Checking Ecology in In-Depth NLP

Neuro Linguistic Programming NLP provides us with tools to make the changes that we want in our lives. It is used by coaches, hypnotists, therapists and others to help their clients, and by ordinary people to help their own self-improvement.

In-Depth NLP is the result of collaboration between NLP trainers and Hypnosis trainers to provide the very latest hypnotic change tools using principles of neuro linguistic programming. We teach these techniques on our New York trainings.

This article discusses how the neuro linguistic programming Ecology Check is can be used in In-Depth NLP to make the changes that we need (and that our client needs). An example of the ecology check might be where a person decides to work harder to become more successful professionally, without considering the wider “ecological” aspects, such as the effect that working harder will have on their family life (seeing their wife and children less often).

Asking questions like those set out below will allow us to check that the clients goals and values are fully aligned. If this is the case then we assume the changes wil be beneficual overall.

• How will your life be different after you have made this change?
  
• What benefits will this change bring to you? 
• What will you have to give up, or what will you lose, if you make this change?
• What other aspects of your life have also changed as a result?
  

Asking questions such as these indeed offers valuable information about how the change will affect me, or my client. In the example above, it may prompt me to notice that working harder will adversely affect my relationship with my wife and family.

In In-Depth NLP we do not consider it sufficient to simply ask the questions and listen to what the client says. After all the client may be so focused on their professional goals that they have temporarily lost sight of their family goals and values.

The basis of In-Depth NLP is to communicate directly with the unconscious mind. If we are working with a client, this means we must become expert in noticing unconscious responses, which means becoming an expert hypnotist or attending an In-Depth NLP course or similar. If we are working with ourselves, it means becoming expert at listening to our own unconscious mind.

In In-Depth NLP we would likely modify the questions to ensure the unconscious mind is more fully involved in responding. This may lead to questions such as those listed below. Once we have asked these questions we watch and listen for the unconscious responses that the client gives us.

• Imagine you have made this change and integrated it into your life. How will your life be different? What will you see, hear and feel as you notice these differences?
  
• Having already made these changes, and noticing the differences they have made in your life, what things are better in your life now?
  
• As you notice these changes in your life, how will your life be worse? What will you see, hear and feel that will tell you your life is worse?
  
• Fully feeling the feelings you have, having made these changes, and seeing what you see, notice what other areas of your life are different now.
  

As you ask these questions of yourself, or your client, ensure that they are imagining being there in their future, having made the change. Ensure they are seeing out of their own eyes, hearing out of their own ears, and feeling what they will feel. As they go through this they will notice any unacceptable disadvantages of the change they plan to make.

Consciously the client may still state that the change is good and beneficial and ecological. However, the unconscious mind, now fully engaged in the change process, will state otherwise through unconscious communication. The cient will show what is called "incongruence".

Therefore we must be on the lookout for the unconscious mind to raise objections. How do we spot this unconscious response? It may manifest itself in various ways, the following are just examples of the more obvious:

The tone or pitch of their voice may change

• Change in facial expression or coloration
  
• Their spinal alignment or other postural elements may show incongruence
  
• Certain gestures.
  

The client's unconscious mind will tell us when ecology is lacking. We need to allow oursleves to listen and watch for this communication. This is the key to the In-Depth NLP ecology check.

Learn In-Depth NLP on our NLP training in New York.

Shawn Carson is director IPH New York; NLP training in New York, hypnosis, individual coaching, www.nlptrainingnewyork.com 212-714-3574 Melissa Tiers is an NGH certified hypnotist; hypnosis training in New York, hypnosis for weight loss, hypnosis to stop smoking www.melissatiers.com 212-714-3569 In-Depth NLP Training

How to get what you want (without getting what you don't) using NLP

How often have we said things like:

• "It's my audition on Thursday. I'm terrified. I wish I could stay home!"
  
• "So why not stay home?" I asked.
  
• Part of me wants to sing, but part of me is scared I’ll make a fool of myself.

Neurolinguistic Progamming offers us tools to resolve these inner conflicts. These tools are taught in full on our NLP Courses in New York.

One NLP technique that is widely used for issues of this kind is the so-called Visual Squash. It works as follows:

Firstly we identify the two things that we want that appear to be mutually exclusive (i.e. we can't seem to be able to have them both)

1. We represent these parts as two different visual images, using the visual representational system
   
2. Now hold one image in one hand and the other in the other hand. Feel the weight of each image so you get a kinesthetic sense (in the kinesthetic representational system). The images act as NLP anchors for the state and feeling associated with the particular desire.
   
3. We ask one part what its intention is, what it wants for us when it wants us to behave a certain way, for example what do I get by singing? Perhaps pleasure.
   
4. Keep asking for higher and higher positive intentions until you reach a point where the positive intention is a very high level value such as "peace" or "happiness"
   
5. We then ask the other part for its positive intention for not wanting me to sing. Perhaps it wants to protect me. Protection brings safety and safety brings peace.
   
6. Building rapport between the parts is important. Our ultimate aim is to reintegrate the parts and resolve the inner conflict.
   
7. As the parts “negotiate” and reach agreement, we can encourage the hands to move together to form a higher, combined, new “part”
   
8. Integration occurs when the positive intentions coincide at the highest level and the parts can form a new combined part and can be brought back into the body.
   

The problem that sometimes occurs in running the traditional NLP Visual Squash is that the unconscious mind does not fully engage in the process, and no real integration occurs. Those skilled in hypnosis can see this by the way the client’s hands move.

When we are teaching the visual squash pattern on our NLP practitioner training in New York we teach our students to fully engage with the unconscious mind using hypnotic principles.

In order to use the Visual Squash exercise in hypnosis, we first induce trance. Given that the Visual Squash places the competing “parts” on opposite hands, and uses hand movement to produce parts integration, it makes sense to use a hypnotic trance induction that utilizes the hypnosis principles of arm catalepsy or arm levitation.

If arm catalepsy is used to induce trance, then the arms will already be under the control of the unconscious mind and the visual squash may be easier.

The trained hypnotist can and will see the arms move in a hypnotic manner, quite different from conscious movement, if the conscious mind is fully involved in the technique.

It is amazing how powerful a change can be when the unconscious mind is fully involved in the change process.

To learn In-Depth NLP take our In-Depth NLP course here in New York.

Shawn Carson is director IPH New Yorkoffering NLP training in New York, hypnosis, individual coaching, www.nlptrainingnewyork.com 212-714-3574 Melissa Tiers is an NGH certified hypnotist; hypnosis training in New York, hypnosis for weight loss, hypnosis to stop smoking www.melissatiers.com 212-714-3569