Rubbish.

I have consistently focused on a new car (whilst still cherishing the old one for continuing to start each day) for the last 4 years and I still haven’t got one. How long specifically does it take for a thought to manifest itself into a thing?

And what then of all of the so called negative thoughts I have on a day to day basis? If I think “I should put my seat belt on incase I crash” am I manifesting a crash for the future which I then need to take responsibility for, because I thought it and brought it into my awareness?

I remember once teaching a room full of NLP Practitioners & Master Practitioners and giving them ‘Rules For The Room’, which was a list of “whilst in the room do not do this…” Two People on the course objected to the “don’t do this…” list because they felt it wasn’t very NLP to focus on what we didn’t want.

The truth is though there are plenty of times when knowing what you do not want is as important (if not more so) than what you do want.

I do not want to ever experience a plane crash, but I am glad someone has dedicated their lifes work into formulating the plans of what steps to take should one occur. Did that person die in a plane crash as a result of thinking about them so much? What about hair dressers who mix hair colours in a particular way because they want to avoid giving the customer green or orange hair. Does it happen because they are thinking about it?

Do the people who fit abs breaks continuously drive into lamp posts when they’re on the road?

Knowing what you need to avoid can be both useful and important. More than that it is sometimes the driver for diverting you towards what you do want instead. Sometimes people forget the final step of being diverted to what they want and this is obviously a problem. But if there is a clear balance between what you don’t want and what you do, then this should keep the affirmations positive but importantly realistic too.

What does an NLPer say when their child is about to run out in front of a bus?

“That’s a lovely walking style to make it even better when crossing the road, wait until the bus is passed but overall it is lovely to see you being so independant”

Whereas most others say “Stop!” “Don’t cross when there is a bus coming or you will get run over!” The NLPers will all be worrying about the unconscious not processing the negatives in the sentence but there are times when we must focus on what to avoid. Back it up with details about what you want and feed back positively when you see it. Don’t rule out the away froms. Being negative isn’t always negative (especially if it is backed up with a positive).

It has been working extremely well with children.

Sometimes using “formal” trance doesn’t work. Especially with children and adults with busy brains that they cannot quiet.

It is working well because I think, I’m throwing it in at the end of a session, just as one might do with a session of hypnosis to round off the other great work you may have done using NLP techniques.

I say something like “Ok, we have covered everything we can here today with the time that we had available but we still have a few minutes left. A few minutes to fill with something…..is there anything else you wanted to mention? An little issues you wanted to clear out having sorted all the other stuff we did earlier?”

There are a couple of sneaky presuppositions thrown in here

1) The issues they will share will be little, whether they used to perceive them that way or not.

2) The issues will be cleared out. Their minds will be clear as soon as the issue is out of their mouth

3) We have assumed that the stuff we worked on earlier is sorted now.

Once they have told me the issue, I then respond to it with a story, anecdote or reframe which allows them to access thinking and feeling about overcoming the issue. I ask them very little but say a lot, sometimes acting things out or making it funny.

It’s not about having a conversation. It is an awakened trance which is achievable because they are relaxed having overcome some challenges/learned some techniques to help them overcome challenges already. It in some ways works better than diving into a trance at the beginning of the session because they have had plenty of time for rapport building and relaxing. They are in a much more comfortable place by the end of the session compared to at the start.

Sometimes I use the awakened trance at the end of my consultations too. Once they have offloaded their problems and received some hope of a solution they become very relieved and very suggestible. Quite often people have come to see me at the start of their treatment, claiming that they are getting better already just from the consultation, although no formal work was done.

A great example of an awakened trance recently was a boy I worked with who was self harming. He had cuts to his hands, knees and arms.

We had worked together for 3 sessions and on the 3rd session we had 10 minutes to use up at the end of the session. He said he felt everything was going to be ok now so I asked the question above to find out if there were any little things that we could mop up before I let him go for good.

He said that sometimes his scabs were itchy where the self harming was stopping and beginning to heal. I told him it’s where the skin is pulling back together to rejoin and heal. “The itchiness means the skin is pulling and fusing. All of those little red marks that are left by the scabs after they fall off completely on their own, will be red for a while because they are brand new skin for a brand new body. But in just a few months from now they will no longer be red and then you will forget that they ever were or that you ever used to harm yourself.”

