Why Can’t I Make NLP Submodalities Work For Me?

Nov 24th

Posted by Judy in Clean Language

4 comments

A persistent young man asked the same question in a couple of sessions at NLP Conference.

“I’m having real difficulty using submodality shifts on myself, to change my own state. Is it just me, or do other people struggle with this?”

You know the kind of thing he’s talking about – it’s in all the NLP textbooks. Here are a couple of examples.

The thing is, that stuff works for some people when they do it one themselves. But it doesn’t work well for others – and, as I told the young man, I’ve never had much joy with it myself.

I’m becoming increasingly curious about the issues that arise when you take an exercise which was designed to be done with a partner, and apply it to yourself. There’s a definite difference!

You don’t think about yourself in the same way as you think about another person. For example, as I mentioned in a previous blog, there are neurological reasons that you will not be as empathetic towards yourself as you would be towards another person. Meanwhile you will also  have self-serving biases and blind spots.

As a Clean Language facilitator I know that the motive power of a coaching session comes from the client. More >

Clean Language Goes “Mainstream”

Nov 23rd

Posted by Judy in Clean Language

2 comments

“If you’re not into Clean Language, you’re very much behind the curve this year.”

That was the comment from one participant at the NLP Conference as she realised just how much Clean Language had featured in the presentations.

Even I can’t be everywhere at once, so with up to seven streams of activity at any one time, I missed many sessions. But my “spies” were keen to let me know how much of a role Clean was playing.

Almost every presenter seemed to have a Clean Language question up their sleeve – ready to be introduced to power the central activity of their session.

For example, Jackie Arnold mentioned that she used Clean Language more than 80 per cent of the time in her coaching super-vision sessions. Why? Because it works.

Participants in her session considered the question: “When you are coaching/supervising at your best, you are like… what?” Then we discovered more about our metaphors by asking each other Clean Language questions about those eagles, owls, clowns and mirrors.

You might like to try it for yourself. When you’re working at your best, that’s like… what? Then ask: “What kind of X?” and “Is there anything else about X?” about the various aspects of your metaphor.

It’s not More >

Innovations in NLP

So Just What Is NLP?

Nov 22nd

Posted by Judy in Clean Language

3 comments

One of the highlights of this weekend’s NLP Conference in London was the launch of a new book.

There’s always a buzz about new books (it was fabulous when Wendy’s and my Clean Language book was the talk of the conference three years ago) but this one was bigger and better.

The publication of Innovations In NLP is about the field growing up. It’s represents a triumph of collaboration over competition, discussion over mudslinging, and confident casework over hyperbole and flim-flam.

Edited by Michael Hall and Shelle Rose Charvet, it brings together some of the brightest and best in modern NLP – people who are really taking the field forward.

In a killer twist, all proceeds from the book go towards Frank Bourke’s NLP Research and Recognition project – thanks to a suggestion from my friend and colleague James Lawley.

And there’s more. As Michael Hall pointed out when I met him on Sunday, one of the things it does is define what is NLP, and what is not. That means it leaps straight in to one of the longest-running debates in the field.

Here’s their criteria for including a contribution in the book:

1. The contribution grows out of the classic NLP models developed from 1972 through 1990.

2. The contribution fits More >

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Four Different Kinds Of Kinaesthetic

Nov 21st

Posted by Judy in Body-Mind

No comments

What a fabulous wekend at NLP Conference – there’s so much to share! As a result, I’ll aim to blog lots this week.

First up, here’s a distinction from the wonderful Charles Faulkner.  Did you realise that you have at least four kinaesthetic senses?

This idea might take a bit of swallowing if you’re used to the traditional “VAK” way of thinking. But it’s obvious once you start to think about it.

Charles’s list goes like this:

  • Tactile The sense of touch, experienced through the skin
  • Proprioceptive The sense of movement, experienced through the action of the muscles
  • Visceral Gut feelings, the awarenesses that emerge from the autonomic nervous system
  • Vestibular The sense of balance and equilibrium.

Once the distinctions sink in, it’s quite strange that they were ever lumped together as “K”. Presumably the reason is that they are all described using the word “feeling”.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard Charles make these distinctions, so I’ve had chance to play with them in conversation. I’d love to hear about what you notice when you do so – please use the comments field below.

In my coaching, I find I work a lot with the visceral sense – particularly when I’m helping people to establish what they really want. My suspicion is that Clean More >

How Successful Traders Think About Numbers

Nov 18th

Posted by Judy in Metaphor

2 comments

Are you still noticing how people think about numbers? (Following the discussion here)

I was lucky enough to hear a talk by Charles Faulkner the other day.

The theme of his talk was primary metaphor and embodied cognition: that the experience of having a body profoundly influences how we think about the world, and that this influence can be observed in our language. For example, important things are thought of as big.

Regular readers will know that this is one of my specialist subjects – grab my video for more info – so the whole talk was a great delight.

Charles is a particular expert in how successful financial traders think. So I grabbed the opportunity to ask him how they represented numbers.

Apparently, two features stood out for him.

One was their ability to think clearly about very large numbers, in the same way as small numbers (while mere mortals like me struggle to remember how many zeroes there are in a million, or simply refuse to think about large numbers at all).

The second was that they held numbers in constant relationship to each other. For example, if the numbers were on a line, the marks on the line were at equal intervals.

Charles’s gestures indicated a More >

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