This is a great question to ask yourself on a regular basis.  In fact, it would make a great poster for the wall.  We could actually make it a bumper sticker – or put it on the Personalised plate surround!  This is as good to remember as Bandler’s 3 deadly sins any day.  I was delighted to hear from a client recently that they were making an extra effort to be more fun around the home and work, and this is impacting hugely on everyone! Huh, who would have thought!       

Who knew how influential your moods could be on your work and home life?  I equally hear about people who at work everyone walks on eggshells to keep them happy… Maybe they could do with their own personalised poster…  This saying has been made famous by the big Texan Dr Phil, and although I don’t like his “one size fits all” dispensing of psychological advice, he does come up with some doozies from time to time. 

Maybe a course in becoming a more interesting and fun person might be a great way to enliven this saying into the minds of those searching for enlightenment?  Underline the “lighten” bit and add “up”! if you get that joke, you are truly a great sage.  Humour is the best medicine in my book! Seriously, have more fun!

Zoe Wilkinson

I have learned that some things just can’t be resolved.  Have you noticed how we work so hard to resolve problems issues and hassles in our lives… especially those around relationships?  What is it about wanting to “make nice”, or “make up” or “be friends” or “sort it out” that empowers us to make ourselves ill about it? What is it really which we are trying to resolve?

Could it be guilt over our behaviour or what we said? Is it about not wanting people to hate us? Is it that you always want to be seen as “doing the right thing?”, or you want justice? Is it based on the limiting belief that everyone must surely want to sort things out? Or is it that you have a sickness for resolving stuff.. even the irresolvable?  What beliefs, limiting or useful perpetuate this need to resolve stuff?  

I came across a great example of this recently, a woman I met was going on and on about how she had a bad relationship with her mother, and how her mother never really loved her, and how her mother never apologised for her behaviour…. You can fill in the blanks.. you get the drift.  Now on asking some useful questions around this, I found out that the woman’s mother had died years ago! The guilt, resentment and “irresolvedness” of this situation was still haunting this woman – when the focus of her problem had long passed.

She was using it as some sort of excuse for not being the person she could be.. if only my mother had.. if only we had sorted this out.. It became a blockage, and a huge internally created limitation on future possibilities. 

So how long should a person work on creating a solution?  Well that depends.. depends on how much aggro, sleepless nights, worry, and concern you want to invest in the issue.  Some people sort things out very fast, and others work for years before someone tells then “enough is enough”. Some never let it go.

Often we don’t see the impact of this obsession to resolve, on our immediate family and friends.  We think it is our problem and will not affect them.. Yeah right!  Remember the presupposition “you cannot not influence. – Everyone gets affected when you have your focus on such a negative issue.

There is a choice you can make to consciously decide to put down the burden, guilt, worry, resentment, chip, or log, and let it go.  Put it in the irresolvable pile, set fire to it, and watch it blow away.  Attaching a type of ritual, or celebration around it can also help.  It takes courage, and it takes fortitude.  This can be a real challenge to people whose metaprogramme leans towards completion! 

Not all things are resolvable, and holding on to hope that it magically will be, can create bitterness, illness, fear and often depression. A decision to let go can make all the difference.  You may need help to take that step.

Zoe Wilkinson

Note : Metaprogramme – An NLP Term for the unconscious filter of our perception.

 A friend asked me recently how I manage to do so many things – and not appear to get stressed.  Good question… How do I do that?  Maybe I always have done lots of things.. maybe I suit it?  Or maybe I have learnt how to do lots.. easily.

Getting Your Unconscious Mind to Work for You.

A great way to manage lots of things to do is to prime your mind to work on them unconsciously for you when you are doing other things.. A bit like having a virtual assistant helping you each day.

If I have a list of deadlines.. I begin the work and then let it go for a while.  I might start a file and put down what is needed, some initial ideas and the deadline then close it for a few days.  An then not think about it.

 This way my unconscious mind can keep working on it while I am doing other things.. This way I come back to it with ideas and more clarity.

 This works because our unconscious mind likes to make sense of things, and behind the scenes will work on confusion, foggy thinking and ideas until some sense is made of it.  Coming back to things gives time for that to be sorted out.. and suddenly the floodgates can open and ideas can pour out. When stressing about ideas or needing clarity – walk away.. then come back later.

 Another Way of Looking At it….

I also love lots of variety, and I love interruptions.  So it appears that I am not stressed by these things.  It is all about learning what your personal programmes are – i.e. Your personality preferences and default positions and working to them. This decreases stress, increases pleasure and makes what we do flow better.  

So, if the opposite is happening in your life, and you are stressed by lots of variety, and hate interruptions, then maybe the job you are doing is not right for you… alternatively you can learn to move towards the other programme sort – by practicing it more.

These are the sort of things most of us don’t know about ourselves. How we see time, how we deal with change, how we filter information, what we naturally do and what we naturally don’t do.

Here is an example of how people filter information differently:

A group of friends and I go for coffee each week.  Sometimes someone comes in with a new haircut, or new glasses or new shoes or have just had their teeth whitened! .. and there are people who notice these things and those who don’t.  Those who do notice – have a natural propensity to notice difference.. first. Those who don’t notice changes have a natural default position of noticing sameness.  Neither is right or wrong. Its just the way it is.   

To expand the natural default position, takes intention and self awareness.

To learn more about these types of programmes, what makes you the individual you are, or to find other ways of doing things or saying things or seeing things then NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) courses can help with extending your experience.

Zoe Wilkinson is a Master Practitioner in NLP, Trainer, Coach and Therapist - and teaches NLP Classes at Tauranga Boys College, New Zealand each term.  In 2007 she was awarded an Exceptional Adult Educator Commendation for this work.  Contact Zoe on zoew@xtra.co.nz  

Nothing like jumping headlong into the world of blogging… and not a moment too soon!

So what interests me? Observation and analysis of people, their language, behaviours and idosyncracies is what fascinates me! 

My key areas of application of these interests are in the area of NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP) and Face Reading.  These two areas work especially well together to give insights into people, and makes them appear a lot more 3 dimentional.  Face Reading helps with seeing people deeper at a glance and then NLP kicks in when they open their mouths and reveal their beliefs, values and motivaions by their words.  Their consequent behaviours which either support or clash with their linguistic utterings are what makes it all so fascinating and useful.

Its not about judgement so much as analysis and awareness.  The very questions people ask you often will expose their biases, beliefs, and limitations – and this can useful as a therapist.   Learning NLP also helps develop a very interesting sense of linguistic humour!