Peter Wright ~ Performance Skills Mentoring

Chat-View with The English Sisters!

2012-01-16T14:13:00.000Z

Today is an exciting first for me as I hooked up for a "Chat-View" session with those amazing ladies The English Sisters.

After we'd sorted out some minor connectivity delays we were able to start the ball rolling - they asked me about my upcoming book "Mind How You Go", and we also talked about some other aspects of my work.

As you can probably tell I really enjoyed the time we spent together and it is now available to view on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AcBuWf-HWc

It's amazing how fast such an interview goes in terms of time, and so with certain topics we barely scratched the surface, and others weren't even mentioned! However if you are interested in finding out more about the book or any of the the areas where my work takes me, then please do get in touch and we can communicate in more detail.

I do have plans afoot to launch my own YouTube channel soon - but for now I'm grateful to the fabulous English Sisters for my first screening!!

Enjoy!

The Trigger and The Loop - Dementia Diaries #6

2012-01-12T18:40:00.000Z

Opportunities are where you take them – and ‘events’ and ‘special days’ are really just that but in name only. In essence a day is a day is a day. Just another 24 hours. As Carson Robison’s song, “Life Gets Teejus Don’t It?” describes it –
“The sun comes up, and the sun goes down – the hands on the clock go around and around. I just get up and it’s time to lay down...” and so on...

This last Christmas Tide was, for me, a whole mixture of new discoveries, curiosities, perspectives, learnings and understandings about conditions within dementia – especially in terms of triggers and loops.

In the build up to Christmas Day, (this year on a Sunday) my Dad would notice all the decorations, cards received, play carol tunes on the harmonium, and often tell the story of how he could sing “Silent Night” (Stille Nacht) in German and “O Come All Ye Faithful” (Adeste Fidelis) in Latin. It took him back his youth and – several times a day – he would launch into song just to enliven the memories!

However, this year, there must have been some trigger – whether deeply embedded in memory, or quite superficial we just don’t know – that compelled him to feel duty bound to attend the 8am service at church on Christmas Day.
The cycle or compulsion kicked in somewhat early, though, and on the morning of Tuesday 20th December – at about 7.40am – he appeared downstairs, dressed up to the nines with his outdoor shoes on.
“I’m just going up to church for the 8 o’clock service,” he said.
“Ah that’s very good, Dad,” I replied. “However, there won’t be anyone there today because it’s Tuesday and Christmas Day is coming up next Sunday.” He laughed it off and added,
”Oh well – I’ll just treat it as a dress rehearsal!”

So far so good! He enjoyed having a much longer day than usual because his regular getting up time is between 10.30am and Midday. The thing was he actually got very tired as a result, and although he went to bed at his regular time (around 11pm) the next day he slept on until much later. On Wednesday 21st December he got up around 4.30pm – somewhat confused because it was nearly dark outside and he couldn’t tell whether it was 4.30am or 4.30pm! No matter though because he was quite happy and chirpy as usual.

Next morning however – Thursday 22nd – he was up and around at 7.15am, getting ready to go up to church for the 8am service. As you can see there was a looped pattern emerging here and as had happened two days previously, he got rather tired from having a very long day awake, dressed and pottering around!

Friday 23rd, as you might have guessed, he overslept, getting up at around 5.30pm with more unsureness as to whether it was really early morning or evening. I found myself hoping that Christmas Eve morning would not continue on the early/late cycle – but it was wishful thinking as on the Saturday 24th he was again up ready for the 8am visit to church!
There was certainly a feeling of building to a crescendo to this, and we talked about us all going to the Midnight service later that day. Through the evening on Christmas Eve we could tell he was thinking about going to the church and as the time got nearer he really began to gather his thoughts (and duties and compulsions – whatever they were). He became more agitated, kept going to the toilet, felt and then was sick, but still maintained that he was going to go. At around 11.30pm he put on his coat and hat and got together what he thought he needed, clearly very focussed and driven, whilst also losing his usual happy daily demeanour.
It is only a short walk to the church and we set out on the journey. After about 50 yards he said he felt sick and we knew it was going to be best if we abandoned the quest and returned home. Poor chap, he was so disoriented that by the time we’d arrived back at the front gate less than 30 seconds later, that he asked, “Where is this, where am I – what is this place?”
We got back inside and after the best part of an hour he was much more back to his old and usual self and so off he went to bed, in a better place but shattered all the same.

And so to Christmas Day!

Well, somehow I knew what was likely to happen, because of the daily cycle, but there was an outside chance that the “I must get to the church” compulsion would override everything. It did not – and so Christmas Day was very definitely a non-event! We’d decided anyway to reserve the culinary festivities until days later when there would be more of us present.

So I was alone for a lot of the day which might have put a very odd perspective on things – if I’d let it!

My Dad appeared just before 7pm, not properly awake and clearly disoriented, distracted, grumpy, cantankerous, on a very short fuse deep within his less than grounded reality. We had a brief conversation in which he made some choice and unkind remarks about our domestic situation in very florid language. I chose not to respond as he was not really with it enough to know it was me he was talking to! He went back upstairs to his bedroom and reappeared around 7.30pm, dressed and ready for something to eat and drink – now back to his normal, regular chirpy demeanour.

For the entire week following Christmas we observed him gradually getting back to his regular daily life cycle, wondering whether the next Sunday (New Year’s Day) might trigger off the get-up-early to go to church cycle again. Thankfully this did not materialise and I’m happy to report now – almost mid January – that he is back on an even keel all round, as are we all!

We had our ‘proper’ Christmas Dinner during the following week when there was five of the family present, and it was lovely, an absolute delight for us all including my Dad.

When he is totally ‘in the now’ it is wonderful for him. So whatever the trigger or unconscious driver was there in the pre-Christmas period, it was no longer present in his everyday consciousness once the day had passed, and he seemed to know it had passed as well. Quite often at other times this is not the case – but thankfully those triggers and loops have been worked through and out and have dissolved back from whence they came!

So what kind of Christmas did I have in 2011? Different – and very, very quiet!!

The Hypnotic Reality

2011-12-20T10:45:00.002Z

One of the things I've come to realise about the Hypnotic Reality, is that there are some really useful things to know about how to best interact with it. In experiential terms this relates to both our own experience and also that for others.

It is well understood of course if I have guided someone into an altered state of reality for therapeutic or changework purposes, or am even helping them to experience the amazing power of their own imagination through displays of progressive hypnotic phenomena.

However, if I encounter someone in an altered state (what I describe as a Hypnotic Reality) who I might need to guide to a place of greater comfort or safety, then the best way I have of interacting and getting their compliance is for me to actually step into their Reality. It comes from one of the first things I learnt when working in the hypnotic domain - the need to "go there myself first".

So when might we encounter such a person in an altered state? It's when certain hypnotic phenomena are displayed by the subject, such as time distortion, catalepsy, anaesthesia, amnesia, positive or negative hallucination, sonnambulism, age regression etc. Even post-slumber disorientation can be described as an altered state because it is a transition between an unconscious state and a waking consciousness. Once we realise the reasons for these displays and also the usefulness of them, then to be able to navigate around them for the subject can be invaluable.

The Sleepwalk

After my mother had suffered a number of strokes she could only walk consciously with the aid of a wheeled walker or a Zimmer frame. She could also move around enclosed spaces by holding onto walls, rails etc. but there was always a concern that her hand(s) might slip and cause her to fall. Her bedroom had an en-suite bathroom, so once she had gone to bed there was no need for her to emerge from her room until the next morning.

However there was one occasion, in the middle of the night - about 3am - that I became aware of some sounds of movement in the passageway outside my bedroom. I got up and went to look and found her about to go downstairs and she was obviously sleepwalking. We had a conversation - as you do with sonnambulists - and I discovered she was going down to get the breakfast ready. I said it might be a better idea to do it later in the morning when everyone had got up and that it was ok for her to go back to bed and get a bit more sleep until then. She acquiesced, turned around and went back along the passage, through her bedroom doorway and got back into bed. I wasn't aghast, although I was fascinated by what I saw. She did not hold onto anything as she walked along - and actually walked in the way she had always walked, as if she had never had any strokes.

Conversations in Trance

Recently my Dad had fallen asleep in an armchair, and was in slumber for a couple of hours. During this time his right hand and wrist had become wedged around the chair arm, in such a way as to eventually cause cramp. However, I didn't notice this until he started to stir and was talking in German. He was clearly associated into a wartime experience in POW Camp (hence talking in German) and that whole right side of his body was both numb and cramped and presumably felt 'frozen' - something he must have endured many times in the course of 5 harsh winters.
I talked to him, and took his right hand and arm and manipulated them, entirely in a way I might do with any client who I was guiding into and around a Hypnotic Reality. His spoken responses were first in German and then half in English, and then completely in English. In sound terms they were all in in the style of "a hypnotic conversation". I knew our dialogue was taking place at an unconscious level and that the best way for him to come back to the 'here and now' would be by gentle guidance. This I did for him, and once 'back in the room' we then set about massaging the cramp out of his right hand and arm which took about 15-20 minutes.

Conclusion

In both these instances it doesn't need much imagination to contemplate what might have happened (a) if I had not been present and more to the point (b) I did not have an understanding of negotiating the highways and byways of the Hypnotic Domain.

For me it was both a fascinating and a learning experience - and broadened my experience of the mind-body link in a very powerful way. And for my parents? Well, to be honest, they had no idea of what had actually taken place for them. The Hypnotic Reality was not imprinted in their conscious memory!

Never Assume....

2011-12-08T15:40:00.001Z

A dear, and now departed, friend and former work colleague had a number of catchphrases - one of which was:

Never Assume

This of course is SO true, and yet we all have a tendency to fall into the trap of "knowing what's coming" because we've either seen, heard, felt, smelt or tasted it ALL before. Even if we haven't we have, because we are so very good at distorting something we don't know into being like something we do know.

"How did you find X?"
"Yea, it was nice - a bit like Y, to be honest. And I love Y, so I was comfortable with it."
Recalibrating 'new' experiences in terms of old ones is a very common mental trait by coding events using metaphor after the event.

However, to do it before the event, is to actually start to close the Mind to being fully in the moment and really experiencing something completely new, and - more often than not - totally rewarding!

This last month has found me out in terms of my knowledge and love of the music of Beethoven.
I assumed I had heard all there was to hear - and loved it all from the very familiar (5th Symphony, say) to the less well known piano or chamber music. I admire his humanistic qualities, his musical language and stunning level of invention. I believe he is one of the greatest creative artists of all time and this, it would seem, allows me to assume I know everything about my experience of Beethoven.

The turning point for me was watching a programme called "In Search of Beethoven" that went out on the Sky Arts channel. It was a lengthy programme and, to be fair, was just interesting by virtue of its familiarity. Until I heard one particular comment late on in the programme:-

"What makes every piece he ever wrote sound different? It is because in sketching out and crafting every work he chose a particular soundscape for it."

Chose a particular soundscape

Now this wasn't just about instrumentation, key signature, tempo, melody and counterpoint and interpretaive markings. This was beyond the fundamentals of his musical language.
This is ALL about the meaning he wanted to convey to the listener and how, in creative terms, he preframed it.

Then I extended my thinking on this, as to how might we carry this into the art of living our own lives.

For what purpose. you may ask?
Purpose inasmuchas we are all capable of greatness, to be genius, at some part of our life.
Come on - not everyone can be a Beethoven though can they?
Perhaps not in musical terms - but there is more to man's existence on the planet than conveying YOUR MESSAGE through the expressive medium of music.
Beethoven was pretty ordinary at loads of other things, and probably woefully inadequate at some as well. We are just mighty fortunate that he found his genius and expressed it for posterity.

There must have been for him instances where he assumed things, such as the true nature of the intentions of Napoleon Bonaparte for instance! However in music there was never any assumption. As a passionate musical revolutionary he left no room for assumption.

Are you a passionate revolutionary?

So what are you a passionate revolutionary about? If you don't know then I invite you to never assume that you are not one or cannot be one! If you are able to express your true message in life then therein lies fulfillment. The life you were meant to lead!

How often do we bring the meaning of our communication, our deeds and actions, to truly bear upon our world and the people in it in such a way? Given that everything we say and do has an impact on THE world - not just our world - then surely we can really bring meaning into our lives through bringing more gravity into the things we say and do.

So - Beethoven's 5th Symphony - that much played and well known old 'war horse'. I've just heard a brilliant and very 'fresh and new' rendition by a conductor who revealed much in an interview afterwards about how he saw the work. He said,
"This work has become so popular over the last 200 years that there has become an almost overwhelming expectation about how it should sound. And in and through that expectation it has lost its original meaning, the meaning Beethoven must surely have ascribed to it, given the nature of the man and his art."

In other words, the world has assumed the music and the soundscape that the piece occupies and has played it that way ever since!

So, what about soundscape and meaning Beethoven wanted to convey here in part of the Missa Solemnis - a work that I was in danger of never knowing until now, by virtue of my foolish assumptions? For me it is an expression of wonder and joy at the whole of creation.
I leave you to decide for yourself however - far be it from me to ever assume again!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Othfbu90xCg

"Now - Before Your Very Eyes...!"

2011-11-25T12:11:00.000Z

There are occasionally times when I sit opposite clients and begin to notice changes taking place for them within minutes of the start of our conversation. Whatever is happening for them, I have to say that this is quite a moving experience for me also.

Curiously there are times when I find myself perceiving their changes at an unconscious level, prior to their noticing it for themselves, at a conscious level! Early on in my practice I would find this quite mind-boggling, whilst I now have a better understanding of the power in a 4-way Conscious-Unconscious dialogue.

Recently I met a returning client, the professional lady who featured in my article “The Psychic Screwdriver” (see archive). She is a person with a very heightened sense of her own conscious-unconscious dialogue and this time she began our conversation by saying that things are continuing to work well in the areas covered by our previous session, and that this time she’d like to explore two new areas of concern.

As she started to outline the first new area (which was strengthening her motivation for doing more work on core exercises) – before I’d even said a word she was suggesting possible scenarios and solutions for herself. When she paused I said, “Looks like I just need to sit here and listen while you talk out all your solutions!” We laughed as she added, “You’re the catalyst, so just stay there - please!”

Every session is a blank canvas and I had no idea where this was going as she began to elaborate on her second 'new area'.
"I’d like to move forward with confidence and trusting myself, especially in the area of relationships."
A little bell rang in my mind at this point as she said, "I need to trust myself." I didn’t closely look at my notes from the previous session, although I knew she was familiar with the I-me-self-you of the 'pronounscapes' paradigm.

We explored and elicited some basic data about her pronoun personas and it was rather like drawing the curtain back to reveal the stage scene of this part of her life. It transpired that her "I" was aged three and the trust issues related to early life events. Not only did she find the reason for her wanting to trust herself, but also, quite fortuitously, she also discovered the reasons why core exercises have been the subject of some mental reluctance for an "I" aged 3 - until now!

Now, because of her inner self-understanding, all the changes she wanted to make began to unwrap and unravel before my very eyes. It was quite breathtaking to witness this, as her physiology was transformed into a place of total grounded relaxation, warmth, comfort and – most importantly – trust. She literally embodied the new perspectives this magical inner revelation had brought about.

I’m never surprised at how rapid change can be sometimes, and it is spellbinding to observe. But most of all, it is an absolute joy to be there for people when they find new ways of changing their lives for good.

The Perfect Partner

2011-11-22T13:45:00.000Z

“If you were told you can meet your perfect partner in exactly one month only, what would be your next actions?”

This was the question posed by a friend in an online post on a social media website. I found the question fascinating on a number of levels so I launched into a short snappy reply which, as I was writing, became longer and longer and then opened out onto a vast cosmic canvas.

My immediate reply was this:-

The pivotal word here for me is "can"! This presupposes possibility rather than probability, and also "only" presupposes some sort of deadline. The whole question implies I might need to effect some change in myself.
However - with my meagre though growing understanding of making order out of cosmic chaos, I'd view this from the perspective of my "perfect partner" - which could very well be ... ME!

The Linguistic Angle

Taking the presuppositions first; “CAN” implies no certainty but more possibility than probability. There’s also an implication when it is coupled with “ONLY” that, whilst there is a deadline – one month – that the chance of that meeting taking place after that time is zero. Also, with “EXACTLY” in there as well as can and only, then there’s a clue, a pointer, as to the very day this meeting can happen. It’s not as if it might happen within the next month either. So between the lines of this part of the question is a possibility that in 30 (or 31/29/28) days from now “you” meet your perfect partner.

The second part of the question asks about next actions, given this possibility of meeting. This could mean doing either something(s) or nothing. With “actions” in the plural however, the presupposition is that there are several things that might be done – thus ruling out doing nothing! Going a stage further, there is an implication that there are some imperfections present right now – either “you” has an imperfect partner, or “you” is without partner and is less than perfect. So, the overall implication is that “you” needs to take actions to make some changes in either themselves or their situation.

Whilst this argument is by no means totally explored here, you can see what the questioner is trying to tease out from the readers by placing subtle boundaries and covert implications.

The Personal Angle

The next perspective I took in my answer was the personal one. What if the whole question is about me being the perfect partner for myself?

It then becomes a question about personal discovery, finding oneself. After all, surely the MOST perfect partner for anyone in life must be themselves? This takes everything from being outside, to going inside and taking actions to learn and discover more about oneself. The inference drawn from the question now becomes the fact that it will only take a month from NOW for you to reach a point of being your perfect partner.

Now, I’ve written now there in capitals for a very specific reason. The thing is, if we take what’s presupposed here, then you is in a state of “not perfect” in the present, i.e. NOW. Since the only things that ever exist, exist NOW – then whatever changes you might make, there’s always the conclusion that you will always be imperfect. Even in a month’s time – when that comes round to being NOW, you will still be imperfect (given that it is presupposed in the question that you is imperfect.)

What if it is decided that ‘you’ is perfect right now, and that through each successive point of NOW you will therefore continue to be perfect?
Now, this seems to be a better notion – a better angle to view both to and from. It bears out the fact that in a month from now you not only can, but will, meet your perfect partner!

So what actions might be taken in that month? Whatever actions (or inactions) taken will be the right ones, it would seem, since the outcome will not change the state of perfection ‘you’ enjoys in every moment of NOW.
To shorten what might be a very lengthy development of an exposition, in other words just live for every moment, and enjoy living with yourself as the perfect partner. For if you attempt to be anyone other than who you really are, then you are not living your own life. Be yourself – you are already perfect right NOW.

The Cosmic Angle

This is the perspective I found most fascinating from going through the process of answering the questioner’s conundrum.

Let’s assume an outside partner, and a partner being another person - for argument’s sake.

So the ‘you’ in question has been informed of a cosmic possibility in a month’s time of crossing the path of another person, a person who will be a perfect partner for ‘you’.

What action(s) does ‘you’ have to take?

Well, the only action needed is for ‘you’ to remain open to responding to whatever is happening at an intuitive, or unconscious, level.
If ‘you’ is not someone who is already open to taking action and making decisions based upon intuition, then ‘you’ needs to become aware of this and to set in motion a chain of events. A chain of events that will culminate in one month’s time with the crossing of paths with ‘your’ perfect partner. Be open, and take intuitive action!

Take intuitive action

Taking intuitive action plugs each of us into what is going on at an unconscious level – and this unconscious level for us is in tune with unconscious levels for many others.

People, places, events, are seemingly thrown together at random – at a conscious, everyday level there is no kind of collective synchronicity, save for what we might call “programmed communication”. This might be close personal interactions, group activities etc that are in some way “planned” or programmed.

However you view events and places, man-made or otherwise - how our lives flow in, through and round these events, places and other people is random, Brownian in nature and is “cosmic chaos”. Or so it seems – from the outside looking in, or perhaps from the inside looking out? It’s not so much about comparing the detail with the overview, though – but more about acknowledging the part that each one of us can play in bringing some order out of the chaos.

If you want to bring some cosmic order into your life, then having an open mind, a curiosity, an understanding of what operates at an unconscious level, a fearless fascination, a grounding in knowing that everything is not quite what it might seem to be – is a great start! And that’s only the start of it. All these faculties need to be utilised all the time to a level of unconscious competence. We need to notice the difference between the order and chaos of things, people, places, events because there is a steady stream of relevant messages in there for us. We need to notice the messages.

We need to act intuitively where it is appropriate to do so, for if we ignore our intuition then random or chaotic things may happen to us, and elements of order already put into place for us go unnoticed and do not get acted upon. If we get a gut feeling about something or someone, then if our head (or conscious intellect) chooses to ignore that feeling there will be consequences.

Trying to ‘force’ or contrive cosmic order is not going to yield positive results. Yes it will yield results, but these will further agitate and randomise the chaos. Forcing or contriving is, by nature, interfering at a conscious level. Operating at this level is rather like turning a tap on and expecting electricity to come out.

