Have you ever been on a roller coaster? The thing with roller coasters is the multitude of emotional experiences they provide and how very quickly you can move from one emotion into another. This is perhaps one of the analogies I could use to describe the experiences I had as a result of training in NLP Practitioner, NLP Master Practitioner and NLP Trainers Training with Inner Compass.

My journey began in the Summer of 2005. I had heard of Inner Compass through a friend who had told me “there’s this bloke called Andy Harrington whose got a bigger fire walk than Tony Robbins.” Not many people can claim to having anything bigger than Tony Robbins, after all, he’s a big guy, so intrigued, I looked him up on the internet and signed up for a free NLP event with his company Inner Compass.

I was impressed with the free event. Harrington used clean stage anchors and a lot of suggestive language when selling his product and I admired the certainty with which he did it. I wasn'’t there though, to get roped into a “breakthrough” weekend. I was there to sign up for NLP training. So at the end of the event I went up to him to ask him about it.

It seemed he’d over estimated his own sales skills. After 10 minutes of trying to convince me that I’d learn more about NLP after I’d signed up for his “breakthrough weekend,” I walked out.

I had a call from one of his sales guys within a couple of days. It took him a further 2 phone calls and around an hour and 15 minutes of discussion about why their NLP was better that the McKenna/ Bandler training to convince me to part with a couple of thousand pounds.

Was it well spent? Well I think that there are trainings that probably matched up to their standard of training for maybe a grand less, but with Inner Compass you wasn’'t just buying the NLP knowledge, you were buying into the whole showbiz experience, the hugs with smelly strangers, to be part of “their family” and part of the magic.

And mostly it was a magical experience. I learnt a lot and felt comfortable and confident about what I had learned. I made many wonderful friends and even worked through some of my own bad stuff that I’d been holding onto. I had gone there with the intention of getting the qualifications so that I could expand my hypnotherapy business. I ended up deciding that my vocation was being up there on stage, teaching the stuff instead. Trust me, this was no’t a whimsical decision, I used to love being on stage as a child and had for the past 4 years been taking exams in musical theatre. I am passionate about Hypnotherapy and NLP and I rather like money too. So it seemed like the right way forward.

Generally unconventional, I then didn'’t follow the Master Practitioner, Trainers Training route due to a singing exam that fell at the same time as the next scheduled Master Practitioner training with Inner Compass. This meant that I would do Trainers Training first, followed by Master Practitioner and then The 8 hour exam to pass Trainers Training. And that’s exactly the way it happened. I surprised myself on Trainers Training by keeping up with the majority of other delegates who were already Master Practitioners, and I think I surprised some of them too.

Master Practitioner was less engaging, perhaps because some of the cracks in Inner Compass as a company, were beginning to show, or perhaps because Trainers Training had been so tough, that Master Practitioner at times verged on too easy. Still traveling into central London for 12 long days solid was exhausting in itself, and the very next day after it finished, was the 8 hour Trainers Training exam. Which I completed in 4 hours.

Overall I’m glad of the experience I had, I’m glad it was with Inner Compass. At the end of every course, there was always a sense of nostalgia as we all said goodbye to each other. Such a shame that now we are saying goodbye to an institution of such great love and magic forever.

How can NLP help to design and run a course that has a positive result for everyone, including you, the trainer? Deni Lyall outlines the processes, gives plentiful advice and shares her personal experiences.

I have a degree in electrical engineering and loved mathematics at school – a logical lady I felt. So there I was, one summer afternoon, listening to the voice of my coach gently encouraging me to walk along an imaginary timeline on the carpet of the hotel room. This was to help me with the problem we were exploring! I took one step and looked at him quizzically. What was supposed to happen? Another step, another look. And another and another. Then suddenly it happened. For some reason I felt a calmness go through me and the situation seemed to be settled. I knew it would be OK in the autumn.

This was my first experience of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and, I have to say, I left that room feeling somewhat bemused.

In the following years I heard more about NLP and realized that it is an emotive subject. Should I mention my experience with it to other people or not? Rather than being sceptical about something I knew very little about, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to find out more. Eventually I found a small group of like-minded people and a good trainer. Fourteen months later I had successfully completed both practitioner and master practitioner training.

For me, NLP is a very useful addition to my toolkit. It’s a little bit like the pizza slice a friend recently bought me; I don’t know how I managed without it and it’s handy for more than just pizza, but I’ve still kept all my knives. Rather than allow NLP to take over, I have integrated it into my toolkit and used it to enhance what I already do.

Put simply, NLP is about using the language of the mind to allow you to consistently achieve the outcomes you want. It comprises some philosophies, some tools and techniques, and some methodologies. With around 2 million bits of data coming to us every second we generalize, delete and distort the information to cut it down to a reasonable amount.

