Lesson 00 What Is NLP

So what’s that thing, NLP? I mean, what’s all the hype about?

You go through websites, which promise you that you’ll change your life,

• Create massive wealth,
• Attract the partner of your dreams,
• And generate an unending amount of energy
• And live happy ever after learning the stuff…

Well, frankly, I don’t know about all that, but what I know is: NLP has some pretty cool techniques that I have been using for years and which have proven ESPECIALLY helpful at times when “happy ever-after” did not even appear like a remote possibility… I have made it work for myself and for other people around me. While there is no happy-ever-after, we CAN change what does not work for us in our lives. 

So what is it?

NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming. What do those words mean?

• Neuro refers to the nervous system, i.e. the brain, and how we experience the world around us. Think of it as our first line of contact with the external world. 
• Linguistic refers to how we make sense, how we label that experience. Think of it as an added layer.
• Programming refers to the programmess we run inside, a bit like when we say that a computer is Windows based or OS X based for Macs (although  there are serious limitations to this analogy. We all agree that human beings are not as simple as computers). Our programmes refer to the underlying filters that sieve through the information we receive from our senses. Those programmes are unconscious (i.e. they work outside of our awareness) and they can be things like our beliefs, our values (what is important to us; also called our ‘drivers’ they are of major importance when coaching because they determine all our actions), but also time (the time when you live, your age, what has happened previously in your life), space (where you live), the language you speak (language is the only way you can label your experience), our attitudes toward life etc… We don’t know, because it all happens outside of our awareness, but we perceive the world according to those filters.

Neuro Linguistic Programming (that’s what NLP stands for) is about learning:

• How our nervous system (neuro) encodes (linguistic) outside reality (so we can change it when it does not serve us anymore)
• How we filter everything through our own programming (se we become aware of at least some of those programmes and change the filters if needed)
• How this internal process create all our external behaviours (so we can change behaviours from the inside, at their source)
• And how we can simply change our reality in order to change behaviours.

Simple and effortless.

In the mid 1970’s, Richard Bandler and John Grinder got together and asked the question:

• What makes successful people successful?
• What is the process behind success?

And to answer, they started an in-depth study of 3 of the most successful therapists of the 20th century

• Hynotherapist Milton Erickson (who once hypnotised a woman who could not speak English!)
• Gestalt Therapist Fritz Perls
• And Family Therapist Virginia Satir.

They wanted to find a way to replicate success, because it seemed to them that if they could uncover the behaviours and beliefs that made the difference, they could find a way to replicate success. And from this process of modelling, came NLP. 

OK That’s all for now until next lesson,

You can post comments or questions at the bottom of this page.

Helene