Lessons in Hope

By: Lisa Jackson, NLP Master Practitioner & Executive Coach

dis·ap·point-verb (used with object)

When was the last time you lost something you really cared about?

How did you feel?

In 2006, in the space of one year, I lost my home, my father, my business, my financial resources, and my sense of hope.

That last one (hope) was where I really GOT the life lesson. Everything else was just the natural course of change.

There is a funny belief human beings seem to carry, that death is unnatural. Whether it’s the physical death of a loved one, the death of a dream, or the death of a life stage, we often confuse grief and disappointment.  Even if we aren’t aware of it, we cling to the belief that it is our God-given right for an endless stream of good things to happen, forever and ever and ever. As for painful things … well, it’s unfortunate when they happen to OTHER people, but they’re not really supposed to happen to us.

This belief produces expectations that are the source of a lot of our trouble in the world: Failed marriages, unhappy families, corporate cynicism, broken spirits, even national wars.

NLP offers a very powerful process for belief change, which can’t happen fast enough in an age of accelerating change and challenge. If I could wave a magic wand across humanity, it would be to embed each of us with a “chip” upon birth that carried the belief “Change and Death are Natural and Good.”

Here’s my version of the world when everyone has this chip:

1. When someone dies, we feel both sad and glad, knowing it was simply another version of sunset (even when the time or the method by which they exit is inconvenient).

2. When business profits sink or growth plateaus, we immediately see that something new wants to happen (even when we can’t see what that is).

3. When a hurricane blows through and devastates and ruins our lives and homes, we know that fierce wind and rain are common near the ocean, and after an appropriate process of regrouping, we move on (even when it means starting over).

No, I’m not advocating “Pollyanna-for-President.”

But through my “loss of hope” came a powerful shift: The ability to see how my unfulfilled expectations created misery. Through the gifted skill of great mentors, I was able to see that what really led to happiness in my life had little to do with my house, my work, or the people around me.  Those were only an external reflection of the internal mindset I cultivated on a daily basis.

I saw that happiness was my God-given right, not sameness. 

Feelings of sadness will accompany loss. Grief is the contrast by which we know joy and love. NLP is NOT a hypnotic “happy pill” that makes everything feel good. 

NLP simply shows us how to walk the pathway of great human beings - including those who learned to create a peaceful interior world. These are my role models, who live like the candle: Casting away shadows, unconcerned for the day we will be extinguished, and a beacon for others to find their way.

It has made me more valuable as a coach and consultant to my clients, and a lot more available and interesting to my friends and family.

In the words of the infamous Forrest Gump, “That’s what I have to say about that.”

This week’s blog is not a typical NLP teaching tool.

You’ve been fairly warned.

The big election in the U.S. has heated up discussions about emotional topics like our unwelcome presence in Iraq, our limp economy, and our impact on global warming.

What business do politics have in a blog about NLP?

Our nation seems insatiably fascinated by fear and bad news. The unintended side effect of our addiction to who, what, when, where, and why, is a massive black cloud of fear that rules our collective conscious and unconscious — without even realizing the consequence.

People love it when you lose,
They love dirty laundry
    –Don Henley

Try this exercise:

•Pick a 4-hour period of any day in which you have a lot of interaction with people (including watching anything on television, if you can stomach it).
•Put a sticky note on your desk or somewhere nearby.
•As you go through the 4 hours, record a slash mark every time you see or hear a message from others OR within yourself, that carries a negative tone: “I can’t … I’m stuck … I’m so ____ … Ain’t it awful … Did you hear … No … Not this … You won’t … He doesn’t … etc.
•Maybe your version is more a feeling of tension or anxiety in your gut or chest that you can’t trace to its source.  Record a slash mark every time you become aware of that feeling.

This simple process will wake you up to the constant barrage of “rotten tomatoes” the world throws at your efforts to live with ease and happiness.  Becoming aware is the first step in doing something about it. If you have dreams and a clear purpose,  the work of making them real means learning how to notice and address the negativity around you — from people who have let fear become their master.

The innate purpose of fear in a species is self-protection – a danger alert system. (The thorn is an expression of the rose’s fear.) But human beings have come to use this “survival tool” not just for danger and survival, but to declare whatever we don’t like as tragic, “not enough,” or sinister.

•“The economy is in big trouble.”
•“Government cannot be trusted.”
•“With the rising price of gas and the falling value of my home, what will we do?”

