An amazing experience for everyone
who didn’t get the full “User Manual” for being human.

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) provides effective powerful tools to change your relationship with yourself, others and life.

Get your first impression by listening to excerpts from our free workshop (15 min)

NLP Marin offers a distinctly original, unconventional approach to teaching Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), one that has evolved and unfolded over more than twenty years. Listen to the kinds of changes you can expect from the full course (4 min)

This three-hour workshops provide a “hands-on” experience of NLP. It provides insight into how NLP could be useful in your unique life circumstances. It will provide you with the opportunity to meet our trainer Carl Buchheit, one of the leading NLP trainers. Whether you go on to take one of our courses, or not. Do not miss this opportunity.

Carl on the Magic of Communication (10 min)

In addition to the superior communication tools and skills we offer, what sets NLP Marin apart is our whole-hearted commitment to our students’ learning and growth.

Our Core Values:

• Removing limitations and attachment to suffering
• Opening doorways to possibilities and happiness
• Letting people be who they are without making them wrong for it
• Inspiration and excitement about the future
• Allowing the imagination to work for us, rather than against us, in the most glorious ways possible

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Call us now to learn more at (415) 499-0639. We are available to answer your individual questions, to discuss how NLP Marin can assist you in your unique circumstances, and to determine if this is the right course for you. We look forward to talking with you!

Understanding Family Constellations:  Constellation Training Course

Begins June 25, 2010
Three (three-day weekends)
June 25-27, July 23-25, August 20-22
See Calendar for dates.

Through the course of many constellations, instructions and lecture on the orders governing love in families, all participants will experience a greater sense of their proper place in their families and a fuller appreciation of what it means to be human.

• A way to work with your, or your client’s, largest objections to happiness
• A clearer understanding of the systemic dynamics affecting you and the people you work with
• A sense of your proper place in your family and the groups you belong to
• A way of aligning the resources in your family, or your client’s, so the system can be supportive.

If you are interested in the “facilitating” aspect of this class, we suggest you register early as those spaces are limited.

• Removing limitations and attachment to suffering
• Opening doorways to possibilities and happiness
• Letting people be who they are without making them wrong for it
• Inspiration and excitement about the future
• Allowing the imagination to work for us, rather than against us, in the most glorious ways possible

We are always happy to answer your individual questions. For further information or to discuss how this constellation training might assist you in your unique circumstances, and to determine if this is the right course for you. We look forward to talking with you! please call:  (415) 499-0639 or email: Shannon@nlpmarin.com

Experience the wisdom of your Family Soul

A powerful evening that clarifies your hidden struggle/fate – and then gracefully finds a re-solution – freeing up your energy to experience more of who you are and offers you the choice to start living your life according to your own purpose.

This workshop is based on the highly original observations and therapeutic genius of German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger. Using the patterning of family constellations he evolved, participants will be assisted to explore and re-solve the emotional and energetic entanglements affecting their lives.

Family Constellations are held from 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM at the Novato Oaks Inn, 215 Alameda del Prado, Novato, CA 94949. The Constellations will be facilitated by Carl Buchheit, Michelle Masters, and Carla Camou. Each evening is $45, space is limited. To reserve your place click here.

We are always happy to answer your individual questions. For further information or to discuss how constellations might assist you in your unique circumstances, please call: (415) 499-0639

by Carl Buchheit
first published in Open Exchange magazine (1995)

In the twenty years or so since its inception, NLP has acquired a variety of reputations. Few who have encountered the power of Neuro-Linguistic Programming have remained neutral. At the extremes, NLP has been hailed as the ultimate fast fix and a panacea for personal growth. Alternately, it has been derided for being “techniquey,” gimmicky, manipulative, and mechanical. The truth is, NLP is neither the cure-all nor the cold, cerebral event that some of its most ardent—and often less informed—promoters and detractors claim.

A Brief History

Neuro-Linguistic Programming was developed in the early-to-middle 1970s by John Grinder, a linguist, and Richard Bandler, an information scientist. Like many others, they had observed that people with similar education, training, background, and years of experience were achieving widely varying results ranging from wonderful to mediocre.

