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. So, we invite you to try this experiment, right there in the privacy of your own mind and body. (Note: This demonstration is not designed to change anything in your permanent experience, but simply to introduce you and your brain to some of the amazing connections and relationships in your internal processing that you have probably not been aware of before.)

The objective of this experiment is to demonstrate how your experience, and your experience of your experience, depends as much on how you represent it internally, as it does on what that experience is (the process of the experience vs. the content). Our objective is to shift your experience of something, a memory from the past, without changing the content of that experience. This is a small demonstration of one aspect of the NLP information and skills toolbox. Ready? Do these steps in order:

Step 1: Recall a past experience that gives you a pleasant or good feeling. Notice what that good feeling feels like. Notice also what the picture is, in your mind’s eye, that goes with that good feeling. If you don’t have a picture that goes with the feeling, take a moment to think about it, and just let one occur to you.

Step 2: Look at your inner picture and notice the feeling that goes with it.

Step 3: Now look more closely at that inner picture and answer this question:
“Is this picture in color, or in black and white, or somewhere in between?”

Step 4: If your picture is in color, use your internal visual controls to make it black and white. Just use your brain to turn down the color, just as you would on a color TV. If your picture is black and white, or without much color, turn the color up—use your brain to make the picture much more colorful. In what way(s) does this change in color change the meaning or the feeling of the experience that goes with the picture?

Step 5: If you want, set your internal color control to wherever it helps this picture have the most positive and enjoyable feeling for you.

Step 6: To experiment further, notice how bright your picture is, and make some kind of significant change in this brightness. For example, have the picture fade out to totally dark or gray, then try shifting it so that it becomes extremely bright and just “flashes out.” Notice how these changes in brightness change the feeling that goes with the experience. Try making a simultaneous change in color and brightness. What happens to the meaning or the feeling?
To experiment more, notice where the internal picture is in the context of the external space of the room you are in. Notice if, in your mind’s eye, the picture is far away from your body, if it is right at the end of your nose, or if it is in the middle distance somewhere. Make a big change in this distance factor. Zoom the picture off into the far distance, and then zoom it in toward your head. What happens to the meaning or the feeling that this memory has for you?

Step 7: In doing steps 1-6 you have probably caused some significant changes in the meaning or the feeling that goes with the memory of this experience. But notice that you have not made content changes about this memory—you have merely changed the structure of the visual component of the experience. By way of completing the experiment, set the color, brightness and distance of the picture to where they feel the best, and then let go of the picture and its accompanying feeling(s).

Our experience of the external world is built from input from our five senses, and so is our experience of our internal world. The above mind/brain experiment operates in the realm of what NLP calls internal representations. These internal representations are the sensory events—sights, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes—that are the building blocks of our experience as human beings. Our experience of something in our lives—past, present or future, depends on how we structure and process our experience in terms of our internal sensory representations.

See also this related article.

Most of us have had the experience of going on a treasure hunt—if not personally, then at least through the reality TV shows that have people racing around the world following clues to get to some exotic final destination. The basic theme is that you get a clue, follow it to another clue, and eventually you find the treasure.

Personal change, growth, and development can be a bit like a treasure hunt. The perspective of Neuro-Linguistic Programming is that the treasure you are seeking is there, inside, waiting to be discovered. Discovering it takes going beyond the obvious clues. Most of the time we only pay attention to the big clues. The little ones go unnoticed, and the treasure remains hidden. In fact, the really obvious “clues” often aren’t clues at all but symptoms of something more hidden. They are, however, a place to start.

Discovering the little clues can be difficult to do on your own because they are most often so hidden. But you can begin with the following exercises. Training in Neuro-Linguistic Programming or working with an NLP Practitioner are both very effective ways to continue.

To start, acknowledge to yourself something that is present in your life that you don’t want or something that you have been wanting to be present for a long time but that has been elusive. Acknowledging something like this doesn’t mean you are broken, bad, or wrong in any way. It just means that there is something in your life experience that is pointing to something more fundamental, more basic, and more hidden. Something that, for one reason or another, you put there and that served you very well at the time. Something that is badly outdated and that you can change.

To begin, bring to mind the life issue you want to explore. Take a moment to write it down. Work with just one thing at a time. If you have more than one thing you would like to work with, repeat the exercises taking each issue one at a time.

In these exercises, we are inviting you to a deeper exploration of what you have just written down—that something that you don’t want but that hangs around, or that something you do want that seems not possible. To do these exercises you will need to allow yourself to experience whatever issue you are working with. The more fully you allow yourself to be aware of it and feel what it feels like, the more effective the exercises will be. Acknowledging and allowing yourself to experience, without judgment, that issue is a huge step toward resolving it.

The objective in these exercises is to discover some of the little clues. The little clues are often the things in our lives that we hold as so true, so real that we don’t even consider them as having any possibility of change. The little clues, the ones that really pay off, are wrapped in our concept of what is. These are the things that we believe are as unchangeable as gravity.

