Can You Experience Self-Actualization?

Self Actualization is the ‘state of being’ that is at the top of Abraham Mazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs and it can occur, or is more likely to occur, when you have satisfied the criteria for each of the 4 levels of needs below.  NLP Master Trainer, Bill Thomason, has developed a weekend workshop that will give you an experience of your own Self-actualization.  The premise of the workshop suggests that your own specific patterns, or ‘MetaPrograms, can be identified and aligned so that you have your own experience of Self-actualization.  I can imagine you might wondering, What would I be doing differently in my life right now if I were Self-actualized?

NLP Coaching is based on the presupposition that ‘everyone has all the resources necessary to achieve any desired outcome;’ an individual may just have had those resources organized in a way that he was not getting what he wanted.  Life Coaching today is based on this idea expressed in the 1970’s book by Timothy Gallwey, the Inner Game of Tennis.

In a way, NLP is about Self Actualization.  The driving question that has framed the development of NLP is, “What is excellence?”  NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming is based on ‘behavior modeling,’ the idea that any behavior including ‘expertise’ or ‘genius’ can be copied or ‘modeled.’   If you can elicit enough high quality information about how an individual or ‘exemplar’ achieves success in a particular area of his or her life, you can install those behaviors, beliefs, and even how you move your body when you ‘act as if’ you can do what the exemplar does to achieve a similar result.

A basic presupposition of NLP and it’s foundational technology, Behavior Modeling, is that ‘experience has structure.’  It was once thought that genius was an innate quality of specific ‘gifted’ individuals.  Unless ‘born with it,’ you could not expect to be a genius.  NLP challenges this assumption.  If genius, or expertise in general, has structure and you can find out specifically how the person thinks and does what they do, and you can produce a similar result.

Albert Einstein’s educational foundation could take years to learn and be difficult to duplicate, but the basic methodology of his creativity can be modeled.  You might not create a masterpiece like Leonardo DaVinci’s Mona Lisa, and then again, the creative process that he employed was captured in his own writings, and again, can be modeled.  My uncle is Darrell Royal, the former head football coach at University of Texas.  I consider him to be a man who is comfortable in his own skin, admired by his peers, and who has accomplished so much in life that regrets are not an issue for him.  He is my personal exemplar of a Self-actualized person.

Mazlow’s Hierarchy

(usually represented from bottom to top as below)

5. Self Actualized

• Personal Growth, fulfillment, characterized by multiple ‘peak experiences’

4. Status (Esteem)

• Achievement, status, responsibility, reputation

3. Love/belonging

• Work group, family, affection, relationship,

2. Safety

• Protection from elements, security (employment, revenues, resources), order, law, limits stability, from violence, delinquency, aggression,

1. Physiological (biological needs)

• Breathing (air), regulation of body temperature, need for water, sleep, sex, food, shelter, disposal of body wastes

According to Mazlow, Self-actualization is “not just an ordinary person with something extra added; a Self-actualized person is an ordinary person with nothing taken away.”  Mazlow said, “the average man is a full human being with dampened and inhibited powers and capabilities.”

From the NLP point of view, where the belief systems or presuppositions are that ‘people are not broken, but work perfectly,’ and a given individual ‘has all the resources necessary to create any outcome they congruently desire,’ anyone can succeed at being Self-actualized.  Any individual, then, can create a useful ‘Inner Game’ by changing his own maps and strategies for success in any given arena.  Genius can be defined as ‘developing finer and finer distinctions in a particular area.’  The outcome then is to map frames that sequence the best strategies for actualizing potentials and integrating them into everyday reality.

Since Mazlow’s descriptions allow for people who are already experiencing Self-Actualization, it is a state that can be modeled.  ‘If anyone can do it; I can do it.’

Exercise: You will want to do some homework before you begin.  Also get ready to use your imagination.  After all, ‘what you vividly imagine is as if it had been the actual experience’, as far as you unconscious mind can tell.  We actually have specialized ‘mirror’ cells that help us experience what other people experience.  I call this particular Life-Change Pattern, “Creating Unlimited Ability.”

1. Think of someone whom you think is an examplar of a Self-actualized person.

Note: It doesn’t have to be a perfect example for you to integrate the expertise of your exemplar.  It is that the person you choose to model has states in particular contexts that you would consider as consistent with being Self Actualized.  US President John F Kennedy, for example, was later reported to have some extramarital affairs.  That didn’t stop him from extraordinary achievement at performing his job a president.  The Dalai Lama is just a man, and he is a man who is the spiritual leader in his particular religious organization.  In a recent interview on CNN, although celebate, he admitted to attraction to certain women he has met.  Billy Graham is another example that many people might think of as a Self Actualized person.  Martin Luther King and Mathama Ghandi would be on the list for many people.  The basketball star, Michael Jordan, is a different kind of exemplar who is said to have been keenly interested in the personal lives of the other players and coaches.

Notice that when you think of this person, you are likely to have an emotional response.  Where in your body do you experience these sensations?

1. Break State. Be in the room in the present moment and focus your eyes on a couple of things.
2. Now, think of something that you have done or a conversation you have been in where you experienced doubt, were conflicted, delayed before acting, or were just stopped by your own thoughts and fears.  Notice how this experience represents itself in your body.  Where do you feel it being expressed?  If you are thinking about it in a disassociated way, or seeing it from a distance, put yourself in the event and notice the feelings.  Note that you can experience the event like a movie.  It starts somewhere and runs to the end and you can imagine standing in the last frame of the movie.
3. Step out of the movie and off to the side and note that you are looking back seeing yourself there in that last frame.  Break State.  Be in the room or other current location in the present moment and focus your eyes on a couple of things.
4. Now, while you are off to the side looking at the movie, you are going access a resource.  The resource in this case is the person you think of as the exemplar of ‘Self-actualized.’
5. Imagine now that you could run your movie from standing on the last frame, backwards really fast so the frame colors run together as the movie rewinds, and you can hear the voices or other sounds going backwards until you are back at the beginning, just before the movie starts again.  In place of yourself in the movie, put you ‘exemplar of Self-actualized’ there in the movie.  Get where you can look over his or her shoulders and start the movie again, noticing what the other person is doing differently from what you did, thought, and felt.  Run the movie to the end, noticing what is different until you are at the last frame.  Say or write out what is different about how the ‘exemplar’ handled the situation.
6. Now, stepping out of the movie and off to the side again, we are going to do it again, but this time you are going to ‘act as if’ you are the person, looking out through his or her eyes, feeling what he or she feels, from the beliefs and values they operate from and the way that body moves differently from yours. So, run the movie backwards to the beginning; colors running together, voices backwards, until just before the movie starts again.
7. Put your exemplar in your place inside the movie.  Now put yourself inside the exemplar and start the movie again, noticing this time what is different when you experience being the person from inside this perspective as the movie runs from the beginning to end. Notice how you feel and think and what is occurring differently as you are looking over the shoulder and run the movie all the way through until you come to the end, standing on the last frame.

