Frequently asked questions
Some of the benefits of NLP include:
Clarity of vision, purpose and values
Neutralise/Eliminate negative thoughts
Improved soft skills and greater confidence and command in activities such as public speaking
Overcoming limiting beliefs
Gained control of life
Improved communication, management, leadership, presentation and coaching skills
Improve leadership and teamwork skills
Improved concentration
Developing stronger & healthier relationships
Become more resilient
Reduce stress, anxiety and tiredness in life using skills and coping mechanisms
Peace within self and with others
Helps to get over unwanted/bad habits
Therapy for psychological disorders such as anxiety, phobia, depression
Business - sales, leadership, negotiation, presentations, customer relations
Coaching - helping clients achieve goals, overall sense of fulfillment, more confidence
Education - learning, dealing with learning difficulties, teaching
Health - allergies, weight loss, chronic illness
Sports - improved focus, overcoming bad performances
NLP training includes various levels, from Introduction level to Master trainee.
Respect for the other persons model of the world.
The meaning of the communication is not simply what you intend, but also the response that you get.
The mind and body affect each other.
People respond to their experience, not to reality itself. The map is not the territory.
Every behaviour has a positive intention. Everyone is doing the best that they can with the resources they have available. People make the best choice they can at the time.
Behaviour is geared towards adaptation.
Accept the person; change the behaviour.
Behaviour and change are to be evaluated in terms of context and ecology.
People have all the resources that they need to make the changes that they want. We already have all the resources we need or we can create them. There are no unresourceful people, only unresourceful states.
Possible in the world and possible for me is only a matter of how.
The system (person) with the most flexibility (choices) of behaviour will have the most influence on the system - Law of Requisite Variety
There is no failure, only feedback.
There are no resistant clients, only inflexible communicators.
Having choice is better than not having choice. All procedures should be designed to increase choice and develop greater personal flexibility.
All procedures should be designed to increase choice and wholeness.
We form internal mental maps on the basis of how we filter and perceive the information around us. It is unique to every individual.
Neuro - the nervous system (the mind) processes our experience via our five senses
Linguistic - how we code the information around us and internal thoughts to make sense of them
Programming - how our body responds to this information via behaviours and thoughts
The neurological system regulates how our bodies function, language determines how we interface and communicate with other people and our programming determines the kinds of models of the world we create. Neuro-Linguistic Programming describes the fundamental dynamics between mind (neuro) and language (linguistic) and how their interplay affects our body and behavior (programming).
Have the explorer imagine or remember being near the substance that causes the allergic reaction. Have the explorer get fully enough into the experience that he or she begins to get some of the discomfort associated with the allergy. The more of the physiology associated with the symptom that can be brought up the better - especially physiology that is not typically under conscious control (i.e., eyes watering, skin flush or pale, coughing, sinus congestion, throat tightening, etc.). Explore which submodalities intensify and deintensify the degree of the discomfort.
Establish an anchor [A1] for a dissociated state.
This can be done by giving the explorer the instruction to "Lean back comfortably and tilt your head and eyes upward. Visualize a thick glass shield between yourself and substance that triggers your allergic response. Imagine yourself floating back above you and looking down on yourself as if you were in the projection booth of a movie theater looking at yourself sitting in the audience."
Set the anchor when you see that the explorer's breathing has become shallow and even, their eyes defocused and their facial muscles relaxed.
Establish a desired state anchor [A2] for how the explorer wants to respond around the substance that has been triggering the allergic reaction. Have the explorer develop a positive ‘reponse expectancy’ by imagining as fully as possible how he or she would want to react around the allergy producing substance and associate into it as much as possible. It can help to use the critical submodalities you discovered in step 1 to build up the new response.
Establish an anchor for several counterexample reference experiences [A3].
Have the explorer access an associated memory of being near something that is as close as possible to the substance that causes the allergy in as many qualities as possible but which does not trigger the allergic response. For example, the explorer may be allergic to cigarette smoke but not smoke from a campfire or incense, or the explorer may be allergic to some cats but not all cats, or is allergic to cats but not dogs.
It is also useful to identify some substance that is potentieally even more "toxic" than the substance which causes the allergy, but to which the explorer’s body has learned a more appropriate type of immune response. Someone may have an allergy to perfume, but not to gasoline, for example. This demonstrates that the immune system can keep the body just as safe, but without the allergic symptoms.
Make sure you see the appropriate physiology when you set the anchor (i.e., clear eyes, smooth and even breathing, open throat, normal skin tone, etc.).
Check for any secondary gains or ecology issues regarding the allergic response.
A common example might be an individual for whom the allergic reaction has been a substitute for standing up for him/herself around people who smoke.
If the allergy has been connected with asthma in the past it is a good idea to have the person remember back to their first allergy/asthma attack and use reimprinting, reframing, change personal history, or your three anchors to add any needed resources.
Fire off the dissociated state anchor [A1] and have the explorer begin to imagine being near the allergy producing substance. Then fire off the anchors for the desired state [A2] and counterexample [A3] simultaneously. Make sure that you hold the anchors long enough that you see the full physiological responses associated with these experiences as opposed to the allergy response.
