Category: NLP

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NLP

Glossary of NLP


Many people ask me about terms used in NLP. These may help you.

I will endeavor to describe the words, but please send me comments and new words as you wish.

Accessing Cues As the human thinks or processes information, they give of information in breathing, gestures, eye movements
Ambiguity Words or statements that can be interpreted in more than one way.
Analogue A variable that can change on a continuum from say high to low. See Digital. – on or off.
Anchoring A state or process that can be captured by a word, sight, feeling, which when triggered will cause that state or process to be recalled.
Associated Seeing, hearing feeling as if doing those things from within oneself. Actually doing the act.
Auditory The act of hearing or speaking.
Backtrack To go back, review, recall, using the same tonality, words, actions.
Behaviour Any process to be engaged with, physically or mentally.
Beliefs The way a person understands the world from their generalised view.
Calibration To notice and to be able to reproduce another’s state. 
Capability A strategy of success to do a task.
Chunking To take an idea or concept, to chunk up to a higher logical level being less specific, to chunk down a logical level, to be more specific.
Complex Equivalence Two statements which have no relevance to each other, but are joined together as if they are.
Congruence A state of persons being in rapport, thinking and doing together to a common outcome.
Conscious The state of mind that we are aware of at the present time.
Content Reframing By taking a statement and giving it a different meaning.
Context Reframing By taking a statement and using it in another context or situation.
Conversational Postulate Posing a question in such a way for it to become a command. 
Criterion What is important in a certain situation or process.
Cross-over Mirroring To match another’s physical movement with another movement of ones own.
Deep Structure That part of communication which has been omitted, leaving the surface structure.
Deletion That part of an experience that has been omitted, removed from the conscious process.
Digital Two states, which is either true or false, yes or no, with no variability, see Analogue.
Dissociated Seeing, hearing or feeling as if watching ones self doing, not in the experience. See Associated.
Distortion An inaccurate representation of an experience as a internal experience.
Downtime To go into ones own thoughts and feelings, in a relax state or hypnotic state.
Ecology To have regards to customs, beliefs, values, environment, surroundings.
Elicitation Using questions and observations, possibly with the Meta Model to gather information about behaviour
Epistemology Knowing how we know how we know.
Eye Accessing Cues The movement of the eyes that indicate the processing of information, of visual, auditory, both internal and external, Kinesthetic, and auditory digital.
Eyes Closed Process Used to describe the process of going into trance or hypnosis.

Feedback                 

First Position

 Are we communicating what we are meant to communicate?

Part of Perceptual Positions. Seeing or being as ones self.
Frame The way we perceive, understand something.
Future Pace To mentally rehearse some future event or happening with a positive outcome.
Generalisation Combining all experiences of a similar nature into one specific experience.
Gustatory The sense of taste V.A.K.O.G.
Hypnosis A state, perhaps of relaxation.
Identity How one sees ones-self, the self-image.
Incongruence Not in agreement with, having conflict with, often seen or expressed in behaviour.
Installation To facilitate the acquiring of a new state or behaviour.
Intention The desired outcome of an action.
Internal Representations How information is stored in the mind, Visually, Auditory, Kinaesthetically, the tastes and smells.
Kinesthetic The sense of feeling, internal and external, sensations, emotions.
Lead System The representational system to load information into the conscious mind.
Leading The actions or processes that others will follow.
Linguistic Language, how it is constructed.
Logical Level Levels of information, lower levels are pieces of information contained in a higher level of information. 
Looping

Lost Performative
Starting a story or metaphor, without finishing starting another, then going back to finish or end the stories or metaphors. 

The person or thing doing the act is missing, see Meta Model
Map of the World The understanding or representation a person makes of the world with their own experiences.
Matching Enacting another’s posture, actions or language to gain rapport.
Meta More of, greater than, beyond.
Meta Model

Meta Model Diagram

 To use language to recover the deep structure about a belief, experience or understanding, the opposite of Milton Model.