If you operate at an intuitive level, then you understand that every action you take and every event that impinges upon you is there for a reason or purpose. You “go with the flow” of those events and actions rather than attempt to withstand or ignore them – and things just seem to work out. If they don’t work out the way you want, then there is a reason for that. You need to also consider the fact that your wanting was not operating at an unconscious level. (This may well apply to those who would visualize ‘ordering up a Porsche’ and being disappointed when it has not appeared on the drive the next morning!)

Back to the Future

So if the intuitive message was that a month from now some order would emerge from the chaos, then the first part of any action has already been taken – you’ve noticed the message! Now what heed needs to be paid?
There will be alignments between now and when the time comes round. The importance of everything you do between now and then will become increasingly relevant. There will be things you do not notice that will be re-ordered. For order to come into being for you, you need to notice the messages and take intuitive action. If you continue to not notice then the random chaos will continue and the time will pass with no result.

Conclusion

You can consider yourself as a leaf being carried afloat down a river. If you remain mid-stream then the river will bear you along to a downstream destination – if you drift to the edges of the stream then you may end up in a backwater or on the riverbank, away from the intention the stream of the river may have had for you. The part you can play in this is to understand the river and what it can do for you.

The other conclusion here is that “perfect partner” can be something else such as a place or location, a house, a job, a calling. The same rules and laws apply in terms of making order out of the chaos.

Storming the Citadel

2011-11-14T11:53:00.003Z

"There's isn't person on earth who has ever choked after a mouthful of something to drink," the psychiatrist said to me. This was well over 20 years ago and a good while before I began to discover the power of being able to change our mindset through altering our perceptions and reprogramming patterns of behaviour.

To cut a long story short I'd become blighted by instances of taking amounts of any liquid I was drinking "down the wrong way" in the course of swallowing. The worst instances involved my having no conscious idea where my next breath was coming from - and the associated gross anxiety leading to panic when this was happening to me. Each 'attack' was pretty scary and another layer to the fear was if (and when) it were to happen when I was alone, with no one there to thump me between the shoulder blades!

In a protective sense my cognitive counter to this was to take smaller mouthfuls, which over time became sips. This meant I could consciously control the volume of this potential danger to life - which led to a reduction of my daily intake of fluids. The thing was - this whole thing was not a problem when I took on solids AND liquids such as soups, cereals and milk, etc. It was liquids only and, I discovered over the years, the thicker the liquid the easier it became and the less the underlying feelings of fear were manifest.

The Barium Meal

Before referring me to a psychiatrist, my GP had covered a number of bases in terms of this presenting problem. This included making sure there was no physiological reason for the swallowing mechanism being affected this way. Being x-rayed while drinking a barium meal was quite traumatic to say the least. I found myself alone with a glass of foaming liquid in a leaded booth and being repeatedly shouted at to "drink and swallow" by a technician who clearly had no idea what torment, torture and level of fear I was going through. In the end I can remember thinking, "Well if I do choke on this stuff at least I'll have half a chance of surviving as I'm here in hospital already." As waves of relief came over me after the event I can remember him saying to me, "Mmmm, he seems to have trouble in initiating the swallow," as if the "he" he was referring to was some distant 3rd party entity. Clearly the detachments in his working life extended beyond protecting himself from xrays!

Awakenings

As I started to study psychology, NLP, the power of hypnosis and a whole array of pathways to dealing with this issue, I learnt a lot of new ways of protecting myself - though not a lot in the area of self-reprogramming. I discovered what would be most likely to create the mental conditions for an 'event' to happen, and built further layers of protection here as well.

So, in the end, I had a great array of physical and mental strategies for protection - cut down swallow volume by sipping, controlled abdo breathing, avoid stressful and anxious build up, instal anchors and triggers. All these were hidden or I'd casually explain my "condition" whenever I found myself in a social environment where a drink was present.
In essence I got to be very good at the whole pattern of behaviour.

When one gets this good at dealing with something, then it might be simple to decide "I'm comfortable with this now, and can tolerate it for the rest of my life." Many people get resigned to obsessions and phobic responses for these very reasons - when the 'deal' is no longer such a big deal.

When you are an "agent of change" for other people however, it makes good sense to really spring clean your own cupboards when the opportunity arises. After all, there shouldn't be too many drunk driving instuctors, smoking doctors, fat nutritionists, angry yoga teachers or obsessed, phobic mind therapists out there, should there?

Grasping The Nettle

The opportunity came along when I was working with a colleague in a 'personal breakthrough' session and I presented my condition for us to examine in depth. Depth here in particular is all about things at the unconscious level as well as those intellectual understandings and beliefs which can be oh-so deleted, distorted and generalized!
The session was lengthy and investigative, and I'm indebted to my friend's sensitivity, thoroughness and diligence. A number of things got 'dug up' as a result - some expected and some unexpected. There were two crucial discoveries which were both astounding and pivotal. One was that a chunk of residual emotion over a particular event was nothing like as relevant as I had been making it - and the other was concerning an accident that happened to me when I was 2, about which I had no experience in recalled memory, just some anecdotal evidence my mother had told me.

The first thing I felt after our session was a notion that the 'cupboards' were now dust free and also that there would be a period of time where I would be re-familiarising myself with how the unconscious is able to best run the autonomic function known as swallowing. When there is an underlying and lifelong unconscious competence, that has been overlayed with another acquired and learnt unconscious competence then (for me at least) the release is taken in steps.
I remember posting up this message to my friends and followers on social media a few days after things 'had happened' - "It's so nice after 22 years to be able to finish a cup of coffee before it has gone cold!"

Conclusion

There are many more cups of hot coffee to be drunk I am sure, as well as glasses of un-flat beer! And whilst there may be more to life than enjoying beverages at their best, I can honestly say that there is a huge learning from the metaphors embedded in there.

When life serves up an opportunity to make it better - then grasp it with both hands, swallow whatever is stuck in your throat, drink the experience deep into your very soul and notice how much sweeter, satisfying and more meaningful everything can be. You'll be mighty glad you did!

Nature's deafening silence

2011-11-13T20:41:00.007Z

I was stood alone by a bus stop - it was very early and there were no sounds of traffic. A light breeze wafted through the air and a sense of chill in the atmosphere made the end of my nose somewhat itchy.
It was a very, very quiet moment.

And then, in the midst of this almost ethereal stillness, I heard a chorus of tiny morsels of sound - so miniscule so that if there had been just one morsel it would have been unnoticeable. I had never experienced this chorus in nature until this moment - which was why I had no experiential reference for what was happening.

This year our autumn leaves have been on the trees for much longer, which allows their changing colours to be much more noticed and appreciated. And, to be honest, I'd always seen autumn as this - something seen in all its beauty. Once the leaves have fallen they take on a different state on the ground as they gather in multitudinous quantities and continue their metamorphic cycle. This we also see and, if we walk on paths or in gardens, then there is an underfoot sense of what the carpet of leaves feels like. Our senses are further awakened by the smell of the fallen leaves. Finally when the trees are agitated by wind, then we can also notice the leaves when they are airborne - swirling at times like a decaying blizzard.

However, in terms of leaves I now have another sensual experience to add to life's library. And it is this is...

The sound of the falling leaves, carried on the breeze, as they land.

The more I heard each tiny sound, the more I noticed each landing. There was a steady stream of leaves alighting upon the earth in their short journey from branch to ground. And this symphony of nature ebbed and flowed in volume and intensity and for me it felt as if time was standing still. For all I know maybe it did!

The characteristics of the leaves in flight was equally fascinating. Some fluttered like feathers, some spun and rotated, they all fell in a random manner though never straight down.

The whole experience was utterly magical and was a sheer joy. The guiding hand of nature's beauty reaches out to us all the time, and speaks to us through the words like the sound of the landing leaves.

There is a significance here that is perhaps lost for most of us - for if we do not hear, how can we ever know whatever is the real meaning of the communication?

Privileges

2011-11-03T12:24:00.002Z

I am privileged to have a voluntary coaching role with my local rugby team. The privilege for me is on a number of levels:

The players ages are spread mainly from 18-30, with the average age being around 21 or 22. The privilege in this for me is working, connecting with and being part of the lives of young men emerging onto life's stage. It keeps me young, sane, grounded and in touch with their world which is an ever-changing world.
The second privilege is working in my local community and feeling very much a part of that. The club is also very much part of my playing roots, and there are always great opportunities to spend time with people I played the game alongside 35+ years ago. There's a deep sense of belonging here that's really important to me.
The third privilege are the benefits and learnings for me in terms of enhancing my coaching, mentoring and changework elsewhere in my 'working' life in a more professional context.
The fourth privilege is just on a personal and pleasurable level - and this can take many, many forms.

Playing intuitively

One of my guiding principles for the players is to get them (a) to understand what I mean by playing intuitively and without thinking and (b) to be able to do that whenever they want. Its the way I strive to get ALL the players I coach, in whatever sport, to play. We condition ourselves, we practice the processes, we play without thinking. Tactics, in this regard, are part of processes.

It's a concept that, for some, falls on stony ground. These are the players whose presupposed thinking won't allow them the freedom to ever get beyond playing sport in a 2-dimensional way. Sport is a part of life - it is not a compartmentalised thing we go and "do" and when we're finished close the book and put it back on the shelf. It's part of who we are. So it's right to really immerse ourselves in the experience and get the most out of it - rather like what we should be doing in the rest of our lives?
Isn't it?

The glorious feedback

Last evening we ran a particular drill we first looked at about 3 weeks previously, and the underlying principles of which we have looked at a lot more than that. Three weeks earlier the drill was riddled with errors, muddled execution and poor processing. This time there was very little of that - which allowed us to look at finer points of detail to make things work even better.
When I paused and asked for some feedback from the players as to how different this was for them, what I heard was music to my ears and I received the golden nuggets of reward bound up with Privilege number 4.

"Its so much better because we don't seem to be thinking about what we're doing, we're just doing it, " said one. "We're seeing what's in front of us and listening to each other more clearly," said another. "It's working because we aren't trying too hard or forcing it. There are mistakes but no one minds. We all seem to be on the same wavelength."

No one minds - I liked that too. As a person who licks his lips at the prospect of linguistic tinkering, I really savoured this one!
No-one minds. No one-minds.

When the mindset changes on the inside, wonderful things start to happen on the outside.

Mind The Gap #2

2011-11-02T13:51:00.004Z

The train pulls in...the tannoy message booms out,
"Mind the gap between the train and the platform edge!"
People get off...people get on...The train pulls out.
Its a process that's taking place at every station along the journey.

The Train of Thought

The railway and the train has not yet been with us two hundred years, and yet it has become the vehicle for a enormous array of common phrases, puns, metaphors and other linguistic artifices, that fill our lives at every turn.
From a very young age I've been captivated by railways, trains, and everything around and associated with the whole domain. This spills over from the external realities of this mode of travel, the people encountered along the way, right down to all the atmospheric, internal, metaphorical and other worldly stuff that abounds around railways and everything therein and thereof.

In terms of examples - where to begin?
OK - coaching and learning is about trainers, being trained and being a trainee. We have a station in Life, living on the wrong side of the tracks, we've reached the end of the line, we get sidetracked, letting off steam, there are buffer zones, we go off the rails, on completely the wrong track, we're on the wagon, just chugging along, get up a head of steam, have tunnel vision, changing tracks, stepping up to the plate, that's just the ticket, passing through the barrier, staying on track, being railroaded into something, he has a one-track mind, a whistle-stop tour, jump the train, going over the points, the permanent way, there's light at the end of the tunnel...

There are oblique hypnotic references like arriving through the station entrance, things around being transported, a transport of delight, rails resting on sleepers, going into a deep tunnel...

and that hypnotically ambiguous one that has inspired this set of blogs -
Mind The Gap

In literature, poetry or song, trains keep appearing.
Whether from the rhythm of W.H.Auden's 'Night Mail' :-
"This is the Night Mail crossing the border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order..."

to the timeless moments captured in Edward Thomas' 'Adlestrop':-
"Yes, I remember Adlestrop –
The name because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June..."

From "Last Train to Clarksville", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", "Morningtown Ride", "Take the A Train", "Night Train", "City of New Orleans", "Rock Island Line", "Midnight Train to Georgia" and many others through to Flanders and Swann's 'The Slow Train', a wonderfully wistful piece of nostalgia:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6OHD2uCpfU

or the hugely romantic notion of Finchley Central:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvMYHbN5baw

Agatha Christie was particularly fond of trains as settings for some of her mysteries - "Murder on the Orient Express", "4.50 from Paddington", "The Mystery of the Blue Train".

In film, there's a catalogue of examples where trains play a major role - Murder on the Orient Express (again), Brief Encounter, Strangers on a Train, Dr Zhivago, From Russia with Love, Back to the Future 3, Von Ryan's Express, Throw Momma from the Train, The Taking of Pelham 123, Under Siege 2, right back to Buster Keaton's legendary "The General".

There's also some oblique examples of trains as metaphors as we can hear with Elton John's changes in his subject's life:-
"I used to be the main express, all steam and whistles heading west..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrP8tCsYQXA

So where am I going to with all this? Into a siding, off on a branch line, or non-stop into the terminus?
It's for you to decide what the meanings are here for you. Trains and railways - even if we don't travel on them physically - have quite a significance in our lives. Perhaps it's to do with the route of life the rails are marking out, perhaps it's to do with the resigned air of captivity around the passengers being shipped from A to B through a station called NOW, or perhaps it circles around the metaphor of trains of thought.
I can only say that physically travelling on trains with my curiously charged mindset often leads me to interesting experiences and conclusions.

All I will say in this conclusion here, is -
Take a 4 minute trip from London to Brighton...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6Ll96VNuSc&feature=related

Mind The Gap - #1

2011-10-31T17:38:00.001Z

The train pulls in...the tannoy message booms out,
"Mind the gap between the train and the platform edge!"
People get off...people get on...The train pulls out.
Its a process that's taking place at every station along the journey.

One of the things I've encountered in all my activities this autumn is that processes of learning and change are best left "in progress" and at the unconscious level - rather like leaving a kettle to boil in its own time, or a laptop to boot up in its own time.

"OK - so how do I know if I've learned or changed something? By Testing it?" Is often one of the responses I get.

Evaluation, judgement is going on all around us and it is very difficult not to get drawn into what it is, what it means, and what it does both for and to us - directly and indirectly.

The things is - Educators, trainers and coaches are always looking for the positive information on the feedback loop, not just for the good of their pupils or clients - but also for themselves. Its part of their job satisfaction, or its one of the ongoing boxes they are required to tick in their job, or it is somehow linked to their perceived quality as a coach or trainer. Winning things, in a sporting context for sure, is a sure pathway to being deemed as a "good coach".

The key about 'testing' is to make it an integral part of the learning process, rather than the end goal of that process.
One of my mathematics teachers (admittedly years ago) would put a problem on the board for us to work through and when we'd completed it he'd work through its stages backwards to see where each of us matched his workings, or where we went wrong. Curiously though, by doing it back-to-front, answer-to-question, we all got the processes so much better. And since maths is all about processes, we got an inside-out understanding of those processes. For this particular teacher (the only one I ever had who could and would teach this way), the "testing" was an integral part of the learning.

I was chatting last evening to a guy who I first coached around 15 years ago. He is now interested in getting on the coaching ladder, "However," he said, "I feel a bit selfish because I only want to coach those who are good or who are showing potential."
"Oh they ALL show potential," I replied.
"Oh yea I know THAT," he said, "but you know what I mean."
"I think I do," I added, "and its in all our coaching natures to feel that way inclined. However, there's as much satisfaction to be gained with whoever you work with, regardless of age and ability. The keys are (a) that THEY want to change, learn, get better, (b) they are doing it for themselves and enjoy what they are doing, (c) they have the freedom to do it at their own pace."
I don't think I put him off wanting to enrol for some coach education, and I know that, if he allows it, his perception of coaching is already taking on a much broader base.

One of my tenets as a coach is around the whole area of results, both for individuals and teams. For me, a result is not so much their winning a contest against someone else - but is more in the area of winning the contest against themselves.
Our biggest competitor is ourself - and those that become succesful performers have defeated (and continue to defeat) the distractive parts of themselves that get in the way for many, many others.

This doesn't make them superhuman and the rest of us mere mortals. It just means that they've grasped the key to easy learning, accelerated learning, learning that works compared to learning that doesn't work.
And that key? Its allowing ourselves to engage the unconscious in this learning or change process and getting our thoughts well and truly out of the way of that.

"Mind The Gap between the Train of Thought and the Platform's Edge!"

So does the next station of life start at the Platform's Edge? And is our Mind the Gap, or is the Gap a danger, or is it a distraction?

"....And are you ready to make that change?" ~ Part 2

2011-10-21T14:02:00.001+01:00

Clasp your hands together with interlocked fingers. Do you have left-over-right thumbs or right-over-left?
Whichever it is, now unclasp your hands and re-clasp them the other way. Notice what you feel, what that makes you feel and where you feel that particular feeling. Plus - how do you describe that feeling?
Responses tend to go from "nothing" to "horrible", with a mid point somewhere around the range from "different" to "weird".

How we measure up to the "unfamiliar" is something I like to invite everyone I work with to explore. The thing is - how we describe it through re-presentation gives quite a clue as to the way we confront sensations and feelings that are "different".

For us to accept "change" we have to be comfortable with the embodied feelings. If we want to step out of one behaviour, or way of thinking, into another then we have to totally embrace change for that step to be effective. Leaving a comfort zone is one of the hardest things for us to do, even if that comfort zone is populated by a behaviour we want to stop. Its in the very nature of what comfort is for us. Comfort is familiar, warm, reassuring, a "now" moment of pleasure, there's a certainty to it that 'all is well' - even though intellectually we know that may not necessarily be the case.

Noticing what we are telling ourselves

In order to be comfortable with change then we need to begin to look at how that impacts upon us in terms of embodiment. And this is where the clasped fingers play their part.
For the lady whose answer to what it felt like was "horrible", I took her on an exploration of what her language was (and wasn't) doing for her.
"So if that's horrible," I said, "then how would you describe cutting one of those fingers with a knife?" She smiled and realised what she was doing here. I went on, "Horrible is quite a powerful word, like Hate. Look at the way children use 'Hate', especially towards a parent or loved one. If they really DID hate them, then they'd find it hard to express themselves because their inappropriate usage of the word has devalued the real meaning of it."
The other thing for the lady who used "horrible", is that by associating anything different or unfamiliar with such a word, for her (internally) there is an undoubted link between CHANGE and HORRIBLE. She was, for sure, comfortable with the notion and process of No-CHANGE. And so if she can be guided to recognise a variety of softer ways to describe the unfamiliar, then she can enter a state of readiness to understand what Change can feel like.

For most of us, through becoming familiar with something new or different we eventually place it into a new comfort zone - it becomes habitual. The other thing is - the more we embrace change, the more we develop a curiosity for it as well. And curiosity has a tendency also to replace anxiety.

So there's a frame of mind, a mind-set, around the whole area of change, that is bound up with noticing what our bodies are telling us AND processing what we notice in the most useful way for us to take forward into the rest of our lives.

Spatial significance in embodied feelings

Moving on from the clasped fingers, once we are comfortable with the unfamiliar its really useful to start to notice the power of spatial location in terms of our own conscious-unconscious dialogue.

One of the most curious notions geographically is that of the person standing at the South Pole who is told to "Go North". It doesn't matter which way he steps, because every step will take him North.

Now the parallel I want to bring in here is that whatever changes anyone wants to make in their lives then this, too, will involve moving away from where they are NOW. The thing is we also have an embodied spatial sense of TIME, where the future and the past may be in front/behind us or off to the sides at some particular angle. This means that in terms of Change and moving on then we will, ideally, orient ourselves towards the future.
However, if we see ourselves at the South Pole, then there is something else we need to bring into play so that we "know" that when we take that step to go north we ARE actually oriented towards where we perceive our future is!

The Power of Geography

When I'm talking with clients about their making changes, unburdening themselves, or leaving certain things behind, then there is an enhanced effect upon the work we are doing when I also make changes in their geographical location in the room.
Ideally I would have a room containing a number of chairs, and when they come in I'd invite them to "take a moment to allow your body to consider where now might be the right place for you to sit in order for you to feel comfortable right now."
This can be as revealing as the clasped fingers - plus it calls upon them to search for their embodied feelings of comfort in a distracted current state.
At some stage in our session I would get them to walk around the room and stop at some representative point where they'd know and feel comfortable with all the changes they're wanting to make. Their body would give them the sign, through a feeling, maybe a 'stickiness' in the feet, maybe an inner word, maybe a 'flashed' vision, that this was the right place. It may be that there is the need to do this several times - meaning that each place needs to be marked and then they would need to make a final choice between those marked places. Everyone's perceptions are different - and they intuitively know which is THE right place.
Once our bodies know where our future comfort zone is, then the journey of change comes into view in a multi-dimensional way, and with a clearer understanding of what things we need to take on that journey and what we need to leave behind. And I will explore in the next part just how we might arrive at best judging what those things can be.