Bandler and Grinder were intrigued by these differences. They wanted to know how effective people perform and accomplish things. They were especially interested in the possibility of being able to duplicate the behavior, and therefore the competence, of these highly effective individuals. In short, they set out to “model” human excellence in such fields as education, business and therapy. What emerged from their work came to be called Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

While the name is awkward—and some object to the word “programming”—it is nonetheless descriptive. Neuro refers to the brain and neural pathways of the human organism. Linguistic is about the content (verbal and nonverbal) that moves across and through these pathways. Programming is the way the content is directed, sequenced, and connected by each of us to produce the thinking patterns and behaviors that are our experience of life. As educator and writer Sid Jacobson puts it, “There is a relationship between perceptions, thinking, and behavior that is neurolinguistic in nature. The relationship is operating all the time, no matter what we are doing, and it can be studied by exploring our internal or subjective experience.”

Maps of Reality

It has long been recognized that human experience is based on internal reality maps. The structure and content of the latter determines the former. Our inner maps of reality comprise most of what we deal with as human beings. These inner maps determine what is real and unreal, achievable and not achievable, believable and not believable, for each of us. Understand another’s map, and you can understand (and share) their experience of themselves and the world. Change the map, and you change them and their world.

Study of the structure of experience led Bandler and Grinder to notice external signals and cues that were the keys to understanding the “how” of certain kinds of thought processes and behavior. They were able to assemble their understanding of these cues and signals into a system that allowed its user to know how another human being creates his or her experience—how they organize and maintain their unique internal map of reality that corresponds to and organizes their experience of the external world.

A variety of creative and brilliant people were quickly attracted to Bandler and Grinder’s unique work and discoveries. They helped to expand the NLP models and organize them into a vast and rich set of tools, skills, and information—a process which continues today.

Information Processing, Communication, and Sensory Experience

In NLP, we first distinguish between inner and outer sensory experience. We are all familiar with external sensory experience—the continual flow of sights, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes that make up our experience of the outer world. Our inner experience, our thoughts, emotions, responses, ideas, etc., are also comprised of information in these same five sensory systems.

Even words are multisensory events, although most of this sensory experience is deleted from conscious awareness. For example, if I write the word “walnut” on this page, you must internally access some combination of inner pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes and smells if you are to understand it. Your experience of “walnut” is unique and is comprised of your own internal sequencing and combining of distinct inner sensory events. In other words, thinking is a sensory event. Thoughts are composed of inner pictures, sounds (including words), body sensations, tastes and smells.

Most of our communication with each other, and almost all of our inner sensory representations, operate (for good or ill) outside our conscious awareness. These inner representations—what they are and the order in which they occur—combine to make up our individual reality map. And this map determines what is and is not possible in our world and our lives. Again, understand the structure and process of someone’s map, and you can better understand that person’s experience of life. Change the organization of the map, and you change the life experience.

Above all else, NLP is about understanding and gaining access to human experience at the structural or process level—in addition to the level of content. Put another way, NLP is a set of models and methods—highly learnable, reliable, and effective—for understanding how human beings create and maintain their experience of themselves and the world around them. NLP enables us to know how we, and others, create our unique maps of reality. It enables us to understand our own and others’ processes of decision-making, communication, motivation, and learning.

Understanding our own map of reality enables us to make changes that lead to the life experiences we want. Understanding and having access to another’s map of reality makes it much easier to step off our own map and respectfully step onto the other’s. When this happens, the result is an experience of deep connection that is often experienced as a precious gift.

An “Operator’s Manual” for Human Relationship

NLP’s contribution, then, is to increasing the depth and effectiveness of our relationships—beginning with self and extending through personal and intimate relationships to our professional and work lives and, finally, to the therapeutic arena of working with others to bring about healing, change, and growth. NLP provides the tools that enable this rich connection with self and others to happen.

Chances are you have already encountered NLP, in one form or another, without its being identified and without your realizing it. NLP is so useful for the whole experience of being human that many of its original tools and distinctions have already integrated into education, training, business, and therapy—becoming part of the “common sense” wisdom of our society.

Experiencing the Structure of Experience

The whole issue of the “structure of experience” or the “process of experience” as used in Neuro-Linguistic Programming can be difficult and deadly dull to communicate with words, but easy to demonstrate with experience. To explore further, please see [Exercises].

by Bob Hoffmeyer
first published in Marin Scope newspapers (2003)

In any life situation or activity, success requires competence in the talents and abilities unique to that situation. In every life situation or activity, success also requires a high level of competence in human relations skills and the ability to access and influence one’s own internal states, beliefs, abilities, and resources.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a model for understanding human behavior. It is a fascinating exploration of how we marvelous creatures be ourselves. With the insights that emerge from participation in NLP courses, two significant things happen. First, we are better able to change ourselves in ways that we want. Our lives become more satisfying. We feel more fulfilled. Second, we are better able to understand, relate to, and work with others. Communication and connection are enhanced and our interactions become more satisfying and beneficial both for ourselves and for others.