A diagram showing the language patterns of the Meta Model with links to explanations.
Meta-cognition Being able to explain knowledge to others.
Metaphor To tell a story with a hidden meaning, having a comparable situation as the real situation.
Metaprograms Habits that we filter information of experiences to get information or understandings.
Milton Model Using vague language patterns, so the resources of the individuals unique unconscious mind has to be accessed to gain understanding. Derived from the works of Milton Erickson. The opposite of Meta Model.
Mirroring To match another’s physical movement with the same movement of ones own precisely.
Mismatching To break rapport by doing different patterns, pattern interrupt.
Modal Operator of Necessity Terms in linguistics to change the rules or how we process the information, should could, will etc.
Modal Operator of Possibility Terms in linguistics that will change how processes can be done, can, cannot etc.
Modality The representational Systems V.A.K.O.G.
Model Term used to describe how a process is done, with V.A.K.O.G.
Modelling The act of or the process of finding out how a process works in the sequence it happens in.
Multiple Descriptions Describing a process or experience from different positions or viewpoints.
Neuro How the human processes information in the brain.
Neurological Levels Different logical levels of experience, involving the, environment, behaviour, capability, belief, identity, and spirituality. 
New Code NLP “New” NLP descriptions and ideas from John Grinder et al.
NLP Neuro-Linguistic Programming. How people achieve excellence and how they structure that experience.
Nominalization To change a verb into a noun. To love becomes love.
Olfactory The sense of smell. V.A.K.O.G.
Outcome A sensory-based specific result of a future event that is well-formed.
Overlap To work in or communicate in one sense or representational system, then access another. Seeing into hearing. 
Pacing To gain rapport with someone and keeping that rapport over a time. Used with leading.
Parts The subconscious actions or intentions that guide us.
Pattern Interrupt To pace an individuals habitual processes or actions, then interrupt them, then guiding them in another direction or process.
Perceptual Filters The individuals beliefs, ideas, experiences that create their model of the world.
Perceptual Positions How we understand the world from our perspective (1st position), another persons (2nd), an observer’s (3rd), a 4th can be added that of a Martian. 
Phonological Ambiguity Two words that sound the same but have different meanings. Sea/see, hear/here.
Physiological The physical body of a person.
Predicates Sensory based words that indicate the use of the representational system. V.A.K.O.G.
Preferred System The representational system mostly used to process information or experiences.
Presuppositions Statements or ideas that are taken for granted to make sense of some communication.
Punctuation Ambiguity Joining or merging two unrelated sentences together without punctuation as if they were related.
Quotes To say something as if someone else has said it.
Rapport To establish and maintain trust and understanding between people.
Reframing To change an idea, belief  or frame of reference, by issuing another statement giving the original belief a new meaning.
Representation How sensory-based information V.A.K.O.G. is stored in the mind.
Representation 
System		 The V.A.K.O.G. (Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Olfactory, Gustatory) sensory systems stored in the mind.
Requisite Variety Being able to be flexible to have choice in behaviour and thought.
Resourceful State The state when physical and psychological states are very good to achieve good results.
Resources Any experiences, learning’s, states, strategies that can be used to achieve an outcome.
Second Position Part of perceptual positions, that of seeing things from another’s view point.
Secondary gain Where some function is derived from another action, strategy or process that may be problematic, a phobia etc.  
Sensory Acuity Being more aware of the sensory-based information of any experience.
Sensory-Based Description Using sensory-based descriptions to describe an experience.
Sleep-Like People belief that hypnosis is sleep is untrue, it is a sleep-like state, where the subject is totally aware of the environment.
State The mood one is in at a given time, being the sum total of physical and psychological processes at that time.
Strategy How one achieves an outcome, the process of thoughts and behaviours, defined by V.A.K.O.G.
Submodality The representational Systems V.A.K.O.G. broken down into smaller part, to hear, – load, soft, far away, near.
Surface Structure The communication we make, deleting or leaving out , information from the deep structure.
Synesthesia Linking one sense to anther sense automatically.
T.O.T.E. Test, Operate, Test, Exit. A model of a strategy.
Third position Part of perceptual positions, that of seeing things from an observers position.
Timeline How past, present and future experiences are positioned in space as we thing of them.
Trance The altered state of hypnosis.
Transderivational Search The process of accessing experiences and representations to make sense of the present experience.
Translating The process of rephrasing words from one representational system predicates to another.
Tuple (4-Tuple) The short hand method of writing down the strategies or expeience using the four primary modalities or representation systems, V.A.K.
Unconscious All that is not in the conscious mind at that moment.
Universal Quantifiers Used in the Meta Model, that in linguistic terms links “everything” together in one word, All. Nobody.
Unspecified Nouns Nouns that have no referral as to who they belong to or what they refer to.
Unspecified Verbs 
    “Predicates“		 The process is no described by an adverb, how it was carried out. He ran, how did he run, fast or slow.
Uptime Where the attention or state are aware of everything.
Values Those beliefs that are important.
Visual The sense of sight.
Visualisation The act of imagination of seeing things in the mind, with the third eye.
Well-Formed An outcome or idea that is achievable, verifiable and ecological.
INDEX
Categories
NLP Travels