Conclusion

The journey from NOW to ME can be as short as the time it takes to unclasp and then re-clasp our fingers, or step towards north from the South Pole. Its all a matter of becoming comfortable with the unfamiliar, and first recognising the unfamiliar from the horrible. We are what we think and say to ourselves, and therein ourselves lie all the seeds for our change.

"....And are you ready to make that change?" ~ Part 1

2011-10-13T12:02:00.003+01:00

"I want to, I must, I'll give it a go, I need to, I'll run through it and see what happens, I hope to, I'd love to be able to, I have to, I'll try to, I'm going to give it my best shot because if I don't..."

Whether its in coaching or changework these are the types of answers that wave a whole variety of flags - and none of them are green!
Even "I will" doesn't really fit the bill either. And its all down to the language that's being used and what's presupposed in the answers.

So what do I mean here about their language and what's presupposed?

The Archetypes

There's the "hopeful tryers" from semi-committed to assertive;
there's the "away froms" who are going to do it because of something else;
there's "future placers", ones who place it into the future with I will.

The hopeful tryers are good at employing the safety net of limiting belief - "Well it might work, but if it doesn't then I'll be able to say I told you so which'll prove I was right all along which says I haven't really failed because I know myself and what I'm capable of."

With the away froms there's an implication that by doing Y or making a change from X to Y is to choose the lesser of two evils, because if Y was a good and worthwile thing to do then they'd already be doing it. Committing to something we don't like doesn't really embrace compliance and can always lead us back to "better the devil you know..." plus we're seduced by the uncomfortable comfort zone merely because it is familiar to us.

The future placers are like the workmen who'll "be round Tuesday to fix it" but who never say which Tuesday that is. By placing their "commitment" into an unspecified place away from NOW there's built-in lack of commitment, uncertain doubts about doing it, pre-ordained failure, etc.

And there's a recurring theme with all these types and their answers which is this:-
They haven't listened to, and therefore totally understood the question! Its not a trick question either, and so its always useful to repeat the question several times since this is a question full of keywords and phrases!

AND, ARE, YOU, READY, TO, MAKE, THAT, CHANGE, ARE YOU, READY TO, THAT CHANGE, READY TO MAKE, ARE YOU READY, MAKE THAT CHANGE...and so on and on.

The thing is, this is SUCH a loaded question!

A state of Readiness

When we're learning or practicing how to catch a ball there's a state of mind and body called "ready" or "the ready position". And readiness doesn't just apply to ball sports either, it's right across the sporting spectrum. And as in sport, so in life - there's a ready position for everything we do. This comes right down to being awake - which is a conscious state of readiness for thinking.

You ... Make That Change

Its you who's making it, and its something you are fashioning for your benefit. You are responsible for everything about it, so therefore it belongs to only you. Plus its not just an unspecified change either - its THAT one. Or it could imply that whatever you've been doing up to now, THAT is what you're changing.

Are ... Make ... Change

Everything in these words is in the present, the NOW. There's no ambiguous Tuesday here! It all about doing and doing now.

There's embedded commands such as are you ready, ready to make, make that change, ready to...change and more.

The other thing about asking the question several times is that you can place a different emphasis on different words and phrases each time using voice tone, tempo, pitch. The words are just the words and in the right order they are powerful enough - and when you enhance them with nuance they become enriched.
So - ARE you ready to make that change sounds different from are you ready to MAKE that change.

Whichever way you look at it, however it sounds, is nothing compared to how it feels - which is something I will be exploring in Part 2.

The Cosmic Faculty - Order or Chaos?

2011-09-16T13:53:00.000+01:00

The Way to the venue

I've recently been away on a 4 day training block and have travelled to the venue via public transport. On the first three of those days I went via route X and because of traffic issues affecting the "bus" part of the journey always arrived between 5-10 minutes late.

For the fourth day I decided I would try a different route. This involved taking the same initial train for the bulk of the journey, then changing at a different station for a different second train, and then finally walking and/or bussing the last stage of the journey.
There was a lot of conscious "prep" for all this such as looking up train times, bus stops etc.

Unconscious Preparation

So what about the unconscious "prep"? Now I'm a person who generally hands a lot over to unconscious processing especially where journeys, new and used, are concerned. Its worked for me in the past and I've found that intuition can play a huge positive part - if I let it. And, you may find yourself asking, how do we do unconscious preparation?

Its a kind of cosmic ordering that is linked to trusting the outcome of each step along the way as being beneficial, no matter what that might seem, and to not interfere consciously with the process in a non-intuitive kind of way. Some people might refer to this as "Trusting to Providence", or "Trusting God", or "Letting Fate take its course". However you may describe this kind of trust, it becomes something you might understand at a point in your life - after which knowing its power can become very useful for you. You might call it your "6th Sense", and it is 100% intuitive.

The New Journey

So my 4th day journey started out as usual, and the train came to the station where I was making the new "change" procedure. As I stood up to make my way towards the door the train was still moving - and there was a standing passenger blocking my path. Now, normally when you are leaving a train, people tend to let you pass - however this particular traveller decided his first action was to grab the seat I'd just vacated. He moved towards me, causing me to step back - and in the act of taking that step, and as I was momentarily on one leg, the train lurched. I fell over backwards in the aisle between the seats. I eventually got off the train in a bit of a flustered state, but there was going to be a 20 minute wait so I'd have plenty of time to recompose myself!

The thing was - when I got off the first train, there was a train on the adjacent platform that was going to the destination I wanted! It was sitting there waiting - waiting, as I later realised, for me!
There was my cosmic order, sitting neatly in my in-tray; however, such was my flustered state that I failed to notice it immediately, and by the time I did - the doors had closed and it was about to leave.

Keeping a lid on my inside reaction

On the face of it, "Grrrr - what a lost opportunity, and all because of the selfish idiot who wanted my seat." In my re-composed state, I pondered this and let any negative thoughts pass. I couldn't bring the train back, and there'd be another along anyway, so I just enjoyed the sunshine and waited.

Time passes and my (expected) train arrives and I get on, and the next part of the journey passes uneventfully. I arrive at the station and set out on my walk to the bus route. I have about 10 minutes to get to the venue, the sun is out and its a very pleasant morning. I'm walking along, thinking that even if a bus doesn't come in the time I can always walk. I'd been told it was a 20 minute walk, so I was resigned to being about as late as I'd been on the previous days.

And then as I'm walking a car pulls up alongside...and I just think the driver is perhaps on a mobile phonecall, or maybe consulting a map or something similar...and I continue walking. Then comes a toot of the car horn and I stop and look to see who it is. It is a fellow colleague from the course I'm on.
And here's the second instance of some very persistent processing in the cosmic orders "despatch department".
As I get in and we chat on the way to the venue, I discover she would normally go by another route but today that particular road is gridlocked with traffic - and so she took an alternative road, and was now feeling a bit lost. As she did, she encountered me - briskly walking along on my own alternative route.
Our mutual outcomes were that we both arrived early at the venue and proceeded to tell our colleagues the rather curious tale of how we "found" each other!

Conclusion

"Some things are just meant to be", you could say.
However, given my unconscious preparation for the journey, I was trusting in events panning out fortuitously and working to my benefit. I never asked for any outcomes - I just trusted that "things would happen" in some way, shape or form. And so they did; and even though the first "ordered" event wasn't accepted by me, then some more "ordering" took place for the second to present itself.

If you ever think "something or someone up there is looking after me", then the chances are they are -
and if you tap into AND DON'T INTERFERE with that process, then interesting, useful, curious and often vital things happen.

Acknowledge them and be thankful for them and you will almost guarantee other opportunities coming to pass in the future.

NLP latest! ~ The Headlines are not The News!

2011-09-07T13:39:00.000+01:00

Many years ago a colleague and I became fascinated in the contents of press billboards and headlines, and what were the promptings for those particularly involved in the usage of this branch of 'journalise'.
We started out by noticing actual ones we'd seen that were worthy of recollection and recounting - and we noticed that certain types of newspaper used certain types of wordings, certain types of impact upon certain types of readers, and so on.
As time went on and we gained a lot of 'anecdotal' references for headlines, billboard posters etc - then we started to play around with and experiment with doing our own.

We developed a game which involved a box full of little pieces of card with headline-style words and phrases on - and the game proceeded by taking a handful of these cards and making up meaningful headlines from that handful. The more we played the game - the better and more intricate, subtle and complex became our own hypothetical headlines.

Over a period of time this whole exercise bore some big fruit:-
One immediate one was that it broke up the repetitive boredom of working in an accountancy practice poring over the books and invoices of a multiplicity of small businesses.
The other, much more substantial and long term fruit, was that it not only gave a regular daily practice within a particular genre of linguistic usage, but it also gave us an unconscious background of understanding and practice with preframes; the art of the meaningful 'overture'; or the art of how to use the distractive and attention grabbing nature of what, for us, began as "SNOW CHAOS DISASTER HORROR", and ended up as "BANK GIRLS SOB AS HEADLESS CORPSE EATS PIECE OF CAKE".

Over the years the effect of headlines and preframes has spread to all forms of media and advertising whether they are written or spoken or audio-visual context.
"Coming up later on News at 10..." is used daily through TV evenings, to attract people towards watching the news programme later. And even here there is still a kind of "Read All About It!" clarion call to Joe Public (often with appropriate music in the background) that raises our expectations for discovering something dramatic, life-changing or earth-moving, after the next dull and far less exciting programme.

The trouble is that there is an element of "Cry Wolf" in all this, because in order to grab our attention there is a tendency to amp up the drama over and above what's really necessary. Eventually, the real news is not as dramatic as the headlines - the product is nothing like as useful as the advert - the book is not nearly as good as its cover suggests.

There are many of us trying to live our lives in a succession of headlines, and getting really upset, bored, angry, sometimes depressed, when nothing comes up to our expectations. And where next does this push us to? A quest for that Holy Grail of one long never-ending thrill?

In order to get a life we need to understand what makes up the Quality of those special Peak Moments, and re-calibrate what really is the difference between ORDINARY and SPECIAL.
And to help that understanding, a good place to start is to devalue the Headlines and look deeper into the real content of the News.

Dementia Diary #3

2011-08-28T12:29:00.000+01:00

The Appeal Letter

A letter came for my Dad from the church for their annual 'Gift Day' appeal. Over the years this was always something my mother had dealt with - so when this year's letter arrived I explained to my Dad what it was, all the background etc, and checked with him that he would like to make "the usual contribution."
As he was happy to do so I got him to sign a cheque and "did all the necessaries" by way of preparation. However - the Gift Day was not for at least two weeks, so I attached the gift envelope to the appeal letter and left it in a prominent position so that when the time came it would serve as an aide memoire to go and hand it in.

The Tidy Mind

One of Dad's daily activities is to work on his stamp collection, and this is something he gets completely absorbed in. It provides him with many links with earlier times in his life and allows him to be fully engaged and totally in the moment. He also has a very tidy mentality, and at the end of every day before going to bed he always puts away all things he has been working on and anything else that his eye may come to rest on.
This does occasionally present some "awkward" moments, in that he tidies certain things into places that he cannot locate in short term memory.

He regularly cannot remember where 3 sets of nail clippers and a nail file are kept - and even though they are always kept in the same place he'll always tell me he's been looking for them and can't find them anywhere! I always take him to the place they are kept and show him, and he's always agreeably surprised at their being "found" once more. That is, until the next time he needs them!

And so it was with the Gift Day envelope. For 14 consecutive days it was on view in the place I had put it to remind me when the time came - and when the time came...it was gone. My Dad had put it in "a safe place", and now I had to search, knowing that he wouldn't have the vaguest idea either where he'd put it or indeed what on earth it was I was talking about.

Getting Warm

I did a 'cosmetic' search in all the obvious places he may have put it - but to no avail. Do you remember the game "Hunt The Thimble"? Well this was hunt the envelope except I wouldn't know if I was getting warm or not as there was no one who could tell me - or so I assumed.

Casually, I asked my Dad if he remembered doing the cheque for the appeal, or seeing the letter and envelope attached. We both looked to see if it had fallen down behind the cabinet which I'd left it on top of - no joy.

And then he started looking through a particular pile of documents. At this point something told me to take notice - and so I held the first few things on the top of that particular pile as he looked further down.
And as I slowly opened a notebook on top of the things I was holding - there was the letter and gift envelope, neatly folded.

I told him it had been found and that all was well, and he was really pleased that the 'lost' item could now be handed in to the appeal.

Unconscious Signs

It would seem that in the midst of his dementia, he unconsciously recalled a large bit of information about where he had tidied the letter and envelope to. He could have actually looked in a whole variety of places - but there was a trigger that made him look in this particular place. Then it was down to MY unconscious to act upon my noticing this information - a kind of "getting warmer" message if you like - and look deeper in the right places.

There's a large amount of dialogue going on at the unconscious level for us all; and the more sensory acuity we have, added to the acknowledgement of trusting our unconscious, means that often those channels of communication that might seem (on the surface) to be 'clogged' or even closed, are actually still functioning fairly well.

The Quality of Pleasure and your Hurt Threshold

2011-08-15T17:29:00.000+01:00

In terms of the excesses or compulsions in our lives - those instances when we can't say "No" to temptation - those instances when we are already into the next drink, the next mouthful, the next light-up, when we haven't mentally closed the door on the previous one - there seems to be a common thread.

These are all things we like doing.

And with things we like doing, we become really vulnerable to NOT JUST doing or consuming them for what I'd call Route 1 pleasure (pleasure for pleasure's sake), but also for Route 2 or secondary pleasure. This is reward for something good we've done, some achievement that carries elements of celebration. So this is "having a good time because" rather than just "having a good time". Finally there's Route 3 or tertiary pleasure. This is comfort, solace, redressing the imbalance of something unpleasant, something awful that's happened to us, that makes us feel so down so that we have to add to our own depleted "feeling good" inner resources with something external - something that we know we LIKE, or something we know will grant us release from those "down" feelings.

The excesses and compulsions generally seem to be yielded to incrementally, and these increments are small, in themselves. There's a huge difference between a holiday and a bar of chocolate or a bottle of wine - both in terms of pleasure and unit cost - and the incremental influence also relates to cost. But for those who can afford to take a holiday every month (say) then the quality of pleasure in those monthly holidays is very diluted - rather in the same way the second bottle of wine, or third bar of chocolate is diluted in quality of pleasure terms. The graph of quality of pleasure plotted against level of indulgence will be certain to take a nose dive!

Plotting the Graph reveals the Hurt Threshold

In this particular graph there is a built-in amount of even greater pleasure on the first repeat action, whereas the by the third instance the pleasure is less than the first time, and drops rapidly with each repeat thereafter. The quality of pleasure after the second time is falling away towards the "Hurt Threshold"

And what of the "Hurt Threshold"? It could be anywhere after #2 depending on the nature of the pleasure being indulged, and certainly once into negative the effects can be very toxic indeed.

As already said, though, with the smaller excesses and compulsions - they are small enough for us to accept the incremental yielding with the excuse "This'll be the last," or "I'll just have the one," or "One more won't hurt." The thing is, at this stage we never take stock of the situation - the excuses and our justifications are almost fused together. It's as if we are stupefied in a kind of trance and the "devil" on our shoulder is running the whole show. The somewhat "distant" internal dialogue might develop along these lines, "The STOCKTAKE isn't for a while yet, and I'm in control - aren't I?" - which begs the question: What part of us specifically might the "I" be talking to here?

When the STOCKTAKE comes - as it inevitably does - there is always that same part of us that's incredulous as to how all these compulsions and excesses have added up over a period of time.

"I never knew it would be this bad!"
"Well Sir/Madam - we've done a stock count of all the 'just the ones' or 'one more won't hurts' and you're way over your hurt threshold. And that's why it hurts, funnily enough!"

For Route 3 tertiary pleasure, the above graph hardly exists - because there is barely any true pleasure involved in our action. It is all really for anaesthetic purposes - for comfort - for masking a whole raft of other "hurt". And in terms of all that tertiary pleasure, what happens is we trade the hurt of all the 'feel-bad' times, for a new hurt related to excesses and compulsions. And has all that stress and 'feel-bad' stuff gone away? Is life really better for having this new kind of hurt?

Society's perception of the dangers to personal control are somewhat warped. For instance, with tobacco use the dangers are clear and proven - so we assume people have a low level of self-responsibility and we take away people's "rights in the public domain" by banning smoking. We also plaster the product packaging with impact phrases like "Smoking Kills". However, with alcohol the same self-responsibility is deemed to be much higher, and so those same "public rights" are permitted. People are invited to be "Drink Aware" while, with the exception of driving, people are deemed to be responsible. Finally with food excesses society leaves people to their own devices. Eating food doesn't pollute the air or turn people dangerous or unpredictable - so we have no right, rhyme or reason to restrict what they do.

Re-calibrating our Quality of Pleasure

Being out of touch with our Quality of Pleasure in terms of food and drink for instance, impacts hugely upon our lives. If we ignore the warnings, as well as our lack of self care, then we move through a variety of stages where the plummeting nature of the graph represents a plummet in other parts of our lives. In terms of our wider relationship with food and drink, fitness and health tend to be the first to deteriorate. Often with this comes issues with self-esteem, confidence, and an increasing dysfunctionality of performance in other personal, social and work-related areas.
Interestingly, on all products designed to assist people with quitting smoking there is the caveat "requires will power". There is no mention of will power in terms of alcohol or food - although we all know that the ability to say "NO" to any of these things is "Ours and Ours Alone."

Moderation

If we can really get in touch with what pleasure means for us as individuals, then we can start to re-evaluate and calibrate our Quality of Pleasure. The phrase "Moderation in all Things" is a very good mantra for everyone, and it can be linked to every point I have already made here. The thing is, what about our perception of that word "Moderation".

Ask yourself what it means for you when you hear that word "moderation".

For most of us I think the answer would probably come out on the side of phrases such as "enjoy yourself less", "be boringly prudent", "don't let your hair down", "spoil the party", and so on. There is this understanding that moderation means LESS pleasure, therefore we should make pleasure only a thing of quantity. Moderation is boring. Moderation is the very antithesis of pleasure!

My point, however, invites us all to have the same amount of pleasure - but to enjoy it in terms of QUALITY not quantity. And then start to find new ways of enjoying pleasure, so that the quantity grows that way - rather than over-indulging in a few pleasures.
Savour the quality of the things we would label as pleasures. Become familiar with what pleasure really means for us. Evaluate the things or actions that give us pleasure, and look at whether they are indulged as primary, secondary or tertiary pleasures - or indeed a combination of all three. Decide what might be a better way of dealing with the impact of tertiary pleasure - because tertiary pleasure merely devalues the pleasure you get from that self same thing when you are supposed to be enjoying it in secondary or primary mode.
Next time you are doing something you enjoy ask yourself these questions, and maybe stop yourself for just long enough to hear the real answers.

We all have a relationship with our pleasure. We also all have a tendency to prostitute that relationship by devaluing its true quality for toxic reasons.

Keeping it "Simples"

2011-07-29T11:23:00.001+01:00

It was the eve of the 2nd Cricket Test Match England v India, and I was watching some televised interviews and film footage from the England Camp. I was just soaking up all the pre-match info, comment and banter when something involving Andrew Strauss, England Captain, that was going on in the filmed background, just seemed to catch my eye.

It set off a train of thought that came to rest around coaching - and not necessarily sports coaching - and how we all have ideas about what it is, what it entails, the preconceptions, misconceptions, methodologies and so on, and so forth.
Because of all this referencing - and the labelling that accompanies it - there is a something of a movement away from using coaching, as a concept, into other areas such as mentoring and training. Semantics and common parlance often force this change and movement, and for me - with connections in a number of paradigms - I feel drawn towards looking for a phrase that encompasses the whole domain of learning and change.

"I coach processes, I mentor people, I change perceptions" probably sums it up for me.

The Low-grade Routine

There's a routine I use when coaching batting that involves a horizontal line of (about 6-8) static balls that the batsman steps to and drives then returns to a similar start position for the next one, then performs the same action on that one and each subsequent ball.
This, on the face of it, is an extremely low-grade routine. In fact I've used this from child beginners to adult players - and sometimes the non-verbal reaction from either player, or indeed parent, reveals a huge amount about their preconceptions of what and how to coach. Sometimes this has spilt over into the implied verbal: "I'm paying you to coach me (or my son or daughter) in how to bat better - not to hit a line of static balls into a net."

Then I have to explain what the exercise tells us.

And this is why I like coaching children without parents close enough to verbally intervene, because the children just accept the instruction because they have no preconception of what the real purpose is. They learn by experience and not thinking - let alone pre-thinking!

So what does the exercise tell us?

* It tells us where the batsman's front foot steps to - past the ball, too much to the side, in the way of where the bat should be etc
* It tells us the 'shape' of the shot, ie the 'flight-path' the bat traces before, during and after hitting the ball
* It tells us the balance of the batsman before, during and after hitting the ball
* It tells us what the batsman's head, shoulders, hips are doing in the course of the shot
* It tells us about their ability to replicate the starting position, and subsequent action of this closed-skill activity

There are other things it also tells us, but in the above-mentioned alone there is a huge amount of information - and all without even looking to see where each ball has been hit to.