As a model concerned with human behavior, NLP provides understanding and perspectives. As it is applied in life, NLP provides relationship skills and tools.

At its core, NLP is about understanding both how we human beings create meaning in life and the behavior we engage in as a result of that created meaning. Broadly stated, NLP’s objective is to increase choices. NLP enables you to access the internal resources that are appropriate and necessary to make the desired choice and have the desired experience. NLP asserts that, within a very broad range, if something one desires as his or her experience is possible for anyone else, it is possible for that person as well. Where there was limitation, there can be new choice and new opportunity. Anywhere! Whatever you are doing! Whomever you are with! Whatever the context!

How the student of Neuro-Linguistic Programming uses their learning varies with the context of each student’s life. Essentially, however, using NLP is about enhancing relationship—starting with your relationship with yourself and extending to all of your personal and professional relationships.

In short, studying Neuro-Linguistic Programming is both a human relations skills course and a program of personal development. Learning new skills and developing oneself go hand in glove, and most often both are required for greater success.

by Bob Hoffmeyer
first published in Marin Scope newspapers (2003)

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) has a wide range of very useful applications in human relations––essentially anywhere that two or more people are interacting with a common objective. This is because, at its core, NLP is about understanding both how we human beings create meaning in life and the behavior we engage in as a result of that created meaning. With this understanding, we are then able to act with greater flexibility and resourcefulness and are able to more elegantly influence others with integrity.

Briefly stated, the professional support you can expect from NLP can be conveyed in four words: connection, understanding, communication, and influence.

NLP begins with the observation that each of us has a unique internal map of reality and that it is this map that we all operate from most of the time; even when interacting with others or the world “out there.” The skill sets in the NLP model enable us to get access to these internal maps, and to understand them. As a result, we are more able to connect with others in deeper ways (appropriate to the context) and to then communicate with them in the language of their map. This makes it easier for us to understand them and they to understand us. Deeper connection and understanding, in turn, affect our ability to influence with integrity toward the end of accomplishing our common objective.

Studying NLP involves learning a wide variety of perceptual and behavioral skills. Perceptual skills have to do with broadening the range of what we notice. Behavioral skills have to do with increasing our flexibility in what we do; how we respond. Beyond these two broad distinctions, there are a variety of ways to group these skills. In the world of business, the following categories are useful.

Nonverbal Communication. For the most part, these are messages coming from outside of conscious awareness and are an essential part of what the person is trying to convey. This skill set involves both noticing and utilizing the nonverbal messages.

Calibration. This involves first noticing physiology (body movements, eye movements, voice variations, etc.) and then relating it to a unique internal state or experience the speaker is having. When combined with the words the speaker is using this assists us to determine congruency in the message being conveyed. This skill also assists us to usefully adjust our responses throughout the interaction.

Rapport. Rapport skills cover a broad range of perceptual and behavioral abilities that enable deep connection with those with whom we are interacting. This connection is with both conscious and (often more importantly) unconscious aspects of the individual. Rapport does not necessarily mean agreement. It is closer to connection or link-up. Without connection, whatever else we do in our interaction with others cannot succeed. The success of any interaction is directly related to the degree of rapport or connection.

Listening. The words that we use have unique meaning to us. Realizing this and working with the words the other uses significantly enhance connection, understanding, and our ability to influence. Discerning the meaning that the word the other uses has for them rather than substituting our word and meaning (in the assumption that we know what they mean) is often critical to avoiding misunderstanding.

Information Gathering. This involves precise utilization of questions which leads to greater clarity and to more quickly getting to useful information and avoiding that which is extraneous or misleading.

Noticing Objections. This is what NLP refers to as “ecology.” It has to do with identifying, in advance, the objections (often unconscious) that will prevent or sabotage accomplishing the ostensibly agreed objective.

Speaking. The NLP communication toolbox contributes to effectiveness in communication because it provides the speaker with the skills and tools to take responsibility for both what is said and for what is heard. Through utilization of the skills listed above, the speaker is able to assume the full responsibility for ensuring that real communication actually takes place. Whether one-on-one or in front of a group, the speaker is able to adjust the way he or she is speaking to ensure that it can easily be taken in and understood by the audience.