1. Step off to the side again in your mind and speak or write down your experience of what was different this time being the exemplar.

Note:  Remember that what you vividly imagine creates pathways through your neurological system as if you had actually had that experience in physical reality.

1. Now let’s add another resource and run the movie one last time.  With what you have learned looking over the shoulder of your exemplar and the new connections you made in your own neurological system being the exemplar, run the movie back to the beginning again. Put yourself back in the movie with all those connections intact and start the movie over again noticing the changes and what is different as you do it the way you now do in light of the connections made through running the movie the other two times.  Notice what you do and think specifically that are different from the exemplar.
2. Break State and Future Pace.  Pick a situation in the future where the circumstances look like they did in the past when you were unresourceful and bring your new resources into the situation, noticing you can change the way things occur now.

[Optional] Pick a different exemplar, mentor, or coach and go through the steps of this exercise again.

To see the pattern on the website: Click here to navigate to www.nlplifecoachphoenix.com and click the blog tab.

If for any reason you were not able to follow the pattern above, don’t worry.  Make sure you are in a good state and taking care of yourself.  If you are interested in proceeding with the pattern, please give me a call and set up an NLP Coaching session at 602 321-7192.
by Bill Thomason
NLP Success Coach, Certified NLP Master Trainer

www.nlpskills.com

Can You Experience Self-Actualization is a post from: Life Coach Phoenix

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NLP Featured Article:  NLP Memes and Thought Viruses

‘Memes’ are the smallest units of cultural meaning.  A meme is a unit that carries cultural ideas, behaviors, or styles from one person to another in a culture.  Memes carry cultural ideas, symbols, and practices that are transmitted from one mind to another through writing, language, gestures, rituals, or other means that can be imitated.  Memes are thought to function like ‘genes’ in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to pressures.

The word ‘meme’ goes back to the Greek and simply means to imitate or mimic.  The term was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his book, The Selfish Gene, to describe how ideas spread across cultures.  Examples include: catchy melodies, phrases, fashions, and technologies including arch building.

Where Have Heard About Memes Before

You have probably heard of ‘memes’ before now.  A few years ago the concept of memes was made popular by internet website marketers.  You wanted ‘sticky website pages’ that attracting people, that were also easy to navigate, and created ideas that captured attention and imagination; ideas that people would talk about and blog about and spread into culture. Brand names are memes.  Coca-Cola, Nike is a meme for buying a tennis shoe and it’s slogan ‘Just Do It!’ is an other meme.

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Tipping Point told stories about how products reached a point of no return like a scale that has finally tipped.  For example, Hush Puppies shoes had fallen out of popularity until a young man in New York bought a pair, liked them, and began to get his friends to buy them.  Soon the brand had reached a ‘tipping point.’  The fashion was the meme, and it caught on; at least for a while.

Map Is Not The Territory Meme

When I have a coaching client, I want to map the territory, so to speak, of the limiting behavior that prevented success in some area of a client’s life.  I am looking for existing ‘memes’ that could be expressed as a ‘belief.’  Once I have a good map of the person (territory represented) the map is generally predictive.  If we run scenarios out into the future, the problem behavior will generally cause more and more suffering and possibly destructive behavior.

As my client becomes conscious of the cost of the old behavior, I ask him or her to access new choices that could be used in place of the old ones.  The client manufactures a new ‘meme’ or positive ‘thought virus.’  The more pictures one makes of the future that incorporate the new meme, the more his or her mind begins to sort for the many ways in which the meme will express itself.

Here’s a great meme to consider.  “What a mind focuses on is what it creates.”  People who are focused on what they don’t want anymore are still focused on the old behavior.  So, what do they create?  More of the same, of course.  As soon as a well-designed and placed meme begins to replicate in various contexts in a person’s brain and nervous system, the more the new wanted behavior becomes habitual and is automatic.

The new meme in this scenario is simply the goal that has been set, or as NLP practitioners prefer to call it, the ‘outcome’ set.  The more representations made in a person’s mind the more definition there is around the new desirable behavior.  When my client sees herself in the new future in vivid detail the more ‘sticky’ the neurological glue for creating the pathways through the brain and nervous system that are necessary to achieve and maintain the result or desired outcome.

Could It Be That Simple

In a way, it really is just that simple.  I hear the question or more often see the look on a clients face that says, “Really, and just because we thought about it in just this order, I am going to suddenly behave differently.”  I clear by this time in a session that the meme is already set and working.

My answer is usually, “I wonder? Well if you are like most of my clients, you can check right now and notice that when you think the old way of doing things, you notice you don’t have the same feeling about it anymore.”  That’s really interesting.  “So, keep checking.  An hour from now you’ll check and find that the feeling is still really different and few hours after that, check again and find that the feeling is different now.

Then, you’ll find yourself in a situation where you know that you would have had the old reaction to it before, but now the event occurs and you simply have more you choices about your behavior.”  Notice that I am cementing the ‘meme’ with my suggestions about the future and the more my client experiences feeling differently about things, the more the new behavior is in place and the more meme will be maintained over time.  And the experience is generally permanent. Slightly different belief memes are seeded to support maintenance and permanence.

