Are you Avoiding Confrontation?

Overcoming the need to avoid Confrontation (A work example)

Anyone who has been through my Insights course will know that in our life we work towards or away from what we want or don’t want.  (Values)

Yet there are times when we need to push past our default position and ‘not be ourselves’ step out of a comfort zone to get a result we might need..

For example in your job you may be the boss and as part of your duties, you may have to tell someone that they are not measuring up (in a performance review).  Do you tend to tiptoe around the point, dodging with careful words the things you really need to say, or are you able to talk about the things you need to, in a way that confronts the problem and sets some plan in motion to overcome it. 

Generally people who avoid (work away from) confrontation, see every hard conversation as a potential confrontation, and to avoid this will overlook what needs to be said or done.. and hope it goes away. They do avoidance really well.  The unconscious or conscious reasoning may be that they “don’t want to upset anyone”, “cause upset”  make someone ‘not like them” or be the “bad cop” and lose popularity.   So they just don’t do anything.  Hmmm this often causes other bigger issues.  It may even escalate to reflect poorly in your performance appraisal. 

The idea of confrontation to some people is packaged as “all confrontation is bad” and this is an unuseful generalisation (or complex equivalence in Metamodel language) which may prevent you from doing your job as required.  

It may be that the only confrontation you have done has been when the camel’s back has been broken, you are at the end of your tether and you do an “over the top emotional outburst” which hasn’t gone well.  Hmmm Maybe that’s not the type of confrontation I mean here.

So how do you change this belief about confrontation?  Well first you need to want to change it. Lets do some tried and true NLP models here. ( You may need the help of a NLPer to do this.. or you could try some things on your own).

1. Lets unpack the semantic response to the word?  What is the emotional, physical, mental responses to the word which makes it so repulsive?  What has the TDS – Trans-derivational search brought up as a reference meaning for you?  Has your experience been so off-putting that avoidance is the only behaviour you have as a response?  So what meaning have you given this word to create the response?  Usually the synonymous meanings are disagreement, argument, altercation, conflict, and row.  But is confronting something always about this?
2. Try a Reframe – face up to, deal with, challenge, approach, may be more useful words which don’t have that same semantic response.
3. Try changing the submodalities of the word.. does it have a colour, shape, weight, temperature, sound, distance, texture, flavour?  What submodality can you change which changes the whole response to a more neutral one. 
4. Use useful metaphor – Realise that sometimes you have to break an egg to make an omelette!  Not all confrontations will be pleasant, for you or for the recipient, but they may be very necessary!  
5. Find evidence in your life when you have faced up, dealt with, challenged or approached things and it has worked out.  Find times where you have done this and it hasn’t become hostile or upsetting.
6. Practice what you are going to say – commonly called a “rehearsal” in modelling language.  Find ways of saying what  you need to say which sit well with you and yet get the message across. Have a friend or colleague practice this with you.
7. Notes on the Content of the Discussion to confront an issue: (1). Tell them why it is important that you are talking about this issue (frame it) – then (2) give the reasons why they should change their behaviour and (2.a) what will happen if they don’t (without threats). (3) Reach agreement about what the individual will do to change their behaviour. (4) Set a time frame to review progress.  (5) Follow-up. The fact that the problem exists means that backsliding is possible; (6) further clarification may also be necessary. Then, more feedback and possibly, (7) disciplinary action may be next steps. (It depends) and remember to document all of this.
8. Start small – confront the small things you need to with a clear outcome and achieve it.  This will build great evidence that you can do it, and adds confidence. Do not expect it to always be taken well.  The key thing here is that you do the confronting well, get the message across and get some outcome sorted.  Do it again, and again… until.. it becomes easier.

Confrontation does not mean fight and it doesn’t have to have a lot of emotion attached to it. It means: state what you have say. Listen to what they have to say, declare what is required and expect change. Follow-up. (If at work – document the situation).