All of the skills referred to are interrelated and are used in combination. They are used, first, to become aware of the unique way in which those we are working with take in information, process it, and store it. Second, these skills enable us to adjust our presentation and, therefore, our interaction with the other’s map. As a result, the outcome of the interaction will more closely match the desired outcome, with greater ease and mutual satisfaction.

In the original research that led to the development of the NLP model, highly effective individuals were observed working. While they work in different fields and used different methods, one ability stood out as being that which made the difference between excellence and effectiveness or the lack of it. Highly effective individuals all had the ability to respectfully step onto the map of the people they were working with and do their work from there.

Training in the NLP model is both a human relations skills training and a program of personal development. Learning new skills and developing oneself go hand in glove, and most often both are required for greater success. Following are examples of ways NLP can contribute to professional success:

• Greater ability to understand and respectfully influence others.
• More clearly know where you want to go and how to get there.
• Quickly establish rapport with colleagues and clients and maintain it.
• Resolve conflict and build effective, aligned teams.
• Teach to your students’ best learning style.
• Avoid “losing the deal” because of simple misunderstanding.
• Develop effective people skills.
• More quickly get to the useful information and avoid getting sidetracked.
• Shift your own mental state and stay optimally resourceful in any situation.
• Eliminate internal obstacles to success.
• Acquire the success strategies of others.

by Bob Hoffmeyer
first published in Marin Scope newspapers (2003)

A beam of white light goes out and is received by three people. Through the filter of one it appears red, for another, blue, and for the third, it is dull grey. This is not unlike what happens as we take in our experiences of life. Each new experience we have is filtered through an internal map of reality that is already there. It is what is stored on our map that determines our experience of what happens in life. And, as we shall see, it is our map that enables or limits us as we go forward in life. It is the content of their individual maps that makes something so incredibly easy for one person and so seemingly impossible for another.

We all have an internal map of reality and each of our maps is unique. It’s ours and ours alone. Of course, our map is not totally different from that of others. Our maps overlap to one degree or another—enough, at least, for us to mostly understand, connect with, and relate to each other. But beyond that, our maps are unique.

We each started assembling our map at birth (some say before—but that’s another story we don’t need to go into here) and, over the years, we have added to them. Everything that has ever happened to us, everything we’ve ever decided to be true, and every belief we’ve ever formed is somewhere on our internal map of reality. Our maps contain our beliefs about ourselves—about our capabilities, our deservingness, and how we fit in the world. They contain our attitudes, perspectives, expectations, and general orientation toward life. Some of what is on our internal map of reality we are consciously aware of, but most of it we are not. And, like the highways and byways of a road map, everything that is on our map is somehow connected to everything else. Unlike a passive road map, however, our inner maps of reality are very active. They determine the meaning we make out of life. In fact, they determine our experience of life. Each new experience and new meaning made then gets added to the map; reinforcing, modifying, and adding to what was already there and making the whole thing ever more complex.

Our maps are pretty much automated. New input gets taken in, evaluated, interpreted, and assigned its place as best our internal mapmaker can accomplish those tasks. It’s a tough gig, given that everything new has to fit in with everything that is already there. Sometimes things get misplaced or incorrectly coded. Sometimes the new can’t be integrated and it gets rejected, like a compliment that bounces off because it doesn’t jibe with the view we already have of ourselves.

It’s a good thing that our maps are automated. We all receive far too much input, and need to do far too much internal processing, every moment of our lives to be able to handle all of it on manual. So, most of the time automation is good. It’s good, even great, that all those things we do and like, and all the experiences we attract that work for us, come so easily and unthinkingly—so automatically.

Unfortunately, our maps contain mistakes and they don’t always get appropriately updated. And that’s where problems can come in. Mistaken or outdated or not, our maps continue in their automated way to produce our experience of life. One client arrived saying that he wanted to “not be invisible.” He went on to tell story after story about how being invisible showed up in his life—like being the one who wasn’t asked when sandwich orders were taken at the company meeting; or being bumped into while walking down the street; or not being considered for promotion despite an excellent work record; or being cut in front of when standing in line. Over and over when he spoke up, the response was, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.” These kinds of things happened far too often for them to have been just chance. His map was badly outdated. There was a time when he was a very small boy, that it was good and much safer to be able to become invisible when his drunken, angry dad arrived home. But that was a long time ago. His map needed an update in its equating of safety with invisibility.