Starting with a small amount initially, begin to expose the explorer to the allergy producing material, increasing the amount in stages until he or she can be fully exposed to it without effect. At each stage start by firing the dissociation anchor [A1] and then the desired state and counterexample anchors [A2 + A3] simultaneously. You may also use the critical submodalities you found in step 1 to strengthen the new response. The explorer should be allowed to be in complete control of when and how much of the substance they will be exposed to.
The basic NLP Allergy Technique has now been applied thousands of times in clinical and training settings and has been effective in changing a vast majority of allergy symptoms. This pattern has a reputation for reducing or eliminating symptoms of allergies. The types of allergies have included those to airborne material, such as smoke, pollen, perfume, etc., to various foods, and even in cases involving asthma.
Collapsing anchors means replacing a negative anchor in NLP with a positive one for the same stimulus.
It is used for when a person or client repetitively goes into a state (not for beliefs) that they wish they didn’t go into and don’t seem to know how to get out of it. Good for replacing away from anchors with towards anchors.
Process of Collapse Anchors:
Ask client to think of a state that they would rather be in.
Stack that anchor several times in the same location.
Get the client to recall the negative state, once only and anchor it in a different place.
Fire both anchors at the same time.
Calibrate for a steady state in the client, take off the negative anchor and hold the positive anchor for a further five seconds.
NLP anchoring is a process that goes on around and within us all the time, whether we are aware of it or not. Most of the time we are not consciously aware of why we feel as we do – indeed we may not realize we have responded in some cases, which makes it a much more powerful force in our lives.
NLP Anchoring is used to facilitate state management. In this sense an anchor is set up to be triggered by a consciously chosen stimulus, deliberately linked by practice to a known useful state, to provide reflexive access to that state at will. This may be used for exam nerves, overcoming fear, feelings such as happiness or determination, or to recollect how one will feel if a good resolution is kept. In Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention Karin Jordan (2006) states that “after the preliminary assessment has been completed, the therapist should help the client develop an anchor. The anchor concept is rooted in neuro linguistic programming (Bandler & Grinder, 1979) and can serve as a tool used by clients to get a break from the traumatic event. To help the client work through traumatic events, an observable/concrete resource should be used as an anchor.”
Anchoring is also used by skillful film makers to evoke suspense in the audience. Think of your own psychological changes that occurred when you heard the soundtracks amplified, pounding heartbeat rhythm in the moments leading up to each of the appearances of the huge killer shark in the movie Jaws. What anchor was established in you by the crescendo of the sound of the music meeting the shark? Did your heartbeat increase? Did your palms begin to sweat? Did you have to see the shark, or was the thumping music enough to start your slide to the edge of your seat? Likewise the finale of classical symphonies, or “”mood music”” such as romantic, climactic, or apprehensive in films. Leitmotivs recurring themes in music and literature also serve to re stimulate a previously established response.
For trauma victims, sudden noises or movement can serve as terrifying anchors capable of recollecting the traumatic experience. In this case, amongst other approaches, NLP might be used in a slightly different way – to desensitize the stimulus and perhaps instead also sensitize it to some more neutral or positive feeling.
Anchoring is related to something called behaviorism. Behaviorism tells us how to do behavior modification. This is the collection of methods used to train animals to do tricks; animals like dolphins in a water park that do back flips, and dogs in movies that put their paws up over their eyes. The amazing thing about behavior modification is that it does not require a conscious mind in order to work.
After all, it works on all sorts of animals. This means that it uses very powerful and primitive aspects of your nervous system in order to work. Yes, it works very well on human beings as well, because we have the same brain components as animals do, though we have more. That's why were training them instead of the other way around. When an anchor is fired each time you are in a certain state, your body associates that state with the anchor. At first, the anchor is a neutral stimulus. It doesn't do anything much. But once that anchor is associated with the state, you can trigger that state by firing the anchor. The trick, as you will see, is to get that anchor associated with the right state.
In behavior modification, this is called associative conditioning. Conditioning means that you create a response that happens every time there is a certain stimulus.
Associative conditioning means that the response comes to be associated with another stimulus, in this case, an anchor that you can use to your own benefit.
Behavior modification is at the heart of problems like procrastination. That's why we combine communication with understanding the nervous system. With that, we can create solutions that run themselves. If you had to use your conscious mind in order to do every strategy that you use for excellence, you'd run out of brain power before you got very far. That's why people don't usually get very amazing changes out of a self-help book or TV show.
What people don't realize is that anchors are constantly influencing our behavior. Being in your workplace becomes an anchor for workplace behavior. Being downtown may trigger your desire to visit a favorite watering hole or ice cream parlor.
Parents help their children get to bed and fall asleep by having an "evening ritual" during which certain things like music happen during the evening. Rituals, by the way, are anchors that help to trigger states. The soldier who pulls out the locket from his girlfriend back home and looks at her picture is firing an anchor. It gives him some feelings of security and warmth. The non-technical word here is solace. It gives solace. So an object can be an anchor. There is the action or ritual of manipulating it, there is the visual impression, the kinesthetic aspect of how it feels, and perhaps the sound.