A Trip into London.

The trip back to the UK has been taken up by sorting business out, the bank, paying bills, organising future dates, tax affairs, and visas.

On this Friday, (tomorrow) I return to Istanbul Turkey, to give a number of courses, Coaching, Mind Maps, NLP Practitioner level, memory skills and what ever to organisers can throw at me.

I have an appointment in the UK on the 27th of the month for my health, and then fly to Bangalore, India on the 29th for a PhotoReading course, with a projected fifty participants. I need a visa to enter India, so off into London I go.

Sitting here on the train watching people on the way to work, reminds me of the days I would catch the train every morning. Not a word is spoken, people are in their own worlds, trying not to look into others eyes, reading the next persons newspaper, as the newspaper owner tries to hide the print, people catching-up on sleep.

There are smells, curries from last night, stale wine and beer, and what smells like tinned tuna meat. I wish there was a Dior perfume.

The sound of the train announcement “the next station is Wimbledon, please mind the gap between the train and the platform edge,” takes my mind away from the man next to me with an IPod playing some unknown music, all I hear is the bum bum bum. He seems to like it.

Now I hear that there are now train delays due to a power supply problem. Oh Poo Poo. (click to see.) but we are still speeding down the track. The worried look of the passenger faces tells me some will be late.

Thank goodness I have stopped this daily commute into the heart of London. I now only have to sit waiting for hours in airport departure lounges and cramped aircraft seats, listening to the beautiful languages of the world over loudspeakers I find difficult to tune into.

The grass is always greener on the other side.

We all think that other peoples lot, other peoples lives, are better than our own.
 
As we pull into Waterloo Station I think. Are other peoples lives better than mine?


Waterloo Station's main entrance not usually seen.Waterloo Station’s main entrance not usually seen.

Trains waiting to depart at Waterloo Station.I think not. I think my map of my territory is OK. (see here the Map is not the Territory)

Categories
NLP

NLP Now – Surface Structure Deep Structure

When we talk about surface structure and deep structure, we are referring to the way we communicate with the world about us.

We have seen previously that in 1956, George Miller came up with the notion of the human being only being able to handle 7 pieces of information at any time plus or minus 2. (click here).

It is my belief from my working with hypnosis and PhotoReading that all experiences we are exposed to will be placed in the brain.

We have the concept of two brains. The first is the conscious brain, that part of the brain that we are aware of, our thinking brain, the one we talk to ourselves with, see and hear with, the one that we have feelings with. The second brain is our subconscious brain, this is the brain we are not aware of. It is the pat of us that does things for us without us consciously thinking about it, like waking up at the correct time in the morning, multiplying 2 x 2, talking, walking.

It is my belief that Miller’s 7+/-2 concept is for the conscious mind, as with hypnosis it is possible to access information not available in the “waking” state, things we did not realised we had noticed.

With PhotoReading we can absorb vast amounts of information, 20,000 – 30,000 words per minute, a page a second. This information goes into our inner mind, and is available to us, but we have to activate it, get it from our inner mind, our subconscious mind.

If we understand the above and accept the understanding now, we can liken the brain as an iceberg  floating in the sea. Two thirds of an iceberg is bolow the surface, only a third is visable. And so it is with the human brain. Information that is consciously available to us is that of the iceberg above water, the surface structure, yet below the waterline the subconscious is even more information, the deep structure.

