will now go and play on Facebook.

And, I apologise to the one or two people who will not be seeing me tomorrow.

Categories
NLP Travels

Another Day, Another Journey

After writing yesterdays blog in the early hours, I was able to sleep. Now I have to re-arrange my sleep pattern, especially as I travel to Izmir in Turkey to give a two day training to staff of Bosch. 

Izmir is the said to be the third largest city of Turkey, and is located on the Aegean coast in Asia Minor, west Turkey, with going back to 3000 B.C. 

I doubt if I will see any of the history or culture of Izmir, from the Trojan influence some 5,000 year ago, through the Hittites involvement, to present days history of Ataturk (click to read my blog on Ataturk) driving the Greeks out on 9th September 1922, to Izmir’s rebirth as a port and favourite holiday destination, as I will arrive late this evening, start the course tomorrow, Thursday, all day, continue all day Friday and catch the 21:45 flight back to Istanbul Friday evening.

Then I have a number of decisions to make. What do I do next? I will put those to one side, as I do not want to loose anymore sleep. They can wait, as I have often done, “it will all come out in the wash”.

“It will all come out in the wash”, is an English saying which means, if we leave things to run, run their course, or go in their natural way, resolution will be found, we will get the answer or result.

I know good things are ahead and await us all.

Categories
NLP

Sleep Eludes Me

Tonight I cannot find sleep. I have lain awake now for nearly five hours, trying every trick in the book, in my armoury, my portfolio. I have tried everything I suggest to others who ask for help sleeping, except one.

Why is it that sleep eludes us?

Yes I have much on my mind.

Will the people who owe me money pay me for my work, so that I can pay my bills?

Will my next training courses be a success? Will I fulfill the expectations and outcomes? Have I been forewarned of the expectations fully?

Will the promised courses ever take place, as I rely on promoters in certain countries to organise and sell my courses? I have had cases when only one participant has been booked for a course, and I was not informed, or none were booked.

Should I change my strategy in marketing myself throughout the world?

Are my web sites working after I changed Internet Service Providers (ISP) in the last few days?

Am I getting all my emails due to my changing the ISP?

Many, many personal problems, health problems keep rolling through my mind.

STOP IT. But I can not.

As a last resort I try counting sheep as they jump over a fence, surely that will work?

                                                                
But no, I still cannot sleep.

I need to empty my mind. I need to change my state.

It is no good just laying in bed feeling sorry for myself, do something constructive.

So write this blog. Perhaps it may help some other poor person awake at this time.

As I sit here in the middle of the night, 3:30am, the person or persons upstairs are up with their television on, walking around the room making the floor boards creak.

Someone coughs loudly, and I hear the deep rumble of another person snoring.

The street cleaning cart with its’ orange flashing light trundles along outside, cleaning up the previous days rubbish.

Cars race by, taking their occupants home or to work.

There are many people up at this time, going about their business. It is OK to be awake. Long has the time gone when the BBC (listen to the music “Lilliburlero” of BBC World Service in the blog) would switch off all of their broadcasts at twelve midnight and not resume again until 6am in the morning, because people should be asleep.

Yes I feel relaxed now. So good night world.

Categories
Books Coaching NLP

Coaching

At the moment I am coaching some people to dream and to fulfill these dreams.

It is a dream on my part to help people to achieve excellence, over and above their dreams.

And, I just got a message from them that said they are attending a convention in the USA, where the meeting was named, “Dream, Then Do“.

Perhaps that is what we should all do, dream, and live the dream.

There is a film and a book out on the market, which is a number one best seller, much in the vain of “What the Bleep Do We Know” (see previous blog click),  in many countries of the world, having been translated into lots of languages. This film is called The Secret. (see and buy below).

How do people achieve so many great things?

How do they become rich, and rich in all senses of the meaning, not just money?

How do they achieve satisfaction and happiness?

They ask for their desires.

They ask their higher self, the ultimate, and it is theirs. You only have to ask.

But then, there is no free ride. You have to do. You have to live your life as if you have already achieve your desire.

If you have a dream, ask for if, live it. It will be yours. Any hesitation, then it will be lost.

So:-
         Dream the dreams of dreams, and they will be fully incorporated into every single muscle, every single cell, every single neuron.
                                  

Categories
Books NLP Travels

There is a Big World out there.

My travels around the world has taken me to most of continents, and many countries. It has opened my eyes to different cultures, beliefs, habits and behaviour.