Anchoring is a neuro-linguistic programming term for the process by which memory recall, state change or other responses become associated with (anchored to) some stimulus, in such a way that perception of the stimulus (the anchor) leads by reflex to the anchored response occurring. The stimulus may be quite neutral or even out of conscious awareness, and the response may be either positive or negative. They are capable of being formed and reinforced by repeated stimuli, and thus are analogous to classical conditioning.
Basic NLP anchoring involves in essence, the elicitation of a strong congruent experience of a desired state, whilst using some notable stimulus (touch, word, sight) at the time this is most fully realized. In many cases, repetition of the stimulus will re associate and restore the experience of the state.
There are refinements and sophistications in setting anchors this way, and subtleties involved in order to both set them with precision, and to avoid accidentally neutralizing them in the process of setting them up.
An anchor is a stimulus (stimulus, trigger) that causes a certain reaction in a person that is always the same. Unlike a reflex, however, this particular reaction has been learned and is not innate. Thus, an external stimulus, such as a certain song, can be linked to an inner state, e.g. a feeling of being in love.
Further examples: Ringing of the telephone or memorable pieces of music, traffic signs or holiday photos, a hot cooker, certain smells like freshly baked bread or taste memories, logos, slogan ("Just do it!", "simply good" - McDonalds"), distinctive voices, certain items of clothing.
Anchors influence our emotional states almost non-stop. However, special importance should only be given to anchors that are associated with intense emotional states.
Recognising your anchors and replacing them with more positive ones if necessary is an important step on the way to good self-esteem.
Conscious anchoring represents an extension of the concept of classical conditioning according to Pawlow. Pavlov first noticed, rather by chance, that the dogs he was researching with salivated as soon as they heard the footsteps of the guard, who would give them their food shortly afterwards. Curious, Pavlov would ring a bell before the dogs were fed and after a while the mere ringing of the bell would cause the dogs' mouths to water. We can now use this phenomenon to intentionally anchor desired emotional states with a trigger. In this way the desired emotional state can be called up practically on command by the trigger - the anchor. In principle, any sensory impression can be used as an anchor, whether it is a gesture, touch, image, sound, word or smell.
Setting an anchor means consciously linking an external stimulus with an existing experience. All sensory channels can be used for anchoring (pictures, sounds, sensations, smells, tastes). Anchors can be set and released by oneself or by others (self-set, external anchor). Firing an anchor means triggering the stimulus, reactivating and experiencing the previously anchored experience.
Standard steps:
First determine the resource, the state you would like to have available "at the push of a button" and select the anchor with which you want to retrieve this state. The anchor can be a certain smell, a song or simply a pressure on a certain place on your body.
Remember, fully associated, an experience in which you had the desired resource available
Trigger the selected anchor just before the peak, i.e. the highest intensity of the resource-rich state
Separator: interrupt the state, e.g. with a distracting question
Test: Trigger the anchor again to test if it works
The Circle of Excellence is a basic self-anchoring process originally developed by Dr. John Grinder, co-creator of NLP. Circle of Excellence can be used to elicit, create and stabilise desired states. The Circle of Excellence uses a kinaesthetic anchor to activate a moment of excellence, i.e. a moment in which you are at the top of a high state, in which you feel like superman/woman.
It is a way to gain control over our emotional states.
The Process:
Decide on a resource state. Choose a resourceful state you want to experience more often.
Imagine a circle on the floor in front of you, big enough to step into. If you like, you can even mark it out in some way.
Take a moment to relax, clear your mind and breathe deeply.
Elicit a strong resource state of your choosing and intensify it. Stand, breathe as if you had that state intensely – feel the sensations.
Project those intense feelings into the circle in front of you.
What color, texture, qualities and size symbolize this state? What sounds and feelings come from the circle. Maybe there are tastes and smells.
Step into the circle when the feelings are at their peak. Intensify them even more. Feel that powerful emotion surrounding you and flowing through your body. Breathe in the feeling. Enjoy it fully and completely.
Anchor with some natural gesture that seems related to the state – a word or phrase, a facial expression, some aspect of physiology.
Before the intensity fades, step back out and shake out the feelings (return to a neutral state)
Repeat the steps with an additional resource state (or the same state). The circle becomes more and more powerfully resourceful.
How does having this resource affect all aspects of your life (or a particular context)? Notice how different your perspective is, how the feeling changes the way you go about things.
By means of this NLP technique, unpleasant anchors can be effectively neutralized. A strong positive anchor is used, which is fired simultaneously with the negative anchor.
Classical anchor merging technique
Negative Anchor Lead your partner to a state where he has sensations that he feels are inappropriate and unpleasant. If it is completely in the state, anchor this state by touching the knee or touching a knuckle or other harmless area of the body.
Separator Separate your client from that state by asking him questions that will lead him to a different, neutral state. For example, ask him where he was last on vacation.
Test Test by re-firing the anchor to see if it works. If not, go back to 1. If yes, go to 2.
Positive Anchor Lead your client to a state where he had a sensation that he would like to have in the first situation. Anchor this condition to the other knee or ankle.
Separator Separate your client again as in 2, but better with other questions.
Test Test the positive anchor by touching the corresponding spot again. Calibrate yourself to the changes your client can not arbitrarily produce. Insure yourself by asking if the anchor is acting strongly enough. If your client has to help with ideas for the anchor to work properly again, it is not installed properly yet. Then go back to 4, otherwise go to 7.