Through NLP, we have learned that language creates reality: “As you think, so you become.” What we say (to ourselves and others) sets in motion a cause, followed by an effect. The unconscious mind does not understand the difference between “negative” and “positive.”  It works far more simply then that — what we give attention to, it busily creates.  I attended a dinner party recently, in which the group was rabidly tearing apart a political candidate — the politics, the beliefs, everything about that person was FRIGHTENING, appalling, and downright evil.  And they wouldn’t get off it.  At one point, I spoke up and said “Yes, but what do you think it’s creating to give her so much attention at our dinner table?”

If you want a different life, you must commit to a conscious, daily process to overcome “lazy thinking”. To consciously cultivate thinking that produces aligned actions that support your intentions.  (If this were easy to do, everyone would have what they want in life).

It’s a lot more fun to be around people who live with “positive expectation,” than those consumed by “negative projection.”

So please, for the sake of your dreams (and those around you), take a few minutes to breathe and consider what you really want:

•Easy communication.
•Abundance of good things.
•Creative inspiration.

Translate these wishes into specific terms, and make visible affirmations in your daily life through sticky notes, meditation, posters, whatever helps you remember. Think about giving your big dream the same attention you might give a new baby: Not a casual passing smile, but the full devotional loving attention it needs and deserves.

Maybe we cannot go back and change everything that’s wrong, from where it all started.

But we can start from now and make a brand new ending.

An especially helpful strategy for counter-balancing negativity in “Living Encyclopedia of NLP” is “The Circle of Excellence” which can be found in Section 1, DVD #4. Click here for special offer.
 

Reality Bites … Good Feedback Rules

If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up.  ~J.M. Power

If feedback is the breakfast of champions, I want protein. The kind that sticks with me and sustains my energy. Feedback is the DNA of learning. Feedback is what sets apart the “good” from the “great.” The more friendly we are toward feedback, the more likely we will achieve mastery and fulfillment in whatever we seek.

This is true whether you are an athlete looking to improve your game, a business leader seeking to accelerate your company’s performance, or an individual looking for improved success and relationships.

As a master-trained NLP’er, I know the rule: “There is no such thing as failure, only feedback.”
The truth is that for most people, our relationship with feedback is like meeting a German Shepherd: We are glad for the warning of danger, but suspicious of what it might do if we reach out to it.

The origins of this “arms-length” relationship with feedback are at least in part, cultural. When your ancestors spent 300 years shedding blood and protesting for independence, individualism, and free expression, it puts a certain stake in the ground – one that over centuries, has helped us de-emphasize what others want, think and feel, and focus on what WE want, think and feel.

Generations later, “being told what to do” kind of cramps our style. We want what we want, when we want it, just the way we want it. Why should we have to deal with mundane stuff like physics, magnetism, gravity … or the rights of others?

Reality bites, yes. But NLP’ers have discovered the internal “mechanics” of highly effective people: The ability to use feedback to learn and improve, without taking it personally.

Consider our fascination with Olympic athletes. Every 4 years, we get to witness a handful of unusually committed people who perform in ways that shatter limits — and world records. The difference between a “gold-medal” performance and last place is so subtle it’s often undetectable. This is the pinnacle of feedback-driven human performance.

And for them, it started a decade or more earlier.

Feedback is a built-in survival mechanism, like when a child touches a hot stove. But somewhere between hyper-critical parents and a history of success, we start thinking we know best. The new stockbroker who used a poorly timed market sale to adjust his process, after years of success looks for ways to hide those mistakes. The guy who welcomed “helpful hints” on how to dress from his new wife, now hears them and goes off to find the cruddiest t-shirt in his closet.

A colleague of mine is the CEO of a software company. His program solves a problem almost every company has: Improving communication and accountability that often derail critical strategies and goals. The software premise is brilliant. The execution is buggy, cumbersome, and filled with complexity. Every time the CEO gets feedback about his software, I watch the Great Wall of China defenses arise, usually pointing at the customer or the internet as the problem. Meanwhile, customers are not renewing licenses, he’s in a lot of debt, and the fear cycle is beginning to create an even greater defensiveness to feedback.

What gives?

Holding onto a “critical parent-rebellious child” relationship with feedback is pretty common in our society: We really do not enjoy being told what to do or hearing that we might be wrong.  It is like being scared of all dogs because you were bit once. Or telling your golf coach you prefer to stay with your old swing because his advice makes you uncomfortable. Why shoot the messenger?

Change this one pattern within yourself, and you will open up a new world to getting what you want out of life. A life in which you embrace change, use it to adapt and adjust to your environment, and become more capable of fulfilling your hopes, wishes, and dreams.

In this article and next week, Coach Lou offers a 2-part NLP lesson on how to change your feelings about feedback, read “missed signals” earlier and sooner, and adjust accordingly.