A very 'low grade' routine that reveals an abundance of very 'high grade' information. Its about what are we doing - what is the body doing - in the course of this simple activity, the focal point of which is that micro-moment in time when bat hits ball.

It is about PROCESS and not OUTCOME.

Now in coaching terms, understanding the balance between process and outcome - and then conveying that understanding to our clients and players - is about as simple or low-grade as the routine I've illustrated above. And yet it is the most crucial and pivotal factor in their ability to learn and change, and in learning HOW TO learn and change. And for most of us, learning is a process we are not taught how to do - it is built up in stages from our earliest steps and communications by experience and modelling.

Success

The success of each one of us is our own property because success is an outcome. Ability is the process we apply in order to achieve an outcome. A coach can be successful - but cannot coach success. Success belongs only to the clients, the players.
A player can have all the ability in the world, but if he chooses not to apply it, then he will not achieve his desired outcome in that context.
Plus - in the Game of Life we are ALL players.

So what was it I saw Andrew Strauss doing in the background of that televised footage?

Yes - you've guessed it - he was working with his batting coach on a very low-grade routine - hitting, one by one, a line of static balls into a net.

Get a 3D Life!

2011-07-22T10:25:00.001+01:00

Last weekend I watched my first film in 3D - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

In order to fully enjoy the film - and the 3D experience - I went into the cinema with nothing on my mind, no pre-conceptions, just an anticipation of the 3D sensual experience; which for me is all things visual, auditory and kinaesthetic.

Interestingly, afterwards I couldn't really put into words what the experience had been like, or what the film was like - rather than what it was about. There was something akin to listening live to a huge symphony, as the experiential canvas which the film is laid out upon is vast.

The thing is - because it WAS all new for me, and I went in with nothing on my mind, there were absolutely NO comparative references there for me to run my experiences past. Hence I struggled to describe it afterwards and - to be fair - I struggle to describe it now.

Interesting and curious as this might be, it is not the point I'm looking to illustrate here.

On my way into "the screen" the was a large hopper containing the 3D glasses and from which I was invited to select a pair. I say 'select' - however they were all the same so it was a case of 'take one'.

Familiarity versus Novelty

Now, there we all are - the audience - sat wearing our uniform glasses having this uniform film experience enhanced into something richer and more meaningful for each and every one of us. The thing is, each and every one of us had a different experience which was framed by our own references both before, during and after the performance.

Now I know that if I was going to watch the film again that MY experience would never be exactly the same - the only thing that would be exactly the same would be the glasses and the film. The other thing is that because the canvas of the film is SO vast that I would see and hear things I'd not noticed first time round, and that my kinaesthetic experience would be altered as well.

And all this would happen EVEN IF I could go into the cinema in exactly the same frame of mind that I did last weekend. The only 'familiarity' would be the plot and the sequential chronology of the scenes. There's an interesting question here in that, how many times would I need to watch the film before 'familiar' tipped the scales versus the 'new' - and as a consequence would I then have no further need to watch the film? Or would my wish to revisit and re-encounter and re-familiarise some of my earlier experiences override the lack of novelty?

Starring in our own Bigger Picture

They say "Life is for Living", and I think the message in it for us is that we need to get out there and fully experience a sensible balance of the familiar and the novel - and the key word for me is FULLY. Every day we need to remember the metaphor of the hopper of 3D glasses and take a pair and put them on. We are conscious - this is not our dreamscape - and we need to allow ourselves to wear the 'enhancers' in order to enrich our experience. Some people are able to encounter more new experiences every day than some others will encounter in a lifetime. Its all about having an open mind - of wearing the enhancers - so we can notice more, and also enrich the world with our presence in it.

When I hear the phrase "Get a Life" I hear it as an invitation to get out of our heads, switch off the filters that generalise, distort and delete, open all sensual channels, put on the enhancers and experience as much as possible. Being in our own film, if you like.
But we can't "Get a Life" if we are stuck in our own sense of inner ego, rather the same as if last weekend I had gone to watch the film (a) with things on my mind and (b) without wearing the glasses. The film (or Life) would have been all that it was going to be - my experience of it would have been (by comparison) dull, meaningless, not much of a pleasure - in fact pretty Lifeless all round.

The Clasped Fingers Trick

2011-06-29T18:02:00.003+01:00

I was coaching cricket in a Year 4 class the other day and encountered a lad who was unable to hold the bat correctly.
Well I say 'correctly' - in actual fact he'd got his hands 'crossed'! His dominant (writing) hand was at the top of the handle and 'weaker' hand was below, forming an 'X' as they crossed just above the wrist. When I asked him to change his hands over, he did so - and at the same time he moved his body and changed his feet around so he was now shaping to bat left handed - plus his hands had now reverted to being 'incorrect' in terms of being crossed.

The thing is, batting is a two-handed function, and there are very few shots he could play with his hands configured the way he was using them. However, after I ascertained he wrote right handed I got him to stand the 'right handed' way and also configure his hands the 'correct' right handed way. So far so good - until he said "I can't do it this way - it feels all wrong." He was, it seemed, quite stubborn and adamant about how wrong it felt!

Whilst I knew he would eventually (with persuasion) get it to feel more comfortable and 'right', the thing is this would need time as there was resistance to him trying to get it through experience - and I had around 29 other children to coach and limited class time in which to do it. I had to use some kind of persuasive trickery to break down his kinaesthetic feedback when he was using his hands my 'correct' way.

Hypnotic artifice

I asked him to put the bat down and clasp his hands with each finger alternately intertwined and with one thumb over the other. I showed him how I did it and asked him to copy me. He did it quite conventionally for a right handed person (right thumb over left). I then asked him to do it "the other way" - ie finger by finger and left thumb over right.
"How does that feel?" I asked him
"Different," he replied.
"Is it uncomfortable?"
"No - just different."
"Now I want you to tell me when your hands start to feel uncomfortable again. Any time you feel like you did before just tell me. OK?
Now just keep those hands clasped like that (left thumb over right). Now turn those clasped hands so the back of that left hand is on top. Now just pull those hands apart sideways and hold them apart by about one hand's width."
He did just as I said - and then I handed him the bat handle to hold without changing how his hands were configured. I continued to talk to him while doing this - checking whether he was feeling any of that 'uncomfortable' feedback he was getting before, which he wasn't.
"Now you're ready to bat - OK? All you need to remember is that clasping your hands is really easy to do - and holding the bat is just as easy to do. And the more you clasp and the more you hold, the more comfortable it all becomes."
Within a few minutes and in the midst of a high-activity game situation, he hit the ball very hard and sweetly past me, with total ease and perfectly correct hands on the bat handle. I was very enthused!

Conclusion

There are a lots of tricks with the hands that can be really useful when confronted with seemingly "no-go" situations like this, and I've used a number of these from time to time. I would describe these as hypnotic artifices, because a) the subjects are watching what they're doing, often quite intently and certainly with a level of engaged conscious absorption or focus in what they are doing; b) there's kinaesthetic feedback which is telling them to also keep checking for another feeling that they, until recently, felt quite strongly. In my experience, this is the part of the action that releases them from the internal dialogue of "can't do it" - because they are comparing and judging against their own calibrated level of previous discomfort and awkwardness, by waiting for a feeling to come that never does!

Transformative - definitely! Cunning? - not really. (Well maybe just a little!)

The Psychic Screwdriver

2011-06-19T18:44:00.002+01:00

In the famous BBC Science fiction TV series Doctor Who, in 1968 there appeared the first scripted reference to “The Sonic Screwdriver”. This is a fascinating multi-functional tool and, along with the TARDIS, has become one of the icons of this long lasting series. In terms of SF writing, conceptually the Sonic Screwdriver was ahead of its time, and became one of the artefacts of the series that could show us that nothing is what it seems, and that with it pretty much anything is possible.

The Psychic Screwdriver

There are times within the varied client-related activities that I’m involved in, where I get the distinct impression that the multi-faceted nature of the various methodologies that I use, lend themselves to be viewed as something similar to the Sonic Screwdriver. I see my mental tool-kit for change more and more as being like the Sonic Screwdriver – with an almost infinite number of settings, capable of revealing what doesn’t seem to be there, unlocking doors to new perceptions and actions, and helping people in freeing themselves up to be able to move their lives forward by broadening their perceptions. You might say this bit of kit could be better summed up as a “Psychic Screwdriver”.
The thing is – although the Screwdriver incorporates a whole variety of processes or methodologies, some hypnotic, some linguistic, some metaphoric, some spatial and physiological, some distractive. – any new ideas and techniques can just be added on to the Screwdriver rather like acquiring Apps for mobiles or tablets.

Another thing is that, with all these methodologies and techniques incorporated into one “device”, it is quite common for me to use a process of mix-and-match and use parts of one with another producing an infinite variety of different little hybrids. For me this is fascinating, and particularly because I never actually set out to do it! The opportunities are presented to me by the client and if the idea pops up then I just go with it and see what happens.

A few weeks back I was working with two clients who I would probably best describe as poles apart – however, the common thread with both of them is the way I can really illustrate the use of the Psychic Screwdriver and its various Apps.

The young cricketer

A lad has struggled since I’ve seen him with his ability to bowl. The problem centres around the accuracy of his resulting outcomes rather than basic technique. However the extra challenge is that he wants to bowl leg spin, which is a difficult action and discipline to master in technical terms. His outcome success rate has been about 1 decent/accurate ball in 15, with problems concerning across the entire spectrum of control. We'd covered most of the physiological issues so we kicked off into areas hitherto not investigated. Almost jokingly I told him he was SO good at bowling into the side netting, or the roof that I wanted him to try to do it on purpose. He couldn’t – which was interesting! When eventually he managed to deliberately bowl badly I congratulated him – “Good! So you can do it when trying! Keep trying just so we all know if it was a fluke or not.” It was a fluke as he returned to trying and failing straight away.

At this stage I demonstrated James Tripp’s “Card Stick” routine, which is part of his Hypnosis Without Trance. Again I showed the young player proof that when he’s trying his hardest to do something, then he actually cannot do it. This did amuse him, but the point was well made in that for him, every ball he would bowl (as with the Card Stick) was driven by intense “trying” and subsequently judged against a level of perfection that was impossible for him to reach.

I asked him whether these circumstances arose with any of his other sports. They did not, and I then looked to make comparisons with his other sporting actions and his bowling in terms of how he experiences them and the various related submodalities. As an outcome I invited him, through visualization, to get in touch with the VAK of how he is in the other sports, and to use this as an anchor before every time he bowls.

We ran a test of 10 balls bowled at a target area and he had a 60% success overall, and with 1 ball in the dead centre of the target area. He now has a positive resource to help him with his practice, and a real handle on how to raise his level of confidence in this area, and to ‘spike’ his negative self talk after judging the outcomes.

I must have used quite a range of ‘Apps’ here – and the particularly effective one was the demo of the Card Stick. In terms of changing aspects of his conscious experience this had the most impact! Plus for me it showed how such a technique can be really useful in a sports coaching context as well.

The Professional Lady

This lady was unhappy about her relationship with food, and especially her habits in the areas of “the rubbish stuff”. As is usually the case, this was spilling over into the rest of her life in terms of frustration, confidence and self esteem.

She described a fairly regular scenario where she would pick and nibble at crisps, biscuits, bread and whatever etc while preparing the family main evening meal; then have no appetite and eat very little of the meal itself; then a couple of hours after the meal would be back into the ‘picking’ routine. She said that she felt that there was part of her that was extremely childish in attitude, and would dominate by not making the best and most appropriate choices – in spite of knowing that the ‘picking’ was bad for her. She couldn’t really resolve this ‘child within’.

We talked around various areas and I explained to her about pronounscapes, and how we often describe our persona from several perspectives. This is manifest through regular conversational use of the “I – Me – Self – You” of our personas – and so I invited her to ‘come with me on a journey of discovery’ about more aspects of her persona through questions around these areas.

It turned out that the “child” was manifest in 2 of her 4 pronouns, and that there were quite different feelings and perceptions held by these 2 in particular. At this point I decided to switch to a Parts Integration – using her present state and the wealth of information gained from the answers to the pronounscapes investigation.

Why?
I could have conventionally continued down the first road and, conceivably, guided her to something that might have been useful for her. However her relaxed and calm (Alpha) state just cried out to be maintained and utilised in a different way. It seemed a shame, I thought, to bring her back to a full consciousness especially as she was able to shift into and amongst these 4 persona aspects very easily. The Psychic Screwdriver had been deployed intuitively – however, I had little idea of what was about to transpire!

Within a short space of time I was witness to, what was for her, a huge reward. Parts Integration can bring about profound shifts for people anyway, and given this lady’s very strong intra-personal dialogue, she was able to resolve the conflicting misunderstanding between each of her 2 ‘inner children’ and the other 2 adult persona aspects as well. It was a wonderful golden moment both for her, and for me as witness.

Conclusion

In my book “Don’t Think of a Black Cat” I make an analogy akin to “NLP and the Art of Plumbing.” Here the methodology is a tool-kit where the Practitioner (plumber) uses various techniques to fix clients’ metaphorical appliances, dripping taps, leaky drains etc. As time goes on, however, I’m more convinced that there is such a crossover between all the artifices in the domain of the Mind that when we obtain a Psychic Screwdriver, then all we need is to (a) keep it charged, (b) always lookout for new Apps and most of all (c) – Use It!!

Are we what we think?

2011-06-14T11:41:00.000+01:00

"Broken stones from a rich seam of ore - we can use them to throw at people or render and refine them to extract the precious metal. Precious metal from a rich seam of ore - we can use it to make weapons or bridges or spacecraft. From the broken stones of our thoughts we can do so many things...OR we can also choose to leave them untouched."

A thought is the seed of an idea - ideas are seeds of beliefs - beliefs are the filters by which we shape our reality - reality is what shapes our lives - and the lives we lead reveal our identity.

Now we could therefore say that our identity begins when we start to notice and harness our thinking - or we could say that our identity regulates our thoughts. However, is either of these conclusions true?

At what point on this 'Circle of Consciousness' is it best to intervene to make changes, enhancements, corrections?

There is this generally held view that the older we get the harder it is to learn something new. There is scientific (or is it statistical) backing for this view and, as with all things in our current age, anything with scientific backing has got to be right, right? I increasingly find that the power of learning is couched within an open mind, and that the older we get the more we allow our minds to become closed. And yet through history the people who have cornered the market for wisdom have been those who have lived all their lives with open minds - minds that have never accepted that (a) there is nothing left to learn because they know all there is to know, (b) their perception of reality is made up by their thinking and that if they change their thinking and their perception, that their world will be seen anew. Nothing rests or stands still - everything develops, evolves or dies out.

And so it is with thought - which either develops, evolves, grows or dies out.

The choice of how we develop, evolve and grow our thoughts is ours - how we filter them and refine them is our choice - how we nurture them and let them become ideas and then eventually beliefs is all our choice - based upon our bank of references. This bank of references (our personal reference library if you like) is based upon opinion, experience, knowledge and wisdom.

There's a curious linguistic colloquialism centred about the words "think" and "thing". This is shown in sentences such as
"If he thinks that then he's got another thing (think)coming" or
"It looked X but then it could have been something (somethink) else".

And within this usage there's revelations in there for us - that what we see is only what we think we see - and that whatever we may think, that there's another "think" coming along very soon, provided we give ourselves the chance to notice it. The thing is, once we have latched onto a "think" that is already in our Reference Library, then there's a very good chance we won't notice the new "think" because our references prohibit us from doing so.

So, the conclusion to be drawn is this:-
"The Path to our own Wisdom comes from our understanding of how our Reference Library works, and how we need to learn to best become our own Librarian."

The truth is that we are far far more than we think, and once we acknowledge this then we start to become a very good Librarian. And the good Librarians, as history has shown, are those who are never too old to learn new things, to see things from many perspectives, to direct and refine their thinking.

"You've got to get yourself together...."

2011-06-10T09:33:00.001+01:00

I work with many clients on issues involving their getting to grips with their relationships with food and exercise. In the course of our conversations, many similar instances of self judgement and self dialogue come up and, for me, how to best help them is rather like panning for gold; sifting through the sands of what is happening for them and how its happening; seeking the nuggets and gold dust to take to their personal "assay office".

Pronounscapes

Occasionally I'll encounter someone who talks along these lines: "I want to lose weight, but something always stops ME. YOU know, that can be just so frustrating - that all I want to do is give MYSELF a slap in the face." This lady had also said she hadn't been able to fully commit to dealing with weight loss, even though she had a clear sense of what committing to such a journey would bring for her.
So I played back for her what she'd said - the particular sentence involving I - ME - SELF - YOU. She did find it amusing, and the more I showed her that she'd actually referred to her persona in four different identities, the more came the realisation that here was a large part of her barrier to commitment.
So much so that she actually said, "Seems to ME that I actually need to get MYSELF together," and then realised (again) how the story was being played out through her pronouns.

We investigated a number of patterns surrounding her pronouns, paying particular attention to whereabouts in her body they were located or represented. Interestingly it came up, in the course of these enquiries, that it was her "ME" that held the misgivings, the stumbling block, the barrier to her progress. Consequently she was then able to explore for ME, ways towards clearer inner understandings, ways for her I and SELF (in particular) to acknowledge her ME.

Stuck in a Moment

I reminded her at this point about the U2 song "Stuck in a Moment" and invited you to listen to it and perhaps print out the lyrics and study them closely - for there is a message in there for us all.
Its full of pronouns, perceptual positioning, hypnotic language, metaphor - and is very, very anchorable. (Is that a word? - It is now!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjNRQrjIeGM&feature=related

Underestimating the Power of Obvious

2011-06-02T12:36:00.000+01:00

Many years ago I worked in the tourism industry, in a holiday cottage letting agency. One of the add-ons to the price the customers were asked to pay was cancellation insurance. Now, our CEO had worked in advertising and was very knowledgeable about the power of words – and so when it came to conveying to potential customers that the insurance was compulsory, (which was a very harsh word), he couched it in softer and more obscure terms – obligatory. And he insisted that none of us would ever use ‘compulsory’ or indeed any other word.

It was amusing to listen to new sales office staff endeavouring to explain to punters what obligatory meant, because this is not a word in out-there everyday parlance. However, for our business it was everyday parlance – and everyone of us would habitually use it without thinking. It’s the same with all professional and industry specific words and phrases.
These fall into the category of the obvious – and just as it is with language it’s the same with various practices and methodologies. And the fact is - once something is committed to the obvious, then we say and do these things verbatim, parrot-fashion, to the script. Rather like the way I learnt multiplication – the ‘times tables’. Of course, all subsequent usage takes place without us really considering the impact or power that these things have on the uninitiated.

The Visualization Routine

I have a little routine which demonstrates the power of visualization, which is particularly useful for groups since the effect works almost 100%. It’s a great one for setting out the scene for “what I do” – and essentially it shows people the power of their own mind to change something in their physiology. The thing is. this routine has become SO familiar and routine for me, that now I totally underestimate the effect it can have on people.

One of the players I coach, who is now a university student, was talking to me at a function recently. “I always remember that first session you did with us,” he said. (Nearly 3 years ago). “That visualization thing you did just blew me away and started me thinking about so many other things to do with how I play, the body and the mind.” For him this was clearly a ground-breaking series of ‘light bulb moments’ – whereas for me it was just a routine demonstration of visualization and the mind-body link. For me it was a gloss-over and I totally missed the power of the obvious.

I have a couple of other ‘routines’ I use in group situations, and here too I’ve made them so familiar to me that I again underestimate the power that lies in the message.

‘The Mayonnaise Jar’

This routine is all about recognising what is REALLY important in our lives, and ordering what we do into a hierarchy of relevance. For many it’s their first practical encounter with the logical levels of NLP – without NLP ever being mentioned. By way of props there’s a big empty jar, some golf balls, some stones or pebbles that are slightly smaller, some gravel and some sand. The jar represents Life and the balls etc represent things we do and spend our time and energies on. Depending on how the jar is filled up, it is possible to get very much more (and conversely very much less) into Life. The key is recognising the really important things (the golf balls), and to put them in first. The day to day trivial stuff (sand) can go in last.

There are many young players (and fellow coaches too) who have spoken to me about how relevant this has been for them – but for me it is just a little ‘piece of theatre’ designed to engage them on an unconscious level.

‘The Folded T-Shirt’.

I saw a YouTube video once entitled ‘Learn a new skill in 15 seconds’. I watched intrigued as a Japanese man was filmed in the street showing passers-by how to fold a T-Shirt so that it looked like a new product in wrappings on a shelf in a shop. As all his instructions were in Japanese, I had to pay close attention to how he did it visibly. And, amazingly for me – I got it very quickly, almost in 15 seconds as it happened!
Now here was the key, as far as I was concerned – visible modelling. If I could do it then I could use it as a demonstration of how new physical skills can be best acquired. I first used the routine on a group of 11 year old young sportspersons, first demonstrating and then asking for volunteers to have a go themselves.