Chances are that you have made some connections in your mind about the value of using memes.  That is the purpose of the meme.  Sometimes connections are predicable and sometimes make wholly other connections than what you expected when you designed your communication with a person in your life.

Milton Erickson was a medical doctor who got interested in hypnosis and basically took hypnosis out of the dark ages with his approach to being artfully vague in giving suggestions.  He would tell stories designed to cause a patient to make connections, but he left it up the patient to make the connection on his or her own.  Some patients reported ‘getting it’ months later.  Others just noticed that they started to behave differently and could not understand consciously why the change had occurred. In smoking cessation, for example, man reported that after an hour of stories, he was walking out of Erickson’s office and was already down the hall when he realized that they had forgotten to talk about his smoking problem.  But, in a few days he said he notice himself smoking less, and at about 3 weeks realized he had not smoked at all in a few days.  The meme or suggestion worked easily and behind the scenes in the man’s unconscious mind.  How’s that for an elegant solution and use of memes?

Let’s install some more memes to support the memes you are already experiencing.  “What you vividly imagine, is as if it had been the actual experience.”  Research has been done around this concept.  There are specialized neurological cells called ‘mirror cells’ in our nervous systems that predispose us to imitating experience.  A boy outside the glass window throws a baseball. The boy hooked up to electrodes sitting still inside the room lights up almost exactly the same pathways through his brain as the boy physically experiencing throwing the ball.

In a study of urban elementary school students by Predebon and Decker (1992), subjects showed dramatic improvement in basketball free throw shooting compared to a ‘non-imagery group’ of students, when they practiced a mental ‘imagery routine prior to testing at the free throw line.  In the imagery routine group students vividly imagined shooting perfect free throws.  Researcher found that the more color, clarity, and realness that was imagined, the better the performance. What was vividly imagined translated to real-time ability. Also notice that using the High Impact Technique of the research findings above will affect how strongly I am presenting to you works and replicates.

So, what memes do you want to propagate into your mind today and into the minds of people in your family, in your immediate community, and about your business?  I am committed, for example to infecting the world with a meme shared by others in the NLP community; the possibility of building culture in my world that is a place or culture to which people want to belong.  Won’t you please help spread the infection?

By Bill Thomason

Click here to navigate to www.nlplifecoachphoenix.com and click the blog tab.

NLP, Memes, and Thought Viruses is a post from: Life Coach Phoenix

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Why People Don’t Forgive

In my NLP Coaching practice, I sometimes have client for whom forgiveness must be resolved before any significant results are possible.   Without intervention, some people will live a lifetime with the ongoing emotional burden of resentment because they do not and/or cannot forgive.

It is my experience that forgiveness happens in a moment.  It may take years to build up to the moment and when it occurs, it happens in a flash and it is visible in the body.  As an NLP Master Trainer, I teach my NLP Coaching students to look for and recognize this moment of change in a person from the subtle physiological cues.  At the moment of Forgiveness, a client’s eyes may get wide or blink a number of times.  The face goes white, muscles relax, and take on a hypnotic mask quality.  The mouth may open and close.  Sometimes the whole body will shape, like a tremor or series of tremors moving though the body.  A sharp inhalation of breath is not uncommon.  These physical affects are typically not conscious to the person and they are observable by anyone trained to look for them.

Assuming that the level of forgiveness is Unconditional Forgiveness, the client immediately feels better, shoulders go back, breath become deep, eyes focus and the client invariably reports ‘knowing’ that everything will be different from this moment forward.  Even a shift from one level of forgive to another will cause a big shift in behavior for the forgiver.  However, only Unconditional Forgiveness we would consider is true forgiveness.

“Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.”

- Anne Landers

Here are some reasons why people do not forgive:

1. The violator does not deserve forgiveness.

2. If I stay angry, I have control over the situation.

3. I want to get even first.

4. I’m not willing to ‘forgive and forget.’

5. They might do it again.

6. The person is not alive (not here now).

Here are ways to counter the objections to forgiving:

1. Do it for yourself.  The primary problem with failure that reasons not to forgive is simply that they do not work.  The only one suffering in most cases is the person who has not forgiven.  Forgiveness is not for the other person; it does the most for the forgiver.

2. Take your power back by forgiving.    The intention to stay angry is supposed to give control and restore the feeling of choice in the matter, but that is an internal state that comes from creating, enforcing, and maintaining boundaries.  Wouldn’t it better to stop giving your power away to the violator.

3. Decide to be safe and stick to your resolve.  Getting even won’t give you the safety and strength you are seeking.

4. Separate forgiving and forgetting. One thing has nothing to do with the other.  People often collapse one onto the other thinking that they have to forget.  That’s not smart.

5. Deal with any new incident as a new thing, separate from the old.  This often happens in families with abuse and one sibling or other family member is trying to protect another.  Yes, the person could probably do it again, but when a person expresses him or herself fully and the past is cleaned up, the old emotions don’t come up anymore to cloud your ability to think and act appropriately.

6. Do it for you!  Do it anyway!

Additional notes: When the reasons for failing to forgive are fully addressed, Unconditional Forgiveness is much easier.  I will ask my client, “Are you willing to forgive?”  Assuming the ‘yes’ response, I ask “When?”  Assuming the person says ‘Now,’ I ask, “Have you?”  If ‘no,’ I either go back to find out what was missed in the ‘Reasons for Not Forgiving’ or nail down a specific time to forgive.  The alternative choice is to settle for any higher level of forgiveness on the chart.  Even a shift from one level to a higher level will have big impact on behavior.  If the answer is “yes” I am done and we celebrate and I give positive suggestions about how life will be different from this moment onward.  Most often, I do not assume that the “yes” response is valid quite yet.  I ask, “Did you?,” and I check (calibrate) for congruence.  I want to make sure there is no wiggle room or that some other part of the person does not have an objection.  Consider the process complete, but if there is any doubt about whether the change occurred fully, follow the steps below.

