The Holistic Mind Certification™

Neuro Linguistic Programming is a way of thinking and a series of techniques modeled from successful practitioners from various fields of Mental Health and Thought. From Fritz Perls, to Milton Erikson, Virginia Satir, Ivan Pavlov, Paul Watzlawik, Albert Korzybski, and so many more. In fact that is what NLP is, it is a way of modeling that leaves behind a trail of techniques that we get to learn and install in ourselves.

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How did NLP come to be? In 1975 Richard Bandler who was a student at Santa Cruz University was editing a book for Fritz Perls, and decided that he could actually do Gestalt Therapy, and so he began to do just that. Turned out he was pretty good at it too, this made him realize that he had a special gift of being able to model another. He was able to take something that worked that someone else was doing and break it down into a process that could be learned by others.

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So, Richard Bandler joined forces with John Grinder who was a linguistics professor. And together they developed the notion of NLP being an attitude and a methodology. To be able to notice in another excellent behavior and put that behavior on themselves, so that they could use that behavior themselves.

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NLP is just that Neuro, which pertains to the mind and our nervous system, by which we filter our experiences through visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory senses. Linguistic, which is our language and other ways that we communicate physically through our internal representations. We use these to code, organize, and give meaning to our experiences, using pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, smells, and our self-talk. Then Programming, this is our ability to discover and use the programs that we run inside. We use this ability to discover the programming so that we can reprogram our neurology to achieve our desired outcomes.

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How do we do this? With NLP we look for patterns, because it’s not so much what you think but HOW you think. You may be wondering what that means, and it simply means there’s a structure to how we think and using that structure we can find what holds unuseful thoughts, behaviors, and strategies in place, then use that structure to make deep impactful change.

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At the Practitioner level you learn the NLP Communication Model. Now the NLP communication model simply states that we have an external event come in and through our filters of time, space, matter, energy, language, memories, decisions, meta programs, values, beliefs, and attitudes with these filters we then delete, distort, and generalize this information. Once we have deleted, distorted, and generalized the information this gives us an internal representation, which then effects how we feel and our physical body. Our internal representations, state, and physical body then gives us our behavior…which may or may not be useful.

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What do we use to create change in our programming? We start by changing how people think with the Presuppositions of NLP, which are useful beliefs that we can adopt about ourselves and others. While these beliefs aren’t necessarily true, when you look at people this way it’s a powerful position to create change. Then there’s Sensory Acuity, how to notice minute physiological changes in another, this is important information when doing change work or communicating. Rapport is another important tool in NLP, it’s being able to create almost instant likeability upon meeting.

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We also use the words people like to use, we call these Predicates, they relate to sensory based representations. Someone who is highly visual will use lots of sight words, while and auditory person will use sound words, and a kinesthetic person will use lots of feeling and touching words, and then you have people that are very auditory digital and the words they will lean towards are ones like knowing, understanding, learning.

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Then NLP has a process of understanding Eye Patterns, and how to elicit them so you can understand what is going on inside another person’s head. This is useful in conversations and working with people’s strategies. This is all just learning what to look for, how to look for it, and what it’s useful for.

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Theres a language section that has a couple of different ways to help people to create change. There’s the Milton Model, which is a way of asking questions that is artfully vague, it has people get less specific which then frequently solves a problem. Then we have the Meta Model, and this is where we get more specific, this is useful when people are too vague and they are deleting, distorting and generalizing too much. This all falls under the umbrella of chunking up or chunking down, which is made understandable with the Hierarchy of Ideas.

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This is all the conscious use of language. There’s also a section about Presuppositions, which is a powerful understanding of what facts can be taken from a sentence. We also have ways to create Metaphors or stories that can help people to create change, without ever having to do any change work. Now we get into the techniques which create change in people’s lives.

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The first one we usually talk about is SubModalities, and SubModalities are subsets or minor distinctions in our visual, auditory, and kinesthetic internal representations. We can use these to make quick changes for people, like taking a food they like too much and making it so they don’t like it, or changing a belief, or giving more options for a behavior or minor emotion to the current one.

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From Pavlov’s work of stimulus response, we utilize Anchoring, and this is a way of intentionally creating an anchor associated with a feeling and using it to create a resource, or collapse a minor problematic emotion, or create a link from an unresourceful behavior like procrastinating to a resourceful behavior like being motivated. Really useful, especially when you are in stressful situations and need to access calm confidence, or be motivated, or not get irritated about something.

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Then NLP offers a way to notice Strategies, discern unuseful ones, design new ones, and install a new strategy if it is necessary. So if you like to buy a lot of stuff but then your always returning it, this may be a strategy you want to change. There are Motivation strategies, Decision making strategies, Love strategies, Learning strategies, if it’s something you do there’s a strategy for it.

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There’s also a way to use NLP in Negotiations and Mediation, the 5 Step Sales Process, and Reframing. Lastly there is the darling technique of NLP, and that is Parts Integration. We are a fractured society, and this has created fractures in our neurology. In NLP we call these Parts, and these Parts have become functionally detached from the rest of our neurology. With Parts Integration we can help those parts to notice they were once part of a larger whole, and we show them how to reintegrate.

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When we do this it creates a new level of wholeness inside of us which then allows us to be more decisive, congruent, and more able to go after our goals in life. And that is what NLP is in a snap shot, it’s so much more than this, however it has to be experienced to be truly understood.

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If you are interested in Coaching or Training there are several highly trained professionals. You want to work with someone that is certified and registered with an NLP Board. This will guarantee you a level of ethical and educated Practitioners and Trainers. At Evolution You, we believe that being Authentic, Heart Centered, and doing it with Integrity is a must in Coaching and Training. We are registered with the American Board of Neuro Linguistic Programming, as well as the American Board of Hypnosis and the Time Line Therapy® Association, which are the other Modalities offered by Evolution You.

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Please feel free to reach out if you want to learn more at info@educatedevolution.com