It’s very engaging and shows us how to (a) notice certain beliefs that may be detrimental to our progress, (b) notice that too much thinking can get in the way of our learning and executing certain physical tasks and activities.

Here again we witness the power of the obvious – and because of familiarity with the routine I often devalue its usefulness.

Obligatory

So it’s important to remember that something simple and obvious to you may well be novel and meaningfully relevant to someone else. And in that novelty and newness there will be power, perhaps power for change; a change for good; a change of mind; and all because we’ve broadened their perspective.

Once you acknowledge the power of the obvious, using it becomes obligatory – because we are all instruments of change, of evolution.

The Pear Tree

2011-05-24T10:28:00.000+01:00

Every morning my Dad looks out of the kitchen window at a large pear tree adjoining our house and a neighbour. It is a flowering and fruiting pear, and the blossom emerges prior to the leaves, approximately end of March or early April every year.
Pretty much every morning my Dad says, “You know that tree used to have beautiful white blossom flowers all over – but this year it never bloomed.” Depending on the time of year he would say either ‘this year’ or ‘last year’ – and he has said this in excess of 1000 times now.

This year I took a photograph of the tree when it was in its fullest bloom and it was truly magnificent. I even took my Dad outside and up close with the tree, in the hope that this would cure his repetitive comment. This was, however, to no avail – the comments just keep on flowing. However I do say to him, “Well it did Dad, actually – and here’s a photo of it. Thing is, the flowers were only there for about a week and then they began to fall.” This gives him the chance (each day) to move on from the loop of the repeated comment.

The Kettle Accident

Now, I’ve often wondered why it is that he keeps averring the lack of blossom...until today, when I got one of those glorious lightbulb moments!

In the year of his 90th birthday (2009) he had an accident in the bedroom whilst making a cup of early morning tea for my mother. He’d boiled a kettle and then dropped it on one of his ankles. The boiling water severely scalded his flesh and he suffered second degree burns. The pain and shock must have been excruciating and in the midst of helping him and all his crying out, he still insisted that I didn’t call an ambulance. “I’m not going to hospital,” he said. “People my age go in there and never come out!” I complied with his wishes, and although he did receive a doctor’s visit shortly after, the doctor concluded that with our close attention and a daily call by the district nurse (to change the dressing on the burns), my Dad would be better off convalescing at home. This duly happened – and although the skin on his ankle recovered remarkably well with time, he actually spent 6 weeks ‘bedroom bound’. In that time his birthday came and went, and his birthday is in April.

My lightbulb moment (and we always wonder how we’d never realised it before the very day we do) was that, due to his burns experience, it meant that in 2009 he never came downstairs between the end of March and early May, and as a consequence NEVER saw the blossom on the pear tree! And as far as he is concerned – because he never saw it, then it never happened.

The other point here is that the traumatic imprint of the kettle of hot water accident has overprinted all occurrences of pear tree blossom in short term memory since that date. He could remember what the pear tree did look like in full bloom in 2008 and before – whilst in 2010 and 2011 – although he has experienced seeing the blossom (even up close), his short term memory has never been written to. The non-year in 2009 now overrides everything.

The facility of writing away memories to short term, then long term, hard and soft-wiring, imprints and traumas, is a fascinating process. Similarly – where and how we stow away (and recall) those memories in our virtual “filing cabinets’ is complex and individual to each one of us.

I believe that the more we come to understand the workings of these processes, the sooner we will be able to better deal with dementia and Alzheimer’s. Whilst chemical interventions are the conventional scientific way at present, it is most likely that the greatest alleviations will come about through neuro- and psycho- science.

Dementia Diary #3

2011-05-23T12:18:00.000+01:00

With my Dad’s dementia condition, the “waking centre” is like a centre of reality, where he’s able to recognize everything as it is right now, and which he is able to use as a ‘ground zero’ for proceeding with the activities and the tasks that fill his day.

Watching for and managing the flashpoints

In terms of those activities and tasks he is fine and well, provided all things proceed smoothly and unabated. If there is an interruption in the sequenced structure as he is going through it, then there is like a fork, a junction, a crossroads or roundabout in his path – and consequently this a source of questioning and potential confusion. He then tends to either make a choice or continue on a loop around the roundabout depending on the complexity or the question.

If he is to make a simple choice – say, to put something away in what he thinks is ‘the right place’ – then things proceed and he is out of the loop.

If he feels that he can’t make a choice because it is complex, or confusing, or if that loop on the roundabout provides no answers for him, then he has some emotional responses to the confusion that vary between humour, anxiety, frustration, anger. These are the ‘flashpoints’ that I do my best to ‘manage’ for him in order to bring him back to the “waking centre”. There is a degree of dependency on my being with him, or noticing his confusion quickly, in order to help this happen more readily. Occasionally this will not be the case, and these will be times when (depending on the complexity of the questions that arise for him) matters can go a bit haywire.

One of his sisters and nieces came to visit us yesterday which, while being wonderful for him to see them, actually got him into one of those loops of confusion. The confusion was that the seeing of them and hearing their voices prompted him to think about them – and then talk about them. Only thing was - he talked about them to their faces which was initially quite a challenge for them! They saw the funny side which was great, and eventually he was able to put 2-and-2 together!

Another flashpoint happened this morning (probably brought on by the extra levels of cognition he had to bring to bear the day before). He had woken from (presumably) quite a deep sleep and was looking for my mother, who has been dead five months, because her bed was empty and he wondered why she had already got up and not ‘given him a nudge’. Detaching myself from the various levels of emotion this whole episode carried, I was able to engage with him and guide him back towards his “waking centre”. Once he’d arrive there, I knew the rest of his day would proceed in the usual way.

Vitamin B12

A deficiency in vitamin B12 tends to exacerbate memory-related dementia. Over the last couple of weeks his GP Surgery has been ‘catching up’ with his B12 levels to such a point that he will then only need a shot every 3 months. The difference in the quality of his cognitive recall and short term memory has been noticeable during this catch-up period and this has been really helpful in broadening his reality base.

Phases of the Moon

Rather like children become more hyperactive when the weather is windy, it seems that dementia sufferers are susceptible to changes in the phases of the moon. A time of particularly hyper levels of behaviour is around full moon, and so when my Dad’s comments and actions are a bit off-kilter then I check to see what ‘time of the lunar month’ it is. Many years ago I remember studying, quite extensively, my bio-rhythms and related it to particular highs and lows, greater or lesser moments of clarity etc. There were lunar aspects of these as well, so I can easily recognize how the balance of my Dad’s own perceptions and moods are affected in this way.

The “Appointment Card’

Going out somewhere has always been a considerable ‘flashpoint’ moment for my Dad, because it cuts across his daily routine and is something that he feels he is being forced to do against his will. Once he is out of the house and that moment has passed, he is fine – and enjoys the experience. In the midst of the flashpoint, however, his anger can bubble and boil over into tantrums and florid swearing. However – he has always been a great believer in discipline, respect for professional people, and the requisite order of things (rather than chaos!) One of the features this brings is the Appointment Card – which I have latched on to as being the means of getting him out to (say) the Health Centre without any undue fuss. Provided I show him IN WRITING that he is required to be at a certain place at a certain time, and that this requisition of his time has authority that is not to be questioned, then he goes willingly. The next trick is to get him out to a restaurant for Sunday lunch by making up a printed ‘Invitation’ – requesting his presence!

Time alone will tell – but it will surely work better than whatever ways we are attempting at present.

Effective Communication

2011-05-15T20:18:00.000+01:00

People have often asked me “How do you balance your work as a mind therapist, trainer and presenter, performance coach, carer and technical sports coach – given the scattered and diverse nature of the working disciplines and the ages and types of people you’re dealing with?”
My usual answer begins from the standpoint that the working disciplines are not as diverse as they might seem on the face of it.
The key to all these disciplines however is Communication and Communicating Effectively.

Here is a link to my blog at Ignition Training - where I have written quite an extensive article about Effective Communication and how we can all enhance our qualities of Listening, Building Rapport, Deepening Sensory Acuity, Understandingthe wider ranges of Languages of the Senses, and some of the ways to get started using the subtlety of Linguistic Tools.

I hope you enjoy and find it useful.

http://ignitiontraining.blogspot.com/2011/05/effective-communication.html

...And how are you drinking YOUR wine?

2011-05-15T18:45:00.000+01:00

A lady came to see me with a whole menu of issues around food and drink. I say a whole menu, because this metaphor was not just table d'hote but an extensive a la carte as well. When confronted with such a veritable ‘banquet of choices’, and a lengthy narrative of how it all impacts upon her day, her life – where should I start? What to sink my teeth into first? Plenty of food for thought here, I mused as I got her to start talking...

Out of control and in a downward spiral

“I’d like an Anchor to help me deal with my habit of drinking too much wine” was an opening request as it seemed this had been suggested as being something that might be useful for her by someone else.

Now to be fair to her she was not an alcoholic, she was not remotely dependent, she wasn’t particularly overweight either – however, she talked a lot about being out of control, on a downward spiral, having no willpower and that the ‘way out of the pit seemed too much’.
Her biggest issue was that she had no set routine in her working lifestyle, and this translated back to her personal lifestyle. She was sometimes in meetings all day – then sometimes working from home – it was all “out of control”.

The irony is that she is a Project Manager – so we decided it would be useful for her to become her own project. We also identified what having willpower was like for her and how and where she experienced it in terms of her physiology. There were some noticeable changes in her demeanour through this part of the session and there were definite signs that some things (at least) were on the move for her.

The Anchor

“Now then,” I said eventually. “Tell me what happens at home when you decide to have a glass of wine. Make it detailed because I want to map out the structure of what you’re doing.”
She duly told me what took place step by step which was like this >

Decide to have wine > Get glass > Go to ‘fridge > Open door and see what wine is there > Choose wine > Open and pour into glass > Put wine away and close ‘fridge door > Consume wine.

“And is that what (pretty much) happens every time?” She nodded. She’s good on narrative so there were a raft of mini-details thrown in as well.
“Ok let’s look at the decision now,” I said next. “When do you decide to have a glass of wine – at home, before you get home, when? ” Her answers here were unclear, vague, muddied. She felt like it was just habitual, she certainly didn’t anticipate the pleasure of the wine passing her lips at any stage except perhaps when she was at the choosing stage gazing into the ‘fridge.

I explained to her about how the quality of any decision making process is greatly enhanced when you finish the deciding section before you start the action section. “What’s been happening up to now is that you’ve not felt in control of the part where you decide to have a glass of wine. You’ve just gone to get a glass through force of habit and everything has taken that course – Yes?” She nodded.
“You drink liquids for one of 2 reasons – Thirst or Pleasure – or a mixture of both. But only those 2 reasons. You need to decide – your Decision Making process – needs to be clear on whether you’re going to drink for thirst or pleasure. ONLY once that’s done can you move onto the next bit of action. SO - what happens when you go and get a soft drink or a drink of water?” She described it as she had described the ‘drink wine’ routine.
“I get a glass,” she started
“Same kind of glass?” I asked
“No - Different glass. And they’re in a different cupboard.”

The glasses were kept in separate cupboards that were side by side. I got her to close her eyes and show me what she did to get out (a) a wine glass and (b) a glass for water or a soft drink. She used her left hand to open one cupboard and her right hand to open the other. The wine glasses were on her left hand side. “Close your eyes and show me how you’d open the wine glasses cupboard with your right hand.” She laughed as she discovered it was quite an uncomfortable action. “You can do a number of things here,” I said – and here’s your anchor. You need to put something visual on the wine glass cupboard door that stops you and gives you thinking time. You need to be aware these cupboards can only be opened with your right hand.”

I left her to choose what visual trigger she’s going to use – and we went through the whole routine for her from start to finish (future pace) several times to see how she reacted to the strategy. She liked it, felt it would work.

Conclusion

This procedure coupled with the clarity of the decision making (the Thirst/Pleasure choice) was certainly going to be simple yet adequate enough for her to allow it to become a regular routine. This way she could still have a wine – if she REALLY consciously wanted it – which is quite appropriate for her. Plus this whole installation of a level of control, even in just this one area of her life, was enough to show her that willpower is a habit she can wear all the time.

Getting out of our Own Way

2011-05-09T15:37:00.008+01:00

Earlier this year (March) I blogged about 'trusting the unconscious' when in flow, and how this will help us to remain "Presenting Perfectly".

I've since had three instances (a client discussion, a personal discovery, and and observation of a televised event) which has led to more understandings.

The Young Musician

A young coaching colleague talked to me about when he is in performance as a musician. He outlined how things would be going well, and then, almost driven by internal dialogue or brought about by some distraction, he would find himself in mid-passage and forgetting whereabouts he is in the music. He described it as "the more I try and remember where I am in terms of the score, the less I feel able to remember."
I described how he has suddenly gone from Flow state, (which takes place on an unconscious, almost detached, level) into a conscious state. It feels rather like waking up and thinking 'where am I?' In musical terms it'll feel like you're lost.
When I used to perform and got 'lost' it was usually with lyrics, although occasionally with the music also. My escape strategy was to chop the piece into a series of sequences, each with a cue-in. This way I would only get lost within the sequence I was in - provided I remained calm, bluffed it and muddled through, and remembered to fire the start cue for the next sequence.
The other thing to remember, I told him, is that the person who knows the MOST that he is lost is You! Most of the audience have no idea. However, if you let it fluster you, they will certainly notice and the situation will only get worse for you. Keep going regardless and things will return to where you want them to be much sooner. It is just a hiccup - and like those physical hiccups, if you deal with the physical triggers to get back on 'normal track' then they'll go. The more conscious you are of them, the longer they remain!
This 'keeping going' is really the invitation to 'trust the unconscious', and when you do there is every opportunity to get back into Flow.

My two 'identical' lessons

The second instance was last week when I was coaching at a school where I'd not been before. I was doing two class group sessions, one either side of morning breaktime. Each session was identically planned so lesson #2 was going to be exactly the same as lesson #1, in terms of content.
My delivery from start to finish in the first session was unconsciously delivered, smooth and uninterrupted, and was just a reflection of my regular style of delivery.
The thing was - the teacher had never seen me before and was somewhat bowled over by how good it was; how her children had reacted, been stimulated and enthused by the whole proceedings. And she told me so, with instant and detailed feedback!

Chuffed as I was by this, it is not something I am used to - and as a consequence I delivered much less unconsciously in the next lesson; inwardly trying to replicate verbatim the 'how' of the delivery content from lesson #1.

Big mistake!

If I'd paid less attention to the glowing feedback and just launched into lesson #2, then I'd have re-engaged with my unconscious and just done 'another' well delivered session. As it was - the only person who knew this was ME! For the teacher of class #2 and the children, the session was 'brilliant, fantastic', they loved it and all was hunky-dory. The exception was for me, because I came out feeling less relaxed than after the first lesson.

Interestingly, I know that if I praise players in the course of practice, then the time they are most prone to getting things wrong is in the very next action! Their level of engagement, concentration, focussed attention is degraded through their auditory dialogue taking up foreground processing my praise!! We call it 'commentators nightmare'.

Snooker World Championship Final

The third instance was when watching Judd Trump playing John Higgins in the Snooker World Championship Final. It was Day 1 and the score was 7-5 at the time. Trump was in total Flow in frame 13 when he inexplicably changed his playing persona, from sharp and clear cut decisions that always turned out succesfully, to a sudden long period of consideration and pondering. It was totally out of character (compared to what had gone before) and clearly something had changed for him 'on the inside'. Up to this time, if he made a mistake or an error of judgement, then he was clearly unaffected by it - the single mindedness of his playing continued unabated.
After this long period of contemplation - from which the outcome did not work for him - the match score went to 7-6 and then 7-7. He was clearly thrown off-kilter by some distractive internal dialogue. Although he recovered to finish Day 1 leading 10-7, the air of invincibility had gone and he was now just playing upon his opponent's slumped quality level of play.

Come Day 2 of the Final, although still proving to be an excellent competitor, Judd Trump never actually regained that 'air of invincibility' and Higgins eventually secured a lead he was never to relinquish.
It rather reminded me of a crack on a car windscreen - it didn't shatter at the time, but through instability the crack widened until eventually, (next day) it led to the demise of the windscreen.

Conclusion

There are miriads of things that can interfere with Flow states - and the biggest carrier is ourselves, in the guise of our internal dialogue. Recognising this and trusting our unconscious to do what it does best, is the best way to becoming a consistently high level performer at our 'mental game'.

The Currency of Time

2011-04-28T11:25:00.000+01:00

Quite often I find myself pondering on how we perceive time in its various forms, and how we understand the 'currency of time'. Rather as with money, this fuller understanding of time as a 'currency' helps us spend it with more wisdom.

The Inner and Outer temporal worlds

Time is a very spacey concept and I believe that the more ways of looking at time we give ourselves when we are young, the greater the understanding we have of how (a) we fit into time outside of ourselves, (b) we can manipulate our perception of time within ourselves and (c) how time intervals have a bearing upon our sequenced thoughts and actions.

Like most things, we first come to getting an understanding about time from our parents and older siblings. Through this understanding and multi-modelling process, we form our own perceptions of time and how we run our lives relative to the past-present-future continuum, time intervals and sequenced thoughts and actions.

The Importance of Now

Recently I was coaching a group of young players all aged 10 and under - and at the end of the session, after a very exciting game, they all sat down and I just recapped what we'd been doing, and how they'd all fared etc. Finally we went into a short 'Q & A' to finish the session.
This is usually where the children ask questions ranging from something we've just been doing to just about anything else. Its all conducted on a very quick and snappy basis by them and me, and its a good way to spend 60 seconds or so of final interaction. Often interesting remarks bubble up to the surface, and this time was no exception.
"What Time is it?" asked someone, and as I glanced at my watch I couldn't resist responding with the famous quote from Yogi Berra, "You mean NOW?"
Curiously, a level of quiet fell over the group, and it was one of those occasions when you always wished that the 'cameras are rolling'. I grasped the opportunity and continued: "The Time is Now," I said. "On my watch its always Now. Yesterday, or earlier, has gone. You don't ask someone 'what time is it ten minutes ago' do you? No you ask about Now. Tomorrow, or later, has yet to arrive. When it does get here it will be Now. Only Now is right Now, here and now. And Now," I said very slowly, "is the only place to Be." It was literally one of those timeless moments, as I could almost hear the words landing in their collective unconscious.
It certainly wasn't quite like this scene from the movie SPACEBALLS -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNIwlRClHsQ

For most people, time is a real and almost tangible thing. Amusing as this graph is intended to be, it illustrates very well how we unconsciously 'bend' time, how the currency of time has a different value depending on whichever "land of the Now" we are residing in.

Controlling Our 'Tide of Time'

I've written elsewhere about how we each make up our 'world' - our own individual realities - and I call it the 'Reality Building'. Within this 'Building' are 3 vast temporal rooms or 'Halls': Memory, Now and Future. We see and run our lives in these Halls, and generally we move in and through these Halls in a fluid, flowing way. A lot of the time though we just get carried along by "the tide", without realising that "the tide" is something WE CONTROL, not something we are CONTROLLED BY.

Whether we are 'living in the past', or putting off our lives for something in the future (the "I'll be happy when..." people) - we always feel that the tide has taken us into that particular Hall. Whereas the reality is that it is OUR TIDE - and we choose where it goes and how it goes.

The Impatient Client

I once had a session with a client who "wanted help with time". Sadly, she never allowed our discussion to get beyond the pre-requisite of her telling me what HER perception of 'time' was. As I asked her various questions to elicit the information she stormed out of the session saying, "All you do is ask questions - this is a complete waste of time." Ironically, if she'd seen a video of herself doing this - then she'd have got all the answers and help she needed. I did think that if she came back I'd ask her one more question -

"When you come to a road and, given that you want to get to the other side, you can do one of a number of things - just walk across without looking, look to see if there's any traffic, ask someone to help you across, or you could stay where you are. So, which do you want to do?"

Confidence and The Leap of Faith

2011-04-20T11:46:00.007+01:00

In a recent post in this blog I wrote about the Magician's Mindset, and how taking this single-minded approach to what we do - especially in terms of a contest, a performance, taking an action - is a choice that liberates us from the debilitating shackles of self-questioning and self-doubt.

In terms of an illustration for this I always use this clip from Indiana Jones, called the "Leap of Faith"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqpevshcdww&feature=related

Blueprints

The thing about self-doubt is that it is like a stalactite or stalagmite, built up by drip-drip-feeding from failure, lack of success, non-success, shortcomings, the damning effects of "could do better", the inability to please others or ourselves. The other thing is that once it has grown in one particular place, then a pattern has been established (a blueprint if you like) that allows it to be replicated in other parts of our life.

There is another blueprint - for self confidence, built in a similar way, and that pervades, by replication, other parts of our life.
And stepping back to take in the bigger picture, there are a whole range of blueprints, channelled by experience, that we build and use in all parts of our lives.