The iceberg effect

When we use communication, talk to people, pass on information, we delete a lot of information, we give surface structure information. The cat sat on the branch of the tree with Peter. (NLP Now – Peter and the Wolf).

The statement given does not say which cat, how it sat, on which branch, how high was it, how long had it been there, etc, etc. This information is at the deep structure, and as NLPer’s it is our job to help our clients get to this information should it be appropriate, to enrich their world.

We will use such method and tools as those in the Meta Model.

Categories
NLP Phobias PhotoReading Stage Hypnosis

The Castle by Phillip Holt, a hypnotic Journey

My interest in hypnosis started many years ago, and has taken me on a fantastic journey of discovery of the human mind, and has enabled me to help myself and others to change for the better, to do what we are entitled to do, anything. OK, within the law, our culture, religion, our social setting.

I have worked and studied with the best, Ormond McGill, Jerry Valley, Gill Boyne, Paul McKenna, Richard Bandler, Michael Breen. I am eternally indebted to their help and teachings.

As I became a hypnotherapist, a trainer of the NGH (National Guild of Hypnotists), a trainer of NLP, giving and training Stage Hypnosis, I too gained a good reputation, but the one thing that was missing was my voice that participants and clients could take away.

A good friend and colleague Lex McKee (Lex Studios) and I got together in his recording studio and produced the CD The Castle MP3. (Download by clicking here.)

The Castle a hypnotic journey of change by Phillip Holthere or visiting the web site http://www.nlpnow.net .

The Castle MP3  The Castle a hypnotic journey of change by Phillip Holt
Categories
NLP

NLP Now – The Map is Not the Territory

George Miller in 1956 wrote a paper “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information” In this paper he reviewed psychological experiments, that said the human being has problems remembering more than seven unrelated items at any one time.

Try remembering a telephone number or a list of items for the weekly shopping. Difficult.

We have a memorising span that we as individuals have as limitations to take information in.

We live by our learning from our past experiences, our culture, our religion, language, beliefs, values, interests and assumptions.

We live our lives by our own unique reality taken from our own individual experiences of life, our model of the world as we perceive it, having had deleted much of the information from the situations as they happened.

I have been places and done things that the vast majority of people will never experience. I have scuba dived around the world logging over 600 dives, swimming with sharks, riding on the back of a turtles, been inside sunken wrecks, I have flown and aircraft, I have sand boarded down huge sand dunes, I have driven over a glacier on a snow mobile, climbed to the top of a volcanoes.

I have lived in Saudi Arabia for a number of years, I have lived/stayed in many countries, China, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Turkey, Italy, India, Bahrain, Libya, being influenced by their culture, beliefs, religions and language.

I have had many adventures, influencing my thoughts, my actions, my beliefs.

We are all bombarded by our own experiences, and take our learning from what we perceive as reality, the real things from these experiences. Yet Miller implies that we can only take in 7 +/- 2 prices of information.

Let us take a simple scene that you see in front of you now. Perhaps you are at the computer screen.

How much is being shown on the actual screen? The tool bar buttons, the web address, how about the keyboard, the layout, what key follows the character “G”, or the character “K”? Is the screen on a table? What is on the table? What is on the wall? On the floor/ What are you wearing?

Lots of visual information, yet we can only take in 7+/-2 items. We delete a lot of information being given to us.

What about sound? The clicking of the keyboard, the computer fan? Sounds of the house or the office? Sounds from outside?

We have to share the 7+/-2 items.

How about the taste in your mouth? Taste something now I point it out?

How about smells?

Your feet on the floor. Were you aware of them before I asked? Bottom on the chair. Aware of it now?

The human mind is designed to delete the vast amount of information it is given, only concentrating on the important things, remembering consciously those 7+/-2 things.

The world is so vast and full of rich information, that we have to simplify it to make sense and understand it.

Let us take the analogy of a map as compared to our conscious memory.

Consider that you have to travel to a new town you have never been to before under your own steam. How would you plan to get there? Yes, you would look at a map. As you look at the map, does it show every turn in the road, every rise and fall , hill or valley, does it show every lamp post, tree, drain? No, it just gives you a representation of the area or territory.

In NLP we say the Map is not the Territory. Click to read.

Consider the underground railway, tube or metro.
.

