Jul
30
I tried and tried but my wife and mother-in-law (who is staying with us) have had it on every night this week and it’s hard to avoid. Yes, Big Brother.
But… what viewing. Watching housemates try and psych each other out and trying to work out who is playing a game and who isn’t. Why anyone would go on there is anyone’s guess, apart from the Okay Magazine contract afterwards, I guess.
Anyway, wife and ma-in-law love it and it was interesting to listen to their conversation last night and how they both seem to ‘know’ what is going on between the housemates.
It went something like, “he’s doing that because he wants to make her feel like that… and she is look…” conversation. They are absolutely certain they get (with their birds-eye view) what is happening on an inter-personal level.
And of course, I can imagine we may all be guilty of doing the same thing from time to time, I know I do, applying my thinking and model of the world onto situations. That’s real life I guess.
But it’s amazing how much we tell ourselves a story quite happily, compared to what may actually be happening, bearing in mind that situation will be happening from more than one viewpoint itself and it will ALWAYS be subjective.
For example, my wife had our first baby at the weekend and she had to listen to every bit of advice during the pregnancy from other mothers (whether she liked it or not). Each one giving their account of how pregnancy and birth is.
She also read a lot of books, so by the time of the actual labour and birth, she had told herself how it was going to be and, of course, she reported afterwards that it was nothing like what she had expected.
When I trained in NLP at Practitioner level, I never really got the meta model, but as I have developed my knowledge and skills for listening, it absolutely amazes me, just listening to people’s mind reading, generalizations, etc.
In fact I don’t think I will ever fully comprehend how we actually communicate with each other at all.
Tags: Language, Meta programs
Jun
11
I work with words. I read them and write them and sometimes, like a fool, I think I own the exclusive meaning of them.
But, with all the will in the world, a dictionary can not do justice to a word, neither can a persons explanation. And, I still find many people with the same ideology - that they ‘know’ what a word means.
With my NLP hat on, I am reminded of concept that the ‘Map is Not The Territory’. There is some interesting ‘words’ about this on Wikipedia.
So, why the noise from me this morning? (more…)
Tags: Language
May
01
Listening to friends, family and colleagues I am amazed at how, as people, we manage to communicate at times.
I am talking about statements, where certain information is missing; when someone says something, or asks a question and you end up have to clarify one or more points of what they’ve just said so you can understand what they are specifically talking about before you can respond. (more…)
Tags: Language, NLP at Work
Apr
22
My mother-in-law picked me and my wife up from the funky new Eurostar train station the other day at St Pancras, in the heart of north London.
She got slightly lost, so my wife was on the phone giving directions. It was fascinating (and frustrating) to hear the directions.
In my world, what my wife should have been saying to her mum was that she needed to be coming back down the road she was going and should do a u-turn somewhere. What she was telling her to do was turn left then right or right then left. Wouldn’t that mean she’d be going parallel to the road she was on, still going in the same direction?
Anyway, that’s my world. In their world, they both knew exactly what she meant. I am often baffled, since learning NLP, about how any of us actually communicate in a way where the other person understand us.
Bring on the meta-model.
Tags: Language
Mar
27
I’m not very good with the book work on many things so if there is a term for it, I don’t know what it is. I’m sure it must be a Milton Model thing as I physically caught myself today pausing during a sentence… so that I could add more emphasis… for the audience.
It’s one of those situations for me, where it seems that what I am doing is SO obvious. In fact I was waiting for some rolling eyes, but no… it went un-noticed… or did it?
Unconsciously, it does create impact.
I was giving a seminar about web marketing (that’s what I do) and unconsciously (my favourite way) as I was speaking I found myself really emphasising elements of the message. Eg.
“So, maybe you can begin to imagine… how by implementing these suggestions… you will see positive results.”
Not saying I pulled it off perfectly, but I did get a round of applause at the end, something one of the delegates mentioned to me afterwards.
Tags: Language, NLP at Work
Mar
18
So last night I sat down at 9pm to watch Alternative Therapies on BBC2 - a short series scientifically following some alternative therapies. There’s not much time to cover the subject of hypnotherapy in one hour so I was expecting a simple overview and all the same, I was still slightly disappointed with what I saw.
I know what I know about hypnosis in terms of implied suggestion - the vaguer the better - using Milton language patterns to induce ‘trance’ and embed further suggestions to the unconscious mind. That, and the bedrock of rapport.
(more…)
Tags: Language, Hypnotherapy
Mar
17
The thing I love about NLP is the pure linguistics. I still remember leaving my first NLP Practioner course feeling like Neo from The Matrix. Suddenly I could hear what was actually being said behind what was being said.
Of course, that’s a bit of a mind-read on my part as I imposed my meaning on someone else’s language. I digress.
One area of playing with words that often makes me question what I say is generalizations and I have gotten better at using them less, and recognizing when I am using them. And, I love it when I can help someone else with the same ‘word blindness’.
(more…)
Tags: Language