While dramatic, that example is illustrative. We all have mistakes and outdatedness on our maps that limit us in life and that prevent us from experiencing all of the happiness, fulfillment, and success that we would like and deserve. Someone once said, “No life is so good that we can’t imagine it being better.” How would you like your life to be better? Think in terms of patterns you’ve noticed in your life, those things about which you wonder, “Why is this always happening to me?” or “Why doesn’t that ever happen to me?” Think in terms of what you want; what you would like to have be different in your experience. Examples include a particular person at work toward whom you respond in a way that you don’t like; some area of your life where you feel stuck; difficulty you are having in a relationship; an automatic response you have in a certain situation that doesn’t serve you; some new undertaking that you have been saying you would like to accomplish but have not been able to (perhaps because of fear, or lack of confidence, or for reasons unknown to you). Then you might ask, “I wonder what’s on my map such that I am having (or, the flip side, not having) this experience? I wonder what new perspective, understanding, attitude, or belief would serve me here?”

Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a model for understanding and working with human behavior. NLP has the ability to get direct access to our internal maps of reality and to shift them, to reassemble the connections, to update them, and to correct the mistaken representations, so that our life experience reflects more of what we want—personally, in our relationships, and on the job. NLP begins by accepting and respecting what is and what has been. NLP honors you, as you are. But NLP also insists that what you desire is possible. If it is possible for anyone else, it is possible for you.

by Carl Buchheit
first published in Open Exchange magazine

NLP is always about having more choices more freely available. At NLP Marin, we regard just about everything that people do that they do not want to be doing as expressions of old, out-of-date safety patterning. How much easier and more satisfying would it be, to be human, if our out-of-date patterning could be updated simply and directly? This capability—direct system updates that keep our internal software current with the reality our lives—is one of the main ingredients of NLP personal change magic.

Some of the most striking and common occurrences of unfortunate, safety-related out-of-datedness are the fear-based safety patterns that we all know as phobias and panic attacks. Both kinds of experience can vary considerable in intensity. Each can be mildly annoying or almost life destroying. Both are definitely unwanted, and both are—in terms of all conventional methods of treatment—extremely difficult to get rid of.

Panic attacks are conventionally viewed as “panic without an object,” and phobias as “panic with an object.” The person suffering a panic attack experiences intense fear, and apparently for no reason. The phobic individual at least is able to know what he or she is afraid of, but often not why. However, even in the case of apparently unmotivated panic, there is never “for no reason.”

Fear and panic reactions are always straightforward, sensible responses to specific stimuli, usually invisible, internal pictures and sounds.

The internal sensory representations (internal pictures, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes) that cause “irrational” fear and panic can do this because of a bug in human wiring. Put very simply, the brain circuits that light up when we process an external picture or sound are essentially the same ones we use to process purely internal (”imaginary”) sounds and pictures, etc. As a result, if we are being chased by a real bear, or if we are merely imagining such a chase, parts of our brain dedicated to issues of basic survival cannot tell the difference; they produce the same fear, the very same panic, the very same fight/flight physiological consequences (breathing changes, skin color and temperature changes, etc.). The problem is that we are not aware of what we are seeing internally. Although we are programmed to generate our own internal lions and tigers and bears, we are also programmed to not notice that we are doing this. The result, unavoidably, is fear and panic “for no reason.”

But, again, there is a reason; there is always a reason. There is always an answer to the question, “How are you making yourself afraid?”

Most conventional approaches attempt to correct things by changing attitudes, so that the phobic or panicked individual is more able to cope, and/or by helping to gradually desensitize the person, so that, over a rather long period of time, and after much exposure to the things that are so fearful, they really don’t mind much any more.

These methods have become part of the conventional therapeutic repertoire because they often do some good. However, they have a severe limitation: they treat the symptoms, and leave the source of the unwanted experience intact. NLP goes after the source of the fear in the brain’s processing, directly, with the result that the brain no longer generates the unwanted experience, because it has been re-patterned. Using the NLP toolbox is like plugging a keyboard into the brain. It gives us access to programmed neural instructions that the brain uses to create fear. It allows us to directly restructure, re-sequence, and generally revise the unwanted patterning that generates unwanted experience and behavior.