I happen to believe in evolution, but do not dismiss divine creation. My trip to the Galápagos Islands (see flim of dancing Mocking birds) in the Pacific Ocean, the birthplace of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, helped to seal my beliefs, yet instill in me the understanding of how the growth of the human population is destroying our planet. We are changing the habitation, the species that exists there, by introducing our ways of living, introducing new species that knock out the indigenous species, and removing or destroying plant life and vegetation that sustains life.

I love to take a window seat on a flight, and watch the ever changing world float by there down below me as we fly at 35,000 feet. It looks so flat, and I know that this is an illusion, because I know there are many hills and valleys to be climbed and cross. I love to see the patchwork of fields, criss crossed by roads, railways, and rivers, seeing traffic, cars, lorries, trains, and wonder if the occupants know or realise that someone is looking down on them.

I look at the buildings, towns and cities, trying to work out which place, the name, they are. I see the pollution, mans waste, mans desire for energy, goods and chattel’s, resulting in a haze that is very visible, and have to remind myself that I too have the desire for the energy and chattel’s contributing to the destruction of our world.

It is very strange how it is only in the recent years that we humans have become aware of Global Warming, of how we humans are creating too big a carbon footprint.

Why? How?

The simple answer is our governments, our religious leaders and the media that are feeding us information that they want us to know about, information from their point of view, from their perspective, knowledge and understanding. To brainwash us, to change our understandings, and to influence us.

It is very strange that in recent worldwide conflicts, the British population was in a majority in favour of the conflict, and yet, just 15 miles across a stretch of water, the French had a majority against the conflict.

What caused this difference in beliefs? Information that was being fed to the populations.

It is the same with all beliefs, religion, politics, business, education. It is the information that is being fed to us, that is brainwashing us, changing our beliefs.

It is national or religious holidays where I see these differences most, that I feel or sense big changes in beliefs.

For me as a British citizen, a suppose a Christen, (what I am I do not know as I have been exposed to so many beliefs), that Christmas is so important. The whole of the UK comes to a stop. There are no trains, buses, on the 25th December. All shops are closed, restaurants are closed, cinemas, theaters remain closed. Only the essential services operate in a somewhat normal way. It is a time for the family, the children.

Yet, many people from other countries, other cultures, do not know what is happening in the UK, that it is closed for the day, shut down.

Then, how many people in the UK realised that countries of the same belief system say as Turkey were closed, shut down for their important time of the year, their holiday, where people traveled to send time with their families, where businesses, shops etc were closed?

In Turkey it was their holiday, their Bayram, in other countries it is called Eid ul-Fitr or Id-Ul-Fitr often shortened to Eid. It is the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

For me I could not understand, why, I could not contact people, why were telephones unanswered, why were there none of my contacts on Skype, Gizmo (read about how you can contact me or make free phone calls will ViOP) or MSN?

Many people only see or understand what they have in their world, their country, their town village or home. They have no realisation of anything outside their own understanding, their world.

On a trip to Peru, going “off track”, not to the tourist areas, we came to a village market, where “westerners” never frequent. They were dressed in their typical national costumes, selling their local produce and food. An amazing experience to see other cultures. We were told not to take photographs, as they may take offense, object to this.

All these people dressed in so colourful clothes, with big red cheeks. Yet who were the odd ones out? Who were being viewed as if they were aliens from outer space, with their hiking boots, all weather clothes? Us, the tourists. (Pictures wll follow).

How often do we step outside our own shoes, and see things from a different view, a different perspective? (See the film What the Bleep do we Know– click to visit web site).
                                                

It is when we begin to see things, understand things from others points of view that we will become aware that it is a big world out there, that our Cat on the Mat or Map of the Territory is not that of others, and we can ask:-

         “Who or what put our beliefs in our head, or influenced our thoughts and behaviours?”

Categories
NLP Travels

Your Comfort Zone

It seems that these days I do not have conformity in my life.

I have never had a real 9 – 5 job. Well I nearly did when I first started work at the tender age of 18 at the National Coal Board‘s (NCB) Computer Power site in Cannock in the Midlands of the UK (what is the UK? click). Here we worked twelve hour shifts, eight in the morning till eight at night, and visa versa, keeping what was then the largest computer site in Europe working, after which we wanted to go home.

