NLP Training, Techniques & Products for learning NLP

Eckhart Tolle's book "The Power of Now" is one of the top selling personal development books of recent times. Currently it is has an Amazon.com sales rate of 149. With over 300,000 new books being released each year in the United States alone that is pretty impressive. Ever wonder what people who read self-help books are looking for? Perhaps happiness, peace, success .. the list goes on.

But the question today is, can NLP really help anyone become more spiritual? Because for the most part, the field of NLP is not known for it spiritual Guru's, yet the technology is incredible flexible and can be a very powerful tool for creating all of the above experiences and much more.

The Meta Model - As a Tool For Growth & Connectedness

Let's take the Meta Model - simply using the Meta Model regularly on your own internal dialogue can do an amazing job on de-cluttering your mind and help you become aware of the 'monkey' - that experience of thoughts arising and disappearing. Indeed one Meta Model question alone, "Who Says?", if you applied it consistently and recursively could create a spiritual shift for you. I'm serious!

The works of the great spiritual sage, Ramana Maharshi could be summed up in answering that question, 'For whom?' or 'who says?'. He always directed the seeker to look inward to discover who is this "I" that thinks so much and feels quite little.

For example, as stuff arises in your life and you find frustration or 'problems' arise, ask yourself

"Who Says I am frustrated?"

"I do"

"Who is this I?"

Keep drilling down and looking beyond the I .. that is your mind's association with a given thought, and you will realise a deeper sense of what really is.

This gives rise to the phrase "there is no one to save, and no one that needs saving". For generations, the language entire cultures have used have framed or fixed certain limited and flawed viewpoints on us. Like the idea that anyone needs 'fixing'. You don't. Neither does anyone else. Rather there are certain behaviors that keep showing up, which someone (you, the client, a 3rd party) describe as a 'problem' and need 'fixing'. The Meta Model, skillfully applied can be a wonderfully powerful tool to cutting through the clutter.

When I once asked Richard (Bandler) what he does that is different, that has enabled him to be the creative spark for so many innovations in NLP, he said. I ask myself "What the F*** IS going on?". Richard isn't interested in what people say is going on, but rather what is really occurring. He doesn't try to make things fit the similarity of what people already perceive is there. He's in the now. He doesn't try and confuse things with what is actually occurring.

NLP Processes & Techniques For Growth & Connectedness:

Let's chunk up for  a moment and think - can NLP really help me feel peace, happiness, success .. yes the technology of NLP has several processes that can create these things. For they are STATES (and for a moment, let's forget the dialogue about whether these are primary or meta states).

State work is fundamental to everything we do as NLPers. And NLP also brings up the realization that people aren't one dimensional beings that only have ONE state, that they want EVERYWHERE. Rather, people's states fluctuate. So with NLP interventions like state ellictation , anchoring, 'timelining' etc we can evoke great states in our self and others.

Another powerful distinction NLP can bring to the dance is that of intentionally changing sub-modalities.

If you feel 'disconnected' from some greater force or others or even yourself, your body has to have some way to encode that experience. When people feel 'down' about their life etc, almost always they have a particular practice going on of either making the things they want really small, dim, dark and far away while the stuff that is really browning them off is 1st person, very close, really big, 3D, and as a panoramic movie. So we can use sub-modality changes to literally alter our ongoing experience in a moment by moment basis. You can train your mind to SORT for things that are really good, beautiful etc. These are all quite easy to do.

Because one of the secrets of being more in the NOW is to 'get out of your head, return to your senses and just be'. In reality, no-thing from the outside literally gets inside us. It is all (as best as science and medicine can tell us) transforms going on. You may be looking at the text on this page, yet the light waves get converted and transformed in order for you to "see" things. So you are never directly experiencing untransformed access to anything you see, hear or feel. (Kinda cool and weird isn't it!)

