Make the New Year Meaninful

Make the New Year Meaningful

          It is New Year Eve and everyone in a celebration mood make a halt on anchoring techniques for a moment and think of something more relevant for the season.  The one thing everybody always forgets during New Year celebration is the ‘process of aging’. Biologically aging is a naturally occurring organic process. Psychologically it is the process of acquiring and stalking the required qualities (values, believes and knowledge) and life skills for a successful personal and professional life. Dear friend, it’s a fact that we are one year older in 2016 than we were in 2015.

          Look at the mirror and check how many (more) of your hair becomes grey. Check to what extent your skin shrinks?! Just ignore it, it’s not the body that makes you older but the mind. Keep your mind young and stay young.

The New Year tells you many things such as:

-         You lost one year from our life span

-         Your expiry date is one year close to you

-         You are one more year senior in the society

-         You suppose to acquire more qualities (strengths) of life

-         You suppose to acquire more respect from family and society

-         You suppose to acquire more experience in personal and professional life

          First three are naturally occurring phenomena and the last three are acquired qualities. The first three will happen irrespective of the last three. Aging will be meaningful only when all the six happens simultaneously. If the last three doesn’t happen your life is meaningless and the society and your family don’t change their opinion about you. Do you know their opinion about you? Don’t worry, we will find it using a simple exercise.

Based on the above you have to carry out two exercises as follows.

(1) First one is a family exercise. Sit together with your family including your spouse, children and parents as far as possible. Each of you should take a paper and make three columns for name of person, strength/qualities and weakness. Write the senior person’s name on the paper. Against that name each of the persons including whose name is written shall write the strength/qualities/positives of the person on the respective column.  In the next column write weakness/negatives of the person. No limit, fill it honestly. Now, write the next senior person’s name and repeat the exercise and continue until the evaluation of each person is completed. You may require more paper, doesn’t matter. Encourage everybody to right as plenty as possible. Now consider from the youngest to the eldest. Take the youngest one’s name first. Count which one is more in number whether strength or weakness. If the weakness is more the person must think seriously and make remarkable changes in his behaviour for the sake of personal, family and social life. Find which are the common weaknesses addressed by most of the members and take a decision to quit it in 2016.

(2) Second one is a personal exercise. Here is a table that enables you to evaluate your qualities, strengths and weakness. Fill in the cell as appropriate and take new decisions for a life change. Note that never take too hard decisions like ‘I will completely stop smoking from tomorrow’ instead ‘I will gradually quit smoking from tomorrow onwards’.  Means instead of the daily 20, you should reduce 1 each a day. 

Setting and Utilizing Anchors to Change a State (mood)

Setting and Utilizing Anchors to Change a State (mood)

          In the previous session we have seen the importance and uses of anchors. Using anchoring technique people can easily change their moods. We have seen in the previous session about changing the sad mood into happy. For that one should recall a past event that produces a happiness state. So the person is anchoring the happiness state with that particular memory by repeatedly re-living in it. In a similar way you can anchor your favourite resources.

          Being in a resourceful state is very important to lead a progressive life. Some people experience lack of resources or inability to access resources to perform tasks as and when required. An inaccessible resource is not at all a resource. Say for example you have very nice voice and you know music and have the ability to sing but when the orchestra starts your sound gets stuck at your throat. You can’t perform the music with the orchestra however your performance in the bathroom is wonderful. The ability to sing is your resource but you have no confidence.

          Some people can prepare a speech very well. They can train the children for elocution. However they can’t speak. In front of the audience they are unable to utter a sentence correctly. Their knees shiver. Throat dries. Word breaks. They have the resources to speak. But you are unable to perform because you have no confidence which is one of your primary resources.

Anchoring a Resourceful State

1.     Take a deep breath and relax.

2.     Think of one of your favourite resources say ‘confidence’.

3.     Recall an event in your life where you had managed it with full ‘confidence’.

4.     Re-live the experience as it is happening now. Associate yourself into the experience. See what you saw, hear what you hear and feel what you felt.

5.     Elicit submodalities for visual, auditory and kinesthetic modalities and at the ‘peak’ of each make a ‘soft firm fist’ (anchor) and hold it for ten to fifteen seconds.

6.     Release the anchor (fist) and simultaneously get rid of the re-lived experience.

7.     Break state – look around and take a deep breath.

8.     Repeat step 3 to 7 several times (at least five) carefully.

9.     Break state – take a deep breath and count the living things around.

10.Fire the anchor (means make the ‘soft firm fist’) and notice what happens. The resourceful state (confidence) and the associated emotions and feelings must come back. If not, repeat step 3 to 7 until the resourceful state gets anchored properly.  