You may rarely look forward to confrontation; you may never become completely comfortable with it, but you will be able to do it to fulfil your role, and also be practised enough to apply this in other contexts in your life.  And the side affect of doing “confrontation” well is greater self respect and self esteem.

You Can Change – I did…

Some of you know my story – And some don’t. 

 (Big areas of deletion before this part of my life.. that is another story.. so lets begin where the change began..)

I went to learn NLP in 2002, thinking I was going to learn about other people and their personalities.. and the journey I went on was really about finding myself and sorting out what worked and what didn’t in my life.  But lets backtrack a bit first.

We had moved to Tauranga from Auckland in 1998 to give the kids a better deal – they could walk to school here, and there were great outdoor activities, less traffic and better weather – we thought Tauranga was a better option for bringing up children than Auckland.  And it is.  But moving from one city to another doesn’t fix all your problems. I brought most of them with me.

My children were 5 & 6 and I had been in full time employment in Auckland – and most of their toddlerhood they had been in care.  It was great care – but I wasn’t really a hands on parent for most of their early years. Don’t get me wrong.. I was a doting mother when they were little babies, and needed me.. but as they grew and got their voices and personalities.. it was a challenge.  Both my parents were dead, and I didn’t have any family support or advisers.  Some of you will know that my mother-in-law had her own issues and helping us and our kids wasn’t on the agenda. 

Moving to Tauranga I had a part-time job and had more time for them.  But I wasn’t a good parent.  All the behaviours I hated in my mother, I seem to embody; shouting, hitting, screaming.. the anger was enormous, and the affect on them sad to see. 

My work grew to full time but my job became intolerable – I had an emotionally abusive boss, who delighted in belittling people and even made your good qualities a problem for them.  I loved the work, but she was a cloud over every day. After 2 years and a particularly horrible experience with that boss, I resigned and went into what my husband calls.. an emotionally reclusive time.  I started working for myself as a mobile Computer Trainer/ Help Desk person and enjoyed the change. But I still was still the angry person I had always been.

My children were at a great school, and my husband’s business was growing.. and I loved the interaction with the people I would visit and teach them computing and sort out their computer issues. Often we would end up talking about other issues..  It was very therapeutic, and I wanted more.  At the time I was also consulting with small businesses about computing needs and a particular job brought me into contact with a lady who had done NLP Training.  She told me about NLP, and I became interested to know more. I contacted another Master Practitioner in town, and I said I was interested in learning more about human psychology – she said, “you will learn more quickly how to change people with NLP than any university course”.  I was sold.  I signed up for NLP Practitioner Course and began my journey in October 2002 with Communications Plus in Auckland.  Each month I travelled up to Auckland for the training.  

It was after the second block on that course that I came home and said to my family.. “that’s it.. from now on I am changing… I will promise to work hard on being a better person, better mother, and better partner.”  I stopped yelling, screaming and all the emotional outbursts, and began a new way of being me.  I wasn’t always 100% successful at this.. but I persevered and my behaviour changed.

I decided to stop smacking and found new ways of creating consequences for  ‘unacceptable behaviour”.  I learned to apologise for my own poor behaviour, and found some new ways of dealing with my angry past..  The interventions we did in Practitioner Course were ideal for this.   I received Practitioner Certification in 2003. Apparently Mark and Eileen had laid bets that I would finish my questions first.. they were right! (What does that say about me?)

After Practitioner Certification I began offering one-on-one therapy work, and enjoyed it.  I continued working as a Computer help person/trainer but slowly moved towards more and more NLP work.   Initially I wasn’t  planning on continuing with the NLP study after Practitioner, but then one day I realised I wanted more.. and Master Practitioner gave it to me.

After a fabulous intervention in Master Prac, I began charging appropriately for my time, and began to make a reasonable living.  I had overcome the issue of “not charging enough” as I had some beliefs about “money and helping” being incompatible.. Getting that sorted was great.   An unuseful belief had been changed.  One of many on that journey. I received Master Practitioner Certification in 2005. Oh, and I learned the power of metaphor!

