Do not think of a green giraffe - now, what did you just think of ? And by the way, I did tell you not to think of that ...
And do you usually think about what you want in your life (health and fitness, a successful career, loving relationships, financial security), or do you think about it in terms of what you don't want, (not wanting to be sick any more, the problems at work, not wanting to be in abusive relationships, not being broke all the time) ? And what did you just think of ?

You see, we get what we think about. And we think faster than we realise. And there are more cells in the human body than there are stars in five galaxies. And every cell is affected by what we think.

Makes you think, doesn't it ?

What is Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)?
NLP teaches you HOW you do what you do: HOW you take in information from the world around you, WHAT you do with that information inside your head, and HOW what you do results in states such as happiness or depression, a body that is healthy or dis-eased and behaviour that supports you in getting what you think about (which is not necessarily what you think you want).

The Neuro part of NLP refers to our neurological system and the way we use our 5 senses to translate our experience into thought processes, both conscious and unconscious. It highlights the way in which everything is part of the same whole - literally, as we think, as we speak, so we feel and we act.

Linguistic refers to how we both create and reveal to ourselves and others our unique model of the world, the way we think about it and the way we experience it. Our language speaks volumes, including sayings such as "stabbed in the back" or "one for sorrow, two for joy".

Programming refers to the processes and strategies - the specific steps we go through - to achieve the affects we get. There is sequence of thoughts and behaviours that results in our experience.

A complicated name for a simple process ?
The founders of the system were John Grinder, a linguist, and Richard Bandler, a mathematician and computer programmer who became a student of psychology. Together, at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the early 1970s, they were studying how the mind works. And when they put all the key elements of their expertise and experience together and asked themselves "What shall we call this body of work ?", the answer they came up with was Neuro Linguistic Programming.

How does it work ?
As human beings we live in a 5 sensory world. We take in all information through our 5 senses. Now, if we took in everything that comes to us at the rate of 3 million bits of information per second, we'd fry our circuits. So to deal with it - to make the pieces of information into small enough chunks to deal with - we filter the information.

Some of the filters are our perceptions of time and space, energy and matter; the language we use and our understanding of words and meanings; our memories; the unique ways we go about making decisions; the patterns we look for when selecting information; our values and beliefs and our overall attitude.

And we delete, distort and generalise information according to our unique filters.

Once we have passed incoming information through all these filters, we take what has got through and we make an internal representation of it. This internal representation is in the form of a sensory perception: a picture with sounds, feelings, tastes and smells.

The next thing that happens (instantaneously) is that we react to the internal representation and enter a corresponding state. What is a state ? Well, being happy is a state; so is depression. Being "fired up" is a state, so is tiredness or lethargy. Many people are familiar with the expression "It's a state of mind" but what's really interesting about the state is what happens next (and again, it happens instantaneously).

Firstly, it is the state that leads us to choose corresponding behaviour. Secondly, the internal representation and the resulting state have an instant reflection in our physiology. The "fight or flight" syndrome is the best known example of this. There's the caveman walking along the path and out jumps a sabre-tooth tiger. The caveman's body immediately reacts: the arousal system kicks-in, there's a surge of adrenalin into the system, the breathing rate goes up and more oxygen enters the lungs, the heart pumps the blood stronger and faster through the system and simultaneously the blood drains away from the extremities, not only so that it can be used more effectively internally but so that if the caveman decides to fight, he won't bleed so much should he be cut.

In a nutshell then, we have a process which starts with information and ends with behaviour and physical manifestation.

NLP both stems from and is an enormous and well-documented body of work. It draws from and incorporates work from the disciplines of semantics, linguistics, gestalt therapy, family therapy, behaviourism, hypnosis and quantum physics.

Studying NLP is like starting a journey - a journey into consciousness. It looks not for right or wrong choices, but for the reason (positive intention) for the choice. It looks for the patterns and draws into conversation the parts involved in creating our experience. It reveals that "the map is not the territory", our memories and woes are perceptions and we can take up a position meta to them so that we can get the learning and let go of the emotion.

The NLP journey is about increasing awareness ... increasing awareness of the information that is available to us and the realisation that we can choose how we deal with that information. We begin to see that that different choices will get different results. As our awareness increases, so we become more resourceful. By realising that we have more resources available to us than we thought, and by using more of our innate capability, we gain greater flexibility. And so we grow.

In the end, NLP is about results. By understanding the processes that we all use, we can find out exactly what it is that successful people do - and do it ourselves. And if, like most of us, there is old baggage getting in the way, let's clean it up and let it go. How do you know when you've let go of a negative emotion ? Because you can feel the difference. You can feel the difference not just in your body but in your energy levels and you can think about old events without any "heat" on the memories.

So if you know anyone who says they're "stuck" or "helpless" or they "can't" change - introduce them to NLP: the art and science of excellence, a powerful and practical approach to personal change, the new technology of achievement.

Why and for whom is NLP useful ?

- When your effectiveness depends on your ability to communicate
- When you have to get your point across to a variety of people
- When you need to be able to trigger motivation in yourself and others
- Take the pain out of implementing organisation and personal change
- Inculcate a spirit of curiosity and joy of learning
- Shorten the sales cycle and guarantee customer satisfaction
- Increase self-knowledge and self-esteem
- Improve relationships
- Take control of your own emotions
- Set goals that are really meaningful and achieve them

What do you work with ?

- Attitude - develop curiosity, flexibility and love of learning
- Relationship skills - how to get on better with anyone
- Questioning and influencing - how to gather high quality information and influence others with words
- Thinking skills - how to run your own brain
- States of Excellence - how to manage your feelings
- Beliefs - how to change them
- Purpose - what is really important to you in life
- Change Techniques - probably the most powerful and rapid change technique around
- Wisdom - to know the difference between appropriate and inappropriate work - the ecology of change (if it ain't broke, don't fix it!).