The Cache for speedy processing

These blueprints sit on the shelves in our chart-room along with our maps of the world - waiting to be consulted for whatever we are doing, or are going to do. The thing is that the more we use certain blueprints and maps, the more we are likely to use them again and again. Rather like the 'cache' in our computer's memory, we keep these blueprints and maps close to hand for quicker processing. If we are 'good at confident' then we continue to be good at it - likewise the pessimists, the mopey types, the hypercriticals, the judgementals reach for the same regular maps and blueprints because they're near to hand, and they continue to be good at being how they are too.

How do we talk about Confidence?

Look at these statements and decide which means more to you, which one reflects your beliefs more, and which is the most powerful for you:-
"I have confidence in myself"
"I am confident"
"I am self-confident"
"I have confidence"

Two statements relate to having - two relate to being; Two refer to just "I" - the other two refer to "I" and "self"; plus there's an implication that "confidence" is some kind of an entity; and perhaps other linguistic nuances abound also.

The ebb and flow of Confidence

The thing about confidence (or being confident) is that (for most of us) it ebbs and flows through our lives and we tend to want more of it when we are approaching or anticipating a crucial or important event or action for us. Most people ask me things like "I'd like more confidence when I do X" or "I want to feel more confident when Y happens". The requisition of more confident(ce) is needed in a certain context.
Then there's the people where the ebb and flow is less noticeable, where the tide is always low, and who just "want more confidence in my life" or who "want to be more confident in everything". Now these tend to be the folk who use SELF when describing what they want as well, and although this might be construed as being "just the way they say things", the fact is that they are also using SELF here - for a reason.

The late David Grove, the psychologist who developed Clean Language also developed Pronoun-scapes - and in particular how we break down the view of things relating to ourselves into the four categories of "I - Me - Self - You". There are ambiguities in the way we describe things about ourselves in this fourfold regard, that have a powerful hold over the way we draw and use our blueprints. Take this conversation as an example:-

"You know, I find that one of the things that happens to me when I talk to myself is....."
How would you finish the sentence for this person?
My reply is most likely to be:- "...that I don't really know who I'm talking to?"

Amusing as this may seem, once you start to listen out for how people use these pronouns when talking about themselves, it gives you some great clues as to what's going on inside their heads - and also clues as to how they can clear things up and move on.

So - back to Confidence!

Ideally, it's a way of being - on the inside. "I am confident!"
It's a way of doing actions when you don't have to worry or be concerned about how things will turn out. It's a way of playing or performing when you know that through the processes the outcomes will be the best they can possibly be in this precise moment.

For all of us, getting to the state of having more Confidence is again about understanding the Leap of Faith - rather than relying on luck, superstition, drugs, alcohol, the quick 'external' fix, The Mask, The Tuxedo, the Invisibility Cloak, Sparky's Magic Piano etc.

In terms of Indiana Jones, Confidence is faith that the "stone bridge of processes" is what gets You from Now to the Outcome of the other side. Yes you can be guided, but that step, that choice, the Leap, is something only you can do.

It starts by looking ourselves in the "I".

The Session Built on Magic

2011-04-19T16:00:00.004+01:00

One particular lad I coach (aged 14) is developing mental perspectives well outside ‘the box’ and part of the weekly challenge recently has been to explore differing mindsets and how the mind-body link with each one, plays out within the confines of his technique.

Choosing our Realities

This week I talked a lot about perspectives and realities – and how we make up our realities based upon our beliefs and experiences, and how these beliefs start out and grow. If we believe particular things about certain venues, certain opponents, certain playing conditions, certain arbiters and officials, certain selectors or examiners, certain coaches (and so on) then every one of the above “certain” scenarios is likely to have a negative or a constraining bearing (or effect) upon the way WE are going to play or perform – if we choose to let them do so.

Being at “Effect” rather than "at Cause"

The thing about all our different realities is this – each one is just one version of “the truth” – His, mine, theirs etc. The thing is that no particular one is right, no particular one is more real in the real world than the other, and of course we can choose a different one every time. However, taking this choice means we have come to a fork in the road, a fork where one way leads to being "at cause" and the other to being "at effect". To do this we adopt a particular mindset, in order to align our view of the world with our view of the physical and mental approach and behaviour we are going to take. The choice is ALL ours - except that the choice of "at effect" doesn't actually feel like it is a choice we have made. The causes are all external, and we are the victims.
We’re all familiar with limited beliefs and excuses such as these ...

* “But HE made me do it!”
* “I was distracted – they put me off my concentration”
* “The Ref was a complete idiot”
* “I didn’t believe I was good enough”
* “Nothing felt right today”
* “My head was in another place”
* “We always lose to them – they’re our bogey team”
* “I hate xxxx – he winds me up just being there” and so on.
These are all external or internal distractions that we have chosen to react to in a non-useful way.

Manipulating Realities and Framing Success

“So, do you enjoy magic – do you like watching magicians doing tricks?” I asked him. I noticed a half smile that said he knew some shift in perspective was just around the corner – and he nodded so I continued.
“Magicians have mindsets that are centred on trapping and focussing your attention on one thing and then changing the reality where you aren’t paying attention. They also have, built into that mindset, a belief that they will always succeed.”
He was showing attentive curiosity now...
“So in order for you to ‘play magically’ there is a mindset you can adopt that is very much like that of the magician.”

The Magician’s Mindset

“Most of us go into any contest, performance, action even, with what I call two frames of mind. There’s the one based around what we want or would like to have happen – and there’s the other based on what we don’t want or hope won’t happen.”

This is akin to the famous phrase that says ‘Those who believe they can and those who believe they can’t, end up being both right’ – because their actions are geared towards proving their beliefs.

“All the things that happen in the contest, performance, action, we then set about comparing with our two frames of mind – and in this we justify ‘how things are going’. If it’s not going well then we react badly and if it’s going well then we might get complacent. Its that mere act of comparison that torpedoes our performance. However – if we go into the same contest, performance, action, with only ONE frame of mind, the success frame, the magician’s I-can-trick-you frame, then whatever is going to happen is ‘driven by us’ in advance AND, curiously, we tend not to make any in-play comparisons either, leaving them until the event is well over. It’s about changing the thinking from I-hope-to or I’d-like-to in favour of I’m going to”

“The other thing about the magician’s mindset,” I continued, “is the first bit - about focussed attention. This is all related to our manipulating our reality or, in other words, playing with and changing the balance of our sensual input. The magician will direct what we are looking at by talking to us in a certain way and inviting us to feel things in a certain place. It’s very cunning, and it plays with the balance of our senses in a way that we can’t consciously control. However, we can control it when we are being the magician to ourselves.”

Taking single-minded action

I invited him to step outside of his comfort zone and take the challenge of trying something different – and approaching it with a magician’s mindset, to be single-minded. There was a period of adjustment, especially as I hadn’t invited him to do something quite like this before. Then, once auditory sensual data and internal dialogue was turned right down, the changes really began to take place in terms of visual-kinaesthetic. He found the challenge exhilarating, physically as well as mentally tiring, and with some super-quality outcomes. It was interesting how he described it as mentally tiring, because he was treading uncharted territory, and this was something akin to hacking a new pathway through a “neural” jungle. I did point out that it would never be quite this tiring again.

The Priceless Comment!

Later when his one-to-one with me was finished and we were both engaged in some general activity with the rest of the players in the group, I made some remark to one of the others about being able to know what an opponent was going to do even before he did it. It was then that this particular young player grinned and asked,

“Pete, is this whole session this morning built on Magic?” It was quite the most perceptive question I’ve been asked for a long time.

Conclusion

It was a timely reminder that when we are working with clients, one of the pre-requisites for great interaction, learnings, changes and understandings, is rapport. And, for me, part of the magic of coaching is rapport and where clients then feel able to go with whatever changes they want to bring about. Although in this case I was guiding a player to break new ground, essentially part of our rapport was his trust that the new ground would be useful, purposeful, worthwhile to him as a player – and indeed as a person. Building a ground-breaking session for him within a frame of magic and artifice, was also ground-breaking for me too.

In reflecting upon our session and his amusing yet insightful remark, I have discovered that there is a great deal more for me to explore with other future clients, in terms of the concept of adopting the Magician’s Mindset.

Learning with nothing on our mind...

2011-04-14T12:40:00.006+01:00

The new routine

At rugby training last evening I was prompted to use a drill I have not used for some time, and in fact this is a drill I have used perhaps only 20 times in all the time I have been a coach. It is also a drill I have never before used for ALL players regardless of their playing position or skills level. However, something compelled to me to ‘give it a go - just to see what happens’.

It involves the players working across a square grid, running and receiving and giving a pass. Simple but complex – simple in that the skills used are very basic (catching and passing while running) – complex in that there are specific lines of running, and that timing is of the essence in order for it to function with a good degree of continuity.
As less than 15% of the players had done this drill before, they went through it in slow motion (walk through) just to see how it worked. Once happy they started to do it in earnest. I said nothing and watched for a few minutes as some got it and some messed it up big time. Then I stopped them and asked “Why do you think we’re having difficulty in doing this drill?” For me there was only one answer that was going to really count and, almost on cue, out it came: “Because we’re Thick!”

The judgemental barrier

Praise be for human predictability! This is something new to us, and we can’t do it. We’ve tried and failed – ergo we are thick. Every mistake we make adds proof to the belief that we’re thick. The more we try, the harder it gets – and the thicker we get. Sound familiar?

The degree of ‘Thickness’

The only thickness here, in truth, is the one related to our thinking – our thinking is thick, dense, compacted - so much so that we are not actually noticing what we are experiencing and how the experience is impacting upon us and our ability to learn. There is no clarity in our minds and insights cannot get through this mass of thick thought.

When a baby learns how to walk it learns with nothing on its mind. It doesn’t try a bit and then evaluate what its doing and call itself thick because of the repeated fallings-over. It just does action > experiences result > does slightly different action > experiences result > does slightly different action > experiences result > does slightly different action and so on. During this process it will be helped and encouraged by other people and at some point the experiential learnings will pass into unconscious competence.

When we learn how to communicate and speak our first language it’s an evolving process like learning to walk. We learn with nothing on our mind – we just relate sounds to objects and actions to build our knowledge and we make our own sounds modelling them on what we’ve heard from others, so we can communicate back to them in a way they understand us.
We learn to do both these processes very quickly, and at no point is there a mention (let alone a judgement) of ‘thickness’. There’s no thinking getting in the way, it’s just facilitated by experience and modelling.

Learning other Languages

When I was about five we lived in the Sudan. Through experience rather than any formal learning method I could communicate in Arabic, apparently quite fluently. I learnt to communicate with nothing on my mind. Once we left the country I’d lost that faculty of language within a few months through lack of usage.
At school I learnt French, but it was from the outside>in. By this I mean that in terms of conversation, within the confines of my mind I would: hear in French > translate into English > formulate a response in English > translate into French > speak in French.
This all took place in the fraction of a second, but was still not a smooth path – until at some point when I could formulate a response in French and cut out the translation processes in the middle.

I never had trouble with sounding French because my learning method for reproducing sounds was based on a “Hear and Do” modelling process. If I’d learnt French from the outset based upon a modelling process rather than a mathematical process then I’d have got to thinking in French a lot quicker by getting all that additional thinking out of the way!

Old dogs and new tricks

The notion that we are too old to learn something new has built up partly due to science telling us that we are at our most receptive up to some time in our twenties. The rest is down to the imposition (by self or others) of the idea that learning becomes more difficult as we get older; and that idea has become a given and perpetuating belief, accepted as a norm embedded in the thickness of our thinking.

But I digress......

My players’ next steps

After we’d all laughed at this conditioned response I unpacked the drill for them in a different way. “Guys this is a new drill. It involves simple skills and structured movements within a triggered time scale.

You can all walk, ride bikes, drive cars. They all involve actions built on the same framework, and they are complex sequenced actions - compared to this drill. Now, this drill can break down in one of those 3 areas of ... your skills, your movements, your timing.

The easiest to deal with is the basic skills – if you pay attention to catching the ball and then passing it so that the next man can catch it easily then you are executing the simple basics of the game. The most important sensual element to help you accomplish this is Visual – so use your eyes!

The next is the structured movement – the shape of the path of movement is like a number ‘7’. You start at the bottom of the ‘7’ and follow a similar path, turning left and then stopping at the top of the ‘7’. Plus there’s a marker on the grid to show when you turn left. That’s all there is to it. Here again – use your eyes!

Finally it’s timing your pass and subsequent run...and this too is triggered to start when the running player goes through a particular point on his route down the ‘7’ path. Again, the eyes give you the most information.

You are trying to “Think and Do” at the same time, and as a result the feedback you should be getting from experience is not getting through all the thinking. If you “See and Do” instead you’ll get all the triggers, all the pathways and handle the ball properly. So it’s not about “being thick” – it’s more about being “think”. Get out of your own way, just see and act, and notice the experience without any thinking.”

They started the drill again and within a few minutes it was working perfectly.

Conclusion

So what are the learnings and understandings here?

Look across your life’s learning experiences and find out your most successful method of learning – the chances are it will not involve a lot of thought within the process.

Even thinking itself is a process we learn to do without being taught. The trouble is, although we’ve learnt how to think - we haven’t thought how to learn. And we are not taught how to learn either. This makes all education something of a lottery – and if you consider educational methods then it’s clear that some of them will work for some people and not others.

In most of our learning, especially as we get older, we have a tendency to get in our own way far far too much! Part of the getting in our own way is this desire, need almost, to evaluate and judge – the need to prove to ourselves how good or how thick we are. I call it 'Compete and/or Condemn'.

Only when we can free ourselves from ‘Compete and/or Condemn’ by getting out of our own thought, can we then start learning with nothing on our mind.
We can only allow ourselves the best experience of learning, when we can get out of our own thought and free ourselves of its density and thickness.

Hypnosis and the Science Lab

2011-04-08T09:21:00.001+01:00

Many years ago in an advertising campaign for an alcoholic beverage, the notion was that the drink guides the drinker to be able to miraculous things, with the tagline that "only Heineken can do this - because Heineken reaches parts of the brain that other lagers cannot reach."

Now it would seem not just so...and HYPNOSIS is making it into the science lab - not just for what it does, but more as an additional tool to allow researchers into particular mental phenomena to subvent and bypass conscious brain functions. As this fascinating article from Vincent Bell explores, hypnosis reaches the parts that brain scans and neurosurgery cannot reach!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/sep/30/hypnosis-neuroscience-psychology

Decision Making - opening perceptive doors

2011-04-05T14:11:00.003+01:00

I was talking with a client about, ostensibly, his current stress and frustration at work brought about by the quality standards of his small work force (and one employee in particular). We explored the situation he encounters and he was comfortable with the notion that it all boils down to his needing to make a decision from a number of choices, scenarios, and based upon certain actions and inactions.

Resolution

Of course once having decided that he needs to make a decision, he discovered that his stress levels were noticeably eased! Resolution of unclosed situations can be very liberating for us in this regard, because within any lack of closure are bonds that restrict our progress. These restrictions can spill over to many aspects of our life, by affecting our mood, the general level of our state of mind on a regular, even on a day to day basis.
One of the most useful things to know that will help us break down the barriers to resolution are a particular set of questions known in NLP as the...

Cartesian Questions

The strategy of the 4 ‘Cartesian Questions’ helps to explore the ramifications and ecologies of decision making. The questions are as follows:-
• What WILL happen if I DO this?
• What WON’T happen if I DO this?
• What WILL happen if I DON’T do this?
• What WON’T happen if I DON’T do this?
Understanding how to run the process of this strategy is very simple – however, what it gives us is a much broader perspective of consequences, especially in terms of going down the route of inaction – the route of DON’T DO.
The Cartesian Questions help move us from vacillation and/or procrastination to action and/or resolution.

What happens next?

Although the Cartesian Questions have revealed for us some possibilities, they don’t actually look at the structure of how we perform actions or tasks. Because the “HOW TO DO” structure also begins with a decision making element, this leads on quite appropriately to the next stage to consider.

I was at a workshop once where the presenter asked us to consider how we might perform a task in terms of four stages –

• Making a decision to do the task 5-6/10
• Start the task 3-4/10
• Persevering with the task 9/10
• Completing or finishing the task 6-7/10

She next asked us to objectively mark ourselves out of 10 in terms of how we perform each of the four elements – and above I have illustrated the scores I gave myself. For me this assessment process threw up many learnings and understandings. One of these was how and where procrastination makes an impact, as illustrated by only a 3-4 score. Another was that if we are in “doing mode” all the time, ie begin to do the task before completing the decision element, then our starting action is muddled with lack of total focus and with some score out of 10 of INDECISION or unclosed decision-making (in my case this was 4-5!).

So, with my score of 9 for perseverance, I am very diligent at sticking at the task once I’ve started, but I haven’t started with enough clarity of thought about all of the decision making process – and this might be in the area of “how to do it”.
Plus, would I start pushing up my finish/closure scores if I FINISHED the very first element (with a resulting higher score) BEFORE I actually started the task?

Ask yourself this....

Consider getting a piece of self-assemble furniture. Do we methodically lay out all the pieces and match everything up to the set of instructions? Do we read the instructions through and understand them BEFORE we start, or do we do this as we go along? Or do we jump right in and then have to make changes, backtracks as we go along – and then might be left with some screws, nuts, bolts etc at the end, wondering what we haven’t done properly!

More practical applications.....

I was coaching a sportsman recently who complained of having his “head full” and “not having enough time” to play shots at balls coming towards him. I explained this process to him and centred on what was happening for him around elements 1 and 2. Are you starting the whole action of hitting the ball (preparatory footwork and other physical movements) BEFORE you have closed the element of making the decision? He looked at me as if a lightbulb had suddenly come on inside his head. “That’s how I feel in a nutshell. That is exactly what’s happening to me.”
I then told him to face the next 10 throw-downs and not start the task UNTIL he had completely closed the decision making process. He and I would then talk about what (if anything) was different for him. He played the next 10 shots in a way he had not done previously, and before we’d even had a chat about it he started smiling with satisfaction.
What he didn’t realise was that part of the decision making process is gathering information about the flight of the ball, and that the bulk of this information is gathered by visual means. By delaying his starting to take action, the QUALITY of that information is enhanced, thus making the decision based upon better and more meaningful data. In essence, his concentration was improved.

Exam Strategy

At school I can remember us being told about examination strategy, one part of which was to read the whole question paper through first and then decide which questions to answer and which ones to leave. Then to read those questions again and then sketch out how we might answer them. Once happy we were then to make a start.
With hindsight, this is fascinating in that the helpful advice given to us reflects elements 1 & 2 almost exactly – even though no-one ever analysed it or told us WHY this strategy would be more helpful than approaching things another way.

The fact is, although we can multi-task very well, we are not so good at concurrent multi-decision-making. This would be made more clear if we were to call what we mean as “multi-tasking” as “multi-action” or “multi-doing”. Ask people to do two things at the same time, each task involving making separate sets of decision making as they go along. They don’t function anything like as well as they do when the multiple elements are undertaken non-concurrently.

So – to return to my client and his stress and frustration – for him this whole decision making process has a “soft” time scale. That is to say, there is no immediate urgency. The most important part of this for him is to be comfortable with the action to take by running and examining a range of options and possibilities.

Action and the “Starting Gate” of decision

I next drew a metaphorical analogy for him of the start of a horse race – where each horse represents one particular choice he could make. The horses are loaded into the starting gates and when the starter is happy they are all in, then he pulls the lever that opens the gates and the horses emerge into the race. Each horse emerges in a different way, and they progress down the time line represented by the course. Leading horses and back markers will emerge in the course of the race, and eventually there will be a winner. The winner will be the optimum choice to make – the back markers will be horses not to put money on.

Using the Race

This particular metaphor might be useful for you, as you consider a number of options and you might want to “play out” how they will emerge from the “starting gate” of decision.
Map out the chronology of events down the course of time, and then be the jockey on each of the horses in turn as they might go down the course. By physically walking or “riding the course” your body will reflect to you a number of nuances and feelings – the more being revealed the more you are able to associate into each choice scenario.
You will notice which “horse” gives the best ride, which the smoothest ride, which might fall along the way – all pointers towards the most appropriate choice to make. Take time to turn around and look back towards the starting gate, just to reinforce the paths you have taken, and to further “notice what you notice”.

Conclusion

Whatever type of decision making process you need to perform, there are elements here to really expand your perception of what options are there for you and how to “clean up your closures”. Whether you need to make “instant” decisions for sporting or other time-specific performance reasons or whether it is something more along short, medium or even long term lines that demands that you play out a number of scenarios to ascertain the better ones and the ones to avoid – the 4 Cartesian Questions and Action and the Starting Gate of decision are going to make life a lot more straightforward, reduce stress and frustration and help you perform in a much better way.

"Are we nearly there yet?"