My work giving training courses around the world, means that it is not every day that I have a course, in fact I would say that nearly 50% of my time is not presenting or training. The other 50% is taken-up by research, reading, seeing clients on a 1-2-1 basis, and clients may wish to see me anytime of the day.

As I said, I give training courses all over the world, traveling to different time zones. My body clock has now seemed to have acclimatised to these ever changing time zones. It seems that I do not sleep in the same bed for more than a week. I do not eat at the same table, or eat the same type of food from one day to the next, and my breakfast is never the same.

It is the bed that I miss conformity and similarity the most. It is the one time when you go to bed that you need to switch off, relax, sleep, and allow the plasticity of the brain, the learning, moving short term memory to long term memory to take place.

There are beds that are hard as if sleeping on a hard concrete floor, there are beds that envelope you like into the arms of your lover, there are beds that are lumpy and the lumps seem to attack one part of the body all night, there are beds that sag in the middle and you continually roll into the dip, there are beds that are so big, that you feel lost and need a map to find your way around, and there are beds that are too small that you are frightened that you may fall out of them in the middle of the night.

I have slept, or tried to, in all of them.

But the pillow you place your head on that causes me the most discomfort.

Some pillows are too high so it feels as if someone is trying to break it off, some are too thin that it seems your head is sinking into the bowels of the earth and will drop off. They cause the neck to stretch and ache all night and give what we say in English “a crick in the neck” or stiff neck. Where in hotels the pillow is not thick enough, I may use folded towels, anything,  under the pillow to raise the height.

There are odd shaped pillows. Once I was sleeping on a heart shaped pillow, oh how I miss that one.

There are pillow with feathers which mould into the shape of your head, fine if you do not turn-over on a regular basis. There are pillows with fibre within, which when new are fine, but with wear and tear, the fibres tend to move to the outer edges leaving a valley in the middle with no support. No matter how you push and shove the fibre, it will not go back into the middle.

There are foam pillows that support well, until the foam begins to breakdown, gets lumpy, so that you can feel the lumps reshaping the side of your face.

Life is full of discomfort.

Try this little exercise.

Clasp your hands together, interlocking your fingers.

Which thumb is on top? Is it your right hands’ thumb or your left hand?

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Pull your hands apart, and then thread them together, re-clasp your hands moving one hand up, so that the other thumb is on top, and the fingers are interlaced differently.

It does not feel good, does it?

Now keep interlacing your hands together so that your fingers change position and you get the other thumb on top, and keep doing it for a minute, then stop.

Now check your feeling towards having your hands in the correct position or wrong position.

Not much difference?

Sometimes we need to go outside our comfort zone, way, way outside perhaps where we feel real discomfort.

It is when we do that, we learn to appreciate what we have, and to tolerate those little things that used to upset us.

Categories
NLP

NLP Certificates

Talking about feedback, I have just been informed by the couriers that the Certificates from the Society of NLP, signed by Richard bandler, have just been delivered to the offices of NLPGrup.

As I will not be in Istanbul yet, for those who wish to collect their certificates, please contact or visit NLPGrup offices near Taxim Square.

Congratulations to you all.

Categories
Hypnosis NLP

More on noticing Feedback – continued

There was I, a BSAC and PADI Master Diver, a qualified Rescue Diver, a scuba diver of renowned (see pictures, click), on the surface, not feeling too good.

The diving instructor swam to me and asked what was the problem, and I said that my balance was not right, it felt as if the world was turning upside down. He took may mask of and said that there was a small amount of blood coming from my nose, and that I would abandon the dive.

Fair enough, but then he started to pull me back to the shore, me a Master Diver being rescued. The humiliation.

Once on land I told the diving instructor to continue Asu’s certification dive. Apart from being a little light headed, and my ears blocked, I could net hear much, plus a silly billy (somebody regarded as silly or foolish), I was fine.

Through out the remaining course, some four days, my ears were blocked, I could not hear well. Must be water in there. It did not worry me, but as the days passed I knew I would have two fights to catch, especially to the UK. To have blocked ears on an aircraft is very painful. Sure enough, they remained blocked, and I suffered on my way back to the UK from Turkey.

The blocked ears had gone on too long, so I took myself to the doctors, just to make sure I had not damaged my eardrums. I should not have made that dive, not clearing my ears was a signal not to.