To do this we use our experiences, our values and beliefs, our attitudes, our use of language, our memories and ‘metaprograms’. The information that is left is internally represented in our mind ,which then produces our (emotional) state, which in turn affects the way we behave. NLP helps to provide choices as to how that information affects us. It also helps us to understand how and why others may react differently to the same information.

NLP is a large topic with many aspects to it and I don’t intend to cover the theory here. There are many good books, tapes and courses on the subject. As a trainer, though, I have found it very useful in three main ways:

•* my own self
••* interacting with participants
•*• training design

MY OWN SELF
A key aspect of NLP is about choosing how to react to what’s happening to you. Therefore when I am training I make sure that I choose how I am feeling about it.

I want to be in the best frame of mind for training so that I can confidently handle the situations that I am going to come across during the workshop.

First, I am always positive about the outcome. I put myself into the future, at the end of the workshop, using the present tense in my thoughts. I see the participants enthusing about what they have learned and I look around the room with all the workshop outputs. I hear laughter and good comments about what they have learned, and finally I feel very satisfied with what I have achieved. I understand that not everyone will feel like this about the training, but I focus my thoughts on the people who will feel like that. How does focusing on negative thoughts help you? It just makes you feel unhappy!

Tips

Make sure the feeling you have about the workshop is the one you get when you are feeling very satisfied and happy with something. Get the feeling first by recalling a past experience. Now keep the feeling, then imagine being in your successfully completed workshop.

•*• Imagine hearing good comments about the workshop in the voice from someone you respect.
••* Usually making the picture big, colorful, bright and close up gives  it more impact.

As a certified NLP trainer, I am often asked, "What is NLP?"

The term NLP stands for neuro-linguistic programming and was coined in the early seventies by John Grinder, an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Richard Bandler, a student of psychology at the university. They began their work by studying Fritz Perls, a psychotherapist and originator of the Gestalt school of therapy, Virginia Satir, a well-known family therapist and Milton Erickson, a world-famous hypnotherapist. Their intention was to model outstanding therapists and identify patterns in order that other practitioners could use these patterns to generate similar results. It may be said that NLP is about identifying excellence through an exploration of patterns, and then devising means for others to use those patterns to achieve similar results.

NLP also draws on earlier work, such as Ivan Pavlov's conditioned reflexes (1904). In NLP this is called anchoring. NLP takes theoretical results developed by others and makes them available to you and me so we can improve our lives and well-being.

NLP is more than just techniques.

It is a curiosity about how people who are high achievers accomplish what they actually set out to do. It is also a methodology that assists you in discovering those thinking and communication patterns that prevent you from being successful and shows you how to achieve the results of successful people. That is, NLP is a process of discovering the patterns of excellence of experts, and it makes these effective ways of thinking and communicating available for others to use for their own benefit or to assist others.

NLP had its origins in therapy and is now applied in all areas of human endeavor education, health, sports, business and, perhaps most importantly, interpersonal relations.

Let us break down and analyze the terms neuro linguistic programming.

Neuro refers to your neurology sense organs. It is about how you absorb information.

For example, you use your eyes to see things in your world. You also experience or perceive events through your other senses: aural (hearing), kinesthetic (tactile touch or emotional feeling), gustatory (taste) and olfactory (smell).

Linguistic refers to the language - pictures, sounds, feelings (kinesthetic), tastes, smells and words - that you use to remember and make sense of a particular experience (or to forecast a future experience).

For example, can you recall your breakfast this morning? When you remember having breakfast, can you see a picture in your mind, or can you hear sounds (perhaps a radio was on or you were engaged in a discussion with your family)? What about tastes and smells? And how were you feeling - happy, tired, excited?

Think about a significant event in your near future. Do you envision yourself being successful? Or failing? The pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, smells and words that you use to describe future experiences have a bearing on what actually happens. You do create your own reality!

Programming refers to your habits, patterns, programs and strategies. If it is a workday, do you follow a particular routine as you get ready for work?

Perhaps you like to lie in bed an extra five minutes after the alarm goes off. Do you shower or bathe right away or have breakfast first? If you take time to look at what you do, I am certain you will see a pattern that you follow in getting ready for work. If for some reason you do not follow that pattern, do you find yourself feeling that something is missing?

You have patterns, habits, strategies and programs for everything you do. Some of these patterns serve you, but others do not resulting in unwanted outcomes.