The NLP toolbox gives us an unequaled way to observe, capture, decode and understand how (not just why) human beings create and maintain their experience. When we can understand how someone generates a glorious capability, for example, or how he or she generates disabling fear and panic, then we can work directly to increase the former and eliminate the latter. The key word here is “eliminate,” not adjust to, adapt to, or cope with, but eliminate the patterning that produces the unwanted anxiety and fear.

Using NLP, the question, “What lets you know to be afraid?” is not useless; it is essential and straightforwardly helpful. It is essential because, through the body, other-than-conscious aspects of the personality always fully answer this question. It is helpful because, through these externally visible movements and changes that correspond to the internal fear sources, the body directs the healing practitioner to locate and reorganize the specific past experience that is causing fear in the present. Again, the client will usually have no idea what this past material is, but body physiology always provides the needed information. In fact, the answers come flooding out.

Once the old pictures and soundtracks that are causing the fear are identified, the next steps in fixing the phobia or eliminating the panic involve scrambling the signals that the brain has been using to produce the unwanted fear. This is done directly, by having the client change the look and sequence of the internal pictures. This is an astonishingly simple thing to do and it has the good effect of interrupting the brain’s ability to produce fear.

In situations where a phobia has generalized severely, or in which the loss of free choice has deeply affected the afflicted person’s identity, their definition of themselves, it is often necessary to do more than simply re-pattern the sensory sequence (the pictures and/or soundtrack) that caused the fear. This presents us with different, additional opportunities for transformational NLP magic, but that is another exploration altogether.

by Carla Camou and Bob Hoffmeyer
first published in Open Exchange magazine (2001)

How did you do with all those New Year’s resolutions of years gone by? If you are like most people, most of them got left behind around the end of January. Many became no more than a nagging memory until the next New Year rolled around.

If this sounds even a little like you, read on. You’re not wrong, you’re not alone—and you’re certainly not bad.

Resolutions are an interesting process that we put ourselves through. We use special dates to mark times for making major changes in our lives. We start into them with the best of intentions and the greatest hope and it’s exhilarating the first few days or weeks when we manage to stick to the change. But then something happens—all at once or little by little—intention wanes and hope fades.

It’s not unusual, not even unexpected. We’ve done it before. The sad part about it all is what we do to ourselves after the resolution is broken. We make some sort of a judgment about how weak or undisciplined we are. We get down on ourselves, we get discouraged and, worst of all, we lose a little faith in ourselves.

Most resolutions are hard to keep not because we lack self-discipline, not because we are weak, and certainly not because we are inherently bad. Most of the time, what makes resolutions hard to keep is how we make them.

A resolution is a decision to change our behavior, to do something different. Resolutions are generally made because we don’t like something about ourselves—we want to be different or have a different experience of life in some way. The part of us that doesn’t like something and wants to change makes the resolution. The key here is that the part that is responsible for the way we are (indeed, finds value in it) is never consulted. Most often, if that part of us is acknowledged at all, it is blamed, made wrong, and told to get lost. The result is internal conflict.

When there is internal conflict, we have set ourselves against ourselves and, as a result, we have no way to really win. Even if we manage to keep the resolution, the aspect of us that has other ideas still loses and the internal conflict begins to escalate. Eventually, the battle to keep the resolution will wear us down. We won’t feel as good inside as we’d hoped we would. It’s about here that we give up.

So, the trick is getting to a solution that doesn’t create an internal battle. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) provides excellent tools for assisting with this process.

Present and future oriented, NLP starts with very positive assumptions about human beings and the behavior they engage in. For example, NLP assumes that people naturally make the best choice available from those they believe to be possible. Given a better choice, people will use it—automatically. Starting from these assumptions, the NLP model has developed into a very rich collection of perceptual and behavioral skills and tools for understanding and changing human behavior. Over the years, it has demonstrated an amazing ability to assist people to make the changes they want and have them last. Some call it magical.