What Yoda Can Teach Us:

One area that many people err, it appears, when they pick up the tools of NLP is treat NLP as a set of tools for getting people to dissassoitate and become more focused on the 'mind'. It is easy to get lost in the mind and stay metaphorically 'out of your body', of truly becoming aware to any strong felt sence. Some who come to NLP do so becuase they want to 'control' their fears, anexisties etc,  however one thing that all great sages over the millenium seem to agree is .. the way to higher spirtual awareness and experience of life is NOT through the mind. One must feel into that sense of the divine. As Yoda, from Star Wars is says .. in life "Search Your Feelings".

The NLP Toolset has enourmous application, how you use it, for spirtual growth or otherwise is up to you. But I'd encourage you to pick up one disctinction and use it.

Remember 'Do or do not, there is no try'..

It's a simple concept really but one that will deliver ENORMOUS rewards, if you put it into action and stick with it. Most people will shy away from it and others wish you would give them something 'easier' or different that didn't require such self-responsibility. Others will go "sure I do that already", but probably really don't.

So what is this simple concept that will create powerful results and improve the quality of your life dramatically?

See Yourself As You REALLY Are (Warts & All)

I know, you may be thinking, seriously Tom are you daft, how does that work to help me improve my life or change the way I feel? Well think of it this way, everyone has things they want to feel, acquire or experience in your life. Whether that is to buy a new car, create a family or get really good at NLP. Yet, the first step towards having anything is really being able to understand where on this map, we will call life you really are …

• Think about it, do you have already everything you want?
• Do you feel the consistently good feelings or whatever else it is that you want to feel the most?
• Have you stopped yourself lately and said "Dude, you know my life is really really fabulous right now, I don't think I could imagine it getting any better!"

Well if you haven't, and if we are honest with ourselves most won't have, then you probably are not living anything like the level of life that you want. And you may have been not acknowledging it. There may be some sense of discontentment your feeling about your life, where you are or what you haven't yet achieved or got. Because if we say that happiness is "being happy with what you have, and having what you want" then most people aren't happy .. at least not near as much as they want. But if it is going to get better, we all need to self-reflect from time to time and be really honest.

So bringing this back to you that little phrase "See Yourself As You REALLY Are (Warts & All), will allow you to become present to the stories you are making up and living into each moment, the BS you have been tolerating for yourself and your life and the games that some part of you is playing (regularly) from having what you really want.

'The Dirty Little Secret in NLP'

You see there is, what some might call, a 'dirty little secret' in NLP. There is no THING called a belief. Your current satisfaction, life happiness, failure or success isn't down to 'well I have this negative belief that effects my self-esteem and so I can't ever get what I really want'. No there isn't any -thing- like that. This belief 'thing' is nothing more than a label we collectively have put on a series of experiences that results in a specific output.

As best we can describe a belief as: there is some process that you/your neighbour/the dog! or a client has that they run (in this case say over and over to themselves) and that creates a feeling of certainty .. which leads one to think "this is my problem" from having/getting/feeling what I want. We have been conditioned that because I don't have this other feeling (say confidence, motivation, happiness, love etc) then I CAN'T take action and do/feel/have what I want. It's a collective game we all participate in, mostly unconsciously.

Which of course in most instances is totally baloney. Of course, for the most part, we CAN do many of the things we want, it's just that we have been conditioned (and further have conditioned ourselves) that only when this happens (I feel good, attractive, confident) etc will I do X action (something I want), which will create the experience I want.

Being Entirely Truthful:

Of course, I am not saying that 'the path to freedom, happiness and prosperity' is always clear OR easy. Not at all.

If it was, there most wouldn't be a thriving coaching industry, a multi-billion pound self-help industry and Guru, thriving on every street corner. Rather it means that once you get clear just what it is that you are habitually 'up to', can you then begin to really create a foundation to 'stop doing things you don't want and don't serve your highest desire and aspiration for what you want' and start doing 'more cool things, that energize, enliven and passionately engage you, like that thing you have always really wanted. To decide exactly who is driving this bus.