London Underground Map
London Underground Map

If you had to go from station “A” to station “Z”, you could look at the tube map and find the way. But does that map show the bends in the tube? Does it give the correct distances between the stations? No, it is a representation.

So it is with our representation of the world. We pay attention for example of those things that interest us and ignore others. We filter information. If we have limited beliefs, interests and perspectives, then our understand of the world will be impoverished, and not as rich as it could be. The world is not as we see it, but by the filters we use to perceive it.

A person who has a profession of a chef, will see the world different to that of a garbage collector, than a doctor.

Think of the word “work”, and you will have memories and experiences, internal sounds, pictures and feelings associated with that word that help you understand its’ meaning, but I will have different experiences, so my map will not be the same as yours.

Are you correct or myself? Is my cat the right one or yours?

Change your filters and change your world.

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.

Categories
English Sayings NLP Thoughts

NLP Now – Peter and the Wolf

Today whilst I had spare time, it seemed today was a lot of spare time, I listened to a piece of music I had not heard since I was a boy. It was Peter and the Wolf.

 

Peter and the Wolf
Peter and the Wolf

Sergei Prokofiev in 1936, was commissioned by the Central Children’s Theatre in Moscow to write a new musical symphony for children. This symphony was completed in four days by Prokofiev and was first performed on May 2nd of the same year 1936.

It tells of a small boy, Peter, who was staying with his grandfather in Russia. His bedroom overlooked a meadow and a mysterious forest.

As I listen to the music, my mind went back to a client I saw recently, his name can be Peter too. He was having relationship problems with a loved one, they were not seeing eye to eye. It seemed that Peter’s partner was beginning to not believe what Peter said anymore. Peter said certain things would happen, had happened, were happening, and they never happened.

The partner had built great expectations up on what Peter had said, only to become confused and frustrated, eventually saying “oh yes” to anything Peter said.

It appeared that Peter also had a lot of “pain”, or would say something was painful, or hurt, giving out utterances such as “ouch”, or would flinch when touched.

In Peter and the Wolf, there are certain characters, each depicted or played by instruments of the orchestra, with the story being narrated by an actor.

* Peter is played by the stings of the orchestra
* the wolf is played by the French horns
* the bird is played by the flute
* the duck is played by the oboe
* the hunter is played by the timpani drums
* the grandfather is played by the bassoon
* the cat is played by the clarinet

Early every morning, as the sun’s rays crept through the curtains, Peter would be up and out into the yard, which had a big wall and gate to stop Peter entering the dangers of the meadow and forest.

There was a large tree in the yard which had a big branch reaching out into the meadow, which Peter loved to climb. In the middle of the meadow was a pond.

One morning whilst sitting on the branch a little bird began to sing a happy tune which made both very happy, the bird flying over the pond.

As the bird flew, he saw a duck swimming in the pond keeping cool. They did not like each other and tormented one another, saying the duck was not a bird as it could not fly, and the bird was not a bird because it could not swim.

The two argued about who was the best, and did not notice the cat creeping up to eat the bird. It was Peter who saw the cat and shouted a warning to the bird who flew out of harms way, landing o the branch of the tree with Peter. The cat realising that it was not worth climbing the tree, settled at it’s base for a sleep.

The grandfather hearing the commotion, told Peter what a bad place the meadow was, with dangerous animals, and made Peter go back in the yard.

At that time, the wolf came into the meadow. The bird saw the wolf and chirped a warning, making the cat run up the tree, but the duck left the safety of the pond and waddled across the meadow.

The wolf quickly caught the duck and swallowed it whole.

The wolf now sat at the base of the tree waiting for the cat or the bird to make a mistake. But Peter had a plan, he would catch the wolf, so he asked the bird to distract the wolf.

The bird flew over the wolf’s nose many times, enough to distract the wolf allowing Peter to snare the wolfs’ tail with a rope. The more the wolf struggled the tighter the rope got.

As the wolf struggle some hunters came out of the wood, and were about to shoot the wolf, when Peter shouted at them to spare the wolf’s life and take him to the zoo so everyone could see this animal. So off they paraded the wolf as they took him to the zoo, the villagers proud of Peter, but the grandfather knowing that there were dangers in the forest.