Merging the anchors Now hold the positive anchor, and then fire the negative. Use the Hypnotalk on the next page. Wait until the physiological changes have calmed down and your client makes a symmetrical, positive impression. If the positive anchor has not been strong enough or should this resource have not been enough, go back to 4 and get an additional resource.
Test Test the merge by asking your client to think about the awkward situation and pay attention to how he responds. If the physiology still contains signs of problem physiology, then back to 4. If not, lead your clients into future similar situations (Future Pace).
In this anchoring technique, several anchors are fired one after the other. This creates a chain of anchors that can take you from very negative states to very positive states.
Sometimes the target state is emotionally so far removed from the initial state that a series of intermediate steps is necessary to get from the undesired state into the desired state quickly by using anchors:
Elicit the initial state
Determine the target state with the client.
Design a chain of states with the client that naturally leads to the target state.
Anchor every single state, e.g., on a knuckle. Separate and test each anchor.
Fire the first anchor and wait for the physiology to fully develop, then release the anchor and wait about 1-2 sec until you fire the next anchor.
Continue to the target state.
Take a break for a few minutes. When the client is completely out of state and there is no danger of the last state being chained to the first, then start over. Go through the chain three times.
Test.
Fire the first anchor and calibrate it yourself to see if the chained process is now running by itself.
Future Pace.
Emotions change from moment to moment, although some can stick around for a long time, particularly if you don’t acknowledge them and learn what you need to learn from them. The emotions may come from your underlying mood, they could be valid signals giving you information, should you choose to be aware of it, or they could be responses triggered by something in your present situation but really about something in your distant past that you haven’t fully come to terms with yet and still have something to learn from.
The emotional state we go into in a given situation is not necessarily the one that we would choose, or that would give us the optimum results. In fact, most people think, because they’ve never experienced anything different, that emotions are things that just happen to us, or that other people somehow ‘make’ us feel.
Anchoring is a method to enable you to choose how you want to feel in a given situation, and to actually be able to go into that resourceful emotional state, right there and then when you need it.
Timing of the anchor A good anchor has a 1: 1 relationship to the excitation curve. That means, we begin to set the anchor when the excitement is nearing its maximum and increase the pressure (in a kinesthetic anchor) with the increase of excitement. It is important to stop in time so as not to anchor the down curve.
Intensity of the state In order to install a really strong anchor, the state we have anchored also must have been strong. We do not create a state with an anchor but rather hold it. You can only anchor what's there.
Precision of repetition If the location of the anchor is not accurately hit when repeating, then the anchor will not work or not at the optimum intensity.
Uniqueness of the anchor If the same anchor is used for different states, the states will mix. If you want to install an anchor that will last for a long time, then it is important to create one that is not constantly overlaid by other experiences in the course of a normal life. So, a handshake is certainly not a good anchor, because it is constantly overlaid by different experiences.
Purity of the state When someone remembers a positive state while regretting that this state will quickly come to an end, this wistful feeling will naturally also be anchored. Therefore, make sure that the state you anchor is as "clean" as possible.
Deliberately think of the voice as a different aspect of you Your critical inner voice has it’s own personality – often one similar to a person in our life that was perhaps less than positive as a role-model or influence. Think about it as “they/them/he/she” and in third-person, what does your critic want to discuss? It’s obviously also you, but metaphorically treating it like a separate personality means your more likely to become objective to its point of view.
Listen to it, with curiosity Treat it like an acquaintance that is trying to offer you some (not asked for) advice, rather than taking it as a personal attack on who you are. What are they trying to tell you that might be useful to listen to? And listen with curiosity. So rather than interrupting it and “yeah butting” the voice, hear it out.
Then challenge what it is saying, ask questions and find out how it thinks the way it does How does my critical inner voice know that’s true? What did it see or hear that made it think that, or did it infer something that might not be true? What does it mean by that? Compared to whom or what? What’s stopping it from wanting/being/doing xxx?
Change how the voice talks If you’re still finding that the voice is really affecting you, change the pitch and tempo of the voice – even switch it so it sounds like someone/thing that amuses us. What if it sounded like Mickey Mouse or Olaf from Frozen does it have the same power to switch your mood now?
Build the positive aspects of your inner thoughts Practice being kind to yourself and cutting yourself some slack. Make a note of all the things you have achieved that day, a good way at the end of each day is to imagine replaying the day in your mind, giving yourself a pat on the back and encouragement when things went well and some advice and feedback when things didn’t quite work out. Imagine that feedback becoming “edits” in the showreel of the day and how that would reshape the movie if you took that advice on board. We call this process “self-editing” within NLP and it’s a great technique our Practitioners learn.
Many people think if they stop listening to their critical inner voice, they will lose touch with their conscience. However, the critical inner voice is not a trustworthy moral guide like a conscience. On the contrary, the critical inner voice is degrading and punishing and often leads us to make unhealthy decisions. These negative voices tend to increase our feelings of self-hatred without motivating us to change undesirable qualities or act in a constructive manner.