Another possible step is from the NLP Life-Change Pattern, Six Step Reframe.  This is optional.  Ask the person, “Is there any part now that objects to forgiving unconditionally?” If there is, the Six Step Reframe calls for asking the ‘Objecting Part’ to answer the question, “What is the positive intent of the Objecting Part.  When elicited, ask the ‘Creative Part to come up with three ways that the person can do things differently while making sure the Positive Intent (stated as a value) is preserved.  Once the three new ways are complete and anchored in properly, ask “Is there any part now that objects to integrating these new choices? If yes, start asking for positive intent of the Objecting Part again and when the answer is a congruent ‘no’ say, “Go ahead and integrate those choices fully and completely now.”  Check again for physiological congruence.

by Bill Thomason

NLP Success Coach, Certified NLP Master Trainer, www.nlpskills.com

Forgiveness Changes Everything is a post from: Life Coach Phoenix

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Choosing NLP Certification

I recently got a question about how to choose an NLP trainer and the best NLP training institute. What are the criteria for becoming an NLP Practitioner?

There are no laws in my state of Arizona, or, for that matter, anywhere in the US regarding who is authorized to be an NLP Practitioner, with possible exceptions in 3 states where some minor legislation puts NLP under a medical umbrella, but really there’s no direct governmental control.  Therefore, anyone can say they are a NLPer legally and ‘hang a shingle’ to do business as a practitioner.  However, the NLP field sets its own rules and regulations and certifies through associations.

When you are certified through my training institute, you are certified through my organization NLP Coaching & Skills Training Institute, and you can also pay a small fee to receive recognition from Global Community of NLP and American Board of NLP from which I am a recognized training institute.  I am also a Certified NLP Master Trainer, the highest level attainable in the field and you can trust these credentials and read my website pages to see that my business background, with my extensive corporate culture change, nutritional medicine, negotiating, and sales work history are a match for you.

If you are researching, you also want to know your trainer has some experience.  I have been a leader in the field for more than 25 years and I have studied with most of the big NLP personalities in the field at one time or another.  Some agreed upon requirements by certifying boards for you to become an NLP Practitioner include a minimum of 120 hours of training and written and behavior testing to insure fairly specific knowledge and ability to perform NLP patterns and skills.  A list of these requirements is on my website www.nlpskills.com and would be on the website of any credible trainer in this field.  About 90% of my students are not planning to become NLP Coaches as a livlihood, but will use the skills in their own business.  NLP is useful to virtually any life path.  Teachers, lawyers, counselors, body workers, bankers, real estate pros, or just to deal with your own issues and help friends and relatives.  I get them all.

by Bill Thomason, NLP Success Coach, NLP Master Trainer

How to Choose an NLP Training Institute? is a post from: Life Coach Phoenix

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Ever find yourself in a dilemma? This following is based on Robert Dilts ‘Teta-Lemma’ pattern. Robert credits Stephen Gilligan with adapting this pattern from an old Buddhist meditation. I’d also consider this a 3rd Generation pattern.  It requires you to able to establish a strong ‘Coaching State” (see 2 below). This is a slightly more advanced pattern that I generally would not teach in an introductory NLP class, but see if you can follow it here.  Of course, like all NLP patterns, you really want to put yourself completely into the process, associated.  Associated is reliving the moment as if you were fully in it and it is happening now.  Humans have the ability to generate vivid memories, in full color, sense-around sound and physical sensation.  Another part of this pattern involves the position that it is sometimes useful to be able to hold difficult feelings.  This is one of the characteristics of highly successful people found from NLP modeling creative genius.  Note: It is often better not to avoid difficult issues since we tend to create what we avoid.
Tetra-lemma Pattern

1. Find a dilemma to work with.  Pick a specific moment that represents it.  The language is usually something like “I want to make a lot of money, but rich people are terrible people who look down on others.” What is presupposed is that you won’t make a lot of money.  “I want to lose 40 lbs of excess weight, but my husband won’t love me for who I am.”  The higher values is being loved.  Check for ecology.  Check in with yourself and make sure it would be a good idea to make changes in your dilemma before proceeding.

2. Create a Coach State. Imagine a circle around you and stand in the middle of that circle. Note: You’ll have to stand up and move from place to place for this exercise.  Imagine that you are in a strong coaching state as you stand in the middle position in the bigger circle.  Remember a time, a specific time you were in a moment of feeling very confident and relaxed, and as you remember those good feelings in your body now, let your attention get broader and your eyes focus to become peripheral, not centered  on any one place but aware of everything around you.  Now expand the state.  The following is from the Navajo Beauty Walk.  Become aware of beauty before you.  Let yourself feel the sensations of being surrounded by beauty; beauty in front of you, to the left of you, to the right as you are surrounded by beauty and now above you and below you. Let the state deepen beneath you and expand further out around you.  You will want to take this state with you as you ‘walk the beauty walk.’  You have created a ‘coaching state’ that is stronger than any difficult life situation or dilemma you may have found yourself in. Stay centered in your Coach State.

3. Step into the right circle and back again. Since it’s a dilemma, it can be expressed as a polarity.  It has one side and another side.  As you imagine that one part of the dilemma is in a circle on the floor to the right of you and the other is a circle to the left of you, step briefly into the space to the right and back to the Coach State, noticing where the right part of the dilemma expresses itself inside your body. Step into the part again and this time stay just a bit longer noticing how it seems ‘right.’  Experience that and then step back to the Coach State noticing that you can return quickly and easily to the Coach State.  If you cannot hold the ‘Coach State,’ step out of the exercise altogether for a moment until you can rebuild the ‘Coach State’ stronger than any circumstance.

4. Step into the left circle and quickly back again, noticing the contrary part of the dilemma and where it expresses itself in your body when you are in it and step back to the middle position Coach State between the two circles. Step into the left circle again and notice the sense of rightness about the ‘contrary’ or left circle part of the dilemma. Notice that you could easily be saying, “X is true” on the right and the contrary, “Y is also true” for the left side.