This pattern works best as you are learning it, if you are concerned about preserving a relationship with the person who gave you the feedback, such as a boss or a spouse.

1.Think of an event where you received feedback AND did not respond to it in a useful way. Pick an example where you think there may be a kernel of truth to the feedback but you couldn’t find it or take it in (avoid an example of someone nagging or treating you unfairly).

2.Now, briefly re-play the event in your mind but watch it like it’s a movie on the big screen and you’re sitting in the audience. (This is Movie #1).

3.After you’ve watched Movie #1 — ask yourself: “What was the positive intention of the person delivering it?”  (unless they are psycho, people don’t ordinarily offer feedback to torture others. If you were giving this feedback, what would your positive intention be?). By the way, we’ll deal with whether the feedback was useful or not in Part 2.

4.Now, imagine another person giving you feedback in the role of your Coach, whom you just paid a lot of money to help you get to the Olympics. Now, create a second movie of your Olympic Coach, who you trust and paid to give you feedback.  What are their non-verbals, what’s the quality of their voice, and how do you feel while they’re giving you feedback?

5.Now, go back to Movie #1 with this change: Have the person who gave you the original feedback, behave in the same way as your Coach as they give you the same feedback, with different non-verbal behavior and voice tonality. It helps for you to remember their positive intention while they’re delivering the feedback.

6.Notice what changes, especially your feelings.

7.Future pace: Imagine the next time you might be in a similar situation with someone you know providing feedback. Run the movie of the “Coach’s” style of providing feedback. Repeat three times.  Expect to be surprised at how differently you feel about it!

You’ll find a more about useful feedback in our “Living Encyclopedia of NLP” Section 1, Sensory Acuity Formats and Being Resources for Each Other, & Section 2, Well Formedness Conditions.

Along with this week’s story about benefiting from feedback I thought it appropriate to include this gem from “The Living Encyclopedia of NLP” Section 4, Strategies.  It’s generally useful when dealing with feedback to have a really good strategy for discerning feedback from attack and for dealing with it effectively.

A Strategy for Responding to Criticism

(Developed by Steve Andreas)
Step 1: Install this strategy in a dissociated state. “See yourself out there in front of you. This
is the you who is about to learn a new way to respond to criticism.” Do whatever you
need to do to maintain the dissociation: see yourself far away, in black and white, behind
plexiglass, etc.

Step 2: Dissociate from the Criticism. “That you is about to be criticized. Watch and listen as
s/he gets criticized and instantly dissociates.” There are several ways for her/him to
dissociate. One is for him/her to actually see him/herself being criticized, or see the
critical words being printed out in a cartoon balloon, be surrounded by a plexiglass
shield, etc.

Step 3: Make a dissociated representation of the content of the criticism. “Watch her/him, as
s/he makes a movie of what the criticizer is saying. What does this person mean?” Does
s/he have enough information to make a clear and detailed representation?
•    If no – watch and listen as s/he gathers information.
•    If yes – proceed.

Step 4: Evaluate the Criticism. “Watch as s/he compares his/her own representation of the
event with the information she gathered in step 3.
•    Do the movies match or mismatch?
•    If they don’t – watch her back up to gather more information.
•    If yes, or when complete information has been gathered – proceed.

Step 5: Decide on a response (after s/he paces whatever part of their criticism s/he agrees with).
•    Apology, restitution.
•    “I’ll give it some serious thought.”
•    “I see things differently…”
•    “What I intended was…”, etc.

Step 6: Change behavior due to Criticism? Does s/he want to use the information s/he got
from this criticism to act differently in the future? If so, watch her/him:
•    select new behavior/response, and
•    future-pace this new response.

Step 7: Ecology check. “As you saw yourself go through this strategy, did you notice any
problems, or any way in which you want to modify the process?” “Ask the “you out
there” if she noticed any problems, or has any other concerns.” “Ask her if she
understands this method for responding to criticism well enough to automatically use it
any time in the future that you receive criticism.” Deal with any such concerns.

Step 8: Re-associate with the “you” that learned this strategy. “Thank this part of you for
being a special resource for you in this way, and then actually reach out with your arms
to slowly and gently bring this part back into you, so that the knowledge of this part
becomes fully a part of you, and available to you in the future.”

Note: You may also want to install this strategy in response to praise or flattery.