You may be fully aware of some of your patterns. You may become aware of others only when someone else brings them to your attention. And you may choose to quickly forget about these patterns because you want to avoid addressing that part of your life. And there are still other patterns that you are not aware of at all, yet they continue to influence how you look after yourself, communicate with others and perform your daily tasks. If the patterns serve you - that is, generate positive results in your life great! However, if you find that some patterns do not serve you, would it not be useful to identify those patterns and to change them so they work to your advantage?

Question: Who put your patterns, habits, strategies and programs in place? Of course, you did. So who can change them? Only you. But first, you must become aware that you run these patterns. This is one of the biggest benefits of NLP becoming aware of the patterns, habits, strategies and programs that you have been running unconsciously and then using NLP techniques to change them in order to achieve the outcomes you desire.

I used to work for the Independent National Newspaper in Canary Wharf, London. I can remember in the build up to Christmas, my department was having a large and expensive new computer system installed because the newspaper was being relaunched, it was when Andrew Marr and Rosie Boycott were becoming joint editors, I digress.

The system was being put in just before Christmas, but it was a massive task, with numerous issues & overruns. As Christmas approached, there were still a number of teething problems, which led to stretched relations between the system supplier and the newspaper staff.

At one meeting about the integration of the system, my director had been trying to get more time investment from the installation company, only to be told that their people weren’'t going to be available on Christmas day. My director was frustrated and furious, asking “What are you doing that’s more important than sorting out our system!?” Without hesitating, the guy from the installation company said “Delivering Christmas hampers to the elderly.” The impact was immediate; everyone in the room started laughing & my director joined them, realizing that he’d perhaps been a bit unreasonable. Everyone knew that the story about the elderly wasn'’t true, but that didn'’t matter the statement had changed his perception of the situation, instantly, & he started behaving more reasonably.

Changing the contextual frame:

There was an advertisement for the Guardian newspaper, which showed a set of still photographs arranged in a particular action sequence.

The photographs showed a large framed man with very little hair on his head, wearing jeans and boots, running along a pathway with a real purpose.

In the first frame he is running towards an elderly lady; in the second frame, you see him knock her violently into the street; in the third frame you see him make his escape, obviously and seemingly this is another thug terrorizing the elderly.

Then, when you turn the page, you are presented with some wider angle shots. In the wide angle shots, you see the elderly lady casually walking beside a building that has building works being carried out upon it and where a cement mixer is about to topple from a scaffold. An alert pedestrian notices the situation and heroically runs towards the lady, pushing her clear of the building area. A moment later, the cement mixer falls to the ground in the spot where the lady was standing.

The initially perceived ‘thug’ has in fact saved her life.

By changing the frame, the creators of the advertisement had changed the context of the man’s actions. Suddenly, what was perceived as typically criminal then became valiant and altruistic. His actions were transformed in a moment as they were reframed. I am sure you know of many other examples of this.

One of the presuppositions of NLP and something that fascinates and tests me, is that every behavior is useful or valuable in some context. Upon learning and reading about this in the embryonic days of my learning, I did do my best to do the opposite! I wracked my brains for things that I just could not reframe. Of course, I could not do so for long. It’s just a matter of stretching your brain and finding a context that makes it useful; I have not always found this easy.

This process is referred to as context reframing.

Every behavior is useful in the right context:

Now here is a challenge for you. For any behaviour, no matter how frustrating or apparently without use or value, see if you can find a context where it’s useful. Once you find such a context, a subsequent act of presenting the behaviour in the new context is reframing it. If it was originally a behaviour that was treated very seriously or was problematic, you may then also want to think about adding humor or a playfulness in the way it is re-presented;

Firstly, identify a complaint, either about yourself or someone else, a simple structured to begin with, for example; “I’m too.” or “She’s too.” (Eg. “I’'m too impatient”, “He'’s too selfish.”, “She’'s too messy.”)

Next up, ask yourself “In what contexts would the characteristic being complained about have value and or usefulness?”

Thirdly, create several answers to this question, and then craft it into a ‘reframe’.

For example:

“I’m too impatient”

Example answer: “I bet you'’re quick-thinking in an emergency.”

“She’s too messy”

Example answer “She’d be good to have around if we were trying to make our home look like it had been burgled.” (I don’t like to be too serious!)

“He’s too selfish”

Example answer: “We’'ve had so many problems with people not taking care of themselves, it’s often good to make sure you look after yourself to be in a better position to help others.

Now, I know these are a bit lame with some of my own tongue in cheek-iness added, but they don’t have to be that useful at this stage; it’s more important that you give yourself the freedom to be creative so your brain gets the pattern of what you’re doing. What’s more, when you have to do that and develop better reframes for yourself, your learning is far more comprehensive than if I were to spoon feed you responses to regurgitate.

The next step is to come up with reframes for any complaints that you (or others) have about yourself.