5. Move Back and Forth Quickly from right to left and back again, each time maintaining the Coach State until there is a shift in experience.  When you can effectively move from right to center and left to center, you should come to a “Yes, but…” as another position comes into being and you will want to step back and into that new position or circle inside the bigger circle.

6. Step Back from the center to a new (4th) position behind center and with the two circles, right and left, observable out in front and to each side of you.  Consider that in the new position, you easily be saying  “Neither is true.”  Step fully into the back position, notice how and where the new position expresses itself in your body, and check for any ‘deeper truth’.

7. Step to the middle or Coach State making sure you can maintain it.

8. Create the 5th in front position.  NOW, step forward in front of the other positions.  Expand you awareness until you can now hold all the positions and notice what new possibilities come to mind and experience that “Both are true.” Notice what space opens up and consider what the next step will be in light of what you just experienced.

9. Future Pace.  As you think about a specific moment in the future that looks like what was happening in the past, what will different now that you bring these new resources into that event.  Congratulate yourself for having made the changes you are noticing.

If for any reason you were not able to follow the pattern above, don’t worry.  Make sure you are in good state and taking care of yourself.  If you are interested in proceeding with the pattern, please give me a call and set up an NLP Coaching session at 602 321-7192.

Unhook Your Dilemma is a post from: Life Coach Phoenix

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Third Generation NLP

Robert Dilts and Judith DeLozier were early pioneers in Santa Cruz California in the mid-1970′s as Linguistics Professor, John Grinder and Math and Computer Science student Richard Bandler, were involved in developing the new field that became known as Neuro Linguistic Programmng or NLP. In August of 2011, I spent 19 days studying to receive my NLP Master Trainer Certification with Robert Dilt, Judith DeLozier, and company – including Suzi Smith and Sid Jacobson and a number of other wonderful presenters and trainers of NLP and related areas.  It was great fun staying at the University of California at Santa Cruz campus in dormitories and meeting rooms where NLP originated in the 1970′s.  This article is to give you some history and a brief outline of what we are calling 3rd Generation NLP.

History of Growth of NLP as a Field

You may know that any good Psychology library will have a subcategory of Psychology with the title Neuro Linguistic Programming or Neurolinguistics, usually right next to the subcategory, Psycholinguistics.  Psycholinguists share the same basic body of research with NLP, but Psycholinguistics has stayed within academic framework focused more on research.  The co-founders, Grinder and Bandler, however, decided to take Neuro Linguistic Programming to the public and focus on application.  There was concern over how many years it would take to get this cutting-edge material to application if were stuck in the traditional academic cycle.  Bandler and Grinder trademark’d the name Neuro Linguistic Programming.  And regardless of the fact that NLP had become a field of its own over the years and the diffiuculties in protecting and enforcing their trademark, the co-founders and subsequent developers and promoters have continued to spread NLP into sports, education, medicine, and business management, leadership, and selling, just about every area where effective communication, performance enhancement, influence and persuasion, and human change are highly regarded.

1st Generation NLP

From those earliest pioneering days of NLP, while the co-founders and other were codifying useful patterns to affect human behavior, the focus of NLP was much more on the mental or ‘cognitive’ aspects of change and behavior.  The first generation was more left-brain, if you will, or more brain/intellect oriented. A new book by Robert Dilts labels those early days as 1st Generation NLP.  Patterns included the MetaModel as pioneers attempted to create a protocol of questions designed to help people fill in missing information in language to avoid miscommunication.  It included eye accessing cues, submodalities, strategies, anchoring, and reframing – including the 6-Step Reframe pattern.

2nd Generation NLP

By the mid-1980′s John Grinder, Judith DeLozier and others collaborated to update the codification of NLP.  ‘New Code’ NLP was the result.  Dilts labels this version, 2nd Generation NLP.  The characteristics include a more Anthropological point of view and a focus on therapeutic metaphor and deeper structure modeling of behaviors. The ‘New Code’ allowed for the unconscious processing of an individual to integrate new behavior at a level that Dilts describes as more a ‘somatic’ based level or body/feeling oriented.  Specific new NLP patterns were included as 2nd Generation coding that include Values Hierarchy, ReImprinting, Parts Integration, time line distinctions and patterns, the MetaPrograms and more.

3rd Generation NLP

Dilts, et.al., is now describing the basic idea of a 3rd Generation NLP.  As Dilts and others are now describing 3rd Generation NLP, the field is broadening beyond the ‘cognitive’ and the ‘somatic’ levels, to include even deeper structures of human experience.  3rd Generation NLP is more relationship/system oriented, more about connection.  Since spirituality is universally recognized as a major part of the human experience, why have we not included modeling of spiritual understandings into NLP?  To be a great NLP Coach and Practitioner, don’t we necessarily have to seek out or at least include this part of human experience?

Modeling is at the Heart of NLP 

3rd Generation NLP, then, brings us back to original idea of modeling as the heart of NLP.  The field of Coaching is often recognized as developing from the book by Timothy Gallwey, Inner Game of Tennis.  The book describes a similar basic tenant to the Presupposition of NLP that ‘everyone has all the resources necessary to get anything they congruently want in life.’  As coaches, our job is to help people gain access to resources already present and bring them forth from the inner to the outer arena.  Characteristics of the 3rd Generation NLP Practitioner or Coach include: identification of self as coach, experience as a ‘best part of me’ or described as when I am ‘being most me.’  This ‘being best of me’ state can be described as being ‘without effort’ or ‘with art and beauty.’  It is a relaxed state. It includes a sense of ‘readiness,’ ‘focuses spaciousness’, and ‘connection beyond self.’

Human Modeling includes Spiritual

In his Logical Levels, Dilts describes an escalating hierarchy of six levels from Environment to Spirit/Mission. Spirit/Mission is what is bigger than me as I move from awareness of myself at an identity level of being to something more than that.  Part of a description of what is included at the Spirit/Mission level is a sense of belonging to group, community or family that is bigger than me, or as an energy or consciousness that can be described as having to do with ‘field.’  Field awareness, then, is part of what defines 3rd Generation NLP.  People and systems at the Spirti/Mission Logical Level tend to experience field as part of the overall healing, joining, unifying principle.  A 3rd generation NLP Coach necessarily will draw from experience that is more than him or herself.  In checking for ecology, NLP practitoners are always including the effects of a change on the bigger systems to which a person belongs including spouse, family, etc.