It was just 10 minutes of saying things like this, putting his problems in a forgotten past and accepting that everything will be fresh and new in the future. I think it made a difference.

The ….’s at the end of the sentence above are space for one or more of the following:

-music is too loud

-you want to sit down at a concert

-your breasts have stretched to your belly button

- you’d rather stay in than have a night out

- you just don’t want to have sex any more

- policemen start looking too young

Recently I was listening to the radio and a well known rapper was talking about what older people would say in response to his music. He said that people would quite openly tell him that they didn’t like his work or that they thought it was rubbish. Hearing him speak he really did sound like an offended youth, thinking that people who didn’t like his music were simply out of touch with reality.

The interviewer asked him how he coped with that and he replied that in the past he used to become quite upset by people’s comments. Sometimes getting defensive and fighting back against their unsolicited feedback. This can’t be an easy thing to do, as there is a sort of in built rule that even though those older than you can be wrong, you still should respect their wrongness. That there is something about your granny saying “This isn’t bloody music, it’s just a lot of talking and shouting” that makes her right despite the fact that you might secretly enjoy a bit of Eminem.

Then he said he changed his approach to the people who told him they didn’t like his work. Instead of getting offended by it, he asked himself “Would this feedback mean as much to me if it were being said by a 4 year old?”

Of course the answer was “No!”

If a 4 year old child walked up to you and said “Your work is rubbish and I don’t like your hair” your response would probably be to say go away and think what a rude and silly child have silly moment. You would forget about it very quickly and take their comments with a pinch of salt.

You could take any offensive comment and hear/see/experience in your mind a little 4 year old saying the bad words your boss/partner/mum/whoever said. Maybe you can image it is a little 4 year old them saying it. I bet you’ll end up reacting very very differently to them!

And I wonder then, what would happen if you only ever became offended like a 4 year old. This would I believe involve saying “Well I don’t care!” Then you need to stamp you foot, march and and very quickly get distracted by an aeroplane in the sky, or do a dance or draw a picture and instantly forget about what was said and get on with doing something else instead.

By Gemma Bailey
www.HypnotherapyandNLP.co.uk

Sainsbury’s, Tesco’s and Boot’s all reward me for shopping with them. If I buy an offer online, I am sometimes rewarded with a bonus. If I pay my car insurance in one lump I am rewarded with a discount.

But do rewards still work?

I was recently at an event where the speaker offered rewards to action-takers in his sales pitch. People got up and ran to the sales desk so clearly reward do have some power.

Ultimately a reward is getting something in exchange for you doing something. For example, someone near my house has lost a springer spaniel called Poppy. If I find their dog, I get the reward. It’s a simple exchange.

But Tesco’s and Sainsbury have a much smarter tac-tic, they get you to give first, then they reward you but to redeem your reward you must give more.

Therapy works more like the Sainsbury’s theory. The client has to make the first move and contact a coach or therapist. Then they are given techniques to help them help themselves which they can benefit from, but they must pay for these. Sometimes the payment is about the cold hard cash, sometimes it’s about what they need to invest emotionally, or let go of mentally.

But the reward doesn’t end there. The impact of the client starting be who they want to be or stopping doing whatever caused them a problem before knocks onto other areas of their lives in a useful, positive way. The rewards continue and so must the investment. The client must continue to invest their positive thinking and energy into their new skills or else the rewarding will stop.

Sometimes the rewards may not seem big enough, fast enough or vast enough and the client may stop investing. It’s important therefore to understand what rewards the client wants, when they want them and if they are realistically achievable. Writing this down can be likened to the terms and conditions that come with your shopping rewards.

Sometimes however, it’s useful to feel comfortable with not being rewarded straight away. To do things just because that is what you have to do. Sometimes people struggle with this because they are so used to getting rapid intense reward. Those who are overweight enjoy the benefits of rapid intense reward when they overfill themselves with food that was unhealthy and unneeded. To have to stop that behaviour and exercise might even imply a degree and period of pain to achieve.