The doctor found nothing wrong with my ears, but asked the background as to why I had problems, and started asking more questions. She took my blood pressure, it was high, asked me what other pains I had, I said a slight pain in the neck (no comments please), some sweating when exercising.

That was enough, she sent me to the hospital for heart and chest tests. They conducted tests on the heart, but said they found nothing, but the Nurse Practitioner was not happy, she wanted more tests.

I was sent to another hospital, this time for a Thallium test. This is a nuclear scanning test or myocardial perfusion imaging test. It shows how well blood flows to the heart muscle. I was now radio active.

Ha Ha. They found a problem.

I was sent to another hospital, this time to have a look directly into the heart. Although a little worried about the procedure,  prepared myself with knowledge of what they would do.

A catheter or tube is inserted into an artery in the groin, and is feed up into the heart itself. Apart from the small cut which is like a scratch, as the groin has a local anesthetic, there is no feeling at all as the catheter reaches the heart.

I am fully awake, laying there watching the TV screens showing x ray pictures of my heart, as the doctors worked away, passing a drug into the heart so they could observe the flow in and out of the heart chambers and blood vessels.

For me, I was totally relaxed. I used my NLP skills, my hypnosis skills to totally relax myself. One of the nurses would keep asking me was I OK, I am sure it was because I was so relaxed.

The procedure was over and done with very quickly, and I was back on the ward, resting and recovering. The procedure required drugs which made the blood very thin, so the wound where the catheter was inserted took a time to seal and heal, and I had to lay there for some hours.

Then the news came. I had a blockage, a narrowing in an artery with the heart, and it had to be seen to, corrected.

Two weeks later I was back for a coronary angioplasty. This involves a catheter inserted in the groin again and sent to the heart. On the end of the catheter is a small wire mesh tube called a stent. Once placed in the narrowed artery, the stent is widened or blown-up, and the catheter removed, leaving the stent in place, allowing free flow of the blood.

Again, I used all my NLP and hypnosis skills to totally relax, feeling absolutely nothing, only the wound in my groin. To think not many years previously I would have required open heart surgery, with all the complications involved with anesthetics and entering the body.

Now? I was only in hospital a few hours, back home to rest, (and feel sorry for myself).

From now on I will have to look after myself, loose weight, lower my colesteral, take less salt, eat less fat, eat more fruit, and exercise, things I have not been good at. 

Also I have to take tablets every day for the rest of my long life, Asprin – 75 mg, Clopidogrel – 75mg, Atenolol -25 mg, Bendroflumethiazide 2.5mg, and Simvastatin – 20mg to lower the colesteral. These lower the thickness of the blood, so if I cut myself, I bleed for a long time, or if I bruise, I have a big dark purple patch, which takes days to go.

It is a small price to pay for living.

I am ever grateful for that doctor who listen to what I said, to my feedback and sent me for tests, to the Nurse Practitioner who looked at the initial results of tests, and did not take them at face value, and used the feedback I gave and her experience to do more investigation, to get more feedback which proved crucial in my diagnosis. I will be eternally grateful for all the people who have stood by me since and helped me.    

 

Categories
NLP Travels

More on noticing Feedback

Yesterday I wrote about feedback. We have to know what to notice so that we act upon what we are being given, and it is often good to get expert advice, instead of reading between the lines, putting our own often misguided understanding onto the situations. Remember the Cat Sat on the Mat. We only believe what is true what we already know and understand.

I had been a little sporty, I enjoyed cross-country running, cycling, and scuba diving, having undertaken over 600 dives around the world. But as I grew older, my exercise regime became less, no badminton or squash, no scuba diving, and yes the inevitable happened I gained weight.

I noticed that I started to get the old aches and pains which unfortunately accompanies our age progression, saying to myself, I must exercise, get myself fit, I would do a bit for a couple of weeks, half an hour each morning, floor, stretching, push-up exercises, then relapse into the comfort of taking it easy.

I noticed a slight ache in my neck on occasions, nothing much, just enough to notice. It seemed to occur when I expended a little energy, but it was OK.

I noticed that walking in the morning up Taxim Hill in Istanbul, that  would be sweating, and on occasions I would arrive in the training room soaking wet.

Still I did nothing, just said to myself, do more exercise.