By 2005 I had made a lot of changes in my life.  I had learned how to manage my issues in a more useful way, and decided that to change I had to be honest with myself and face issues instead of running from them.  I wanted others to see that they can also change, so I started teaching NLP concepts at night school with fabulous results.  Over the last 5 years I have continued this and have the reward of seeing other people change, develop and grow, over that time.  Some continue to come to new courses I design, and some have become great friends. Some have even gone and done NLP Practitioner for themselves!  I have received 2 awards for teaching, and continue to learn more myself which I can pass on to the students.

Now you may be wondering about the children… Alex and I got to know one another better from 2003 onwards, and have become great friends.  What a lovely kid he is, and I didn’t really know it before then! He is now in his final year of a BSc and is planning to continue to get  his Masters and on to a PhD in Physics.. he plans to change the world… (I know he will!). 

As for my feisty, kinaesthetic daughter Candice,  we worked out how to get on better – she has a strong will and I needed to respect that and work with it instead of fighting it. She has developed into a delightful and a fun kid.  Not being so strongly academically inclined, I helped her realise that life is more than just what we do at school, and that life continues after you leave school..  She left after the 6th form and scraped through to get NCEA 2! (phew) –  (my decision she left) and worked for me for a year doing office work and other jobs that came along. She also learned to do practical things like cooking, washing etc to get her ready for the year ahead.  She enrolled into Film School (Auckland) and this year began her one year Diploma of Film & Television – she is loving it. We have a little Producer/ Director in the making, one that is getting 90% plus in her studies.   She is a wise kid, and I have learned to teach her through metaphor.. direct telling does not appear to work for her.  Recently she and I were chatting, and she stated ; “Mum, you might not think I am listening – but it does go in”.  Candice says everything as a statement!.  She is an adventurous kid, underwater hockey, mountain biking, scuba diving, and this year she did her first Sky dive.. and loved it. 

As for my relationship with my husband Mike.. it continues and improves with age. We will celebrate 30 years marriage next year.. and it doesn’t feel that long. He deserves a medal for perseverance.  Now the kids have gone off to Auckland (from whence they came) to study, we have found a whole new relationship evolving. 

And that is another story.

Sleeping Well..

Sleeping well.

Are you a great sleeper – able to put your head down, and doze off easily?  It is said to be the gift of the angels!  You may have times in your life when sleep doesn’t come so easily.  You may have a number of types of sleeping issues :

• Dropping off ok, but waking with thoughts going around in your head and then you can’t get back to sleep.
• Not being able to drop off well at all – and when you do it is on and off with wakeful times.

If you have ever been a good sleeper, you can be so again.   If you have never been a good sleeper – what is your idea of a good sleep?  Are you getting 7 hours and worried that you need more?  I talk to people about sleep and the number of comments about what they consider a “good sleep” is – is frankly vast and disparate.   Now any teenager will look at you suspiciously if you ask them if they find sleep easily!  Duh!  They can do 12 hours easily!  Then they whinge that they haven’t had enough sleep.  They have different issues… going to bed late, having a different Melatonin cycle to adults.. (That’s another story).

There are a number of strategies which aid you to great sleep. In brief here are some :

• Set the stage (rules for bedroom setup, creating a haven)
• Create a routine (tell your brain you are ready for rest)
• Learn how to relax easily (breathing, meditation, relaxing non-verbal music, hypnotic trance tapes, hot bath)
• Learn how not to wake yourself up (what not to say to yourself when you awaken – what to do if you have invading thoughts)
• Understanding your body sleep cycle and honour it

The research on sleeping identifies some interesting science about sleeping:

• Our sleep cycle is regulated by melatonin from our pineal gland
• Photoreceptors in the back of the eyes notice light even when our eyes are closed and this can awaken us.  Blackout curtains can help.
• Foods affect sleep - Light veg and protein meals keeps us alert, heavy carb loaded meals make us drowsy.
• Jetlag is caused by our melatonin cycle being affected, and is further affected by our eating cycle.. which is often changed while travelling by plane.  Not eating on long flights will drastically reduce jetlag and help restore normal sleep times cycles.
• A hot bath in itself doesn’t make us sleepy, but raising the body temperature a few degrees in a hot bath or spa and then cooling down creates drowsiness. 
• Alcohol can makes us tired but it affects the different sleep phases of our sleep cycle and we do not awaken refreshed.