The reward in changing this behaviour for the long term gain however is far greater than the short term gain of chocolate cake. It might mean living a few years longer and having a fitter freer life. Missing out on instant rewards can sometimes mean that the long term pay off is far greater.

It can also be useful to adjust to doing things without any rewards at all. Doing things just because. Usually these are the things that you end up with being rewarded for the most. A client recently told me he knows he is a nice man because he once helped a couple with a young baby whose car had broken down. He let them stay the night at his house and he never heard from them again. There was not reward – only the internal one of knowing that made him a jolly nice chap.

It’s as if letting go and moving on is giving up. And that giving up means we must have failed in someway.

Sometimes the failure is in having made a poor decision. A decision to cling and continue to make our own lives a greater uncomfortable challenge than they really need to be.

For some people, this happens because their pain threshold is too high. They will allow themselves to be emotionally beaten up many times before they decide they have had enough – if they ever even manage to get to that stage.

Here are some classic examples of when people end up wishing they’d let go and moved on sooner than they did:

Working in a job you hate.
Being in a relationship that isn’t working.
Wanting a debt to be repaid.
Holding onto spite, hatred or hurt when someone has behaved wrongly towards you.
Unrequited love.

Is letting go the same as forgiveness? Possibly. If you let go but do not forgive, some of your time and energy will still be going into “it” which could imply you have not really let go yet.

It is not essential to feel repelled by what occurred, although that can help initially. It is more important to get to a point of not really caring for it any longer. The word to describe that emotion is “whatever.” You need to be feeling “whatever” about it. You need to reach the point when you look back on that ex-partner/old boss/friend who never repaid you/abuser/love vampire and think “oh, her.” Instead of “ARGH!”

Time helps achieve this and so does making a decent promise to yourself. The decent promise is made up of a few vital elements:

1)    Next time I will vet/screen the other party/situation/opportunity much more thoroughly before committing myself.
2)    I will be very clear about my own expectations
3)    I will ensure I understand others expectations of me
4)    I will have a clear idea about what is/isn’t right for me
5)    I will change things/put a stop to it when I become dissatisfied
6)    That bad thing that happened before, I won’t let that happen again. Never ever. I will never compromise my emotions/sanity/gut feeling because I like myself enough to be able to walk away with my head held high and not feel bad about it whatsoever.

Something I often say to clients who are experiencing a challenge that requires them to let go and move on is to talk to themselves in the same way they would talk to their best friend/favourite nephew if that best friend/favourite nephew were having exactly the same problem in exactly the same circumstances.

Often they will say things like

“I’d tell her it’s not worth all this stress she should just let go and move on!”

“I’d tell him to follow his gut feeling.”

“I’d tell him enough is enough.”

“I’d say “I love you but you’re making a bad choice if you stick with this one.””

This is a good exercise to do as essentially the client is then giving themselves the advice they need to hear.

You can tell your inner best friend/internal nephew other useful things at useful times too.

“If anyone can do it, you can.”

“Good job you clever sausage!”

“That’s enough reading, back to work!”

My challenge around asking for help (I have psycho-analysed) has something to do with me being:

a)    Independent from a young age
b)   A bit shy sometimes (yes me!)
c)    A dislike of admitting I can’t do something
d)   Feeling as if I’ve I’m a failure for having been unable to do it myself
e)    Being a bit of a stubborn git
f)     I have been let down by others when I have asked for help before

As I write this, I actually feel like a wally for even having listed those things. But I want to be honest. I don’t like asking for help.

Of course all of these attribute are in many ways serving and brilliant. Having had my own front door key from the age of 7 and 3 or 4 hours home alone after school whilst my mum was still at work, made me pretty self-sufficient. If I wanted food I had to make it, if I wanted something from a high shelf or cupboard I had to climb up there to get it. If I didn’t know how to answer a question in my homework I would make one up! The positive implications of this later on meant that I do not need to call anyone to help me put together Ikea furniture and I am not worried by having to figure things out on my own.

As a result of growing up as an only child and being an independent one, there was a tendency to not “need” friends so much. I was ok by myself. Now being in a job where I have to be quite extroverted, advising people and being on stage and teaching or speaking, I quite enjoy being able to hide away in my shell afterwards to recharge my batteries.