Not knowing where to start is not a roadblock, it is only an minor delay required to figure out what you need to do, so it is overcome. If you want something and don't know how to get it, then go get a coach. Find someone who's been there and done that and wants to help others. Or if your up for the adventure, rewards and challenge go model someone who already has, feels or can do what you want.

You don't need to be perfect or even good. When you are motivated enough (or even if your not!), you can find a way if you really choose to.

No one has the answers to it all. As the Oracle characters said to Neo in the Matrix "We can never see past the choices we don't understand." Yes, you have made some decision in the past that have been presenting a set of habits that aren't working for you (as good as you want to help get the ultimate outcome/experience of life that you may want).

But that can change in an instant - when you focus on improving your results.

Getting Into Action:

So to make this post practical, I suggest you write out that phrase on a 4×4 card and put it somewhere prominent where you see it everyday and soon you will notice a change in your attitude and indeed your behavior, when you get  catch yourself saying things like "You know I said I want to do X (get fit, meet a partner, get a promotion etc), but in reality I've been messing myself around, because I am always spending my time doing Y (watching TV, talking to my friends on the phone, bitching about what isn't right etc)".

And in moments like that - where you experience for perhaps the first time, real awareness, of what patterns you are participating or playing in, you really get - 'Heck!, I CAN change this. This is something that I CONTROL and I am going to do whatever it takes to change this now or get the help of a friend/family member who will hold me to account" .. or whatever that may be. You don't need the Magic Bullet NLP technique to get you going, you just need some awareness and then some action to get you started. Get you going in a new direction. And of course there are loads of techniques in the NLP toolbox that can also help you get more of what you want.

Dr. Bandler often talks about when he is doing change work, that for him, it is not enough to set an outcome that the client wants, but he wants the client to have a new empowering direction - an experience of life that they value as truly worth living and want to HOP out of bed because they are excited to get going in to. Now I am paraphrasing slightly, but you get the idea. Tony has been known to say, little changes in course correction can make a HUGE difference to the end destination, in time, and they can.

So go put this phrase into practice today and notice how much of a difference you can enjoy in your life. If you want to take things to the next level, keep a journal of the things you notice and what new patterns you can put in place to really elevate the results/experience and quality of life you get to enjoy every day.

Be well,

Tom

PS: If you enjoyed or hated this post (or anywhere in between) let me know. Leave a comment. All feedback welcome.

A number of people emailed me and asked how they could enjoy all recent video Michael and I recorded, so I've posted 20 FREE NLP Videos all in one spot. Simply click on the link above and you can get access to them all. In the meantime if you would like to submit a question to Michael or I on NLP you can submit it here.

Insanity is often defined as doing the same thing over-and-over and expecting to get a different result.

In NLP, we often say that behavioral flexibility is key to getting a desired result. Indeed many years ago Tony Robbins popularized the four quadrants of success. Yet any action first depends on something even more fundamental -DESIRE.

As human beings we are desire creating machines, moment to moment we create and experience different desires. We could say that desires are the impulse of life. From those desires spring forth our motivation to act to enjoy a perceived benefit or to avoid a perceived cost. This is the classic toward and away from meta program in action (and the many varieties of it, that lie between). If we want to experience a higher quality of life, it important that there is harmony between our highest values and desires. Because regardless of how brilliantly you feel you are doing in your life right now, failing to meet our highest valued desires will result in a feeling of dissatisfaction and a missing sense of fulfillment.

But do you know what your highest desires really are? And do you have the courage to act on them?

Most people, in one way or another, make their highest desires as something sub-servant and for various reasons (such as 'I don't deserve it', 'it wouldn't be possible', 'I can't have what I want'). When they do so they do not pursue them with the kind of unabashed vigor that they could. This is a good time to put into practice a well worn internal dialogue strategy promoted by Dr. Bandler and say to yourself "Shut the F*** Up!" Repeat it over and over until you get your internal 'voices' to quite down and remember, just who is driving the bus.