This can be a lot of fun if you do it with someone else. (ie. you say “I’m too” then they generate reframes.)

By the way, the example of “I’m too sexy” as in the 90s Pop Band “Right Said Fred” chart topping hit is not really appropriate

When reframing something someone says, rapport is important (otherwise reframing can seem like a very focused & deliberate attempt to annoy someone.) If you present someone with a reframe, ensure that you have a good level of rapport with them, best start with friends and/or family (assuming that you have rapport with them!)

Fifth, once you get the hang of it, start looking for opportunities to use context reframing each day, starting with the less challenging ones.

In a business context for example, one of the most powerful ways to use reframing is when people have objections (whether you’re selling a product, a service, an idea, or yourself.) reframing is a gentle method of working with someone as opposed to having to sell which many people are uncomfortable with. When you reframe someone’s objection, you can remove or alter its power. I once read the objection “I’m worried. What if I train my staff and then they leave.”

The response: “Even worse, what if you don’t train your people and they stay.”

When you discover and create a way to change the context of someone’s objection, it alters the way they perceive it. This has been know to be an extremely effective way to overcome objections entirely.

Finally, for these initial steps of reframing, write a list the objections you get most frequently in business or complaints made in your life and generate a number of context reframes for each one. Then, look forward with a sense of anticipation to the next time someone offers that objection. Please bear in mind that you are opening up options here, not covering things up, if a particular problematic issue is occurring, sometimes it may not be appropriate to just reframe.

Both my Grandparents on my fathers side were 80 two years ago and we had celebratory family gatherings. As I walked into one of the celebrations I asked the standard question "So, what's it like waking up on your 80th birthday, Grandad?" To which he replied "Better than not waking up on your 80'th birthday".

Now, I’d like to start playing with ‘content reframing.’ If a footballer kicks the ball into his team’s net, it’s called an “own goal”, but if a soldier accidentally shoots one of his fellow soldiers, it’s called “friendly fire” (Sounds kind of cuddly, doesn’t it? But you would not want any coming your way.) George Orwell’s 1984 had plenty of examples of content reframing (eg. the ministries of peace & truth) that live on today in many forms (a peacekeeper missile, anyone?)

So, content reframing involves changing the meaning of something.

Right, to develop this further, follow this procedure; identify a complaint a complaint or issue with the structure “I feel when happens.” (Eg. “I feel angry when he does not help” or “I feel frustrated when I make mistakes”)

Next, ask yourself “What else could this (Y) mean?”, “What else could this (X) mean?” or “What else could this situation mean?”, or ask “How can this (X) or (Y) be interpreted?

Then, you can come up with several answers to these, and then create a ‘reframe’.

For example:
“I feel upset when I see the mess these kids have made”

Example answer: “It’s good that they can be ‘in the moment’ without worrying about a few things being out of place.”
Alternate example answer: “A little untidiness is a small price to pay for happy children.”
Another example answer: “The fact that it’s messy means they’re expressing their creativity.”

Obviously, if you were to offer these reframes to someone who is annoyed or frustrated, I would suggest that it would be a good idea to get in rapport with them first and of course to select your words carefully.

As with my previous examples, these aren'’t the most amazing reframes in the world, but they don’t have to be that useful at this stage; it’s more important that you give yourself the freedom to be creative so your brain gets the pattern of what you’'re doing.

Now, you can come up with reframes for any complaints or issues that you can identify for yourself or others. This can be a lot of fun (honestly!) if you take turns doing it with someone else. (ie. you say “I feel when happens” then they generate reframes.)

Then, once you get the hang of it, start looking for opportunities to use content reframing each day. For spreading good feelings around and helping people to lessen the easy natural way that they can sometimes get “bogged down” in the trivial. Depends on what you consider trivial though, be careful and thoughtful.

Once again, in a business sense, content reframing is also very powerful for dealing with objections of all sorts. For example, a reframe I sometimes use when someone objects to the price of consulting with me (I am sooooo expensive!) is to respond with something along the lines of:

“If you are after a cheap consultant or therapist, then you are right, I am not for you. If however, you want to invest in your future then maybe I am. If your child needed a serious operation, would you look for the cheapest surgeon?

Then why look for the cheapest way to make changes in your life that are important enough to seek help with?”

Again, I do have my tongue planted in my cheek as I write that riposte, however, I am sure you see where I am coming from here.

Then finally, list the objections you get most frequently & generate a number of content reframes for each one. Then, look forward with a sense of anticipation to the next time someone offers that objection. Remember to keep rapport with people when doing this! Or in jargon-free speak, relate, empathise, connect, get on with.

Good luck with your reframing and creating more harmony.