From Technicians to Mastery

In addition, we choose to model highly successful people who are also well-balanced people.  An individual with a financial success but very poor relationships is not the first choice for a modeling exemplar.  From work on patterns of creative genius by Frank X Barron, we include the ability to 1. be comfortable with uncertainty, 2. hold apparently opposing points of view or paradoxes simultaneously, 3. hold difficult feelings, and 4. be persistent.  As a way of thinking about 3rd Generation NLP, what we are observing is a movement from technician to mastery in a field. 

By Bill Thomason

NLP Coaching in the 3rd Generation is a post from: Life Coach Phoenix

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nlpskills eGroup member,

Someone on my online groups asked a question about what the percentages are for Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic learners.  A book Graphic Design cites percentages at 25 % of people are auditory, 40 % kinaesthetic and 30 % visual learners in our population. Another source Smith in (Truner, T & Frost, T, 2005, 146), cites 29% have a visual preference, 34% auditory and 37 kinaesthetic.  I don’t know how they are getting these numbers, but you may find it interesting to figure out for yourself about how you learn and try some new strategies based on that information.  Why not set your life up to supply you with the chance of learning. 

About Your Learning Style

Please find below 16 questions designed to help you determine your preferred leaning styles modality.  This Learning Styles Inventory is similar to the instrument given to students in schools to determine the best way to teach.  It is possible to teach each child as an individual in the way the child needs to have information delivered to learn best.  My opinion is that school administration and teaching often falls short in favor teaching the way teachers and administrators think is the best way for the average students to learn.  This leaves many children behind.  They miss something or do not understand what a teacher is saying or writing and then they cannot catch up.  They tend to think themselves unable to comprehend, they fall farther behind, and may be labelled ADD or ADHD when in reality, they are just not being taught in a way they can learn.

Check out the questionnaire below and score it to determine your Learning Style, Visual, Auditory, or Kinesthetic (feeling including smell and taste).  FYI – The instrument given in schools usually calls Kinesthetic by the term Haptic.  Remember to set up things in your life to take best advantage of the particular learning style you prefer.

What’s Your Learning Style

For these questions, choose the first answer that comes to mind and click on a,b, or c. Don’t spend too much time thinking about any one question.

1. When you study for a test, would you rather

a) read notes, read headings in a book, and look at diagrams and illustrations.
b) have someone ask you questions, or repeat facts silently to yourself.

c) write things out on index cards and make models or diagrams.

2. Which of these do you do when you listen to music?

a) daydream (see things that go with the music)
b) hum along
c) move with the music, tap your foot, etc.

3. When you work at solving a problem do you

a) make a list, organize the steps, and check them off as they are done
b) make a few phone calls and talk to friends or experts
c) make a model of the problem or walk through all the steps in your mind

4. When you read for fun, do you prefer

a) a travel book with a lot of pictures in it
b) a mystery book with a lot of conversation in it
c) a book where you answer questions and solve problems

5. To learn how a computer works, would you rather

a) watch a movie about it
b) listen to someone explain it
c) take the computer apart and try to figure it out for yourself

6. You have just entered a science museum, what will you do first?

a) look around and find a map showing the locations of the various exhibits
b) talk to a museum guide and ask about exhibits
c) go into the first exhibit that looks interesting, and read directions later

7. What kind of restaurant would you rather not go to?

a) one with the lights too bright
b) one with the music too loud
c) one with uncomfortable chairs

8. Would you rather go to

a) an art class
b) a music class
c) an exercise class

9. Which are you most likely to do when you are happy?

a) grin
b) shout with joy
c) jump for joy

10. If you were at a party, what would you be most likely to remember the next day?

a) the faces of the people there, but not the names
b) the names but not the faces
c) the things you did and said while you were there

11. When you see the word “d – o – g”, what do you do first?

a) think of a picture of a particular dog
b) say the word “dog” to yourself silently
c) sense the feeling of being with a dog (petting it, running with it, etc.)

12. When you tell a story, would you rather

a) write it
b) tell it out loud
c) act it out

13. What is most distracting for you when you are trying to concentrate?

a) visual distractions
b) noises
c) other sensations like, hunger, tight shoes, or worry

14. What are you most likely to do when you are angry?

a) scowl
b) shout or “blow up”
c) stomp off and slam doors

15. When you aren’t sure how to spell a word, which of these are you most likely to do?

a) write it out to see if it looks right
b) sound it out
c) write it out to see if it feels right

16. Which are you most likely to do when standing in a long line at the movies?

a) look at posters advertising other movies
b) talk to the person next to you
c) tap your foot or move around in some other way

Total your a’s, b’s, and c’s to determine your preferred learning style. a = Visual, b = Auditory, c = Kinesthetic (Haptic).

Your Learning Styles Inventory is a post from: Life Coach Phoenix

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The Change Anger Pattern
An NLP Life-Change Pattern

Note: This pattern is utilized Richard Bandler’s idea that the feelings around an issue tend to have movement. You will want to notice when you are in the emotion whether the feelings are spinning up and over, down and back the opposite direction, or right to left, or left to right.

Benefits: Anger has a positive intent and purpose. It helps you mobilize your energy and gets you ready for action. Anger is almost by definition out of control and harmful to the body. The benefits of the Change Anger Pattern are many including that you become the Master of Your States.

1. Think of a specific time when you were angry. As with almost all NLP patterns, you will want to pick a specific event. Think of a specific moment in time. This is different than thinking about it in a general way. Put yourself in the event as if it is happening now. And as you do, NOW, become aware of the feelings in your body and notice where those feelings start and where they go.

2. Imagine you can push the spinning sensation of the feeling out in front of you a couple of feet. Act as if you can and find that are able to.