          The anchor created as above can be used at any time when you are in an unconfident state. This is just an example of creating an anchor. Setting an anchor for self or for others in normal conditions is very simple if you know the steps to follow. However when a person is not in a normal condition such as depressed, panic, anxious etc. setting of anchor is difficult because they can’t think like a normal person. When they start eliciting something positive, probably negative things starts interrupt it. Sometimes their mind gets blocked. Sometimes unwanted or phobic thoughts come. The monkey (conscious) jumps here and there! In all such cases you can’t create anchors so simply. First of all you should change the mood or the state of the person and then create the anchor.

          The anchor (fist) we have created above is kinesthetic in nature. Even though anchors related to all the senses are useful to change a state, kinesthetic anchor can be used as a switch easily. Especially it is very useful in mood changing and healing interventions. Say for example when father touch a child on a particular point frequently and talk to him in such a way to get him cool. Later just touching on that particular point without speaking itself is understood for the child.

          From a mother’s kiss on the forehead of a child everyday just before leaving to the school remind the child that his mother loves and cares. There the kiss is an anchor. The husband’s emotional hug reminds the wife that he loves her very much. A counseller or healer or therapist can create kinesthetic anchors on their client to elicit particular emotions as and when required as part of therapy (we will discuss the application of this in detail in another session). 

Creating Kinesthetic Anchors on Others or a Client

1.     Chose a point on the client’s body, say the forearm for better, to set the anchor

2.     Hold the forearm with your right hand in such a way that you can use your thump freely

3.     Ask the client to elicit the required (positive) emotion experienced as part of a related (positive) event

4.     Let the client to feel the emotions as if it is happening at the present moment

5.     Instruct the client to let you know, somehow, the beginning of reaching to the peak of emotion (point 1)

6.     At point 1 you start pressing your thump with less intensity to the high so that at point 2 the pressure will be the maximum

7.     Let the client to release the emotion slowly and subsequently you shall reduce the pressure. The intensity of pressure at point 3 should be the same that you have produced at point 1

8.     You have to spend at least 15 sec for processing anchoring from point 1 to point 3

9.     Do not remove your hand so that the anchoring point will not be changed, else you have to mark the point with a pen.

10.                        Repeat step 2 to 8 several times

NLP Anchoring Techniques

NLP Anchoring Techniques

         The term technique is a general term used in the science and technology and it usually represents the practical methods and process to complete a task easily and economically. A person who knows the technique is a technician! In NLP also we use the term to represent the practical methods and systematic process, easy and simple, to make changes in the thinking process and therefore attitude, behaviour and habits of a person to change his life. These techniques either can practice as a self help method or through the intervention of another person. I don’t want to waste your valuable time in explaining such things in detail now.         

       

          In fact I wanted to explain the techniques precisely with short texts but neither you get trained in that way nor you can make use of the technique without understand it correctly. I know that ‘fast food’ and ‘easy cook’ culture is widely acceptable now a days. People are impatient and not ready to read anything other than something titillating. Instead of expressing our emotions directly we all prefer to use emoticons now a day! We are living in a world of emoticons. Sustainable personal changes can be achieved only by learning the change process carefully and implementing it systematically and vigilantly.

          There is a common question as ‘why only very little people are gets changed even though multimillion copies of most inspiring and motivating books are sold out worldwide’.  The answer is that ‘no fast food’ or ‘easy cook’ items included in the book packs! Even a person spoiled fifty years of his valuable life want to change it in an hour! Then what about teenagers and youth?

          Under session “Change Your Mood with NLP Techniques” you have seen how to change your mood using NLP techniques. There you have noticed that we use such techniques in our life very commonly but we never call it as a technique.  From the ancient time itself fishermen and sailors were fixing their boats and ships with the shore to stop it for loading and unloading. However nobody purposely termed the process of such tying up as ‘anchoring’ at that time but when the science and technology developed the experts termed it as anchoring! ‘Anchor’ is the equipment used to tie the ship or vessel with the shore or land.

          Now anchoring is a technical term commonly used in civil and marine engineering. Its meaning is to fix firmly and stably. The term ‘anchoring a ship’ is very familiar to us now. What is the meaning of anchoring in NLP? In NLP Anchoring is a naturally occurring process that associates a unique stimulus to an intense emotional state either positive or negative. Tad James says that “any time a person is in associated intense state and if at the peak of that experience a specific stimulus is applied then the two will get linked neurologically”. When this happen the state (happy, sad, relaxed, aroused etc) is anchored to the stimulus. Anchor acts as a trigger or switch for a state.

