No matter who I am working with I use Neurolinguistic programming (NLP) with one question at the forefront of my mind always: How can I facilitate this person to make the change they want?
Sounds simple right? In theory it is it’s in reality that it’s a little harder because it is facilitating them to make a change they have failed to make through conscious effort. The other part that truly makes it different to most “treatment” is that it really is facilitating the person to get the change THEY want.
When I work using NLP with a client it is to help them get the change they want chosen and defined by them and not by me (or their doctor, mum, partner, number criteria or any other outside ruling) which is difficult skill to learn because removing your attachment to the outcome is challenging. It’s difficult to learn for so many reasons including the fact that when someone is clearly starving themselves to death it’s reasonable for your mind to jump in with what they need to do! Also as an academic and health professional it takes work to overcome the temptation to step in with all your knowledge what they can do to become healthy (aka all your brilliance) but it is necessary to not because the reality is it is not what I know which will heal you it is what you know.
I am a facilitator of change, I create a space in which change is possible and help you build the skills and resources in the times you don’t know how but all the work, all the change, all the blood, sweat and tears that is up to you. In the end there is only one hero of your recovery story and that is you.
Without Change There is No Recovered
I really could stop here because as far as I’m concerned achieving change is the whole point of helping someone in recovery because without change there is no living another way (aka recovered!) true?
However, there are different types of change. Change that relies on willpower, grit and determination can work for some things but it is only ever transient and that is not the change required for long term recovery. When I work with people in recovery I want the rest of their experience of life to be great and not that they have to “force” themselves to do what is “healthy” and it is NLP which allows for change to be profound, deep and lasting.
Change Is Greater Than Wanting To Change
It is NLP which allows for more than an intellectual understanding, a moment of insight or “oh that’s a good idea I should remember that” because it allows for the change to become your natural way of being, a natural, easy and effortless part of who you are.
Which means any change is maintained without your conscious effort or willpower and is upheld in every situation where the old thoughts, feelings or behaviours may have once come up. The way I use NLP is as set of guiding principles to allow for what can only be described as transformational change, not incremental change but profound transformational change so that you know things cannot go back to the way they were.
What This Looks And Feels Like
Essentially, I help people wanting to get better from anorexia make the transition out of the no man’s land of “recovery” and into the elusive “recovered”.
This is minus the psychoanalysis and judgement and in some cases even minus the understanding because while understanding has its place it can only be appreciated after the change and not before. One of my favourite parts of doing this work is hearing my clients laugh incredulously about the things which once destroyed them, the things they were once too ashamed to utter because I’ve been there.
How Does NLP Bring About Change?
NLP helps you gain control over and change your thoughts.
There is no way I can capture what this means in real life because when you are living with anorexia your thoughts are not within your control and when you have an experience that they are everything changes.
When you learn how to choose your thoughts and think on purpose everything changes because changing your thoughts changes your feelings and as a consequence your ability to choose how you act. Think about this for a moment if you felt fine about eating would you have a problem with eating?
It is not the eating which is the “problem”. The “problem” is the way the thought of eating makes you feel or what you have come to associate eating with and because all this is happening at an unconscious level until you learn how to change your thoughts you have no say over any of it.
Freedom
When you have choice in your thoughts, feelings and actions you have freedom.
Ask yourself this question: Do you think you haven’t been able to change yet because you are lacking good advice or do you think you haven’t been able to change yet because you are lacking the ability to act on this good advice (happily and consistently)?
It feels wrong to do those things which should come natural including eating doesn’t it? (even if part of you really, really, really, f*cking really wants to).
The “Why” it Happened Doesn’t Matter
Your brain has learnt that eating is wrong.
Maybe this started out consciously as an effort to lose weight and maybe it didn’t it doesn’t matter because what matters now is that your brain structure and function has changed to perpetuate what it has learned is bad (eating, loving yourself, getting attention and so on). You can leave it here and be stuck forever because those thoughts, feelings and behaviours won’t change on their own or you can learn ways to change them and NLP is just one way.
NLP is Designed Off What Works in the Real World and That’s Why It Works
Stories of triumph and motivation are all lovely, uplifting and inspirational but they’re unlikely to create change in your life because such stories rarely include the most important part. The “how to”.
No amount of self-belief, motivation or “you can do it” type encouragement will work if you don’t know how because if you don’t know how you can’t do it. NLP offers a very practical “how to” change.
The Basics Of NLP
NLP is hands on.