The critical inner voice can be distinguished from conscience or constructive moral influence because it interprets moral standards and value systems in an authoritarian manner, in the form of strict “should,” that leads to harsh criticism and self-recrimination. It increases one’s self-hatred, rather than motivating one to alter behavior in a constructive manner. Seemingly positive, self-nurturing voices that appear on the surface to be supportive, can be hurtful, misleading, and dysfunctional. Self-aggrandizing voices encourage an unrealistic build-up that sets the stage later for attacks on the self.
First of all, do you know where that voice came from, or do you recognise a phrase or accent that a former friend, teacher or even member of the family used? If you start to recognise the cause of the inner critic, you start to realise you’ve been “given” it rather than formed that opinion yourself.
Also is what the voice is saying actually a fact, or a limiting belief?
If I were to say “I don’t own a Porsche” (and I don’t) then that’s a fact. If my inner voice were to say “You’ll never own a Porsche” then that’s a limiting belief it has formed.
Start to challenge your own critic, write down all the times when you have achieved something that it is being negative about. Does your inner voice work well for you sometimes with positive words and outcomes? Then find instances when it has worked well in the past.
Your critical inner voice can be tamed. It likes to massively over generalise problems:
“I’ll never do that”
“Everyone think’s I’ll fail”
“I always fluff my words when I get up and speak”
So start to teach it to be more specific – you could ask your own inner critic “Never? Everyone? Always?” chip away at what it’s telling you is truth and you’ll find that actually a lot of what the voice is telling you.. is made up! Once those beliefs are gone, create what you DO want to have happen instead.
Robert firestone developed voice therapy as a way for people to identify and separate from this inner critic by understanding the origins of the critical inner voice and then taking actions to go against it, actions that are goal-directed and that represent a person's true point of view.
Change your thoughts so that the inner critic shows up differently.
What does the voice sound like? Loud, soft, stern, nagging? Who’s voice does it sound like?
Change the volume of the voice until you no longer hear it…same with tone, rate of speech, pitch, etc. This can lead to a different experience with your critic.
Consider changing where the voice is coming from in your head..move it around to the front, side, or the back – How does that affect the power of the critic?
The idea here is that if your inner critic has a normal tone and way that it communicates with you, change it around and you may notice that it’s suddenly effective. For example, if your inner critic has tone that is very demanding and overwhelming, try changing that voice to a softer, less invasive tone. Perhaps change it to a squeaky little cartoon voice. Something you don’t take so seriously and are more able to shrug off or not pay attention too…laugh at even!
Label the voice…give it a name. I call mine a “bully”, but yours can be anything you want. Whatever it is or sounds like, label it and call it out in that way.
Take a step back from it; get outside of the real-time, emotional state it’s trying to get you in. In NLP we call this “dissociate”. (which is different from the clinical definition of dissociation). In other words, try taking a 3rd person point of view, or seeing yourself from across the room as you experience the inner critic at work…the difference is that you can see this unfold with an unbiased, neutral vantage point. Therefore, no judgment, no emotional moment to work through.
Move on; distract and do something else.
Example: If your inner critic is telling you that you are going to fail at this new job, you likely tell yourself, “I’m going to fail at this job, I’ll never make it”. So instead of whole heartedly embracing that voice and applying it to yourself immediately, try separating yourself from it and reframe it to “my inner critic is telling me that I am going to fail”.
We are more prone to believe it when we reference it as ourselves, so if we step back out of the moment, we then have some space to see it for what it really is or is not. Then, you can analyze and decide for yourself how much power your critic should have, and move on to something else, thus reinforcing the stripping of power that you just took from it. The main key is, make sure that you distract and move on…as with many other techniques, after you’ve worked through it, go do some self-care and put your attention elsewhere.
The critical inner voice is an internal enemy that can affect every aspect of our lives, including our self-esteem and confidence, our personal and intimate relationships, and our performance and accomplishments at school and work. These negative thoughts affect us by undermining our positive feelings about ourselves and others and fostering self-criticism, inwardness, distrust, self-denial, addictions and a retreat from goal-directed activities.
The voice precipitates a wide range of self-limiting, self-destructive actions, from giving up on goals, to physically hurting oneself, or even committing suicide. In a very real sense, what people tell themselves about events and occurrences in their lives is more damaging and contributes to more misery than the negative episodes themselves.
One of the presuppositions of NLP is that, “behind every behavior, there is a positive intention. For the purposes of this information, we’ll assume that is true (because not everyone believes that, and that’s okay).
So if every behavior has a positive intention, then perhaps that means that your inner critic also has a positive intention, even if it’s methods do not appear to be uplifting and healthy. Consider this approach:
Embrace it, don’t see it as a negative. Take out of it what’s useful and leave the rest.
Learn the positive intention of the inner critic and find new ways to achieve it.
Perhaps if you take a step back and see what your inner critic is trying to show you, it may be trying to motivate you, or to protect you from something or someone.
When you ask what the intention is, be sure and wait for the answer. Sometimes doing so makes it go away on its own.
You may get a positive intention and you can actually agree with that intention and use it to your advantage.
Then you have to ask the critic: are you willing to motivate me without criticizing me and bringing me down?
By doing so, you have essentially made an alliance with the very thing that you thought was holding you back.