There are other things which need addressing when working with sleep issues.

• Managing stress
• Reframe beliefs around sleep
• Diet and stimulants
• Medications / drugs
• Exercise and breathing well
• Managing noise – snoring, other sounds

Do you have a sleeping/waking  issue? – and want to change that..  Imagine sleeping well, feeling rested, alert and energetic after a good nights sleep!  Check out your local NLP Master Practitioner or Hypnotherapist for help with sleep.. it may begin a new era in sleeping well.

Public Speaking : The Value in Connecting when Presenting Well….

The Value in Connecting when Presenting Well….

How convincing are you?  Are you able to reach a person or group of people and hold their imagination in your hand?  Are you influential and powerful in your delivery?  Can you find the one thing which lights their excitement, interest or passion? Are you able to lead with power and conviction? Or do you find your story is poorly received, with little uptake and commitment by your audience?

Would you like to know how the best most influential speakers get the audience to follow them?

I attended a life changing “skillshop” in November, and this one workshop taught me the difference in delivery that makes the difference.  And this difference comes from our deeply held values, which drives our passion.  Not only our deeply held values, but how to come from a genuine, authentic place when delivering our appeal to an audience; namely the heart.

What Values?

Our positive values are what we work very hard to fulfil, and if we are congruent, we spend time, money and energy when living with them. These closely held values are often revealed in the way we respond to challenges, the way we judge others, how we are motivated and the way we admire people and causes.

If you have attended an NLP Course with me, you may have done a Values Elicitation at the NLP2 class level, where you first dig up out of your unconscious mind the values which mean the most to you.  Then one by one they are challenged against the others to give a hierarchy.  The top values are then checked against a question – How much time, energy and money to do you spend on achieving these values?  If we hold a value high, yet are not spending time, money, energy on it.. then we are probably being incongruent, and not feeling authentic.

What do you do with Values to get the audience aligned with your purpose, intent or project?

The key thing here is to appeal to the higher, shared, collective consciousness… i.e. the shared values which you and the audience have in common.  This is identified in the answers given to the deep seated “why” and “for what purpose” question… What do you and the audience have in common as your authentic reason for being involved, interested, and at the meeting in the first place.  

Next – The message needs to come from the heart – not your logic, or reason, but the emotions of the heart – where your passion is seated, where your personal authentic meaning comes from.  The difference between a convincing heart felt entreaty and a head reasoning logical appeal is in the response time – the heart felt, authentic entreaty seems to pull in agreement and alignment almost immediately – where the shared values are screaming “YES” and you have the audience awaiting your next step.

Summary

So how do you connect to your passion? – through your values – and how do you connect to the audience? – through the higher collective consciousness of shared values, coming from your heart.   It takes some honesty, bravery and a strong alignment with knowing your truth, i.e. your authenticity.  So what is your passion?  What is your truth?  What is your purpose?  What is your point?

Maybe that is the question that really needs asking.

Do you “Not connect” with one of your children?