3. Turn it (the spinning) inside out and spin it the other way. If it was spinning right to left, now have it spin left to right for example. Bring it back inside yourself continuing the spin in the new direction. Speed it up, slow it down, speed it up again and notice the changes. It may feel better or worse, more intense or less, and it may cause some disorientation. That’s not unusual with this pattern. Be willing to be slightly uncomfortable in order to make the changes now.

4. Keep it spinning fast. Now think of the thing that you used to feel angry about and notice that it now different.

That’s the basic pattern. Of course, you can Past Pace.

5. Think of another time you felt anger and do the same process noticing how you experience it differently now that you have and are utilizing the spinning technique.

And you can Future Pace.

6. Think of a time in the future that you are sure would have elicited anger in the past from you and allow yourself to feel differently about it now as you simply have changed the direction or spin. 7. Do it with lots of situations and notice the pattern becomes automatic with repetition and soon you won’t have to consciously do the pattern. It will have become automatic now.

The Change Anger Pattern is a post from: Life Coach Phoenix

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How can we transform the world from chaotic self-interest, escalating violence and seemingly a bent toward destruction, to a world that is systemically peaceful, collaborative, empowering, and life affirming? Depending your personal life filter, an argument can already be made for either of these views as truth. Haven’t we made great progress as humans? Isn’t the world better than it was? And then again; Isn’t the world getting worse? Why should we try? Why not tear the world down and start over with something else?

I remember walking around my college campus and occasionally I’d look out over the bustle of moving bodies between classes and see someone looking back at me, meeting my eye. In the early 1970′s there were already well over 30,000 students bumping into each other at the major university I attended and occasionally the eye I would meet belonged to someone curiously awake, aware, knowing, and conscious, looking back, as eager and fascinated as I was to connect, even if only the split second in time. I remember reading a book about that time that suggested that, ‘there are those among us who have awakened and are conscious.’ Some of those people, I imagined, knew something I had not yet learned.

In Christian biblical stories following the death of Jesus, the Apostles traveled their land practicing ‘laying on of hands’ and people were ‘lifted up’ and transformed. How many ways, I wondered were there to change people and change the world. Maybe those miracles were not so mysterious. I have met lots of people who lay their hands on other people to heal them and who touch, inspire, and heal with words. I believe we live in a world where more people are awake and capable of creating change than ever before in human history.

That may sound a little naive or romanticized to some who will read this article. As I see and hear the news channels telling me of ‘more people dead in war-torn Iraq or Syria, or “bombing in London or Lebanon’ or even a ‘violent robbery in my town,’ or a ‘domestic family squabble,’ or any number of other incidents that could easily be crafted into a good argument that the world is terrible place and that it’s not smart to trust your neighbors, I am aware that there are more an more people on the planet who believe that positive change can occur. It’s a matter of what we sort for in life. If we see problems and negativity as the primary force moving us, we create that reality. Making fundamental changes in parts of the world where generations of poverty and repression of basic human rights have molded belief and suppressed hope, is clearly not that easy. On the other hand, when we give people a chance, they sometimes do miraculous things or make selfless sacrifices for the benefit of others.

Since I have done quite a bit of corporate training work over the years in the areas of culture change and team building based largely on my work with Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP. I remember one of my colleagues and mentors, Robert Dilts, raising the question, “Why not build a company where people really want to come to work? Or to the point of this writing, “why not build a world where everyone wants to belong.’

Another of my mentors, Harvey Davisson, PhD, was a Psychologist in Dallas, Texas. As a 30-something young man I worked with him to develop his weight loss-longevity business. As part of my working agreement, I learned about a methodology he was using with his patients. I have adapted that work over the years and now call it Core Decisional Repatterning©. It is a profound change technology for discovering the decisions that make up our programming and where limitations exist, installing a new, more life-enhancing decision that will cause an individual to quickly and easily change unresourceful life patterns. People get more of what they want in life as a result.

I remember having what I assumed to be a prophetic dream around that time. In my dream, I had flown into a small airport in a third world country and was shaking hands and meeting with dignitaries including the country’s educational, financial, and other leaders. I was there to teach them how to implement these technologies for profound transformation that could change even deeply rooted beliefs causal to poverty, poor health, violent habits, and greed, to healthy, happy, productive programming that could transform entire nations. After all, if you can change individuals fundamentally, you change how families operate, and how communities are organized, and how countries relate to one another.

As I learned more about NLP techniques, the ability to achieve the dream came much closer to reality. NLP is based on Behavior Modeling, a technology based on protocols for elicit the key components of expertise. “If anyone can do it; you (or I) can do it.” So, pioneers in the field of NLP including the co-founders John Grinder and Richard Bandler set about discovering the structure of experience focused on a single question, “What is excellence.” They modeled, or copied behavior of highly successful people in several fields and areas of life. Elicit enough high quality information about how an expert creates any achievement and you can install those patterns of excellence in yourself and others. Applications are endless.

In my NLP Coaching and Training practice I use a wide variety of powerful tools, including Principled (Total-Wn) Negotiating, therapeutic metaphor, Re-Imprinting, reframing, anchoring, hypnotic language skills, Core Transformation, parts integration and other conflict integration patterns, and much more. In my corporate training and coaching work, I have incorporated aspects of a breakthrough technology developed by Werner Erhart and John Hanley. I have dabbled in learning the Dream Body Work or Process-Oriented Psychology, of Arnold Mindell, and I have been exposed to complimentary modalities and sponsored practitioners of various body work and energy work modalities that can further transform human systems. In short, I think there are a number of techniques and specialized knowledge in the world and even one of these life-changing modalities can make changes in whole communities.

With these ideas in mind, I contacted a few high quality people to form a board for an association that would give people interested in NLP and related technologies a way to belong and learn skills and allow people to connect globally to others with similar interests. The Global Association of Neuro Linguistic Programming is taking on the mission to change the world and it is ‘opening doors and joining hands’ to connect like-minded people and provide education in NLP and related areas.