Sure, all of us can play small but that was yesterday and today you may want to say start saying alot more  'This is what I really want!'.

Take a moment and think of something you have always wanted to do or experience? Perhaps you have always wanted to travel, be a trainer, start that venture, go out with that person, start that business etc. Whatever it is, look at it now and ask yourself "how am I promoting other activities in my life on a regular basis that is resulting in me making no time for this?"

As you do so, be honest with yourself (it's only your personal desire) and figure out how you can plan in 20 minutes a day to manifest that desire. It could simply be just doing some research, spending some time surfing about it on the web, talking with a friend etc. As you do so, you will be building that desire muscle, which can grow stronger and if you let your mind TASTE that experience. Your imagination, properly used is WAY more powerful than any six step technique to inject motivation.

When your let your 'fantasies get ahead of you', your mind will do the rest. You have already set the seed for its realisation. Go do this now. You may be pleasantly surprised with just how easy and life enhancing this practice can be.

"Live out of your imagination, not your history." (Stephen Covey)

Human beings are a funny race (we are, stick with me).

As kids we're playful, curious, constantly stretching and growing, have big dreams and almost always living in the present. Perhaps you can remember playing all day long as a kid and your only objective for the day was how much fun you could have, who was going to "on" in the next game of 'catch and chase' and if you could stay out late with your buddy Jimmy or Jenny and that was pretty much it.

And then as we get older .. there seems to be some type of natural process for abandoning everything we did as kids that gave us so much enjoyment. Most of use were told "get serious, grow up, start thinking about the future …" and your awareness shifted from being very present oriented to thinking about the future. The natural curiosity for life dwindled and most people accept the status quo.

Like the grasshopper who is trained by putting them in a jar with a lid on it so that every time they jump, they hit the lid, soon the trainer can take the lid off the jar but the grasshopper won't jump away. It doesn't realize that it could, if only it would spring like it once did and is still able.

So as we take a step out, we have the situation that is rampant today

• 92% of employees aren't passionate about their jobs and feel they don't regularly get to use their strengths every day (Gallup Group)
• The busiest time for heart attacks on emergency wards is Monday morning before 9AM
• Mental Health is expected to be the number 1 issue affecting the medical industry by 2020 according to the W.H.O
• We have dramatic (14%) increase in the rates of Suicide amongst the youth who are now officially classed as the most "medicated" generation

Of course this is only scratching the surface on the ailments widespread today and also excludes a lot of things. But it is fair to say that Henry David Thoreau quote of "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them" is still accurate. As NLPers we know that the "map is not the territory" and there is SO much more each of us could enjoy if we just 'opened our eyes and came back to our senses'. The question is how?

Dr. Richard Bandler and John Grinder, in the Structure of Magic 1 wrote "people block themselves from seeing those options and possibilities that are open to them since they are not available in their models of their world". Whether your enlightened or a ignorant, we all block ourselves (often unknowingly) from experiencing a higher and better quality of life than is possible for us.

After decades of studying all manner of fields, I've come to the realization that there are really only a few, perhaps a handful of patterns that are having a MASSIVE impact on each of our lives. The patterns will be different for each of us, but everyone has got their own unique set. But there are a set of, what we might call, global patterns that show up for each of us and typically dictate how we respond.

These patterns are specific habitual ways of thinking, behaving and feeling that show up again and again in your life. And whether you would realise it or not are, to a lesser or greater effect, controlling the experience, quality and output of your life.

Just like a gush of water running down a pipe, through conditioning it consistently takes the left path over the right. Robert Anton Wilson described it as "a strong set of .. beliefs appears to neuroscience, as an imprinted … learned network of bio-chemical REFLEXES in the cortex of the brain". When they fire off they produce the same conditioned response (unless they receive a different stimulus).

As NLPers this makes a lot of sense. A secret to doing great change work is to scramble/alter someone's strategy at the choice point (decision gate) before the behavior get's "fired off". But first you need to become aware that there is a "habit" going on. Aristotle said that "Excellence is not an act but a habit". And habits are nothing more than ritualized and usually 'other than conscious' ways or responding.