Do you “Not connect” with one of your children? Have you got a child you don’t get on with? Maybe they remind you of yourself, or someone you don’t particularly like? (Projection maybe?)  Maybe they appear different from you in behaviour and style, and you can’t connect with them? A few years ago, someone I was seeking some advice from someone told me that my son was more like me than I knew – and that I should make an effort to get to know him better.  This was quite a shock to me! At the time my son drove me mad with this incessant questions and factualising about every little thing, and was yet was very sensitive and easily hurt.  I had not made any efforts to really connect with him, and so with this piece of advice in my ear I tentatively checked him out.  It was a big surprise to find that he was funny, intelligent, quite aware, and very, very quick. He was also quite sensitive to criticism, (who isn’t) disliked anything unfair, and had some great values and caring which he applied to his friendships.  Who would have known?  This began a new relationship, which I am pleased to say has continued – he is now 19 and away at University, has a lovely girlfriend and still has time for talking to Mum and having deep and meaningful conversations about life, the universe and everything. Getting to really know your children can seem like an oxymoron!  (Or is it we feel like an oxymoron!)  Surely we know our kids… but from which angle – parent, friend, teacher, caregiver, critic, or adult. Kids haven’t finished evolving yet, they are developing little characters, which may be unfinished and not matured to our taste. Judging them before they are matured is a bit like me criticising a construction job before it is done!  My husband likes to remind me.. “wait – it isn’t finished yet!” Good advice! Meeting them on their level, getting to know their philosophy, fears, loves and values is really interesting.  Often we are looking at our children, judging them as if they are adults.. and adults which we might not like. We wonder why they don’t listen to us, or challenge us or constantly antagonise us or cause us grief.  Maybe its because we only want to know them if they fit into our model of the world.  Maybe its time to get down to their level, and see the world from their point of view.   Their world is very different from the one we came into.  We can’t hope to connect to them if we are constantly criticising their way of doing things… I constantly hear parents harping on about how “kids today”… that’s how the sentence begins… “are so demanding” – are “always on their cellphones texting”.. “know it all”.  The challenge is to set all that aside, get in their shoes, and check out their world. Find out what they love, hate, fear, care for, delight in, and have dreams about. Changing your attitude to getting to know them, can change your feelings towards them.  They may even become someone you respect and admire, and they may begin to like and admire you more too.  And isn’t that what we want from our family?  Love, respect, admiration, and attention?.

Where are our Children learning values, “rules for life” and morals from?

Where are our Children learning values, “rules for life” and morals from?

I am wondering how some young people today can be comfortable with carrying knives, ok with stealing, converting cars, drinking and driving young, abusing each other, having fights in the school ground (Otumoetai College recently) sending abusive and threatening texts to each other… are abusive to teachers and other adults, are disrespectful of authority – all types which are in the news every day – disheartening us further about their future.  This is a short list of stuff we hear about daily.  

So…

• Where are their internal rules for living a good life, about being caring, loving and law abiding in all this?
• Who is teaching them this stuff?  Is it not cool to have morals?
• Where are the basic rules for life which say its not ok to beat someone up, or steel, abuse or threaten, or flout rules which are designed to help everyone? 
• What is not happening that kids (and adults) can easily put aside simple rules to cause chaos and disharmony in their and their family’s lives? 
• Is this a problem seen only in low socioeconomic areas?  Or only in single parent’s families… no. It is now a systemic problem and it has evolved through all age groups and affects all demographics.

Once upon a time, some years ago we learned values, commandments, a philosophy, mores, and principles to live by… from our parents, and extended family and it was common for us to go to Sunday School, and read Bible stories, fables and happily ever after stories to our children. The Sunday School taught a lot of these principles, we read them and re-enforced them, and the school had a religious instruction day which endorsed them.  Other religions have their religious instruction as of right which had a list of dos and don’ts to live by. And schools had rules which everyone respected.

So why did our society have religious instruction in schools, for what purpose you may ask?  These teachings supported some of the values which we had embedded in the children at an early age.  They supported some of the principles by which we lived, in primarily a “Christian Based Rules society”  and the kids learned indirectly and directly about what was a good thing to do and what wasn’t.  They enforced understanding of philosophical doctrine, or the family religion, and rules for society and set solid standards for the family to live by. 

So what has happened?  The choice about whether children had ‘religious teachings” at school was taken away, and for some schools is now optional, and not that commonplace. ( Some parents choose to send their children to Private religious based schools to give them values they themselves were brought up with which are also part of the curriculum.)