After a while, it’s easy to get used to doing stuff alone – and doing it well. In some ways when you then have to start delegating to others it can be difficult to let go and see them doing things in a totally different way to how you would do it. Most things I have attempted to do I have done, and the ones I haven’t done I’ve conveniently forgotten about! So when I meet a challenge that I can’t do, some people will act surprise and tease me for it. I’d rather keep attempting to figure it out myself than ask for help. It is extremely gratifying to be able to say “Yes I did do all of that and yes I did it completely by myself.” This has in the past given me a somewhat smug feeling, that I have rather enjoyed.

Obviously avoiding failure speaks for itself. It means I have been far more focused on achieving which has been a good thing.

So with all of that learning, being a bit of a stubborn git is no great surprise!

The sad bit is I don’t remember any epic incidents where others have let me down so I’m not too sure where that came from. Perhaps it has more to do with a low expectation of others. However, that feeling of being let down by others has certainly encouraged me to be more resourceful – to learn how to do as much as I can without leaning on others.

Now here’s the down side to this character trait:

When you try to do everything independently, it is exhausting, stressful, tense and sometimes lonely. Sometimes you fail to learn easier ways of doing things that others have learned and can teach you.

If you let others help you and you find the right people, you can have a team that gets things done far quicker than you could do by yourself.

By letting others help, you can relax as you know it is safe to sleep with both eyes shut. You don’t have to always be the one on guard.

Several things can get done at once when there is someone to help and having someone to help might actually be good fun.

Plus, what is the point in being the only one who is good at what you do? You might get hit by a bus tomorrow and then all of your secret skills will be gone with you. When you get help from others, you may well be helping them too by having them there. They can learn from you and your legacy can continue long into the future, even when you are not here to do it yourself.

The next time someone tells you “You need to get some help!” Don’t take it as an insult, embrace the insight they have given you and get your team together.

During grief people quite often feel stuck in a kind of darkness, a weird void whilst the rest of the world and life continues outside of the grief bubble. People experiencing grief may find comfort with others experiencing that same grief, but if not, it can feel like a lonely tunnel.

Grief can be experienced as a response to any kind of loss – although it is largely linked with death, one can grieve a broken relationship, friends that moved away or even changes in their circumstances.

When I was 18 my first car, (an orange mini) was hit by a petrol tanker – with me in it. The car took all the impact of the crash and it was “killed instantly” whilst I was largely ok.

I was in shock for a good week afterwards, not least because it was a terrible accident in which if a few minor factors had have worked out differently, I would have been much more seriously injured. However there was also a great sense of grief. My first car had represented many things to me. It was the source of my freedom, a symbol of my adulthood, a representation that I was part of a club that not all of my friends had been able to pass the test to get into. I’d used my hard earned cash to care for it, save up for it even though it was largely worthless in monetary terms. It was also something I had taken great pride in. I kept it clean and fixed it when it wouldn’t start.

The days following its “death” my grief also came from the fact that I had taken good care of this piece of machinery and it had in it’s final moments taken the full force of the accident and protected me.

Yes I know it was just a car – everyone said this – but I still felt this pain within as if someone had dropped a brick on my stomach. I randomly got upset, kept thinking of the good times and getting upset about those too, I was withdrawn, stressed and I didn’t sleep well for a good while.

During the days afterwards, I had arrangements and preparations as if it were a funeral! I had to contact the insurers, the company of the tanker, the DVLA, go to the hospital and get a physical assessment done.

I largely think of myself as a fairly practical strong willed person so I know what you’re thinking! It was just a car!

My point is though that people can experience grief for a variety of different circumstances. There will be common themes to all grief but everyone will react in their own personal way. Everyone too will find comfort in different ways. Here are some of what worked for me:

Sort “stuff” – It helped me to get through the technical parts of the process as fast as possible. So the sorting bits of paper, clearing out of belongings and putting those in a new home.