These inner voices usually come from early life experiences that are internalized and taken in as ways we think about ourselves. Often, many of these negative voices come from our parents or primary care takers, as children we pick up on the negative attitudes that parents not only have towards their children but also toward themselves. Our voices can also come from interactions with peers and siblings, or influential adults
The critical inner voice is made up of a series of negative thoughts and attitudes toward self and others, which is at the core of a person’s maladaptive behavior. It can be conceptualized as the language of a defensive process that is both hostile and cynical. The voice is not limited to cognition, attitudes, and beliefs; it is also closely associated with varying degrees of anger, sadness, shame, and other primary emotions. It can be thought of as an overlay on the personality that is not natural or harmonious but rather learned or externally imposed.
Step One: Identifying What Your Critical Inner Voice is Telling You
In order to challenge their negative attacks, people must first become aware of what their critical inner voice is telling them. They can do this by identifying an area of their lives where they are especially critical of themselves and then pay attention to what the criticisms are.
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As a person discovers what the self-attacks are, it is valuable to articulate them in the second person, as "you" statements. For example, instead of saying "I feel so lazy and useless," a person would say "You are so lazy. You're useless." When people utilize this format in voice therapy, they are encouraged to express their critical thoughts as they hear or experience them, and this often leads to them accessing the hostility that underlies this self-attacking system.
Step Two: Recognizing Where Your Voices Come From
After people verbalize their critical inner voices in this manner, they often feel deeply, and they have insight into the source of their voice attacks. They have unusual clarity, as they begin to recognize that the content and tone of their voice attacks are old and familiar; their voices are expressing attitudes that were directed toward them as children.
They will often say things like, "That's what my father used to say" or "That's the feeling I got from my mother," or "That was the atmosphere in my home." Recognizing where their voices originated helps people develop compassion for themselves.
Step Three: Responding to Your Critical Inner Voice
In the third step of voice therapy, an individual answers back to the voice attacks. People who have thoughts like, "You're so stupid. No one wants to hear what you are thinking. Just sit in the background and keep your mouth shut!" may respond with statements like, "I am not stupid! What I have to say is valuable and worthwhile. A lot of people are interested in me and care about what I think."
After responding, it is important for people to make rational statements about how they really are, how other people really are, and what is true about his or her social world. They may say something like, "The world isn't a place where everyone else is brilliant and I'm the only stupid person. I'm not in elementary school anymore; no one is grading us. The truth is that people aren't all that smart, and I'm not stupid. We are basically the same: interesting people who have interesting things to say about what they are thinking and experiencing."
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Step Four: Understanding How Your Voices Influence Your Behavior
After expressing and responding to their voices, people are naturally curious and eager to understand how these patterns of self-defeating thoughts have influenced their past and impact their present-day behaviors. For example, the person with the voice that he or she is stupid may recognize times when he or she acted less capable or confident as a result of having heard that self-attack. Having this understanding of how the critical inner voice has affected their actions is helpful when people want to change specific self-limiting behaviors.
Step Five: Changing Your Self-Limiting Behaviors
Once people have identified the areas in which they limit themselves, they can begin to change. They can do this by taking two actions: not engaging in the self-destructive behavior that is being encouraged by the critical inner voice and increasing the positive behaviors that go against the recommendations of the voice. For example, a person who is shy can stop avoiding social interactions and can make a point of striking up conversations with people.
Ecology is important in considering outcomes in order to ensure that the impact of achieving the outcome is positive for the individual and that achieving it is congruent with the overall goals and desired code of conduct of the individual. Also that the impact on others is positive for them.
How do you know that your work is ecological? Use the evidence frame prior to doing the work: What will you see, hear, feel or experience once the work is complete? Check for ecology with ecology frame. Check with the client. Internal check. Backtrack frame. Future Pace. Use Perceptual Positions.
Ecology in NLP is the study of the consequences or results or impact of any change that occurs on the wider system. It is the dynamic balance of elements in any system. A concern for the overall relationship between a being and its environment. The overall relationship between a person and their thoughts, strategies, behaviours, capabilities, values and beliefs.
It is important to take account of ecology so that you can study the possible consequences of a planned action or change and also so that NLP does not become manipulative.
An ecology check is simply checking to see if the desired result of a technique will work out in other areas of a person’s life.
Doing an ecology check is checking the consequences of your future actions and plans.
This is thinking in terms of what happens after you make a desired change. How does it affect a person’s home, their family, their finances, health, time, etc.? Is it in line with their value system? Is this what they really want?
It prevents self-sabotage by making sure a change will be acceptable to all parts. You can even apply this ecological approach to multiple systems, such those in politics.
When you think “ecologically,” you are taking every aspect of your outcome into account. You check to make sure that you are not going to achieve X at the expense of Y, if both are important to you. For example, an Ecology Check needs to be in place when you help a client to stop smoking, because fear of weight gain may sabotage your work. You want to make sure that your client is completely congruent (has no unconscious resistance) about the upcoming change.
Step #1. Get into an objective state.
