What is NLP?
NLP (stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is the study of human subjectivity. The NLP Communications Model (at the heart of NLP) is a model of how communication works; in how we communicate with ourselves and then how that plays out in our communication with others.
In essence, NLP can help you become more aware of, and manage your thinking, feelings, speech, and behaviours in a way that serves you and honours everyone else. So, if that is something of interest for you too, carry on reading 🙂
NLP is really the emergence (cira.1970) of a leading-edge developmental model about:
✅ How to manage and run your own brain and mind more effectively.
✅ How you represent (and change!) your own experiences in a way that makes them seem real.
✅ How to map the world so that you can align your objective experience in the world with your subjective experience; this is NLP contentment 🙂
✅ How to manage your moods and state experiences so you have them and they do not have you.
✅ How to develop effective models and strategies for your life’s desires.
As a developmental Model, learning NLP develops you and facilitates your growth as a human being.
NLP
NLP stands for “Neuro-Linguistic Programming”. This refers to 3 key aspects of our Mind-Body-Emotion system that we call you or me…
Our mind-body-emotional system or our Neuro-Linguistic Programming is made up of:
1. Neurology; our nervous system that connects the mind-body-motional system,enabling us to cognise and function
2. Linguistics; the language and syntax system that runs our meaning-making, expressed via our neurology
3. Programming; these are the patterns and habits of using our neurology and language in a way that gives us our sense of Self & reality.
At the Heart
At the heart of NLP is the NLP Communication model. This model is what we call a near-concept model.
It models and teaches us so precisely how we function and re-present the world and those in it, to ourselves.
It’s almost like being only 1 step removed from the actual process itself!
This model maps out and distinguishes reality from our (subjective or mapped out) interior world. It shows us how we are running representations (movies) about reality and that we are not experiencing the actual reality itself. A big statement!
A bigger one is in our own experience; we are working with and dealing with only our fantasy or imagination of the world about the real world.
In essence, we run a construct about reality.
Alfred Korzibsky calls this Un-Sanity (a term coined by Alfred Korzybski in his book Science and Sanity), and the great news is that NLP or an NLP course can teach us to run blockbuster A-rated movies and eject the B, C and D rated ones.
Isn’t that great?!
The basic premise of NLP, as a model of human functioning, is – that people work perfectly well, that they have all the resources that they need, and that any problem they have isn’t them, but with their programming, habits, or frames of mind.
The Legacy of Origin
NLP is a part of the cognitive sciences and Cognitive Behavioural Psychology.
It birthed out of the field of General Semantics (Korzybski), Transformational Grammar (Noam Chomsky), Anthropology and Cybernetics (Bateson) Family Systems (Virginia Satir), Gestalt Therapy (Perls), and Medical Hypnosis (Milton Erickson) – L.Michael Hall et al.
The How of NLP
In our NLP Practitioner Training, we give significant emphasis to the component parts that make up what makes NLP so powerful, here are just a few for starters:
The NLP Presuppositions. These are lines or principles of NLP that help inform an NLP practitioner of the attitude of NLP.
There are now dozens of these ‘mind-lines’ (L. Michael hall et al.) that act as operating software for how to do NLP.
An example of one of the most famous and significant, coined from Alfred Korzybski- (science and sanity 1933) is: The map is not the territory.
The Map is Not the Territory
Then there is the NLP communication model itself, based on the above presupposition.
The representational system of senses (Visual, Auditory, Kinaesthetic, Auditory digital, Olfactory and Gustatory) that we map and take in the world with.
It’s about value and state management, language distinctions, and the mired ways we filter in and filter out the millions of bits of information that come at us constantly.
All on behalf of being healthy, happy, effective, and efficient human beings.
So, that is; what is NLP?
It offers immense possibilities for practitioners of NLP and when we are training NLP, like NLP itself, we are not hoping to change you for the better, the only question we have is:
IS HOW YOU ARE RUNNING YOUR BRAIN RIGHT NOW SERVING YOU?
If so, keep it like it is, if not…maybe you now know what to do about it 🙂
If you would love to know more about The Coaching Room’s NLP courses, here is the link to the NLP Practitioner Course, a 3-month course now 100% online (with a Face-to-Face option available too – post-Covid :).
