NLP

I came upon this story from Vikas an NLP Practitioner from India on the excellent Art of NLP newsgroup. I particularly enjoyed the simplicity of his approach.

About 18 months ago a young lady asked me for help for her depression. She was visiting a psychiatrist and taking some medicine for depression for preceding few months.I suggested to her to look around and mentally say… “I am sitting on this happy chair. There is this happy table. And these are happy windows with happy curtains.” I made her do this for about ten minutes. I suggested she does this every day for about ten or fifteen minutes. (A happy person lives in a happy world, a sad person lives in a sad world.)

After fifteen days she called to say that she was feeling great now. After about two months she visited the psychiatrist and he stopped her medicine. She continues to call occasionally and reports that she feels great now. The most recent one was when she was in my town about ten days ago.

I am not suggesting it will work with every patient of depression. I am not even suggesting one should use it with every patient. I am only saying I found that it worked with my patient and it is very easy to do.

Many thanks to Vikas for allowing me to share it with you.

So, are you sitting on a happy chair?

Share This

This is a very useful (non-EFT) method for reducing anxiety recommended by Andy Austin. All you need is your anxiety and a tennis or juggling ball. Brain scan studies have demonstrated that anxiety only occurs in one hemisphere of the brain. If you force the both hemispheres of the brain to communicate with some physical actions then the anxiety state can be quickly diminished.

Here’s what you do:

1. Conjure up the state of anxiety (if you are troubled by anxiety you may not need to do much conjuring).
2. Holding your hands out in front of you, elbows bent as if you were holding a tray. Toss the ball back and forth between your hands. The ball must cross in front of you as you catch and throw. As you do this you will find your anxiety level beginning to diminish.
3. After a while stop ‘juggling’ to guage your level of anxiety. Typically it will be reduced.
4. Continue juggling and checking until the anxiety is reduced to zero.

You can use this process when the anxiety arises or imagine an anxiety provoking situation and reduce the anticipated anxiety. Here’s a video explanation and demonstration of this approach by Andy Austin on YouTube.

Nigel Hetherington and I of IntegrityNLP are hosting a two day Excellence in Therapy workshop with Andy Austin on June 21st & 22nd. We’ve both done some training work with him and we are very impressed with what he does and how he presents.

Get in touch if you would like some more information.

Share This

In NLP a state is word describing the sum total of how we feel, our mood and our physiology.

Some states are very simple and have common every day names such as: angry, loving, dissappointed. Other states can be complex combinations of feelings and moods that may have no name but are very familiar to us.

Many people think that their state is something they are stuck with, in reality they are easy to change and choose. States and state management is a fundamental part of NLP.

In the next NLP Café meeting on May 20th we will explore getting in and out of states. In the first part of this practice group we will use a process to tease apart unresourceful states so that they are easier to change. In second part we will work on creating tailor made states for use on any occasion.

Join Andy Hunt and Nigel Hetherington to get in, and out of, a bit of a state at St Oswald’s Hospice Training Centre, Gosforth, Newcastle on Tuesday May 20th between 7pm & 9pm.

Share This

Practice makes perfect. If you are interested in a subject or want to develop your skills the best way to do that is to join with like minded people and practice. Typically after an EFT, NLP or Hypnotherapy training you are set loose and left to your own devices.

Since these techniques are not yet well known it can be difficult to find people who know what you are on about. Practice groups give you a chance to get together and develop your skills, get new perspectives and connect with kindred spirits.

There are three practice groups in Newcastle where you can develop your skills.

EFT Café: The EFT Café is an EFT practice group in Newcastle in the North East of England. It’s open to anyone who has attended a Beginner’s EFT course or an EFT Level 1 course or above. We practice together, developing our skills for the common good. Meets on the second Tuesday of the month to work on different aspects of EFT between 7-9pm.

NLP Café: The NLP Café is facilitated by Andy Hunt and Nigel Hetherington who are co-founders of Integrity NLP. Our purpose is to provide the context and experience for you to radically increase your NLP abilities, so you become more confident and competent in your developing skills.

To attend the sessions you will need some experience of NLP. The NLP Café meets on the third Tuesday of the month between 7-9pm.