Taking “religious instruction” away from schools began the slow deletion of teaching some form of “morals, principles, and values” at public schools.  I am not saying that it was the best way to give useful instruction, but there wasn’t any other type of class available to replace it when it went.    The gap it left wasn’t replaced by any other teachings which ensured that children had a positive and constructive philosophy to support them as they grew up.  And religious instruction at home has declined also. (In the New Zealand 2006 Census 35% of people ticked “No Religious Affiliation” an increase of 15% from 1991 Census.)

So where are the children learning the basic values, rules for life, rules for society and how to be good, fair minded and caring individuals?

This article is not about bringing back religion, it is about the responsibility that parents (and schools) have to ensure that children get some instruction from a very early age on

1. What the rules of society are all about…i.e.  not stealing, not killing, caring for each other

2. All the ‘do’s and don’ts” and the reasons why, and also to ensure

3. they have a general philosophy they can use to underpin their lives, give it meaning and purpose and to give them some great values to live by.

If children are not taught these things implicitly, they will learn them others unconsciously by modelling the parents, friends and other influential people in their life, without discernment, correction or amendment.  They will make up their own rules from observing how others live their lives… often without a great example to follow.   The increase in teen suicide also indicates that young people don’t hold an encompassing “reason d’être”  or purpose which they can hold on to when difficulties and stress arises.

If you have young children, and don’t want to thrust “religion” down their throats, sit down and decide what sort of “philosophy” “rules for life” and “beliefs and values” you want them to learn,  which you can then endorse and support as they grow.  Make sure these overlap with some of societies values and rules – so they can live peacefully in it. 

Also teach them that these are values which will evolve as they grow, and they can adapt, modify, discard or take on new ones as they mature.

Remember, if you belong to a particular religious group, that your children may still need to learn some generic or non-religious values and philosophy to help them live in their society.  (Road rules, school rules, law etc.)

If children don’t have some form of values teaching  from an very early age –  from home, schools and the wider community, they will pick up other people’s values that they think are ok, when they might not necessarily be that “ok” with you or society!   Something to think about.

And remember, (just to put another spanner in the works) even if you teach them all the values and beliefs you have, from an NLP perspective they may still work towards or away from some of them!  (Remember Metaprogrammes!)

I would be interested to hear about the types of values and principles you teach your children (which may not necessarily be specifically religion based).  Drop me a line.  

Working With Clients with Depression Part Two

Working With Clients with Depression Part Two

In the last article I identified the key behaviours of people in a ‘depressed state”. Some people would find it hard to believe that we “get” ourselves into that state – others will see how stress and sadness can permeate and evolve into something which then becomes a practiced behaviour which can be difficult to pull ourselves out of. Pain, anger, resentment and sadness can contribute to a stuck state.

Some people go in and out of the depressed state, yet forget when they have been spontaneously distracted into a happy one during the day, or laughed and felt good. By habit they may go back to the depressed state and continue with it. Some people claim depression as a great “victim strategy” because of the attention, care and compassion they may get from others. I have heard someone telling everyone quite proudly that they were “clinically depressed” while socialising and having fun, flirting and partying! Go figure!

As mentioned in the earlier article, depression mostly resolves spontaneously in most cases after a few months! And some needs help. So if depression is an unresourceful state – how does someone move from that to a more resourceful one?

Well first of all they have to want to get out of it and be willing to do things differently to change. Most people have a natural desire to not be depressed. Lets look at some of the behaviours and ways they can help themselves through a program of actions that change the way they are doing their “life”, in consultation with the therapist.

NB: Rescuing someone from depression does not help them out of being depressed. One person cannot make another feels good, even when that one person knows all the tricks of NLP. The belief that the depressed person needs another person to save them is depression. They need to do the actions and changes themselves to prove they can change.

Actions which the consulting NLPer can use. (there is a whole process around all these strategies… this is an abridged, snippet of each process.

1. Reframe anxiety and its symptoms – Using metamodel helps the person chunk down. The consultant can teach the person to use it on themselves to challenge their global thinking. The most useful questions to ask are solution focused. “What would need to happen for you to feel that this problem is solved?” is an example of a solution focussed question.