Gather the memories that are important to keep – This doesn’t necessarily mean only positive memories. For example, my old mini had the petrol cap stolen and it was a real pain as I was scared to drive without a petrol cap but had to drive to get a new one. Some years later my mum had all the trees from her house cut down and in amongst the branches she found my petrol cap! I’ve kept it because whenever I have a hair-brain idea about one day getting a classic car, it reminds me that my old car, despite how much I loved it – was insecure and often vandalized. Remembering (and not just remembering good stuff) can be important if you are grieving a relationship break up. It can remind you that it wasn’t wonderful all of the time and means you will only have to grieve the relationship and not the person you split up with too.

Remember that the pain goes – Although there will be good days and bad, generally over time, the pain goes and you start to feel, become and act more normal again. You’ll take as much time is right for you and even though in the future you may look back and still feel the sadness, you will get better.

When you have decided something, it brings with it commitment and comfort. These are strong emotions that have a sense of security and stability. They meet the need for certainty, which allows you to relax and be completely at ease.

Knowing carries similar weight. When you know something there is certainty in the knowledge you have. You can be more solid and more sure than when you do not know.

Deciding and knowing give a sense of completion. The questions and conundrums are solved. The boxes are ticked. The thing you were considering you need not give anymore of your attention to, because it is resolved and sorted.

Prior to knowing and deciding is choosing. This occurs when you have finalised some viable options. You know that there is a suitable direction but you need to choose which one. Choosing is great because in “choice” you know there are several direction you can take but it doesn’t have the comfort of knowing or having decided.

In NLP we talk a lot about the benefits of confusion. How that state is simply your own minds way of searching for the solution. Confusion is good because it means you are trying to find the right way forward and that you are open to the possibilities that there are available.

So we know that the final chapter is deciding or knowing, before that is choice and before that is confusion, which is the search for solutions. Before those however, is another state of mind. It is one far more powerful in my opinion than any of the other previously mentioned.

It is the state of mind called not knowing. Not knowing what to do has enormous power. Most people see not knowing as a weakness and are keen to get themselves out of this state as quickly as possible. I’m going to suggest that we all spend a bit more time basking in not knowing. Here’s why:

When you don’t know, there are many ways in which you can know. When you haven’t decided, there are many options of decisions you can make. They say knowledge is power, but when you know, you are much less likely to ever look for or consider the other ways in which you could have known. Not knowing is power!

When you haven’t decided, you can have a million different options available to you, but without yet being aware of what they are.

Take this analogy. Lets say that you want to get from Hertfordshire to North Wales. This is a journey you have never taken before and you do not know the way. At this moment in time you do not know how to get there and you have not decided how to get there.

You could then move into a state of confusion where you are looking at a map, trying to establish the general direction from Hertfordshire to North Wales.

Out of the confusion comes a choice between motorway or A-roads to get there. It’s one or the other so you weight up the choices and out of those you then know the best option and you make your decision. Motorway it is.

But if we go back in time to the powerful state of not know and not deciding, we’ll find that there were so many other options that were not available later once confusion had set in.

When you didn’t know and you hadn’t decided here are just some of the other options that were available to you:

Helicopter
Air balloon
Pogo stick
Bike
Rollerblades
Rocket

The next time you don’t know or can’t decide, embrace the uncertainty, which is also an essential human need. Enjoy the awareness of the options and choices available to you, even though you don’t know yet, what they may be.

Then get yourself out of not knowing not by trying to know but simply by asking yourself “What would happen if I did know/decide?” In knowing what you would get as the outcome of your decision or knowledge, you may find yourself making a better quality choice than if you allowed a natural state of confusion and decision to take hold.

I am not a procrastinator. I think like many people, there are some things that I find it easier to get on and do than other things. However recently I have been so busy I was fully aware that I had lost (or momentarily misplaced) the skills of spontaneity.

Tiredness, business, busyness and sheer laziness had been holding me back. I realised it was June and I hadn’t kept my new years resolutions. Of course many people do not keep their new years resolutions. However they tend to realise this before June!

I was aware of the problem and decided I’d do something about it. As soon as I had the time…

Then last weekend, I rather randomly thought of a composer and pianist that I really wanted to see in concert. On Friday night at about 11pm, I searched for him in the Internet to see when his next visit to London might be. To my surprise he was performing in London the next night!