Trance Café: The Trance Café is Newcastle upon Tyne’s monthly meeting place for Hypnotherapists and those curious about Hypnotherapy. We meet on the first Wednesday of the month 7-9pm. The Trance Café functions as both a Hypnotherapy Practice Group and a Hypnotherapy Supervision Group. The Trance Café is sponsored by Communicating Excellence.

Drop me a line if you would like to attend any of these groups. You do need to have some experience of these skills to attend but the events are pitched at a level that everyone can join in and benefit. They each cost just £10 for 2 hours of quality, structured practice.

Share This

Here’s an excellent variation on an old experiment demonstrating how easy it is to miss the obvious.

It’s a common conceit that we are aware of everything that is going on around us. Unfortunately we only have limited brain power and stuff gets left out, distorted or simplified.

It’s one of the central premises of NLP that we are working on limited information and changing what we are attending to makes a huge difference in our experience.

The curious can find out more about inattentional blindness here

In a similar vein you may enjoy this

Find out more about our IntegrityNLP Practitioner training.

Share This

Riding on the bus into Newcastle this morning, sinking into the familiar flat feeling that’s been with me since my mum passed away. It’s barely noticeable a slightly sad, low and flat feeling the Victorians would probably have called lassitude. It’s been quite constant feeling not bad enough to do something specific about but here, sitting on the bus, I’m able to tune into it fully.

It feels like a cloud of grey fog, thick and motionless, surrounding me. That gives me an idea. On our Integrity NLP Practitioner trainings we teach The Cloud Process developed by Kevin Creedon. You imagine that whatever unresourceful state you are feeling at the time is like a cloud surrounding you. The cloud is a metaphorical expression of your state having properties of size, colour and motion.

In the process you step out of the unresourceful cloud (usually dull and gloomy) and create a more resourceful cloud (usually brightly coloured) to step into. Stepping out of the unresourceful cloud and into the more resourceful cloud usually creates quite a change in the person’s state. It’s a very effective way to change your state. Sitting in my cloud I’m reminded of this process.

I’m already aware of my unresourceful state ‘cloud’ so I imagine the state I’d like as a glowing and sparkling gold cloud at the entrance to the bus. My stop is getting close, when it’s time for me leave I will step out of my grey fog, walk down the ailse of the bus leaving it behind and step into my new cloud before leaving the bus.

The bus starts to pull up, I leave my grey cloud behind on the seat, I stand in the queue of passengers waiting to get to my new cloud. Other passengers are standing in it, but I don’t mind, it’s a metaphorical cloud and there’s plenty to go round. The bus stops I move forward step into my sparkling gold cloud and step off the bus carrying it with me. I’m smiling, I feel pleasantly alive.

I stroll down the street to my first port of call (my favourite coffee shop). Standing at the counter I order my cappuccino and I am aware of a slight sense of the greyness returning. I look over to where I’m going to sit once I have my drink. While the espresso machine hisses I tune into the wispy grey cloud I’m standing in and imagine my sparkling gold cloud surrounding my table and chair. The drink arrives, I step out of the wispy cloud and into the golden cloud at my seat. I get another lift and feel inspired to write something for the first time in two weeks(this is the result).

It occurs to me that this is a very useful way to change the way you feel in day to day situations. We all spend time sitting or standing in one place then moving to another. Getting on and off buses, entering and leaving buildings, standing in queues. What would it be like if every time you moved you stepped out of any unresourceful state and into a resourceful state? What would it be like if you imagined a happy state at your front door, every time you left or arrived home you would have to step into a resourceful state? That might be kind of useful.

Share This

NLP is a skill set that is used in all sorts of fields from education, training, management, sales and medicine to name but a few. When learning about NLP for the first time people often wonder how do I apply these approaches in my line of work.

There are quite a few medical practitioners using NLP in their daily work. In this talk to the West of Scotland Pain Group Jonathan Bannister (anaesthetist) and Garner Thompson (trainer) discuss the application of simple NLP principles in a medical context. If you are in this line of work yourself you might like to listen into this discussion of NLP in action.

If you are a complete newcomer to NLP you might want to check out our three day Introduction to NLP that IntegrityNLP will be running later this year in Newcastle. If you would like to attend an NLP Practitioner training then we are starting our next on in September this year (I know that sounds like a long time away, but the earlier you book the less it costs).

Share This