Additional References
Andreas, Connirae, and Andreas, Steve. Change Your Mind – and Keep the Change
Moab, UT. Real People Press, 1987. (Chapter 8, paperback)
Andreas, Connirae, and Andreas, Steve. Heart of the Mind. Moab, UT. Real People
Press, 1989. (Chapter 6, paperback)
Andreas, Steve. A Strategy for Responding to Criticism. Boulder, CO. NLP
Comprehensive, 1987. (DVD)

Last week, we shared Coach Lisa’s exercise on the “Inside Family.”

Today, I want to share her process on building a more supportive “soundtrack” for your life.  I call it “The Good Guys.”

Even those of us who are Master NLP’ers still have self-talk that we are largely unaware of, that is not positive and supportive. Disciplining yourself to a daily practice of befriending your inner self pays off big!

The alternative is like driving through life with one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake: Takes a lot longer to get where you’re going (it also burns a lot of energy and is hard on the car).

Here’s the process:

1. Imagine one of your “naysayer” critic’s voices. What is it saying?  Notice the tonality, the pitch, the volume, the tempo.
2. Now, think of someone who is a great inspiration and mentor.  Imagine that person talking to you about an important goal that you have, or perhaps a mistake that you have made.  Hear their inspiring tonality, pitch, and tempo.
3. Now, imagine the “naysayer” is speaking to you in this NEW way, with their voice tone and tempo and pitch. Perhaps the “message” changes to be softer, more thoughtful, more ? Maybe it’s in the form of a question now?
4. Create and anchor a “Good Guy” (or 2 or 3!) who interrupts the naysayers that run on in your head and beat you up.  Imagine the next week … including some of the stresses and disappointments you may face … with the Good Guys as your coaches. What changes?
5. Repeat and practice often.

Waking up to how we really “talk to ourselves” is a critical step in cultivating greater success.

Get more of your “good guys” on your side and watch immediate change unfolding for you now!

Today you’ll be watching for examples of simultaneous incongruence in your family members and/or co-workers. This task will require your visual and auditory acuity. A person who is displaying simultaneous incongruity might say, “Yes, I’d love to go to the movies,” while shaking their head no. Write down what people say and do when they are simultaneously incongruent. What body movements are you noticing? Are you ever simultaneously incongruent? How do you know?

-Excerpted from the “Unconscious Competence Calendar

Because of the requests as a result of the post “The Inside Family” I’m posting this version of the Parts Party format (you may want to read “The Inside Family” first. :-). Continue reading ‘The Parts Party’

One of our coaches told me the following story, and I thought it was such a great fit with Labor Day I asked her to write it up for you.  Those of you familiar with NLP will appreciate the elegant use of this familiar model in a specific context.

Some years ago, a good friend of mine and I were discussing change. The really big kind.

He had just lost his job and he wanted to achieve the independence of owning his own business.

Clearly, the universe conspires at times to wake us up .  “It feels scary and exhilarating and perfect. I’m facing change AND I need to change” he Continue reading ‘The Inside Family: Getting What You Want More Easily’

This is one of those fascinating instances of how the net develops.

Two guys are creating a filter akin to a spam filter that will bolt on to your browser and filter web pages, posts, and apparently all text for the excessively non-grammatical, hostile, Spam type of entries.  Voila! Sanity spared!  (Oops. hope I haven’t overdone the ’screamers’)

Using NLP language patterns frequently results in some unusual syntax.  It will be interesting to see how the “Stupid Filter” labels them!

The Stupid Filter:  http://stupidfilter.org/main

As you participate in conversations today, notice deletions in your language and the language of others. For example, “I’m angry.” Response might be, “About what specifically?” Write down the deletions in your expressions as well as those communicated by others. If you did not respond to these deletions, how could you have responded to facilitate clearer communications?

Excerpted from the “Unconscious Competence Calendar“

We all have at least one Tough Customer in our life. No matter what we say or do, this person is never satisfied, argues relentlessly, and sees the glass half-empty.

When they’re just passing through, dealing with them is fairly simple. Let them pass, or walk away, or hang up the phone (thanks to caller ID, you may not ever have to answer it). That usually takes care of most of them.

And sometimes the Tough Customer shows up in your life in such an important relationship that you need Continue reading ‘Getting What You Want More Easily: The Tough Customer’

Recently the Allergy Process was mentioned to me as if there was only one version.  No, no, no.  There are two distinct versions, and here are the tried and true exercise formats for both of them!

You can find more instruction and framing in both “Heart of the MInd” and of course a full walk through in the “Allergy Process” Audio CD.

Counter Example Process

Note: This is written for an allergy, but you can use it in any situation where you want to have a more resourceful relationship with something in your environment. Continue reading ‘Allergy Process Formats’