          Each of us has personal history that is rich in different emotional states. To experience them we need to trigger some association (mental feelings of actively taking part in the event) in the present to elicit original experiences. Our minds naturally link experiences either very enjoyable or very unpleasant. Thus anchor is a representation (of an experience) internally or externally generated that triggers another representation. A particular smell, taste, sound or picture might trigger a memory or experience. National anthem triggers patriotism and church or temple bells triggers a divine feelings and remind us to prayer. Many anchors originate in the childhood.

          Have you seen how the moms make a child to sleep? They touch or massage rhythmically on a particular place (shoulder, thighs, back etc) on the body of child and sing a melody. When they repeat it daily the baby falls into sleep experiencing the kinesthetic (touch) and auditory (song) sensations. Until and unless these anchors are getting established, mom should work hard with the child! Once the anchor is established it is very easy for her to make the child to sleep. Just touch the child with the same rhythm and sing the same melody. This is technically known as ‘firing the anchor’.

          Have you ever noticed that when your spouse or lover looks you with a particular facial expression you get aroused with sexual emotions? When your boss looks at you with inner meanings, you definitely know what does he means! When a father raises his eyebrow the children understand its meaning. When you reach your dog’s cage on that particular time with that particular communicative signs your dog responds to it.

          Many of you have experiences that when you remember particular events that happened in your life, you feel very happy (say for example, first time you met your wife) or with some other event very sad (say for example, death of your beloved). And now you know how some people looks always sad or depressed. And then definitely you know how to get the people out of sad moods or depression. So anchors have a very important role in creating and changing moods or states of a person.

Exercising the Technique:

1.      Look at various things around you while you stay where you are now.

2.     Gently close your eyes.

3.     Take deep breath and exhale, repeat three times and relax.

4.     Remember the most important and happiest event that happened in your life.

5.     Think that it is happening now and feel all the motions you have experienced at that time.

6.     Slightly increase the wonderful feelings.

7.     At the peak of the feelings just fold your fingers and say ‘wonderful’.

8.     Slightly decrease the feelings until you get completely out of the feelings.

9.     Look at various things around you again.

10.                        Relax for three minutes.

11.                        Repeat step 2 to 10 five times carefully.

How do you feel now? Are you getting relaxed and feeling happy? ‘Concentration’ is a villain here, but don’t worry, we will practice ‘concentration techniques’ also. This is a simple exercise giving you a clue of what the anchoring is. I can give you rigorous training on anchoring techniques, but be patient!

Basic steps to set an Anchor:

1.     Elicit a powerful desired state.

2.     At the peak provide a stimulus as an anchor.

3.     Go back to the normal state.

4.     Break state.

5.     Fire the anchor to test the effectiveness.

Examples of Anchors:

Visual: logos, signals, gestures, facial expressions, symbols. . .

Auditory: tonality, familiar sounds, music, bells. . .

Kinesthetic: specific touch, temperature, emotions, feelings. . .

Olfactory: smell of fruits, flowers, coffee, gas, fast food. . .

Gustatory: taste of coffee, tea, chocolate, food. . .        

Benefits of Anchoring:

-         It improves or changes a person’s state.

-         It helps in obtaining confidence in your abilities.

-         It intensifies positive and resourceful state.

-         It enables you to control your actions.

-         It helps you to feel at your best whenever you want.

Next Session: Setting and Utilizing Anchors to Change a State (mood)

Life, mind and body are part of one system

Life, mind and body are part of one system

Presupposition 10: Life, mind and body are part of one system.

So far we have discussed the following nine presuppositions:

1.     Everyone lives in their own unique model of the world. 

2.     Map is not the territory.

3.     Underlying every behavior there is a positive intention.

4.  People have all the resources they need to succeed and to achieve their desired outcome.

5.     There are always choices.

6.     There is no such a thing as failure, only result or feedback.

7.     Every person always works perfectly in accordance with their internal strategy.

8.     Even though the only reliable information about a person is the behavior, the person is not the behaviour.

9.     Behavior and change should be evaluated in terms of context and ecology.

          There are many other presuppositions to be discussed however to make you more interested in NLP life change techniques and therapies I think it is better now to start introducing NLP techniques and more presuppositions will be discussed on a later stage as and when required. In this session we discuss the fundamental presupposition of NLP ‘Life, mind and body are part of one system’.