2. Change Submodalities so that the focus shifts to Happiness - Teaching the person to make submodality shifts changing their experiences into more useful ones. No-one has 100% miserable days every day of their life. At some time this person has laughed, felt good and enjoyed experiences. Once they realise they have resources, and are taught how to access them they can shift quite quickly.

3. Create a More Flexible Time Orientation -(From past into future orientation) Continuing the solution focussed questions with a future orientation – e.g. What are three things that you are looking forward to today?” What do you want to achieve today? Time-line techniques help with this. Helping them heal the past begins with the suggestion that the problem needs to be dealt with. Then they tend to turn to the future which is where we want them to be.

4. Alter the Clients Auditory Digital Strategies - Auditory digital strategies are the playing negative internal dialogue (self talk) inside their head over and over in a loop. This is done by changing the submodalities of the self talk, maybe making the voice change, the pitch and maybe using a Donald Duck voice to make the talk silly. Replacing the self talk with positive self talk and installing it for them to access and use themselves whenever they need to.

5. Create the Physiology of Happiness - Have the person design a program that involves 15 minutes of strenuous exercise or movement each day. This elevates mood. They see they are changing and are “at cause.” Laughing vigorously helps also. “We don’t laugh because we are happy, We are happy because we laugh” – William James’ insightfully wrote. Laughter boosts immunoglobulin levels, restores energy lowers blood pressure and reduces stress. (Dr. Robert Holden , 1993).

6. Keeping the person at Cause -  The consultant builds expectancy from the first session, indirectly.  Have the person set and achieve goals, which are small and more-than realistic. They need to see the positive changes at home. Reframing experiences based on the pre-supposition of them being at cause. One the person realises things can change they will end the depression.

There are many NLP strategies which an NLP Practitioner can work with a client to turn their thinking and doing around towards a happier more useful state.

This is taken from some great stuff by Dr Richard Bolstad, of Transformations Ltd. (NLP and the Rediscovery of Happiness.)

Zoe Wilkinson is a Master Practitioner, NLP. She has a practice in Tauranga, New Zealand and offers Training, Coaching and Therapy using NLP techniques, tools and strategies.

Parenting 101 – Being Unpredictable!

Being Unpredictable, a very cool and useful tool I use with my children. Having lots of choices about the way I behave and react to situations allows for lots of fun and surprises when the children ask me for something.    This means they can never tell exactly how I am going to react.. and they can’t manipulate the situation with sulking, greasing, and demanding.  They can try tho’.

A few ways to respond : (Always begin with a one second deep breath…)

• If I am unsure about a decision I have to make I might say “Convince me”.  If they give a measured and thoughtful answer, I may say yes with a few conditions.  (Always have conditions!)
• If they are sulky and demanding, I say “Would you like the opportunity to say that again in a more useful way?” and then they can adjust their state and ask away again.  If they continue to be demanding, sulky and dramatic, I ask them to go to their room, to cool down and come back when they are ready to talk to me in a reasonable way.
• If I don’t think something is a great idea, I may say “Hmmm that one is tricky…”  and then give a good thoughtful answer, saying no in a gentle way, and allowing them to ask again at a better time, age, after exams.. whatever. I find closing doors with big “NO!’s” is not useful and may tempt them into rebelling.
•  Another way is to ask how other parents are responding, what has been organised, what arrangements have been made for parental supervision etc BEFORE making any decisions. They can then go away and find out more so you can make a better decision with more facts. You can always phone a child’s friend’s parents to suss out how they are leaning.. sometimes it’s the first they have heard of it too!
• Do not get into habits of saying “NO!” to everything.  They will then avoid asking, and will probably lie or go behind your back to do what they want to do.  It is better to say “Yes” with some reasonable conditions and then they will be more open with you next time.

Why do I suggest you make some conditions? Conditions are useful boundaries, and set standards of behaviour for them to learn from. Children feel safer with boundaries. And..they can use them as excuses when they don’t want to do something with their friends.