True “re-solution” comes when you get to know yourself well enough that you see how every aspect of you is doing its best to work in your favor. It is when you come to respect all aspects of yourself that lasting change is possible and effortless. When all of you is respected, included, and engaged in contributing to what you truly want, the internal battles and self-sabotaging behavior melt away. Life begins to look more the way you want it to look. You begin to feel whole again—and isn’t that really at the heart of any resolution you make?

by Julie Clayton, who is an NLP Marin Master Practitioner graduate and freelance editor and writer. She lives in Portland, Oregon: www.sacredwriting.com

By now most of us have at least had an introduction to the operating principles of the “law of attraction.” Essentially, the premise of this “law” is that there are only two kinds of information in this universe: energy and matter. If something is not one, it is the other, and each influences the other. At a personal level, the most useful aspect of this premise relates to the quality of our life experience: our thoughts are energy and as such, they influence our matter, a.k.a. our reality or experience. If we want another experience, a better experience, then all we need to do is change our thoughts and we will attract a different matter/experience. In theory, this sounds fine, however it occurs to me that asking someone to change their thoughts can be like asking them to shift into third gear when they’ve never driven a stick shift.

At NLP Marin, we work with the change model known as neuro-linguistic programming, and the process generally begins with some basic questions. As expected, the first question asked is, “What do you want?’ or, “What is it that you would like?” If the client were to reply, “I want to change my thoughts,” we would then work with the client to “chunk down” this desire. In other words, we work with the client to articulate their want as a manageable size—not to change their wish, but to put it into a relevant context so that we can introduce more immediate resources toward achieving their want.

So, how does one “chunk down” thoughts? It’s really quite simple, however, first we have to understand that our thoughts are a conglomerate of the senses. We humans experience the world primarily through images, sounds and feelings, or in NLP terminology, the V’s, A’s, and K’s (visual, auditory and kinesthetic senses). Our conscious mind works primarily with language, however it is our unconscious mind that communicates in images, symbols and feelings. In addition, the unconscious mind takes things literally and does not process negatives. It also is primarily concerned with our health and well being—our survival. The conscious mind is what makes meaning from these images and symbols, and gives expression to that meaning through language and behavior.

As an example, if I were wanting to control my eating binges I might say to myself, “I don’t want to be a pig, so I’ll just eat half of that cake.” Unfortunately, the unconscious mind will quite happily make a picture of self as pig, eating cake.” Period. If I am unhappy in my work and I continually say to myself, “ This is such a pain in the neck,” my unconscious mind will very obligingly generate a feeling of pain in my neck. So, the process of understanding the structure of thoughts filters through the ranks of brain hierarchy and culminates in conscious awareness, with thoughts and actions that we broadly term as “experience.”

In order to change our thoughts then, it can be much more amenable to begin by chunking down and changing our words. Naturally, when we change our words, we will also affect our imagery and feelings—and that is the ultimate goal. However, keeping things simple is the key. All that is required is to change our words is imagination. What might happen if I were instead to say to myself, “It’s easy for me to choose foods that support my health?” Imagine that you have the inner resources available right now to choose your words so that they support you in your highest good, and you do!

If you feel that life is constantly a struggle, chances are good that you have an internal dialogue that sounds something like, “Life is hard…no one gets a free lunch…I never get a break…” and so on. Imagine that you can turn those negative words into positive ones and you’ll immediately put some high energy into your life. To begin with, an internal rewrite might sound something like, “ Life’s not easy.” (Remembering that the unconscious doesn’t process negatives, so the unconscious only hears, “Life’s easy.”) Eventually, you can work your way up to, “Life is great!”

The challenge to changing our words lies in our beliefs and identity. Our system has developed some highly effective and useful ways of ensuring that our identity remains stabilized, regardless of how much we say we want something different. Neuro-linguistic programming calls this the “ecology.” In other words, all of the “parts” function together (although sometimes not very harmoniously it seems) to preserve the overall environment.

Practitioners of neuro-linguistic programming are trained in the art of “talking” to the various parts, via the senses, so that more resource and choices are available to the client. And, although there are numerous skills that NLP practitioners use, the art of changing our words in NLP-speak is called “reframing.” Reframing literally wakes up both the conscious and unconscious minds by evoking a different set of V’s, A’s, or K’s.

Try it for yourself. Notice how you feel and what pictures you make when you say to yourself, “I’m sick.” Now try, “I’m not feeling well.” Now try looking up and saying, “I’m feeling better all the time.” It’s a different experience each time, isn’t it? Of course, reframing can be much more sophisticated than that, and one can become quite the word connoisseur. However, why not keep things easy, at least to begin with?

So, the next time you want something different in your life, imagine that it’s already yours. Then say the words and notice the feeling that comes with it. And, like the shampoo bottle directions say: wash, rinse, repeat.