2011-03-23T12:02:00.003Z

I recently replied to someone's post on a forum and part of my communication included this comment:

Every experience we have carries much more meaning for us than we can ever imagine.

And the more I thought about it, the more I became reminded of those well worn phrases used by children in the backs of cars going on holiday, "Are we there yet?" or "How long till we get there?"
For me the most exciting childhood holiday was going to the seaside, and on the journey keeping a lookout for that glimpse of blue that said 'nearly there'. The seaside meant so many exciting things to come - and even falling into a ditch full of nettles near Scarborough, or stepping on a jellyfish on Morecambe beach, couldn't dampen the anticipated pleasure of the s e a side!

At some point along this growth of life experience I began to understand the part that the journey played in going from home to seaside, seaside to home, A to B, somewhere to anywhere. The journey became an opportunity to do things not possible at A or B - and so I built up the idea (then the belief) that journeys were not tunnels between two lit up places at either end. But they were meaningful entities in their own right - with their own set of experiences, enjoyments, opportunities, pleasures and learnings. Yes, like A and B, they carried their own particular jellyfish or ditches of nettles, and that was understood as being part of the order or things - part of the way life is.

The learnings gained from "the journey" experiences continue to this day, as I discovered just recently when I had chosen to get from A(shburton) to a nearby village by taxi, only to discover that no taxi was available! The weather was ok, it was dusk and I had little luggage, so I set out to walk the 4 miles. On the flat it would have been a doddle, but the hills are steep in this locale and after about 3 miles the nettles were getting more stings and the jellyfish larger. Then a lovely lady in an old Metro gave me a lift the rest of the way, assuring me "You've walked the hard part - the rest is all downhill," which was nice.
As I lay soaking in a wonderful warm bath in my room at the village Inn, I contemplated what had been useful about the last hour and a half...useful on so many levels...

Life doesn't always provide us with a taxi, and even if it did there would be less to see, hear, feel and understand if the journey was accelerated in that way. And ignoring the significance of the journey for us means we lose the opportunity to learn more (or even anything) about ourselves.
And this goes to the very deepist message in the phrase "Every experience we have carries much more meaning for us than we can ever imagine".

"I've come here with an Open Mind...."

2011-03-22T09:21:00.006Z

I was attending an event last week run by Coaching Connect, Devon http://www.coachingconnect.co.uk/events-detail.asp?serialno=291

It was my second time, and it was great to see people I'd met previously, people I've only met online, and also make some new friends and contacts.

Quite early in proceedings someone asked me "What have you come for - what are you looking to get from today?"
Given the event billing as being 'an opportunity to develop your business and to network with other coaches and share good practice', it would have been understandable had I followed one of those guidelines for my answer. However, I also have a philosophy of learning something new from every day and so it was more appropriate for me to answer "I've come with an Open Mind", except that I also added, "...that way I'll get everything that presents itself to me and probably a lot more besides!"

In the fleeting moment as my words echoed back I noticed (a) the subtle changes in what I'd said compared to the last time I'd been asked that question and (b) the reactions of the person who asked me. And in truth I now have to say that - had I not had an Open Mind at that moment then I would not have noticed either of those things, and the usefulness of them to me.

The openness of our Minds isn't just about being open to all the incoming sensual information, because essentially that's going on unconsciously all the time anyway. Its more about our internal dialogue, our beliefs, our 'agendas', all of which are filtering the internal experience. When we filter stuff out of the internal experience then there's no chance of insights, 'a-has' and lightbulb moments - those unconsciously driven 'bolts from the blue' that pepper the conscious, the intellect, with meanings and linkages to our previously unanswered questions.

So, to get back to the coaches' forum and my Open Minded approach...

What did I come for? What am I looking to get?
* To interact with interesting and like-minded people on an unspecified range of topics
* To experience a day of discoveries and learnings
* To create, build and foster friendships on a variety of levels
* For fulfilled enjoyment through all of the above

And, on reflection, did I get all this?

Definitely, and in abundance! I certainly got everything that presented itself to me! Plus - as I expected - I got a whole lot more besides. Has it developed my business? Certainly - my business isn't something I do, it is what I am. And as such I have developed what I am.

Could I have done all this, got all this, if I'd gone with an Agenda? Highly unlikely. I'd have missed the sounds of popping lightbulb moments, I'd have missed all the nuggets and gems proferred by the presentations, workshops and conversations. However, I would have got the sounds of my own voice, the judgements of my own narrow band of beliefs, and the reassurance and comfort of agreeing with my own internal dialogue.

Our Minds can only get broader by removing the constraints and bringing flexibility to the boundaries. And the only constraints are self-allowed and self-imposed internal ones.

Dementia Diary #2

2011-03-21T16:02:00.003Z

"Life is only worth something if you live it every day."

Whenever we have family visitors staying or friends visiting my Dad generally responds to the question 'How are you today?' with the cheery reply "I'm still here!" These are the words of a very in-the-moment man who, at 91, can still raise for us all some of the most amusing and meaningful comments.
This particular Sunday however, he came out with a secondary observation which had us all speechless and rooted to the spot for a moment or two - "Life is only worth something if you live it every day," he remarked.

This affirmation from the high and lofty pinnacle of strong beliefs and a huge chunk of experience almost flies in the face of his advancing dementia condition and somewhat displaced memory chronology since 1946. It also gives us a clue as to how he got through the extremes and deprivations as a WW2 prisoner of war for 5 years in Poland having been shipped there after failing to make it to the rescue at Dunkirk. It also shows us how he (like many of his generation) just 'got on' with life once the war was over and said very little about his experiences.

Frustrating as his dementia must be on occasions, his "Life & Worth" philosophy seems to very helpful in overcoming those frustrations and frees him up to live in every moment.
He gets huge pleasure from being totally absorbed in either his stamp collection or playing a variety of songs and tunes on the harmonium. This instrument - incidentally - gives him physical exercise for both feet and hands; as well as eliciting music and words from memory that are anchored to other experiences and happenings at the time.
He is never bored, merely moving from one activity to the next as the interest takes him. Occasionally he moves tangentially onto some unrelated activity, and here again he gives it total attention until it is concluded or resolved. He then gravitates back to the 'waking centre' by either checking the time, making some tea, seeing who's at home, and perhaps looking outside at the weather, the street activity or the garden.

The random re-connectedness with some of his memories is equally fascinating and surprising for me. Interestingly, during these moments of reconnect I find that by guiding him to pursuing certain "live" threads, he will remember detail vividly - and I also know that this random illumination will be lost once the moment of each thread has passed.

The biggest boon for me, thankfully, is that by projecting into his reality I'm able to be his additional guide, rather like an extended memory or external hard drive! Plus (and its a big plus) I'm not beset by any carried over emotion of my own or indeed any of his (in the moment) emotions such as frustration or anger. Many have described to me the usefulness of this "one foot in his world" and "one foot in my own world" view of reality - and I'm able to be almost robotic with my foot in "his world".
How intense and time consuming do I make this? Not overtly so - I also want him to interact with "my world" or "the world" at times, plus I'm happy he can spend plenty of time in his own world at his own ease. The key, I feel, is what I have already described as his "waking centre" - a kind of ground zero set in time and space where he knows there is a reset button which will enable him to set off once more.

Routine and familiarities are important there too as I found out when he awoke from a nap and started looking for something underfoot - something that was clearly part of a dreamscape rather than a waking 'realscape'. I floundered for some minutes until deciding to take him back to his "waking centre" - and once there his continuous loop of looking for the 'thing underfoot' melted away in the gift of the next new moment of life!

Every day is full of new learnings - and is certainly worth it every inch of the way.

Presenting Perfectly by trusting the Unconscious

2011-03-12T01:08:00.001Z

I had an occasion, this evening, to do a "relax" session for a small group of six clients. This is something of an irregular engagement, and I was actually helping out another therapist who was unable to make the session.

I've done them before, and follow a fairly routine pattern of grounding through breathing control, followed by PMR (Progressive Muscle Relaxation), leading onto some guided visualizations. The whole collective process is couched in very gentle, hypnotic language - and can best be described as "the meal the chef might cook for himself if he wanted to chill out".

In guiding people through this process, I say what I see, hear, feel and notice in a very loose and unscripted way - knowing (basically) what I want do, where I want to go to, and what I'd like to do when I get there. Its what I used to love about playing jazz guitar - you had the tab, but you never really knew exactly which road each performance would go down.

In this particular session I'd reached the second "subject" of guided visualization. The metaphorical landscape for this was:
You're walking on a beach, noticing all the sensations available to walkers on a beach. Eventually you notice a canoe near the water's edge and walk over and examine it. It just there, without paddles; and whilst it might appear to have been abandoned, it is there for a purpose. You've come to the beach with certain issues, problems, obstacles, burdens in your life - all carried in variety of packages, parcels, rucksacks, boxes, containers...you name it. And now seems a good time to unload all your baggage into the canoe.
And so it goes on!

The interesting thing at this point, as I was guiding these good folk to lay down their burdens not down by the riverside but in the canoe, I became aware of a fleeting thought: "What am I going to do with the canoe?" I knew where I wanted it to go...drifting out to sea and over the horizon. However, having disengaged these people from their cargo, I didn't really want them to re-engage (or get their feet wet) by pushing the canoe off the sand into the water.

And, magically, the fleeting thought was picked up by my unconscious and a very simplistic answer was returned: "They can walk back up the beach from the water's edge, sit down and relax and watch the incoming tide float the canoe and, through the power of breeze and current, carry it out to sea and over the horizon".
This also presented many avenues of opportunity to draw analogies between something as naturally powerful as the tides cleansing and renewing and regenerating the beach, and people's lives.

Only later did I notice that by trusting my unconscious and not reacting to the "fleeting thought" but rather just passing it on - that I actually came up with an even better and more meaningful solution not only for my part as guide in this journey, but also for the group and each individual's opportunities for unconscious learnings from this process.

Acknowledge the Knowledge - and spend it!!

2011-03-04T11:36:00.001Z

Part of my acknowledgement of living is that I learn something new every day. This can be something experienced or something cognitively deduced or something insightful. Whichever way it is sourced, I always try to be true to acknowledging the wonder - and to thank the provider.
I believe it is part of what enables me to keep an open mind on everything and helps me maintain an understanding, a respect and a humility for my fellow humans.

Working a lot with children brings all these beliefs and values right up to the surface, in close proximity, and - by the very nature of coaching and teaching - means that I spend a lot of time dispensing knowledge or routes to knowledge.
This is a relationship, however, and an equilibrium has to be maintained for this relationship to work best. All communication is a two way thing even though the balance of speak/hear, give/receive, talk/listen, show/copy, teach/learn etc ebbs and flows through the interactions of the relationship. There are times when I'm the learner/receiver and the child is the teacher/giver - its inevitable - it happens. And its at these times when I'm enthused, and I acknowledge the knowledge.

I love the look on a child's face when I thank them for helping ME learn something new today. They can't quite believe what they hear - because they are always used to knowledge, understandings, teachings, to be going in only one direction.

Knowledge is the currency of wisdom - and in the same way that money is worthless unless it is used - knowledge is worthless until it is used. Money and knowledge are purely means of exchange. Learning is an illusion until we use, or spend, the knowledge. To be clever, or artful, is of no use until the person converts their knowledge, uses their skills, for a purpose.

The day an education system tutors children in how to spend their knowledge will be the day it starts to evolve.
For now - all of us need to acknowledge the knowledge, and spend it!

When you're an 8 year old there's no "box" to think outside!

2011-02-25T13:27:00.005Z

I was working at some cricket fielding exercises with a group of six Under 11 cricketers - and in particular I did a competition with them at throwing and hitting the target stumps from about 15m away.

After we finished this I asked them what is the most important thing to do when trying to hit the stumps, and they all echoed at once, "We need to concentrate by looking at the target." - Pretty straightforward so far. Then I invited them to consider something a little 'outside the box'. "How good do you think you'll be at hitting the stumps when you throw with your eyes closed?" Some thought they stood no chance because they'd only managed one or two hits with their eyes open. Others (especially all the youngest ones) just took it in their stride, without even considering it was an 'outside the box' request.

We ran the same competition, this time throwing with eyes closed - with some hits and a lot of very near misses. Eventually after 2 rounds we had two contenders for a deciding throw-off. One was a young county player and the other was a beginner aged only 8 (though quite technically astute.)
The eventual winner was the beginner. I got them all in a huddle and then did a post-competition "interview" with the winner. "What was your secret to winning," I said, "what did you do specially so we can give your advice to everyone else here?"

Completely unfazed he said, "I looked at the stumps as if I was taking aim, and then closed my eyes and threw the ball."
"Brilliant," I said. "And could you still see the stumps when you closed your eyes?"
He nodded.

The learning spin-offs from this little exercise are considerable.

All these youngsters will go away with:
* An uncomplicated belief that provided you take aim and trust your eyes then there's every chance of being succesful.
* This spills over into what happens (a) when you try too hard and (b) when you just relax.
* When they encounter it properly, they'll understand that visualisation can be a very powerful tool.

For me its a reminder that hitting targets is something we can do with our eyes closed! And, most of all, that at some point in our development we meet a 'box of conventionality' that rationalises our way of thinking about what is possible, what is the norm - and for some of us this conventionality is the carrier for limiting beliefs.
Clearly for this particular 8 year old there is no 'box' to think outside. He accepts everything as normal, there's a lack of anything called convention, and his ability to experiment, discover and learn continues unabated.

Long live Youth!

"That's a load off my Mind"

2011-02-21T16:12:00.004Z

I last wrote about the "Cloud Technique" back in April 2010 (see archive) and as to how effective and flexible it is - not just for state change and enhancement, but also for removing elements of unwanted mental (particularly emotional) baggage.

The technique is just one of Kevin Creedon's** hugely useful developments, and I'm indebted to Kevin for it and to Nigel Hetherington** who first brought it to my attention.

I've used it many times now, and the most recent for a client who had been struggling for a couple of years to find closure after leaving a previous job.
This lack of resolution was starting to impact into other areas of her life, affecting her objectivity and ability to focus on a variety of things and, most importantly, chipping away at her self-esteem. "Everyone else affected has dealt with their issues around this change of job for me, but I have a lot of anger, frustration, and resentment going on still and just can't shift it." Her physiology, as she told me about it, tensed up - especially around her neck and shoulders - and her voice took on a terse quality to back this up.

She'd actually come to see me about something else - however this seemed a good opportunity to tackle this issue as it was clearly the more dominant!

PW - "So is there a colour you associate with this anger, resentment, this frustration?"
CL - (after a pause) "No - but I'll tell you what its like. Its like a big, heavy weight." It was good of her to give out this metaphor so early!
PW - "Its like a big, heavy weight - and is there anything else about that heavy weight?"
Cl - "It sort of encloses me, but its not in front of me." I already knew where it was from her earlier body language, so I pointed towards her neck and shoulders:
PW - "Kind of, around here enclosing you - but not out here in front..."
CL - "Yes that's it. Big, heavy, weighing me down..."
PW - "And what would you like to have happen really?"
CL - "For it not to be there - to be behind me."
PW - "What happens to it when its behind you?"
CL - "It just dissolves and disappears..."
PW - "It just dissolves - almost like 'out of sight out of mind'..."

Next I got her to stand up, ensuring that the feeling was still there on her neck and shoulders. She was fully associated into the whole scenario now. I invited her to see what it was like when I helped her lift the big, heavy weight off her neck and shoulders with my help.
CL - "That's nice, that's much better - but its not fair on you. Now you've got it."
PW - "Not a problem for me," I said, "because I'm going to get rid of it by throwing it out of the window. So now - as I hold it, as I take the weight, I want you to step forward and away from it."
This she did, and after another step I got her to turn around and face me (holding her imaginary weight) and the window. I asked her if there was any weight left still on her neck and shoulders. There was none. I then 'threw' the weight out of the window - knowing of course that for her it was going to dissolve, evaporate, disappear.
PW - "Is there any of the weight left behind in the chair you'd been sat in, or anywhere else in the room?"
CL - "No its all gone!"
PW - "Absolutely sure?"
CL - "Yes - I would see it if there was because it was dark grey."
So there WAS a colour associated with it after all!
She was visibly surprised and somewhat bemused that she could feel so different. I got her to sit down in the chair I'd occupied and asked her about how she felt now about her closure issues. She reported nothing at all - a totally neutral response.

We conversed a little further, and she became almost tingling with excitement that the weight had gone, the emotions surrounding closure were neutral, and that it had been quite so simple, saying, "Heavens! Quite literally that's a load off my mind!"

** - You can find Nigel Hetherington's website at Communicating Excellence, and about Kevin Creedon at the Dynamic Wellness Center, New York.

Additional thanks go to Judy Rees, The Elephant Whisperer, for helping my understanding with framing the questions and eliciting and working with the client's metaphors. Her website is at XRay Listening.

Perfectionists - Do NOT read this!

2011-02-21T10:05:00.002Z

In the wide range of perfectionist habits from people who have fallen off the "Good-for-Me Foods and Drinks Wagon", to the sportspersons who beat themselves up, even in practice, the reasons are inevitably the same - they are trying to match what they're doing to a model of perfection - and coming up short.
This model of perfection allows no faults, no deviations from the 'right' pathway - these are the all-or-nothing people, the 100%ers. And they judge, and they try, and they fail, and they try harder, and fail even more because they are trying harder!

There's a great quote by Bruce Lee:
"The less tension and effort, the more faster and powerful you will be"....and it starts with a deep calm breath, and a sense of being grounded.

The biggest cause of failures in dietary control is because the participants are not tolerant of their personal shortcomings. The biggest barrier to advances in sporting or performance expertise is that same intolerance, plus the 'try harder' syndrome. They, each of them, fail to acknowledge themselves as they are Right Now.

There's a well worn mantra "If you keep doing what you're doing, then you'll keep getting what you've got" - and this works well with those who are not bound in to the strategies of the 100%ers. But the bindings that hold those perfectionists to their excuses, their judgements, have been building over many years. They've learnt, over that span of time, to be as comfortable as possible with those bindings so they can get by, so that life goes on as best it can. "Its part of me - its who I am" is what they say about themselves, and what others say about them too.

It doesn't have to be this way - but the bindings are there to hold these attitudes in place - and the exit strategy is to release the bindings.

I feel that when people release THEIR OWN bindings then permanent change is made possible. This way they possess their own "change of mind" - instead of it being something imposed upon them from the outside. There are a number of ways of showing them their bindings, and part of what I do with them is to discover the nature of their bindings and what might be the most appropriate pathway for release.

These always start with questions, questions that eventually lead to questions and notions they can ask and explore for themselves. There's a really good set that I find opens things up, particularly for those 'stuck' on a plateau of progression...

"With whatever you're good at, how did you get to be as good as you are already? There was some point - back in your past - when you weren't as good as you are now. So in order for you to have become as good as you are, you must have allowed yourself to become better than you were."

Try this on the perfectionists you know (even the closet ones) and see what happens. Notice how they frame their answers - notice how their state shifts. See if any of that ice melts and becomes not ice!

Eradicating food compulsions - more encounters with "The White Plate"!

2011-02-18T09:10:00.006Z

In April 2010 I blogged about the recurrence of the white plate as the featured receptacle when mapping across 'Liked' foods/drinks and 'Disliked' foods/drinks. (See blog archive).

On all occasions since, when clients have actually wanted to eradicate some particular excess or craving, then the foul and obnoxious has always been represented by them as being on a white plate.

This latest encounter was with, initially, cans of Cola vs Black Pudding.

I first got her to map (or locate) where the spatial representations were of her sensual perception of both a can of cola (the liked) and then some black pudding (the disliked).
There wasn't a huge directional difference between the liked/disliked locations - however the distance away from the client was substantial and, as it turned out, very usable. I had to be quite creative (and manipulative) with this because the drink was inside a metal container! However, as the white plate adorned with black pudding was "brought" from its distant location right up to where her can was represented, for the purposes of her imagined experience, I broke some of the black pudding into small enough pieces to drop into the can once that had been opened. We duly tested and she visibly recoiled from any indulgence in partaking of the can of Cola.

Now she had a situation where she would be unsure about every future can she would open - so the reality sequence would be < open can - pause - check if drink contains particles of black pudding - but how to do this? - smell to check or pour into a glass? - or (great alternative) just don't bother >.
In all these interrupts of her former habitual 'addiction' is the conscious opportunity to take a 'better drink' option.
So - what if she DID pour the can into a glass? "Its not the same in a glass, not as fizzy," she said. It would appear that for her the 'quality of fizziness' was key and so cola in a glass or, even worse, flat, is quite unattractive.

After this routine she said, "Well - so what about all the sweets and stuff that is not good for me as well...can we do something about them?" She was clearly up for taking advantage of this 'opportunity for change'.