So the first major realisiation if you want to live a higher quality of life is this: Realise that you are run by your habits, then take specific steps to change them!

This doesn't mean you don't have conscious choice, rather what you are looking to do is put that muscle into action and intentionally establish the habits or RITUALS you are going to live by. Think of these as automatic programs you run, that truly serve you, and allow you to enjoy the most out of any given moment. It's a widely held belief that 99% of the thoughts, feelings and behaviors you experienced yesterday were the same as you did the day before that and the day before that. What you want to do is break out of the mold of same-old-same-old, and bring more conscious awareness and directed force into your life.

TAKE ACTION CHALLENGE:

• Identify the top three habits that show up like clock work in your life but aren't really consistent with who you want to be or the goals you have
• Pick one habit that you wish to change. It may be that you want to exercise regularly, stop swearing, be more kind in your dialogue, regularly practice your NLP skills .. whatever you decide
• Take some time to write out exactly, in details what you new ritual is going to be
• Run through it to see if it produces the desired result
• Make any adjustments to the ritual to make it exactly what you want
• Put it into action everyday for 21 days
• For those of you skilled enough, self record a closed eye trance induction and record it so that you mentally cycle yourself doing it fifty times. Listen to it at least twice every day for one week to get your brain 'hardcoded' to how you want your behavior to be. Ensure you use associate language in your induction.

The secret to creating great rituals that work, is to plan it in detail on paper and ensure you are taking everything that you need into account. Naturally a sensory specific desired state is essential to making it work well.

So if you want to exercise regularly it might mean getting an personal trainer or accountability partner who you pay whether or not you show up, setting out your gym equipment by your bed the night before, etc etc. Detail out the kind of 'real quality of life and success ritual' that you want. Remember what we are looking to do is change the, up until now, decision gate in your habitual ritualized response. Once you build the 'new muscle' it will then happen automatically and you won't need to spend any more time consciously doing what you want. It becomes the new 'status quo' of how your mind-body responds.

For example if you are typically shy in a social situation, you may decide to change your attitude and make a conscious effort to speak to ten people every time your out, and quickly you will find, that you find it much easier and natural to respond that way. The real trick then is to link that behavior to a positive feeling, where you enjoy it (if your heavily towards motivated) and feel uneasy/not 'quite yourself' when you don't practice it. If you want to set it up so it happens even quicker, then link what your new behavior to one of your highest values and really get to feel in your body, how important it is for you.

So get into action and take the above challenge for 21 days and notice how differently your life can be when you take the time to change just ONE habit and establish a new ritualized response. You choose the context, just make sure you put it into action and notice the impact it has for your life.

As always feel free to post your thoughts/comments below.

Hey Everyone,

Just back from an amazing few weeks trekking in Nepal, where I got to trek up to nearly 14,000, sleep with the ridge line of the Himalayan mountains to my back, and para glide like an eagle through the clouds. The experience was awesome and the Nepalese people I meet truly beautiful. Of course, every time I get to experience a new culture I am always curious to understand different worldviews and enjoyed lots of stimulation for using NLP.

After reading a lot of comments and questions folks have been submitting I decided I'm going to introduce a series of posts on the blog, I call the "Quality of Life Series".  Each post is going to be covering a specific practical topic that you can use right away to increase the experience of being alive. They are going to be a mixture of applying NLP, spirituality, business and productivity principles to getting to enjoy more of your life. Think of it as musings on 'creating a life worth living'.

So stay tuned for ten articles, posted this coming month.

BTW - for those of you who have been writing and asking, "How do I get into the Platinum Audio News Club?, I missed your launch" .. we will be opening the doors again later this month. Also yes, details on the upcoming "One Strategy That Works Online Training Program" are due out this month. If you want to be kept updated on both, simply add yourself to our newsletter (upper right hand corner).