If you’ve kept up to date with the last two blogs, I’ve posted over the past two weeks where I’ve introduced and briefly described the useful presuppositions/assumptions of NLP you’re well positioned to dive into this one.
Because in the following blog I am about to share with you the last 4 of the 16 presuppositions or useful lies of NLP.
If you haven’t read the blog that started it all and you feel you would like a more in-depth description of what I am talking about when I use the term “useful lies” then please click this link, Why I Use NLP to Help My Clients Succeed: 7 of The Most Useful Lies of NLP.
If you have no intention of going back and reading the earlier blogs or if you’ve read them and need a little refresher, then briefly the 16 presuppositions of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) also affectionately referred to as the “lies of NLP” to remind us to stay humble and that we can never know anything for certain, are in a nutshell a set of useful assumptions we can make about the world that make life easier to live.
The 16 presuppositions of NLP are recognised as useful ways of approaching life that allow us to live with more inner ease and success when compared to other ways of looking at and approaching life.
Which in my books is pretty epic and worth a few minutes of your time.
I hope you enjoy the last instalment of the “Useful Lies of NLP” blog series beginning with the presupposition that…
- The meaning of the message is the response you get
The premise of this presupposition is that when someone doesn’t understand something you are trying to communicate it is not their fault.
This presupposition, along with everything that NLP stands for directs us to take responsibility for ourselves. Including our communication. This presupposition encourages (challenges) us that when our message isn’t getting through as we intend it to, we must be the ones to find new ways to convey that message until it is received as we’d like it to be.
It encourages us to be creative, patient and open to the reality of another human being. All incredible valuable skills to develop.
2. Healing cannot be done entirely logically
This is one of the pieces of wisdom (magic) that ultimately helped me recover from 15 years of living with anorexia nervosa.
This was the missing link that until clinical hypnotherapy, NLP and an understanding of the unconscious mind entered my life I had no clue I needed to work at this level let alone how to work at this level.
I was stuck in a cycle of shaming and fighting myself to do what I knew logically I should be doing that went far against what I felt I should be doing.
It felt so inherently wrong to eat.
To the core of my being, it felt wrong to have food anywhere near my body.
I knew it was fine.
In fact, I knew it was necessary and even good.
I just didn’t feel that way and when there is a conflict between emotions and logic the emotions win out.
Engaging the less logical part of my mind and body – the feeling part (aka the unconscious mind) – allowed me to make changes faster than I’d ever imagined possible. Most importantly it allowed me to go on to maintain those changes without effort. Because I’ll let you in on the secret of all secrets – when your conscious and unconscious mind are on the same page there is no battle between the logic and the feeling and when there’s no battle you naturally do the best and most healthful choice.
Today I eat and take care of my body without any effort at all.
It would actually be an unbelievable effort to go back to those old ways of doing things that were once my normal.
This is so far from what I was taught about what it means to live with an eating disorder – that it was a disease I’d have to manage for the rest of my life – that there really isn’t a day that goes by that I am not thankful in some way that I took the chance on stepping outside my comfort zone and giving something, I’d never heard of (NLP) a shot.
3. Resistance is due to a lack of rapport and flexibility
Ahhhhh perhaps nowhere in healthcare are phrases such as “resistant to treatment”, “non-compliant” and so on so readily thrown around than when it comes to eating disorder treatment.
What I’ve come to learn through my own journey with what could very well be the most stigmatised and shamed illness on planet Earth, anorexia nervosa, and the journeys of the thousands of others I’ve now had the honour of helping along different parts of their own recovery journeys is that if there is “resistance” it is not due to the person choosing to be “resistant”.
There are no resistant patients, only inflexible communicators.
If a patient isn’t doing what is being recommended for them to do it’s firstly because it’s hard for them to do that thing (they wouldn’t be there if it was easy) but secondly because there is not enough rapport/trust for them to do that thing that’s hard for them and then there is also the fact that they may just not, at the unconscious level understand the communication to do that thing.
There are more ways than one to communicate the same message to someone.
If your message isn’t getting through or someone isn’t understanding, NLP reminds us to try another way of communicating that message versus saying the same thing louder or more often (which we’ve all been guilty of doing or have had done to us).
NLP puts the locus of control back in your hands. It’s not a fault with them that they are incapable of getting what you are trying to say, it is that you are communicating it in a way that they don’t connect to.
Try another way of communicating.
4. The value of any change should be evaluated ecologically
Finally, to finish off this mini blog series on the 16 presuppositions of NLP we’re ending with a bang.
A super important presupposition that NLP makes is that when we are making any change in our own life or if you are in the business of helping others make changes in their lives, we must always assess these changes against the fullness of our/their lives. That is by asking the question does making this change fit in with what I am trying to achieve overall? Does it fit in with who I want to be?
Because achieving anything isn’t so much about achieving that thing as it is about who you become along the way…
A change is only true and sustainable if it fits harmoniously within the context of our day to day lives.
We ALWAYS want any change we make to be geared towards moving us towards wholeness.
The Take Away Parts
I hope you’ve enjoyed a snippet of insight into something that truly changed my perception of the world. That truly changed my world.
I’ve enjoyed sharing these 16 presuppositions of NLP with you over the past 3 weeks.
Maybe you have already come to these conclusions on your own and you are already living your life by all of them intentionally or unintentionally or a few of them and maybe not. I’m not going to directly tell you that you must adopt them as your “new year’s resolutions” (are new year’s resolutions still at thing?) but maybe take a moment to think about how great it may be if you did?…
Most of all know that life is very rarely if ever a straight and narrow path and even if you think you’ve got this all covered, we all need reminders and redirections. After all, for most of us we plan to live long lives. Please feel welcome to revisit this series of blogs on the presuppositions of NLP any time you wish along the path of your life.
For now, Merry Christmas.
May you go forth and prosper.
With my whole heart I hope you found this information useful and inspiring.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