I put all my energy into delivering my courses, and one in particular was in Antalya in Southern Turkey. My translator, Asuman Yildirim hear my stories and metaphors about scuba diving, and as the hotel we were holding the course had a diving school and diving facilities, she asked if I would take her on a dive. Of cause I had to say no, as Asu had never dived before, and one has to have a diving qualification to hire the equipment and partake in a dive. Even though I am a Dive Master, I insisted she takes a Padi Diving course.

On Asu’s last qualifying session, she ask her instructor if I could accompany them, and the instructor, having had checked my qualifications, agreed as long as I could prove to him I could handle myself in the water upon entering. This I did, but had difficulty clearing or equalising the pressure in my ears.

As I had paid a lot of money to hire the scuba diving equipment, and made a promise, I decided to still accompany Asu and the diving instructor, but stay at a depth on 10 feet or 3 meters.

After ten minutes swimming along above the other two, the whole world began to spin, I was not happy, there was something not right, and I aborted the dive, and the others came up to the surface with me.

Visit my web page to see some of my diving pictures http://www.nlpnow.net/scuba.htm .

Perhaps tomorrow I will continue.

(note 9/10/07, my web sites are again down, as the ISP (www.legend.co.uk or www.thus.com) has big problems, so much so, I am moving to another service provider, sorry for any convenience). 

Categories
Hypnosis NLP Travels

Feedback, Notice the small changes

We all experiences aches and pains, and I am no different.

I had the normal childhood illnesses, chickenpox, measles, even glandular fever that kept me of work at 18 years old for many weeks, and I found it a great way to loose weight, even if I had no control over the loss.

I had asthma attacks as a child of about 7 years old, not many as my memory recalls, but enough for my school and probably the medical opinion of the day, stopped me partaking in sports. At the age of 16 years old I started having migraines, which would literally knock me out for two days, with disrupted vision, disorientation and excruciating pain.

I learned to overcome all the above illnesses, taking-up sports, defying what was to be proved wrong advice, working to rid the migraines or control them, only having the odd one or two from say the age of 21.

It was whilst I was working in Saudi Arabia, where I looked after myself well, cooking great food, mostly steaks, beef and chicken that I started getting chest pains, especially at night. I knew it was indigestion, as if I had some milk or a Renie (indigestion tablet), the pain would go, plus I tended to get acid reflux, what appeared to be stomach acid entering the throat.

I went and got all the tests and my heart was fine, my chest was fine. There was nothing wrong with me.

On a frequent business trip back to the UK, I stayed in a hotel next to Heathrow airport, ready to take the early morning flight back to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. I had a friend staying with me, and we enjoyed a final fantastic steak meal together. That night I awoke to the familiar chest pains.

It was at that time I had the eureka enlightenment, I realised what was causing my pains.

Beef.

Yes, if I eat too much beef, I get the pains. My body does not like beef.

On returning to Saudi Arabia, I undertook my own experimentation, eating a wonderful large steak, only to experience the pains.

I started to monitor my body, looking for signals, discomforts, mood changes, and noticed my body did not like or could not tolerate peppers or capsicums, not the chili or paprika type, but the big ones. Even with the food being cooked in the peppers would make my body produce acid.

Then I wondered why I felt so light headed, so strange, my mind not functioning well at the weekends, (Thursday and Friday in Saudi Arabia), and realised I was drinking gallons or litres of instant coffee, much, much more than whilst I was at work. Again experimentation on my part, proved to me that coffee was not good for me.

I had already stopped smoking, realising the damage I was doing to myself, so I eliminated beef, peppers and coffee from my diet, even though I loved them.

If I am presented with the food, say at a dinner party, I do not make a fuss, I will consume them, and I will when in Turkey occasionally have a Turkish coffee after a meal.

I have learned to notice certain signs, look for feedback from my actions.

When working with people, I am constantly looking, listening for, noticing my feelings for feedback.

Do they understand me?

Are they going in the direction I want the to go?

Are they going in the direction they want to go?

Are they interested?

How are they processing the information internally in their own mind?

Are they visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, or gustatory (click to see Eye Accessing Cues) processing people? What is happening to them as they go on their Transderivational Search for understanding and information.

Not only do I notice the feedback I getting from others I am in communication with, but I also monitor the feedback I am giving them.

Is it appropriate feedback?

Am I letting them know I understand?

Am I showing them that I am listening to them?

By learning to recognise what feedback is happening or being given, we can make appropriate adjustments to the way we communicate with ourselves and the world.

But, we have to constantly check, if it is the appropriate feedback. More on that to follow.