          Here the referred system can be defined as interdependent group of components (organs or parts) forming a unified whole human body and actively involved in various process within the body for obtaining a biological or psychological objective. NLP deals with life change which include psychological change, physical change and social change or in other words psychological change leads to physical change which leads to social change and thus the whole life of a person gets changed.

          We have to discuss the system in detail. In order to understand the integrated system of life, mind and body, we should recall the ‘mind body communication’ under the session ‘Heal Yourself and Others’. Please read the above session carefully once again. It is your mental health decides your life.

          We have learned in the earlier sessions that our mind programs our brain and the brain controls our body functions. At every moment of time programming and reprogramming is happening in your brain. Your life is the result of these programs! Conscious and unconscious minds cooperate and work together to set the program and therefore to make your life. All that you are doing in your life, whether good or bad for you are according to these programs. Your attitude, behaviour and habit are generated and controlled by these programs.

          When we experience an emotion our brain communicates with our body. Scientists have discovered a link between the mind and body. The means that the mind and body communicate with each other is through chemistry of emotion. When the mind experiences an emotion some chemicals are created within the body. These are chains of amino acid molecules, peptides and receptors and we can call it as the biochemical correlate of emotion.

          Our body cells listen to all our thoughts every moment of our lives. Hence our emotions influence our body function as the peptides and receptors are in constant communication with our body. When you afraid your heart beats increases, when you angry your face muscles stretches and skin colour changes and when you feel happy your body get relaxed. So your physical health depends on psychological health to a large extent.

          Therefore mind and body influence the life of a person or the life, mind and body are interconnected to working together as a system. It is not possible to isolate just one part of the system. If you change one aspect of a system it will affect the rest. When we think differently our bodies change and when we act differently our thoughts and feeling also change. Hence always keep in mind the presupposition ‘life, mind and body are part of one system’.

          With this we have completed ten presuppositions and we are ready to go ahead with the lessons related to NLP life change, healings and therapies. Always remember that NLP techniques can be utilized by a person himself for self-motivating to effect the change and at the same time it can be utilized through the intervention of others such as therapies, counseling etc. All these will have wonderful positive benefits in life if one makes use it systematically with enough patience. Also remember that there is a time lag between the application of NLP techniques and its results on mind, body and life. 

Every Person Always Works Perfectly

Every person always works perfectly

Presupposition 9: Every person always works perfectly in accordance with their internal strategy.

            Now we have another interesting and important presupposition to discuss. This one helps us to maintain our relationships better and make the change work effective. One of the reasons for damaging relationship is the progressive awareness of imperfection; imperfection in ideologies, knowledge, social status, standard of life, income, sex etc. Human beings always crave for perfection. Even an imperfect person looks perfection in others! Imperfection leads to mismatching.

          The standard of perfection of a person depends on the internal strategy of that person. It is common among couples that during the course of marriage life one or both of the partners feels that the other partner is not up to the mark or up to the standard! This can be in the attitude, behaviour, habits, communication, caring, sharing or love making. One partner expects more but the other perform less. The partner is imperfect for the other!

          Children perform imperfectly in their parents view, they expect more. Managers expect more perfect work from their subordinates. Lazy people are always a burden to others. Poorly performing students are imperfect for their teachers. To get better result for the school and appreciation for the teachers they expect students to work (learn) perfectly.

          The fact is that every person always works perfectly in accordance with their internal strategy (map). This concept is little bit difficult to understand. Every person performs a work based on a blue print run in their brain. Let us think of the word ‘work’ practically. Suppose somebody requested you to move a chair form one position to another. Within a matter of milliseconds a ‘blue print’ of the work will be ready in your brain and your conscious mind read it out. Your neuro system gets activated and signals for actions (work) passes in line with your thought process. So it is the blue print that gets executed.

         

          Here you can raise a smart question? Whether the blue print is the same for all people? The answer is No. Why? Because blue print is being prepared in accordance with the internal map! Hence one person pull the chair and the other lift it. Some other may push it with the leg according to his strategy.  However all work perfectly according to their internal map.

          This is what is happening in the life. Every behaviour or action is perfect according to the internal strategy or map. Nobody can blame a person for his imperfection because the person is perfectly alright as per the map. If you want to change the performance of a person change his internal strategy. Usually we blame the person and put a bad remark for imperfection. Clay is just the mud for common man and for a farmer it can be the material for building dams whereas it’s a valuable raw material to mould precious arts and crockery in the hands of a ceramist. All the three will do their work perfectly according to their internal strategy. Quality of the work also depends on the map.