Exercise #1 … Personal Statements

1. Make a list of statements about yourself regarding the issue you are working with, and about the issue itself, that you believe are totally true. Start with the really obvious stuff “I am female (male)” and work your way to some of the more subtle ones “It’s not OK for me to … .” Sit quietly, pen in hand, and just write down what comes.
2. Look at the list and ask yourself if everyone else believes these things about themselvesor about that kind of issue. The ones to which you say, “No, not everyone believes this,” are all clues to how you might, through your beliefs, be keeping what you don’t want present in your life or preventing what you do want from being there.

Exercise #2 … What do you avoid?

1. Continue to acknowledge and allow yourself to experience the issue you are working with. Again, sit quietly with pen in hand and allow yourself to become aware of the things that you avoid regarding this issue. Write them down. What do you avoid doing? What do you avoid saying? What do you avoid acknowledging?

The things we avoid are also little clues. We must respond to what we are avoiding in order to avoid it, and this limits our flexibility. How might things change if you stopped avoiding those things you just discovered? What if you found a way to allow yourself to deal directly with them?

Exercise #3 … What emotions do you avoid?

1. Again, stay as fully present to the experience of your issue as you can. This time, notice the feelings and emotions that are connected with it. Sit quietly, pen in hand, and notice what is there. Write it down. Some of these feelings you may have been aware of for a long time. They are right there, connected to the issue every time you think about it. Allow yourself to go beyond these. What other feelings and emotions do you become aware of?

The feelings and emotions we avoid are also little clues. What would happen if you found a way for it to be okay for you to experience them? What new actions might you then be able to take?

Neuro-Linguistic Programming can be described many ways. One simple description is, “NLP is about changing your mind regarding what is or isn’t possible for you.” When we change our mind, new connections are made possible in our mind and new possibility appears. At NLP Marin, Neuro-Linguistic Programming has become famous for asking and then guiding you to effectively answer two important questions: “What would you like?” and “What stops you?” Using our Holographic NLP model, the clarifying work that is done between and around these two questions gets at an inner truth, unique to each person, which then allows lives and relationships and careers to transform.

We hope these simple exercises have assisted you to change your mind in some significant way(s). To explore further, you might consider a Free Introductory Workshop.

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

Our NLP Marin Free Workshop is an easy-going, fast-paced, three hour tour through some of the most important parts of the completely amazing NLP “toolbox for communication and change.” The Free Workshop is presented by Carl Buchheit, a co-founder of NLP Marin and one of the most experienced NLP trainers in the world.

Why do we have our founder and a trainer with 30+ years experience conduct a three-hour introductory workshop? Because he wants to!

As Carl says,

“The NLP we teach here at NLP Marin is so beautiful and so extraordinary, and it has made such a difference in my life across more than three decades. Because so much of the NLP that people encounter out in the world is such awful, superficial, disrespectful junk, I completely adore having an opportunity to introduce our guests to the kind of NLP that I love and respect.”

In the course of the three hours, Carl lectures for a few minutes, to present a little bit of NLP history and background, and also a little bit of other information about the amazing, original discoveries that started the whole NLP revolution. But Carl will use most of the morning to demonstrate some NLP change and communication basics, and to invite guests to try them out–in the privacy of their own experience. The Free Workshop format is highly interactive, but also respectfully private. Because of the way NLP works, our guests can share about their experience of the various NLP techniques without having to reveal anything about the content of their lives. Of course, all sharing is welcome. We spend most of the morning laughing, and Carl loves questions.

At the end of the morning, everyone will have completely and delightfully new ways to understand and make sense out of their experience of being human, as well as some specific ideas about why their current relationships and other communication situations unfold the way they do. In addition, everyone will leave with some simple but amazingly powerful ways to directly change (improve!) the feelings that are associated with any experience they encounter in daily life.

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

Work and Business Constellations

Saturday Evening Workshop
7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
See Calendar for dates.

Many of you have experienced the power of Family Constellations. Organizational Constellations apply the same principles in the context of businesses. They are used widely in Europe to reveal and often re-solve entangled dynamics in our work place and/or in the businesses we are creating. Work and Business Constellations will offer you a new perspective in the ways your personal experience, behavior and decisions are tied in with the systemic group dynamic of your business and/or workplace.

Based on the systemic constellations work of German therapist, Bert Hellinger, we observe the deep impact the relationships at the workplace and the history of organizations have on what works and where people and organizations get stuck. They offer re-solutions that clearly show you new choices and possibilities to move forward.

We also bring our personal family dynamics into the workplace and see them reflected in our careers. During this evening we will, whenever helpful, use constellations to clarify how our professional and personal spheres overlap and what internal shifts will bring new energy and expansiveness into our professional lives.

By working gently, honestly and directly with facts, rather than beliefs or our story, we can discover how our attitudes and stances contribute to the difficult situations we find ourselves in and how we can contribute to creating a shift in the prevailing dynamics.

The Constellations will be facilitated by Volker Frank (www.VolkerFrank.com).

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
For registration click here.