It is a loverly piece of music and narration, and it reminds me of another small child and a wolf.

Every night the child went to bed, and as the parents went downstairs to rest, the child would shout, “the wolf is coming, the wolf is coming”. Just to draw the attention of the parents.

The parents would race to the aid of the child, to save it from the wolf, but each time they got to the bedside, there was no wolf.

The child continued to call out, “the wolf is coming, the wolf is coming”, and the parents would go to the bedside knowing there would be no wolf.

One night, a wolf crept towards the house looking for food, and saw the child in bed.

The child cried out “the wolf is coming, the wolf is coming”, and the parents took no notice of the cries.

The wolf ate the child.

Categories
NLP

My Other Friends, Fred, Antonio, or Mustapha or State Control

Thank you all for your advice for Colin. (click).

I did work with Colin with one of the most powerful exercises in NLP. It is the first technique I use with all my 1-2-1 clients, those with phobias, fears, needing strength, confidence, self power. It is an anchor, a state, you can install in yourself, to call upon whenever you need.

We have all had times when we had confidence, times when we had that internal power or strength, where nothing would trouble us, when our shoulders would be held back, we felt tall.

Now, perhaps as you read this, you too can find a time when you had the power to do anything you wanted.

As I worked with Colin, thoughts of times when I was powerful, standing in front of over five hundred Chinese Human Resource (HR) leaders in Hangzhou just south of Shanghai, presenting NLP, or talking to nearly 1,000 students in a university in Istanbul who were preparing for their examinations. The same power now came back to my body and mind.

I asked Colin to take his right index finger, and place it in his “belly button“, through his clothes.

The “belly button”, also called the navel , or umbilicus scar.

Then I asked him to point with three fingers on the other hand, joining the three fingers together, then place those three fingers immediately below the finger which is placed in the “belly button”, pull the “belly button” finger out, and place that below the three fingers.

“Can you feel where the finger is pointing to?” to which Colin replied “Yes”.

This point is referred to as Hara, Tandien, the Key or Chee. It is one of the seven Chakra’s (Swadhisthana). It is a point that the martial artists, the Kung Fu fighters, place their attention to, (think about), to gain strength.

Hara, Tandien, the Key, Chee or Swadhisthana, are difficult names to remember, so in the UK I call this point Fred, in Italy it is called Antonio, in the Middle East and Turkey I call it Mustapha. You can call this point whatever you want.

I then asked Colin to stand with his feet slightly apart, and I touched his forehead, asking him to place his attention at this point, as I gently moved him around side to side. I asked him to notice how he felt, notice his thoughts, feelings, as he felt very unstable.

After I had anchored, or showed him how it felt to be weak, I asked him to move his attention down to Fred, Antonio, Mustapha, and with the attention here, just below the “belly button”, I again moved him from side to side, and asked him to notice the difference to be now strong like a rock, like a statue, an oak tree. It is difficult to move people around with their attention here.

I did this procedure three times, the magic three, so that the brain will learn that whenever you place your attention at Fred, Antonio, or Mustapha, you will get the power the confidence you want, helping you do what you desire.

As with all the work I do, teaching, coaching, working 1-2-1 with clients, I always test the work.

I touched the forehead of Colin and moved him side to side, so that he became weak, and asked him to think about something that may have upset him in the past, perhaps a person, a place or a thing. I asked him to notice what it was like, thoughts, feelings.

Once this was calibrated, I asked him to move his attention down to Fred, Antonio, or Mustapha, and to notice now the difference taking a deep breath in. Notice the thoughts the feelings.

“What are the differences?”

“They are insignificant, small, they don’t matter, I feel powerful.” These are some of the comments given to me.

Think about it.

When people say or believe they have too much to do, they are given too much information. Notice what they say, their actions. They will say such things as, “it is going over my head”,  “my head is going to burst”, they will often hold their head in their hands.

When people cannot cope, when they are out of their depth, getting too much information, their attention is in their head.

When you are strong, your attention is at Fred, Antonio, or Mustapha.

Practice Fred, Antonio, or Mustapha every day in the shower, make it strong, allow your brain to learn this implicitly, so that whenever you need strength or confidence, come back to this place, place your attention here.