I am proud to announce the board. My wife, Marsha Thomason, brings a straight forward no-nonsense attitude, event planning capabilities, and a can-do spirit from her years of experience owning one of the nations top real estate and property management companies. Marsha was also winner of a national real estate selling competition for a leading franchise. I contacted Andrew Alex, with his very well-rounded intellect and clarity of thought and his years of experience as a personal injury attorney. I was pleased that he accepted my invitation and has taken ownership in contributing on many levels. Rhonda Robbins brings an understanding of the internet, social media, and marketing, and as a Certified Life Coach, she has integrated NLP techniques and understanding. Janice Palmer is an attorney and former judge in the area of family law, who is also an NLP Master Practitioner and brings deep understanding of the change process and non-adversarial approaches to highly-charged conflicts. Khaled Aljurdi is a Life Coach specializing in dating and persuasion who has been successful in networking activities and personal transformation. Gregg Sobek also has combined NLP and breakthrough technology in his real estate investment business.

Rhonda Robbins and Andrew Alex have agreed to contribute articles and training on a profiling technology that is thousands of years old and as useful in the board room or court room today as any available in the world. Over time, the www.gcnlp.com website will host a wide number of change techniques and education in related areas to personal change and making the world a better place. Resources will be available online and from regular workshop meetings, networking opportunities, and a yearly conference is beginning to take shape. I’m excited to find out what will come next as this project goes forward. So, join the GCNLP association and get involved, www.aznlp.com for the local Arizona chapter. Some weekly meetings will be FREE to attend in Phoenix, Arizona, and a monthly Saturday workshop series will start in February and will include guest speakers and great opportunities for learning and networking.

Please look for articles to follow on the topics of changing the world and about NLP and other technologies for profound personal change and business excellence.

Check out the website www.nlpskils.com for calendar of events and other resources. And, contact me personally at 602 321-7192.

GCNLP – Transforming The World From The Inside Out is a post from: Life Coach Phoenix

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Core Decisional Repatterning(c) is a 9-step technology for finding the core decisions that have limited your behavior in life and installing new empowering programs that get an individual what he or she congruently wants in life. You will recognize unresourceful programming when you notice that you have the same negative responses to things over and over again. For example, you notice that you or someone else you know keeps doing the same things to your/their children that you/they swore you’d never do because you know the effect it had on you when your parents did it to you. You know you don’t want that behavior, but there it is, working at a deep unconscious level in your life.

You’ve heard someone tell a child, “your a bad boy” instead of distinguishing the behavior as not a good one. Children tend to take things literally and tend to get that they are bad instead of the behavior is bad. No wonder so many people have programming that they are ‘not good enough’, or ‘bad’, or “not deserving’ or ‘not loveable.’ Now think about what is created in the life of someone with this belief. ‘Conscious languaging’ calls for people to get this poor language into consciousness so you can change it to something positive and life enhancing.

Do you know someone (maybe you) who does all the right things, but then sabotages their own success. If they don’t believe they deserve, people tend to find a way to not have what they say they want. You can recognize beliefs (programming) from linguistic structures. People say things like, “I’m the kind of person who…” That is a clue you are about to hear something right out of the core beliefs that run deep in a person’s life.

At the core of our programming are a set of deeply held values. The primary presupposition of Core Decisional Repatterning(c) is that all your programming is in place due to decisions that you have made in life. Some people seem to decide they are not wanted very early in life, perhaps even before they are born. It makes sense that a child may already have some negative programming from the womb when parents are arguing and unpleasant tones are heard by the child, over money difficulties or other issues. Regardless, of whether you believe it starts that early, chances are you’d agree programming starts very early. I’d like to believe that children come into the world wanting and giving love and experiencing joy as they learn about the world around them. Soon, events imprint programming upon a child. Some of that programming is good, appropriate, and healthy. Some is unresourceful and can cause a wide range of problematic issues through life. At the least, we all experience not getting some of the things we say we want.

We all have some negative programming. According to child development theories, most of our core programmming is in place by age 4 or 5. People make the decision to be like Mom and like Dad or other primary caregivers early in life. We get it all (a gestalt or whole group) at once from each of these decisions. The problem is that some of that programming is good and useful and some is in there at a deep emotional level operating behind the scenes to produce behavior we don’t really want when we are old enough to distinguish what is desirable. If Dad never made more than an average low wage, the chances of the person becoming wealthy is not very likely. The child inside keeps saying, “I’m just like Dad.” In addition, decisions made later in life may be healthier programs, but they are often in conflict with the earlier programming.

So, how do we change unresourceful programming? In our study of highly successful people, there seem to be some things in common with other well balanced, healthy people. Core Decisional Repatterning(c) offers some healthy decisions starting from the decision to be fully and completely alive. Lots of people seem to be living life as if they are trying to get dead. They eat the wrong foods, drink and/or use drugs, get into bad relationships and you will hear a lot of negative talk and complaining. Language programs behavior and people create what they are focused upon.

So the Core Decisional Repatterning(c) process discovers the limiting decision, finds who the decision was made in service to and starts the wording of a new, more empowering decision. Since the unconscious mind is set up to keep people in the same patterns, a facilitator helps to eliminate any loopholes in the new decision. When the wording of the new decision is complete, the next steps are to get the decision at memory level from beginning to end. When it is memorized well enough, the decision is driven to a deep emotional level. A plan is made to follow through on the decision and then it is put into practice. You do it again and again.

The result is fast effective and profound change. Behavior is simply different. Making such decision does not mean a person never has emotions of fear, guilt, anxiety, sadness, etc., but it does mean that the person experiences a new design for what to do in any life situation. Driving the decision to deep emotion displaces the old unresourceful decision and installs the new decision in it’s place. Personality does not change, but a person is freed up to live more in alignment with core values and be the person they choose to be. Life is permanently different.

Contact Bill Thomason to schedule a Core Decisional Repatterning(c) coaching session or ask about upcoming seminars on the subject. Call 602 321-7192 or go to www.nlpskills.com or www.nlplifecoachphoenix.com.

Core Decisional Repatterning(c) is a post from: Life Coach Phoenix

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