I thought about how busy I was. I thought about how I should really think about spending my money on other things, I thought about the fact I’m in the middle of a master practitioner training and have to get up early. So I decided not to go and instead see when he would be returning to London later in the year.

Sometimes when there is something you just need to get on and do, life will give you a poke. Sometimes pokes from life might be painful or uncomfortable but sometimes they are just pokey. I’m pleased to report that this poke was the pokey sort.

You see the composer was not returning to London again this year. Here was my chance to see/hear/experience some amazing music that I’d been longing to enjoy live for the last 3 or 4 years.

So I had a word with myself. I reminded myself that tiredness, laziness, business and busyness don’t have any arms. Therefore there was no conceivable way that they could be “holding me back.” The only thing holding me back was the limitations of my thinking- the only thing stopping me, was me.

So I got myself a ticket to the concert and I went. As I write this I’m on the train home evaluating my spontaneous decision.

Would it have been easier if I’d stayed home tonight? Yes.
Would I have got more sleep if I hadn’t gone out? Yes.
Could I have waited until next year to attend a concert with this composer? Yes.

But ultimately I’m going to be working better over the next few weeks as I’ve met a need within myself. I’ve also had a brilliant time and got a lovely memory of it for the memory bank. Yes I am very tired but, I’m also sharing a train carriage with a bunch of Bon Jovi fans (I think they must have been in concert tonight too) and I’m reminded of a relevant song lyric by said long-haired rock band. “I’ll live while I’m alive and sleep when I’m dead. ”

If you have been lacking spontaneity like I had, I’d like to remind you in the kindest possible way that YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.  It is a sad but true fact and no matter what happens next you may not get the opportunities available to you today ever again.

It’s important that you make the most of them.

Crap. I just missed my station. Damn spontaneity!!!!

One of my best accounts of having used NLP “live” (as in the person I was using it on didn’t know I was doing it) was when I was out with a friend of mine who had recently separated from her boyfriend. We knew that on this particular evening out there was the possibility of bumping into the ex boyfriend so she was in a bit of a “wound up” state.

As we sat with our bottle of wine in the pub, a song came on in the background. As my friend began to tune into it, aware of the familiarity of it, she started to cry. Through the blubs and wails she explained that this had been “their” song (her and the ex boyfriends) and that she still loved him so much.

It’s a good job I’m a therapist and not a counsellor because sympathy just isn’t my thing. I reached over and touched her shoulder and said “Err, there, there. It’s all going to be fine, I’m sure he was an idiot anyway.”

This was closely followed by a snot-filled-rage in which she exclaimed how she couldn’t believe how he had treated her “how could he do this?!” etc and how much she hated him. When this stage kicked in, I quickly withdrew my comforting hand.

Those of you who know NLP will have identified that I’d accidentally “Anchored” her melancholy state to her shoulder. You might think this was a bad thing. The truth is it would have been if I’d not utilised it later on. Really I should skip the part where I tell you that this all happened by accident and make out that this entire event happened completely on purpose as a result of my marvellous skill set. But that wouldn’t be totally true!

So later on we went to a night club and guess who showed up?! At this moment in time there were several reactions she could have gone for. I thought she might go for blubbering wreck but to my surprise (and his) she launched straight into snot-filled-rage.

As she catapulted herself towards him, I spotted an expression in his face. In NLP we like to be very clear about the difference between a sensory observation and a hallucination (when you think you know what you have seen.)

The sensory based observation of the ex boyfriend was this:

His eyes widened
His jaw lowered
His skin tone became more pale
His forehead began to sweat
He became short of breath

The hallucination of what I saw I will call “Man-having-fear-of-ex-girlfiend.”

At this moment, I grabbed her shoulder (yes the same one as earlier) and said something like “I know that this isn’t the real feeling you are feeling towards him. Isn’t it.”

The snot filled rage fizzled and vanished and the melancholiness of earlier returned, though without the crying.

They had a conversation about staying friends and it was all ok.

When she popped to the loo a little later he came over and spoke to me. He said “I’ve no idea what you did to her, but you did something. She was ready to kill me and you defused her somehow, how did you do that?”

At that point I realised what I had done, and I realized I could really help others using NLP.

By Gemma Bailey

www.gemmabailey.co.uk