NLP is get s*it done, get the change done and move on to greater things in life and this is exactly why I appreciate it because recovery is not supposed to be lifelong. Recovery is with a purpose and that is to get to recovered, after that you can advance as far as you like but get that part done first.
When you are so desperate for a new way of being and “treatment” only offers wishy-washy, lukewarm therapy, comfort, sympathy or worse yet tries to impose their idea of what you need upon you NLP is refreshing because it offers a no nonsense real life straight forward way to achieve the change you want. NLP offers a tangible “how to” make change in a way many other therapies don’t seem designed to.
The Medical Model says:
Symptoms are produced when something has gone “wrong”, when something is malfunctioning or broken, and something needs to be fixed.
Traditional Therapy says:
Assisting a client to express their feelings or reach an understanding of why they’re doing what they’re doing will allow them to make change (if you’ve had or have an eating disorder, you’ll know this isn’t true you may be the most knowledgeable person on nutrition, you may give the best advice to your friends but when it comes to you none of it applies).
NLP says:
It is a matter of updating your strategies (thoughts, feelings and behaviours) to support the intention of those thoughts, feelings and behaviours. If you’ve ever done something with the best of intentions, but the actual behaviour hurt you or someone else you’ll know what I mean here.
I have no doubt that there are many other therapies or means of bringing about change that would lead to the same experience and it is not NLP alone which has all the power. At the end of the day your brain doesn’t care what method is used as long as it gets the steps to make the change. NLP is just, in my experience, the fastest means of achieving this.
Learning How to Use My Brain is How I Recovered
NLP taught me how to use my brain.
There is no skill I see as more useful, more valuable or more important to success in life than learning how to use your brain. It really should be priority number one it’s just we don’t know where to go to learn in fact most of us don’t even know it’s important to learn because we think the way we think is out of our control. We think the way we think is the result of who we are or that it’s our “personality traits” when the reality is a part of it may be but I can guarantee you anorexia is not who you are, anorexia is not “personality traits” and anorexia is not an inherent part of you. It’s learned that learning was unintentional but now you have the unprecedented opportunity before you to intentionally unlearn it and more importantly learn new things in its place.
We are all different and I could never say what will work for anyone else, I honestly can’t even say until you’re in front of me what we’d do were you to choose to work with me because I have no outcome other than the one they give me. I do not decide for you.
If you want to try something different, if some real and practical ways you can get your brain on your team sounds like something you could use then I’d recommend getting curious about NLP because your recovery won’t happen by chance. Your recovery won’t happen in the background of a busy life, it won’t happen through hope or wishing or faith. At some stage you have to get practical, have a plan and get stuff done in real life (aka where it matters).
Your Natural State is Health
There are profound things gone wrong with people living with anorexia or profound things gone right depending on how you look at it.
Those ways of coping which have now morphed into all-consuming unhealthy behaviours likely saved you in a time you didn’t know how to survive any other way. Therefore, when I use NLP with clients it is never to impose a change it is as a means of assisting you in bringing your automatic thoughts, feelings and actions in alignment with your health and happiness. We work together until your unconscious responses are congruent with your conscious dreams and desires. This is all nothing too crazy because it is all literally what you are designed to do as a human (we all are) before the hard things in life got in the way.
NLP is always about helping you to listen to your body because this is the only way forward.
Ready, Now
I have never met anyone living with anorexia who does not wish to change.
I have never met anyone living with anorexia who does not want to live another way other than within the narrow and obsessive confines of anorexia. What stops people is two things 1. fear and 2. They don’t know how. NLP helps with both because NLP helps with what matters and that is finding and developing the skills and resources both practical and within your mind that you need in order to be free. If you’re ready to do something different this time, if you’re ready to experience change more rapidly than you’ve probably been told is possible and crucially feel good about that change you know where to find me.
A Few Quick Questions To Ask Yourself
At the end of the day there is one question to ask yourself above all others and that is: What do I want?
Do you want to spend the next six months, the next year, the next 5 years or the rest of your lifetime in “therapy” fighting for validation of your struggles or are you over it all and ready for change now? Because you can find people to help you achieve either.
If you choose change know that this will be the far more uncomfortable choice and if you choose it still even knowing this then I salute you.
What would your life be without the fear and confines of anorexia? You may not know what you want on the other side or recovery, but don’t you think it’s worth giving yourself the chance to find out?
What if you tried NLP and it worked?
With all of my heart I hope you found this information inspiring and useful.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
