While I’ve never learned NLP myself I know many people who have and swear by the tools it teaches for success in mastering a healthy, happy life. I felt it necessary to include this discipline in this section of the book.
NLP: What is it?
NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Its name describes the three components that NLP practitioners suggest are what make humans the only beings that experience consciousness. The theory suggests that being conscious involves:
- Neurology: All humans have a brain which controls the body, and at the physical level, allows your body to function
- Language: This is how all humans interact with the world and other people. Language is what allows you to communicate with others, and dictates how others conceptually create their experience of who you are.
- Programming: All humans learn patterns through their experience of the world, which involves a combination of how the physical “neurological” self and the interactive “language” self collide and interact with their environment.
NLP suggests that the way you perceive the world involves complex processes of thoughts and language. Together they produce “scripts” that can cement and run our lives unconscious to us, or against what we’d like to do.
Tools taught by NLP practitioners help you to actively choose what you’d like to do – how you’d like to behave – at any given moment, versus responding automatically.
Core teachings of NLP:
Subjectivity: We experience the world through our perceptions of it, not what is “real”. Therefore, NLP suggests thinking is realit. So, from this perspective each person’s experience of reality is different. The reason is because what you see is subjective. Its made up of personal experience and stimulus, not just stimulus.
NLP teaches you the various ways most people think. There are three that are presented using the acronym VAK: Visual thinkers, auditory thinkers and kinesthetic thinkers
Consciousness: NLP suggests what humans call consciousness is made up of two components: 1) Consciousness and 2) Unconscious. From this point of view, the theory is once again suggesting what you believe to be “real” and “true”, is made up of what is actually “real” and what is perceived.
NLP teaches you how to take control of memories. Your memories are stored and often dictate how you act on an unconscious level. When you learn how to control memory they can be used positively to shape your present actions.
Learning: NLP teaches through an imitative method of learning that they call modeling. You learn modeling by copying a superior’s expertise in a given knowledge base. An important part of learning NLP principles is understanding how to be aware and remove the perceived realities you’re placing on a situation.
Mirroring, or copying others, can also help you get related to people. It’s a positive communication tool taught by NLP.
To find out more about NLP visit http://www.nlp.com or contact our team and we’ll get you in touch with an NLP coach that can teach you about it.