Zoe Wilkinson

Working With Clients with Depression

Once again I am reminded of the types of work NLP Therapists can do with people who are depressed. NLP has identified the key behaviours of “depressed” people, strategies which continue the depressed state, and which can be hard to break for some without assistance or insight. Through research, we know a great deal about what kind of outside assistance works with depression, and what kind of “assistance” does not work. We also know that 80% of individuals suffering major depression will “spontaneously” cease to be depressed in between 4-10 months (Yapko, 1992, p 16). People normally find their own way out of depression. This also means that if any type of “assistance” continues for ten months it will seem to have solved the problem in 80% of cases.

Genuinely successful strategies for assisting are those that can show benefits in the short term. Studies have shown that Therapy is vital in the journey to health after a person has been diagnosed with “depression”. Unmanaged prolonged stress is one of the instigators of a depressed state, and specific and insidious thinking and behaving patterns evolve from this which bind the person into the ‘depressed state’ from which they find it difficult to emerge. NLP goes as far as asking “how have you been able to stay in a depressed state for so long?” A therapist can identify some useful thinking and being strategies to lift the person from this unuseful state into a more resourceful one. Some of the Behaviours which keep someone in a depressed state:

• Playing negative internal dialogue (self talk) inside their head over and over in a loop.
• Playing negative internal movies showing disaster endings over and over in a loop. Imagining only the worse case scenario ending to actions or choices. 
• Associate into Pain, Dissociate from Pleasure: Noticing only negative things around them, which confirm their fears and paranoia through a negative filter – and not noticing the good things that happen.
• Catastrophising small negative events into large insurmountable events. Chunking down in a negative spiral when problems arise. 
• All or nothing thinking – where there is no grey or in between options.
• Psychomotor retardation (Yapko, 1992, p 94) refers to the slowing down of motor responses in the depressed person. The depressed person often ensures this slowing of motor responses by avoiding exercise. This sets in place a cycle where lack of exercise increases insomnia, which increases exhaustion which causes a further reduction in exercise. A physiology of looking down all the time and the body language of sadness, (head down, hunched over, closed chest and shallow breathing adds to this. 
• Overgeneralisation of events and thinking – “everything happens to me, no-one loves me, everything is going wrong!” This is what we call a “permanent, pervasive explanatory style”
• Orientation Towards the Past – a depressed person is focussed on the past. They see the future in reference to the past.. “I was abused as a kid and it will affect me all my life.”
• Not at Cause (Lack of a sense of control) – Feel things are happening “to them” rather than taking control of their life and creating a future.

There are many NLP strategies which an NLP Practitioner can work with a client to turn their thinking and doing around towards a happier more useful state. More next month.

References : NLP And The Rediscovery Of Happiness : by Dr Richard Bolstad and Margot Hamblett. (NLP Professionals, NZ).

How You Respond – Are You on Autopilot?

Some people respond very automatically, nearly all the time.  This automaticness is usually unconscious, ie. they do it unthinkingly.  Some automatically will say “NO” or give a “polar response” – (the natural opposite to what you are saying), or automatically give a counter example to something you say.

This metaprogramme is called the “Difference” metaprogramme, and is not in agreement with you.  However, because it is so automatic, it may not be a very authentic response on how they actually feel about something, but is more likely to be a habit or behavioural response. 

I noted this behaviour with my husband recently, when he automatically agreed with me then went on to give the other side of the story.  Very noble you may think.. a well balanced chap.  Hmmm.. but when I stopped and noticed this behaviour, I then asked.. yes, so with both sides to the story, which way do you lean or feel more inclined toward?  He didn’t know! He was so used to seeing both sides, he had not made a decision either way, and could not verbalise how he actually authentically felt about it.

And to make matters even more interesting he didn’t note to say “it depends”.  He just was so used to doing the both sides thing, that he was sitting on the fence. 

Hmmm… how automatic is your response? What do you really feel? What fits with your values and beliefs?  Or are you always on autopilot out of habit.

Zoe Wilkinson