This pattern assumes you already have a personal problem pattern that you are working to change. To begin the ecology check, use any method that helps you gain objectivity, such as thinking like a journalist who must adhere to the facts of the situation. You may need to dissociate into the third perceptual position. From this objective frame of mind, think about your life as a whole, perhaps as if you could look down at your timeline.
Step #2. Ask good questions to do an ecology check.
A key to balance in your life is asking good questions. As a part of the ecology check ask:
“What areas in my life are benefiting from having this belief/behavior?” “What areas in my life may get hurt because of it?”
“Am I feeling completely assured that this is something I want to generate in my life?”
“What are the specific immediate results of it?”
“What are the specific long term results?”
“Who else is being affected by these outcomes?”
Step #3. Give this pattern “mind share;” by making it an ongoing, recurring pattern in your mind.
This pattern can be even more powerful by maintaining it over a good period of time, even making it a recurring theme in your life. Keep these questions alive, entraining your creative energies through means such as writing them in your journal. (You do have a journal, don’t you?)
Read the questions before you go to sleep so that they will be on your mind. Once you have recruited enough creative resources, you’ll get dreams, songs, words, flashes, memories, and voices …
Don’t ignore them. It’s important to notice, and acknowledge them. Your brain is highly motivated to solve riddles.
Asking good questions and giving your mind time to find the answers with no pressure, is one the greatest talents you can develop. As answers emerge, note them down.
Have a note pad or device ready so you can collect them in one place.
Step #4. Evaluate
Once you have accumulated answers, evaluate them. Realize that, right now, you have many valuable clues to success.
What do they mean about the outcomes you appear to be headed for? Do you need to change course?
As you can see, new questions can emerge from these answers. These new questions are even more directly valuable, because they are like tools that are more refined and designed for experts to use.
Goals give us direction in life, a purpose. But wait, have you considered ecology? Are your goals ecological?
Since ecology in NLP is a study of consequences then it makes sense to examine the consequences of achieving our goals:
What do I need to give up (If anything) to achieve it? Is that ok?
What if I have it. What will life be like? Is that ok?
Firstly, does it work for you? So, ask yourself “what will happen to me if I achieve this?”
If there are some negative things that will happen to you then you will not be so congruent in achieving your outcome. Congruent or congruency is when all your systems say go. If you think of all your internal representations and they give the outcome of your goal the green light then you will be congruent.
So, do you have a full set of green lights?
The next thing is that we need to look outside of ourselves. Because, it is not just about whether we are ok, what about the people around us? In business this would be the people in your organisation and outside of business this would be your family. Whats going to happen to them if you get your goal?
Also what is going to happen to society if you get it? What about society as a whole?
Finally, I think that we should be paying attention to the global aspect of your goal, what would happen to the planet if you achieved it. Is it positive to the planet? If a few more people had done that over the years, then we would all be better off!
In order to do a full ecology check:
Think as if you are in the future (future pace)
What are the wider consequences of my action?
What will I lose if I make this change?
What extra will I have to do?
Is it worth it?
What will I gain if I make this change?
What is the price of making this change and am I willing to pay it?
What are the good aspects of the present state?
How can I keep those good aspects while making the change that I want?
How will my change affect others?
Does it go against any of their values?
Does this matter?
How will they react?
Although it is has a quite subtle effect if you switch to using predicates which match the other person's eye accessing cues this will enhance the rapport between you. If, for example, your colleague or customer appears to be primarily thinking in pictures it's not very useful to ask how they 'feel' about your idea or product. Or how things 'sound' to them. Much better to ask them how it looks to them, whether they like the appearance of the idea, whether then can visualise the end result, etc. Match the eye accessing of highly kinaesthetic, auditory, or self-talk-oriented people similarly.
The eye accessing cues also give us information about their 'personal space' needs. Highly visual people like lots of personal space. They like you to be far enough from them so they can see all of you since they are picking up a lot of information from watching all of you. So stand or sit relatively far from them.
People who think mainly with feelings like to be close enough to be able to touch you – and they frequently will do this patting your arm, holding your elbow or shoulder, or using a double clasp handshake which they seem reluctant to release!
The auditory self-talk auditory specialists will probably have only minimal awareness of you and your body language since they are paying so much attention to the facts and figures and to their analysis of these facts and figures.
They will frequently look past you as you are conversing and some may tend to blink very frequently or even close their eyes for a few seconds while speaking to you about complex subjects.
If a person is describing something that they have seen or heard, then their eyes should primarily move to visual or auditory remembered. However if a person is making something up, then their eyes will tend to move to visual or auditory constructed, indicating that the person is constructing some part of the situation they are describing. This may indicate that the person is uncertain or untruthful about what they are thinking.
Be careful assuming someone is untruthful. For example, suppose you asked me a question about something that I had never thought about before. To formulate an answer, I may have to look at or hear one or more pieces of true information in a way that I had never done so before. In this situation, I would be constructing an answer and my eyes would most likely move to visual or auditory constructed.
When accessing memories, we have a ‘hook’ that we use to bring them into awareness. This is called a retrieval cue. There is more on this in the topic on Memory. This cue or hook will be in a specific representational system and for many people this will be consistent, regardless of the content of the memory they are accessing. For example, if they use a visual cue, they will flick to visual before accessing any memory, even if it is not a visual memory.
