You - Me - Here - Now

I was recently part of an online discussion and in the course of the interaction there were a number of interesting comments and, as a result of my being drawn into the conversation, there was a notable personal discovery. Going into any dialogue with an open mind usually facilitates such things.

 

The topic was primarily about rapport and how relevant matching and mirroring are in terms of pacing and leading conversants (that's clients essentially - unless you are 'practicing' in a social or business context) into rapport.

Now matching and mirroring fall into the category of what I would call 'nuts and bolts' of NLP. Another of the online participants posted up a video of John Grinder, one of the 'founding fathers' of NLP, talking about Modelling Excellence as being the core of the subject, and that around that core are a series of processes that make the Modelling effective. Grinder's observation was that most practitioners of NLP are only using "the end product of those processes".

This brought me to this reflective conclusion:

If you believe all screwdrivers are electric and you've only ever used an electric screwdriver, then without the power source you won't be able to screw screws, even though power screwdrivers have manual settings! Thus the art of firmly attaching something A to something B using device C (a screw) by way of the process of 'screwing', is a quite a long way from your raw ability to use an electric screwdriver - even though sometimes things seem to work very well!
 

This really explains why there's so much more to NLP than looking into the bag of tools, and how those who don't quite 'get' this, end up down blind alleys when attempting to use the tools.

 

The inter-twinedness of NLP and hypnosis

I was, unwittingly, hugely fortunate in that my initial hypnotic tutors were also NLP trainers and my early learnings of both were totally integrated. I've since discovered that this is not standard across the educative spectrum, as subsequent courses and workshops I've attended have contained 'non-hypnotic' NeLPers and hypnotists not conversant in NLP. 

 In the NLP and hypnosis relative balance, earlier in my practice I would be more direct with using NLP processes and 'softer' with hypnotic processes. These days I am the other way round.
So, for instance in terms of matching and mirroring, I now find myself not so much 'doing' matching and mirroring, but more as 'being the mirror'.

Listening for Speed!

 

In the case of rapport - in my experience it is the Act of Listening which is not only the 'speed route' to rapport - but also enables me to notice and gather much, much more of the verbal and non-verbal information on offer.
We all have 'protective fields' around us and rapport helps break them down. The Act of Listening drops our own 'protective field' and leads our client(s) - by the non-verbal route - into mirroring us. By totally engaging in the listening process, it's almost as if I have 'disarmed' myself and surrendered. If I should harbour any semblance of vulnerability, then the listening and my 'disarming' process will be less authentic - and that difference in my level of energy will be detected (on some level) by the client. As a result the entire dynamic between us will be different.

 

Energies are Pointers (and other dogs!)

 

I've discovered a lot about the shifting levels of interactive energies in a practical sense, from watching "The Dog Whisperer", which is a TV programme where Cesar Millan rehabilitates problem pet dogs AND, for lasting change, trains the owners. At the start of each 'client session' he listens to the owners explaining the pet's behaviour, and then he observes the problem hounds in action. His entire changework paradigm for the dog is based on their mental energy - and he gets rapport by pacing and leading! Once in rapport he can take the dog through the 'rehab' process. As he often says, the dog lives entirely in the NOW (even though there may be some conditioned habits). All the changes and reconditioning also take place, understandably, in the NOW. This is one of the places where owners get 'out of sync' with what is going on for their pets - because they usually aren't in the Now! Owners are also not aware of how much of their own state (energy level) is transmitted to, received by and mirrored back by their dogs.
Each programme is like observing an interactive NLP workshop! 

 

Am I doing or being?

 

In conversational NLP the linguistic artifices and perspectives can be very 'hypnotic' too, since we are shifting people's perceptions, changing their realities, engaging their imagination, and eliciting hypnotic phenomena. I've had a number of clients whose world-view of hypnosis scared them, or they felt uncomfortable, or was against their religion, or they were skeptic - but for whom "just a chat" was totally acceptable and relaxing. Given that these were just their perceptions - should I have explained to them the inter-twinedness of the two domains?

Well, people see me because of the narrow band-width of their perceptions, and how this causes certain things for them they'd rather change. If they don't want to ride on the train, we'll go there by car instead - and that's how it is, in my book.

 

The other question of course is when am I using NLP and hypnosis (and indeed all the tools from other domains)? In truth - all the time; with clients, coachees, friends, in the street.  They are part of my 'ordinary', part of my perspectives, part of my world-view. Of course it's as well to remember I am not here to change the world, for there are times when it's prudent and sensible to shut up. Never play Devils Advocaat with a tee-totaller; or try to out-think a snake!

 

Conclusion

 

This brings me to what this post is all about - conversations and interactions - which are Dialogues.

Dialogues are all about "You - Me - Here - Now". In order to have a dialogue we need to be good at expressing ourselves and we need to be good listeners. The better we are at language and the better we are at listening and noticing - then the better the dialogue.

The main thing about dialogue is that we humans have a tendency to twist it out of shape by preframing it with "You - Me - There - Then" - whatever the reasons for that might be! Some might be constructive - however, we need to be mindful and careful about what we let in to the Now from Then.

Back in the days when I sat on a number of Committees, or indeed was a Secretary of some organisations, there was always an Agenda item called "Matters Arising". On many occasions I recall too much time being spent on this section - as participants raked over the dead coals and dying embers of the previous meeting. I realise this is down to the quality of the Chair of the meeting - but the whole "he said X - she did Y" is often a less than constructive perpetuation of previous Dialogues.

 

If we allow "You - Me - Here - Now" to really take place, then "Moving On" becomes much more of a possibility.
However, although it's just a thought, I'd invite you to try it yourself and discover what has already  become different from whatever expectations you may have once held.