          No one is wrong or broken. We run or execute our strategies perfectly. But these strategies which are internal may be poorly designed or ineffective. Change the design and the strategy; you will have a better result. This is one of the important pre-supposition applicable for the betterment of relationship and life change therapies. Accept the person with his present behaviour. The present behaviour is perfectly alright for the person until the person himself or another person intervenes and replaces it with a better one.

          NLP can positively intervene and change the internal strategy of a person which leads to healing and life change. NLP provides wonderful ideas and techniques to change and bettering life through self help approach. Once again recall the presupposition every person always works perfectly in accordance with their internal strategy.

There is no such a thing as failure

There is no such a thing as failure

Presupposition 8: There is no such a thing as failure, only result or feedback.

          Now we are discussing about a very important presupposition which can make changes in all areas of our life. The word ‘failure’ is a very common word we heard from nursery school. Teachers always warn us not to fail in examinations (because higher authorities warn them!). “There is no such a thing as failure, only result or feedback”. Honestly speaking I have never heard the word ‘success’ during my school days instead the word ‘pass’ was very familiar to us.

          Failure and success are two words that denote the extremes of an action or a work. The word ‘Failure’ usually indicates that the person couldn’t meet the criteria to pass. The comments ‘you failed’, ‘he failed’ or ‘she failed’ remind the persons that they are behind to those have more progress. If you mark a point somewhere on a scale to indicate the demarcation between pass and failure, that point creates different thoughts and emotions in the person. Negatively thinking people see the demarcation point as a hurdle on the race of life. Unfortunately many institutions imprint a ‘stamp of failure’ on the mark list if the position is between zero and the point of demarcation!

          In fact there is no such a thing as failure only results or feedback. Say for example we perform an activity and we mark the progress on a paper from 0 to 100 graphically. Each and every point on the sheet indicates our progress at a particular time of measurement. Each point indicates the progress until that time. Point 1 positively indicates that you have already finished 1% of the work and point 99 indicates you have finished 99%.  If you think negatively, at point one 99% work is pending and 1% is yet to complete at point 99! So there is no question of failure in any point but should be the ‘result of performance’ or ‘feedback of progress’ at that time.

          To see the poor progress of a person with a negative angle of view and stamp it as ‘failure’ is a common mistake done by authorities. We can see this in every walk of life including the little nursery school. There are a number of reasons for the poor performance of a person during a specific period of time. It doesn’t mean that a person once performs poor always performs poor. And also a person poor in one area of life is good in another area and best in some other area. Einstein was not good in school and he received only a diploma from the school initially however every educated persons in the world now know him because he became a wonderful scientist great achievements.

          Another mistake we do in our life is that we observe and do research only on success stories. We have to give equal importance to stories of the so called ‘failure’. To know why a person didn’t succeed is equally important to know how a person succeeded. The former gives you certain warnings and latter gives you the steps to follow.

          Stories of winners are not only the stories of ‘carpets of flowers’ but are the stories of ‘pathways filled with thorns and stones’ too; it includes struggles, hurdles, obstacles, pitfalls and rejections. Great leaders and winners of remarkable achievements like Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Alwa Edison, Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King experienced ignorance and rejections in their life.

          Do you remember that day in your babyhood when you learned to stand up first time and you declared yourself as a winner! Probably you forget it. You must have noticed the efforts the kids take to learn walking; they first crawl using their abdomen, then their knees and shortly they stand on their feet but how many times do they fall. Upon falling if they decided to not try again nobody could ever walk. They never disappointed instead they try again and we encourage them. After the continuous efforts the number of falls comes down and finally they achieved their goal. Babies have no sense of failure!

          The one who view the results as ‘failure’ think negatively and give up their dreams. The success is not a result of luck but an outcome of continuous efforts, hard work and dedication.  Adults are less willing to make mistakes and take risk and perhaps such an attitude lead them to think of themselves as a failure.  Adults look for immediate success. They are not ready to consider mistakes and poor performances as feedbacks and learning opportunities for corrections and betterments. Eliminating what doesn’t work is an effective way to find what does work. Edison wasted large quantity of materials for bulb before inventing the first successful model. Abraham Lincoln experienced the taste of failure many times before achieving the president’s chair.

          We do not fail. We can do it again and improve with feedback. Every failure is a stepping stone towards success. This is what winners are always doing. So remember the most important presupposition that can change our life “There is no such a thing as failure, only result or feedback”.