Note that a person’s lead system may well be different to their preferred or primary representational system.
Some people are completely reversed in their eye patterns. That is, their eye movements are like mirror images of the diagrams above. This is most often observed in people who are left handed, and very rarely in right-handed people. Some observers reckon that about half of left-handed people have reversed eye patterns, so this is a small percentage of the population, maybe around five per cent.
This reversal is consistent. For example, you will never find that someone is reversed in their visual quadrants but normal elsewhere.
Let's say you are making a business presentation and…
…the person's eye accessing indicates that they are highly visual. They will like to think in pictures and will give you more attention if your presentation is delivered in a slightly high tonality, has a brisk pace, is not too fact-filled, has lots of anecdotes and is supported with lots of visual aids such as brochures, photographs, PowerPoint slides, etc.
… their eye accessing indicates they do a lot of self-talking. They want hard facts and figures and are not influenced by emotions or effusive enthusiasm. They will expect you to be able to support your ideas with well-researched data and they like 'no-nonsense' visuals such as graphs, bar charts, etc. They will want to be able to interrupt you with questions, sometimes quite frequently.
…their eye accessing indicates that they are highly kinaesthetic. They want to be actively involved. So give them things to handle or thumb through. Invite them to come up and help you with working things out on the flip chart. Ideally have a sample that they can keep and play with - left to their own devises they will probably sell it to themselves! Speak at a measured rate, not too fast, and allow lots of pauses especially when you see them accessing their feelings. And, avoid long presentations – they'll likely get antsy after about 20 minutes!
William James (Principles of Psychology, 1890) first suggested that internal representations and eye movements may be related. This observation was not explored further until the 1970's when Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Robert Dilts and others conducted further experimentation in this area.
According to neurological research, eye movement both laterally and vertically seems to be associated with activating different parts of the brain. In the neurological literature, these movements are called lateral eye movements (LEM) and in NLP we call them eye accessing cues because they give us insights as to how people are accessing information.
If you ask someone about a fact or ‘memory’ that they use every day, they may have this so close to the surface of their mind that they don’t need to access it. For example, if you ask someone the colour of their car, they can probably tell you without any accessing cue at all.
NLP Eye Accessing Cues enables us to recognise how a person is thinking by watching their eye movements. In NLP Eye Accessing Cues give subtle information about the thoughts of the person you are working with.
This is one of the most popular topics on our NLP Core Skills course and typically results in everyone closely watching each other's eyes for clues to their thinking – with quite humorous, and at times hilarious, results. It is also one of the most useful tools since it enables people to immediately begin improving how they communicate with everyone in their personal and professional lives.
There are a number of ways to practice reading eye accessing cues, here are two:
Practice with your friends (with their permission): Watch their eye accessing cues and then verify your observations with them.
Watch talk shows on TV (make sure it is spontaneous and not rehearsed.). This is a great way to practice as you can stare at the people on the TV and it will not bother them at all. Notice if there is a relationship between where the person looks and the predicates they use i.e. if the person's eyes are looking up, do they tend to use more visual words?
The Eye Accessing Cues indicate whether a person is thinking in images, sounds, self-talk, or through their feelings.
Having this information enables us to communicate in a way that more effectively matches their current thinking style.
Important: the movements show us how a person is thinking right now. In other situations they may think differently so avoid the temptation to put people into boxes by labelling them as 'kinaesthetics, or auditories or visuals.
Recognising eye movements takes a little practise because, although some people have eye movements that are quite slow and deliberate, most eye assessing will be very brief and subtle with little 'flicks' that are almost unnoticeable.
If you speak while a person is making eye movements you will interrupt their thinking and this will slow down the interaction and/or cause them to feel confused or resentful towards you. While they are accessing it is wise to wait silently and without distracting movements.
The Eye Accessing Cues are presented in what is called a Normally Organised pattern. This has nothing to do with being normal; it is merely terminology that indicates what you will find in the majority of the people you meet. For those who don’t, it is called Reverse Organised, a reversed cerebral organisation.
If you are right-handed, you may have noticed the following (for people who are left handed, interchange left and right in the following text):
Vc = Visual Constructed - eyes up and to your right. This is a question about something you have seen before and hence you remembered it
Vr = Visual Remembered - eyes up and to your left. This is a question about something that I assume you have not seen before and hence you constructed this picture
Ac = Auditory Constructed - eyes on the horizontal plane to your right. This is a question about something you have not heard before
Ar = Auditory Remembered - eyes on the horizontal plane to your left. This is a question about something you have heard before
K = Kinesthetic - eyes down and to the right. This is a question about your feelings
Ad = Auditory Digital - eyes down and to the left. This is a question about your self talk
Some individuals look through several or all the representational systems for the same piece of information. When this is done, it is called a Transderivational Search.
Many of us were taught to look people straight in the eye when communicating. (And some communication skills' trainers still roll out this old shibboleth.) However you may find it useful to begin to more actively and more enthusiastically use your eyes when thinking.
Some NLP experts consider eye movements to be aid to thinking since they stimulate different parts of the brain. And that if, for some reason – such as believing they should make 'good eye contact', a person is unable to make the accessing movements this can interfere with and slow their normal thinking style.