With time not being on our side as far as her appointment was concerned, I took a bit of a punt on her mapped position of sweets being in the same location as her cans of cola. We brought the white plate, black pudding, can and all, and put it back in the requisite location for her - and I invited her to enlarge the plate into a kind of platter. One that was big enough to take those things already there PLUS any sweets, cakes etc that she had an unhealthy compulsion to consume. I reminded her about all the unsavoury delights of the black pudding, as it sat there, in her vivid imagination, rubbing shoulders with cakes and sweets.
After a bit of contemplation she said, "Can you please move this platter away?" With this done we concluded her appointment shortly after running through some future pacing and encountering her erstwhile compulsive favourites.

Time will tell whether the hurried second part of the process has any effect, though I have to say that her state and particular physiological reactions bear out my gut feeling that it has. I await to receive her feedback in due course!

And this left me thinking, yet again, about the white plate! White crockery is very popular, so why does this popularity extend to using it quite in this representative (or metaphorical) way. I've asked everyone - including myself - what is it about the white plate? Some say it just sets the disliked thing off really well; some say the pure of the white is the best contrast for the disliked thing; some, like me, just don't know.

Working outside the 'Bubble of Expertise'

2011-02-15T10:24:00.003Z

Last weekend I coached 3 young district level cricketers for an hour each, and it was my first coaching at this level for the best part of two years. I have to say it was a real pleasure, both in terms of our interaction and their outcomes. Also I'm hoping that they'd gained enough ideas for change to stimulate and motivate them to taking their (batting) game onto the next level.

I approached them as clients, rather than coachees or (even worse) schoolboys, and looked to establish an atmosphere where they could express themselves. Although I knew all three, only one of them do I coach privately - and he is well versed in my 'atmosphere' of practice and experiment! The others (both aged 13) took a short while to become accustomed to the kind of freedom afforded to them, because essentially they are usually accustomed to being coached from a different perspective.

I spoke to one of them in particular about how learning something you like is not a chore but rather a pleasure - the very reason being that you like doing it. "Think of school," I said, "and the lessons in subjects you like. You look forward to them, you relax, pay more attention, and the whole learning thing has momentum before the lesson even starts."

The key action next is to capitalise upon this positive state and allow them to open up to all the possibilites afforded by what they are experiencing in practice. These possibilities exist outside the box (or bubble) of current expertise. Now, they could perhaps just want to 'groove' their current expertise - but that's not a learning experience, it is more of a conditioning exercise. And I wanted to engage them in learning (discovering) more about the breadth and limit of their capabilities by getting outside the bubble!

Interestingly, this bubble (or box) of current expertise is also the domain of the perfectionists and "finite-masters". These are the ones who are habitually prone to beating themselves up because they are trying to match what they're doing to their pre-conceived (and often perfect) model of their capabilities.
"I want to perfect what I'm good at, and THEN I can move on!"
Mmmm - so much for learning as you go; plus it makes for a stop-start-stop type of learning curve!

Sometimes I talk to players about the box or bubble and what happens when they're inside or outside it - and there's a great question I use for bursting the bubble or the finite-masters or perfectionists.
"Consider this - how did you get to be as good as you are already? There was some point - back in your past - when you weren't as good as you are now. So in order for you to have become as good as you are you must have allowed yourself to become better than you were."

So, once outside the expertise bubble the chance for learning is down to experimenting, experiencing, finding out what works and what doesn't, noticing what's happening on a sensual level and on using outcomes only as a means for collating results of the experiments. A kind of advanced TOTE Model if you like.

By the end of each of their sessions all these three lads had trodden some new ground. It was challenging going to these new places - but they were invigorated and enthused by realising that, through experience and experiment, when they came back to their 'bubble of expertise' it was now bigger!

Little wonder these guys are already much better than they were a year ago - and they are still capable of far, far more than they think they are. The difference is that now they have an inkling that for every new "Now" moment they experience they discover even more about their capabilities and, more especially, about themselves!

Staying a Maverick - seeing the straight and narrow for what it is!

2011-02-14T13:17:00.005Z

I was talking to a parent of one of the lads I coach recently, and the conversation eventually came around to how I see things as a coach, the paths I encourage the players to pursue, and how I like to coach from a neurological perspective. As he looked rather quizzical I qualified my approach accordingly:-

In all my working areas - Technical Sports Coaching, Performance Coaching, Life and Business Coaching, Therapy for Change, even Caring for my parents in their old age - I take elements from each one of the others and use them to make things work better in the one I'm working in.

Because I coach performance, where the balance between technical, tactical, psychological and emotional needs to be in harmony Right Now, I think probably this discipline is at the hub of my working areas.

When I started out, I used to think Performance was all about doing, and bringing resources to bear to enable that - however now I view this differently.
I now know that Performance IS about being - being in balance, in harmony, at ease, at wellness in everything we do.

And its probably fair to say that once I'd 'twigged' this rather simple point, then I began to step off the straight and narrow of technical sports coaching, of life and business coaching, of therapeutic and changework paradigms, and onto the paths less trodden, the strange but exciting 'less-than-half-worlds' of crossover.

The gentleman I was speaking to, it turned out, was an Occupational Therapist - and the more I explained my approach to coaching sport in particular, the more he became enthused about how things were happening for his son.
He also talked about confidence and how important this approach is not only for young people, but also for the people he sees in his profession. Now, as an OT he certainly wouldn't see me as a 'maverick' cricket coach - only other cricket coaches see me as that.
This is where the 'maverick' distinction starts to emerge - within any of the disciplines I work at there is middle of the road, and there is off the beaten track. And the judgement as to which 'road' I occupy (or should occupy) comes from fellow coaches, or fellow therapists, rather than clients or people from other disciplines.

Given that my only purpose in all I do is to make a difference for people so they can run their lives better, there is a need to for these differences to be effective and timely. After all, life is finite! So I go with what works, avoid what doesn't work, keep looking for new stuff that works, and put everything in one big melting pot! I use bits of this technique, mixed with that strategy, and apply it in another way. Because every client is different, then every approach should be flexible - to my mind.

SO - what is 'maverick'? - Dictionary definitions seems to hover around "independent in behaviour or thought". However, even this is quite bland as it stands.

I recently visited my osteopath and while he was 'cracking my bones' we had a chat about where our professions meet and crossover. I mentioned the 'maverick' in me, and also how I'm drawn towards those in the therapeutic, changework and influence worlds who are pushing back the boundaries for tranformative thinking. His comment was profound: "Thank goodness for the mavericks," he said. "Without them much of what we take for granted now in the world would not have happened or have been developed. Take away the mavericks and we would stand still."

Dementia Diary

2011-02-08T09:06:00.003Z

Living with and caring for my Dad and his dementia has increasingly, over the last couple of years, become something of a fertile field for me in terms of understanding the shifting states of our realities.

It started out conventionally with my world and his world, and there were times when our worlds were 'out of sync'.
Because the chronology of his memory, post a certain date, has been randomised or totally misplaced he cannot remember a whole chunk of recent experiences and all things associated with them. The area most affected is short term memory - so in conversations he will repeat things because he can't remember he's already said them, and have a displaced perception of things related to temporal matters such as day of the week, year etc.
At times, when our worlds collided, I found his condition quite an emotional experience for me - saddening, upsetting, frustrating, irritating, and probably some others I've since forgotten!

This then evolved into a second phase, where I gained a better understanding of the 'flash points' of his condition, and adapted my behaviour to smoothe the passage of our day-to-day interactions. At the time I was looking after both my mother AND father, and part of this adaptation also involved helping her to have a greater understanding of what was happening for my Dad. Tough as it must have been for her, especially in emotional terms, she really took on board the things she needed to do behaviourly in order to make their latter times together as pleasant as possible for them both. Throughout this 'second phase' I was still viewing his world from the perspective of my world - ie from the outside outside.

Things then evolved into third phase, where I am now able to project into his world, his realities - and its rather like swapping my set of virtual reality goggles for his. (This referential metaphor comes via Jamie Smart's interview with Dr Aaron Turner and fits with this experience like a glove.)
The upside of using this bit of engineered facility is that my understanding of how the day to day stuff is happening for my Dad is very much clearer. It is more open and simple, it makes sense, and all the emotional debris I would encounter back in Phase 1 has absolutely gone. Because I'm in HIS reality none of MY agenda, or baggage, is there to clutter up proceedings or interactions. Its like being able to communicate with him properly again - something I haven't really been able to do for some time!

The downside has got to be in terms of a caveat for me and my 'sanity'. The projection into and switching of my perceptive realities needs to be dealt with on a cognitive level. To put it bluntly - if I feel I am "losing it" then I'm spending more time in his reality than I should be! For as long as my own world is populated with many other people, experiences, interactions and thoughts - then a daily 'stocktake' should keep me firmly centred in my world. For this I do trust my unconscious to intervene if needs be. And if there's something simply and intuitively childlike about that statement then I'm happy with that!

One of the more interesting observations I have of my Dad's memory recall is in musical terms. He spends a lot of time playing a small pedal organ, or harmonium, that we have. Its great for him physically as the playing exercises both his hands and feet - and his digital dexterity is quite remarkable for 91. Mentally, too, it is really useful and his recall and recognition of tunes AND chords and harmonic structures is infinitely better than his recall of lyrics.
Clearly the way he has mapped and processed auditory experiences has not just been different from the other senses - but has also been differentiated between types of auditory experience. Spoken word - and words included in a song (say) - are mapped to a different place from the tunes and musical notes. The only thing that seems to bind the words and the tune together in a song is the 'label' or title.
Interestingly this suggests that (for him at least) songs are broken into words and music - each labelled with the same title - and then mapped to separate areas in memory.

These discoveries and conclusions I will expand into a future blog or article as I am sure they will be of further use and interest as time progresses.

What, on reflection, am I gaining from this very personal caring experience? Well, every day is similar and yet different at the same time! Every day certainly contains the opportunity for more discoveries and insights in a field I am hugely interested in anyway. Every day has a range of purpose, and not just for dispensing care and comfort - it brings me a step closer to my Dad by being able to understand HIS world much more.

Suck It and See!

2011-01-12T10:08:00.003Z

There are many times in performance when our thinking gets in our way. The more we think - the worse it gets!

To stop people thinking so much (especially those within teams), particularly about the 'what ifs?' of techniques or outcomes, I get them to think tactically. Its a projecting and external process, taking them largely outside their internal dialogue and self-critical faculty.
A real help here also is deep and controlled breathing to get them grounded, calmer, and with more mental clarity.

I had a recent occasion to work with a young cricketer who, when batting, would move away from a ball that was coming straight at her. This is a natural protective or "flight" reaction carried over from a time when younger. As an embedded habit this is extremely common, and there are a number of ways of tackling it - the choice depending upon which is most effective for any particular individual.

In previous cases I have used anchoring, reframing, and inducing a 'sticky back foot' as a means of correcting the process of avoidance. For the young lady in question she described it as "finding myself thinking what to do when the ball was coming straight at me". Whilst this appears to be part of her shot selection process, she said she had no discernible "thinking" when the ball was not coming straight towards her.

I took a bit of a flyer here and saw the intervention of her over-cautious critical faculty as being the thing to distract or switch off. In terms of ecology, just watching the ball would be enough to tell her where any real danger lay, and she could rely upon this intuitive and autonomic process to protect her, to keep her safe.

As I've said many times, especially in "Don't Think of a Black Cat", to get her to stop thinking whether the ball is coming towards her or not is likely to fail at best! Instead I chose to give her something ELSE to think about - something in close proximity and kinaesthetic in sensual terms. (I chose kinaesthetic rather than visual because visual is critical to her shot selection.) I could have chosen auditory, but I wanted to keep that sensory channel free - for mainly technical reasons, both present and future.

First of all I got her to link a deep-breath sequence into various stages of the process of the ball being delivered to her. This is a very useful anchor for grounding and calmness and improves the shot selection process.
Secondly I asked her to notice and consider what her tongue was doing within her mouth, through the period that ball was in flight coming in her direction. This redirection of kinaesthetic information focus, and engaging thought processes to analyse what that tongue was doing, had an immediate effect.

I would like to add here that when getting her to direct and pinpoint her (kinaesthetic) focus I actually described it as "that tongue" rather than "your tongue". "That" tongue implies that the tongue is somehow separate from her and her control and results in her noticing even more about what it is doing. This process takes only a few moments to talk through and set up, and involves the player in a degree of alteration of state - brought about by their 'going inside' (in this case mouth and mind). I used to call this process "localised trance" but now I'm more comfortable describing it as moving perception around.

It is a huge boost to a player's confidence to find that (almost suddenly) they are not shying away from the ball, and instead they are staying more still and playing better shots as a result. This instant feel-good factor then adds into the loop and the process is enhanced every time they face a ball. The more they do it - the better it gets!

Using the tongue this way, or engaging parts of the mouth in other ways (such as gum-shield or chewing gum) is a good way of distracting over-active thought processes. By adding-in some subtle linguistic and mental artifices it all becomes much more powerful and effective.

Try it for yourself or, as they say "Suck it and See"!

There's often nothing casual in the casual childhood tale!!

2011-01-10T13:09:00.006Z

I've never been fond of fat on meat, especially meat in stews. Quite early in my school life the cook at primary school would do a stew for lunch. Cubes of meat with floppy, rubbery lumps of fat attached were an awful experience for a child who was not allowed to leave anything on his plate! So I'd spit the unswallowable bits into a handkerchief and chuck them away later. It got so bad that I dreaded school lunches, then dreaded school and so on and on, increasing in intensity. I couldn't tell my parents, or anyone. Then one day my mother found a hankie full of half-chewed meat!! Horrified - yet relieved - I spilt the beans to her. To her it was not a big deal - we talked it through and I felt so much better about school, lunches, leaving food and everything after that!

With weight loss clients in particular I get them to fill out a questionnaire which is pretty basic, and just asks some broad brush questions on their relationship with food.

In the course of one client's "preamble", she (rather tongue in cheek) mentioned that she used to buy sweets on the way home from school and would hide them from her parents! This was a rather casual remark in a rather lengthy resume and could have easily been dismissed as humorous and throwaway.

However, as I listened to her talking about how her food relationship impacts upon personal desires and wishes, it became apparent that the structure of her "emotional eating" needed analysing so she could see the cold logic of what was happening - and from that would spring the opportunities to reprogramme her responses.

When she encountered a less than appropriate food choice, her after-eating response was governed by her mood, her state of mind, at the time. If feeling ok she would proceed as normal, whereas if feeling down she would feel guilty about making a bad choice. This guilt would feed back via a loop into her state and she would proceed to eat more of the same. The guilt would increase and the loop would continue until she had really 'overdone it'!
No matter how logically she told herself what was happening, she was caught in this loop and 'powerless' to intervene.

Quite often, revealing this structure to clients actually gives them some resolve to make their own changes on the inside - though I had an inkling here that for this lady there was something else available to kick start things for her. The hunch was that the "Going home from School" story was a good place to start - mainly because it was not resolved in any way. There, she had hidden the sweets from her parents, never got found out, felt guilty, continued to do it, kept feeling guilty etc. The secrecy and the guilt were all in a loop.

We explored the whole area of this covert childhood tale, seeking to loosen the association between sweet-type foods and guilt. I got her to think and talk through a load of possible scenarios following what would have happened when her parents HAD found out.
Once this 'pathway had been swept' I brought her back to talking about dealing with her present and future food issues. There was a distinct change in her physiology as she talked about things this time, and it was noticeable that there had been some changes on the inside for her.
I did add, before closing the session, that she would now remember the 'schoolgirl tale' every time she reached for the wrong food choice - and that this (now resolved) memory would be useful for her in making better choices and in keeping amplified guilt out of her state of mind!

Do you have any childhood 'secrets' that were never resolved properly that may now be working against your better judgements?

Better go inside and have a "rummage"!

Resisting the Blame Culture

2010-11-18T10:51:00.004Z

One of the many enduring images from my schooldays was in the school's own "mock" General Election. During assemblies, in the run up to polling day, each of the 3 main party candidates (all fellow 6th formers of mine) got to make their "pitch" to the pupil electorate in "hustings" style, which was good fun! One morning the Liberal party candidate was in full flow when, from the body of the hall, someone threw a paper aeroplane at him. There were muted sniggers as it flew through the air, hovered a couple of yards from his face and then stalled and fell to the ground. "There - look!" he said. "Another failed Tory air defence project!" It brought the house down.

I first discovered at that GE what a blame culture we live in - how everything that is wrong with the country is all "their" fault and that is the overriding reason for voting "us" in. In politics it lives to this day and, due to the nature of our political beast, will probably go on ad infinitum.

The blame culture pervades our entire lives, however - both for external factors and (in a more pernicious way) for internal factors.

"This happened because of xxxx"
"I'm behaving this way because xxxx made me"
"Something (xxxx) made me do it"
Sound familiar?

I reminded the team I coach last evening that the responsibility for everything they do as individuals and in the name of the team is theirs and theirs alone. If they blame the referee, or if the opposition cheated, there has to be no culture of whingeing - THEY are responsible. If anyone misses a tackle or drops the ball - it is the TEAM's error. Just the same way if they all enjoy the pleasure of victory then it is a TEAM victory. And that applies to little victories through the game as well as the end result.
And if that's been down to hard work or brilliance by one or two individuals, then the rest should show their appreciation openly.

Collectively and individually we do not give enough credit where credit is due, show enough appreciation, give thanks for positive things that we take for granted.

The media have a lot to answer for - the spicy and interesting 'News' is bad news. Who wants to see endless reports of good stuff? It's boring - doesn't sell papers - doesn't make 'good copy'.

As coaches, therapists, changeworkers, mentors, we face this in every client and we face it in ourselves. I replied today to an online comment that read "If we keep waiting for perfection then we will never complete any task". My response was "I spent 50 years under the shadow of that kind of personal strategy - now I spend all my time trying to liberate others from following the same path."

Just acknowledging ourselves where we are right now is a REALLY great place to start. It puts behind us all the stuff we've brought with us to this place. It ignores ANY blame culture that is part of that stuff - and it allows unfettered forward movement. And that's real freedom.

And when we hear all the negatives, and the comments of a blame culture, we just need to acknowledge them as well - and hand them back to whoever or wherever they came from, labelled "Not wanted", "Not necessary for me to keep", "Of no use", "Toxic thought waste", plus a miriad of others.

Now, you can choose to accept what I say - or reject it. I would just ask you to listen to your thinking, and if you say "BUT" at any point then you need to sit on that thought.

And then let go.

Muscular rehab revisited - cultivating a positive Mind-Body Link for healing!

2010-11-17T14:59:00.003Z

In an earlier post I wrote about how a change in mental attitude had started to bring about a physical improvement in a long-standing knee problem.

Last week I had occasion to make two visits to my rehab specialist - the first was a knee and thigh massage and then the following day an exercise session on the Reformer.

http://pilates.about.com/od/gettingstarted/ss/ReformerAnatomy.htm

I explained to her about my change to a more positive, emotion-free, attitude and how it had come about and she said that she noticed some physiological imrpovements in certain muscles surrounding the knee. These were borne out by her observations on day 2, as I worked through some exercises on the Reformer.

She just kept saying "Amazing!" - and we both underlined our beliefs in the fact that the human body is a wonderful thing and that positive mind-body links are crucial to the healing process.
I now run (it's a jog at the moment to be honest) in occasional short bursts, and find it (a) manageable and (b) not detrimental in any way. It all seems to add to recovery by usage which is building and strengthening muscle.

More future bulletins are likely!
PW

"Should've gone to......"

2010-11-04T12:33:00.003Z

There's an advert featuring an old couple walking at the seaside who take a rest and "it's good to take the weight off your feet." So they sit down on what they see as some 'free seats' and she reaches inside her picnic bag and gets out some sandwiches. He asks her "have you got a cheese one?"
And at that moment, the bar comes down on the roller coaster and it slowly sets off gathering speed.
And before they know it they're being whisked hither amd thither, surrounded by other people who are squealing, getting their faces pulled out of shape by speed and g-forces, and rushing through a water slide - interestingly neither of them ever close their eyes!
Eventually the roller coaster comes to a stop and the last scene is we see them walk off down the promenade and he says "what kind of cheese was that?"
It's one of a series of adverts for Specsavers, where people with less than perfect eyesight blunder into amusing action.

So what are some of the subtle learnings, insights and presuppositions here for the rest of us? Here are a few notions that come to my mind - you may have some others that are particlarly stimulated by the experience - either remembered or constructed.

There is a presupposition that vision is important for safety.
That thrills and excitement are only there for those who anticipate it.
That eating certain cheeses can bring about curious events and happenings.
That there is an inner reality and an outer reality and the deeper we are in either the less we notice about the other.
That we are never too old to do anything, only thinking about it makes us scared.
That we should trust the unconscious, as it keeps us far more safe than we can ever realise.
That what we see is only our perception of reality and not what is actually there. In other words, we are making it up - from thought.

Minor miracles and cosmic conjunctions!

2010-11-01T15:17:00.005Z

I've had one of those discoveries this last week - a discovery where you feel that celestial bodies are in alignment and that cosmic forces have combined to give you a nudge!

Here's the background -
About a year ago I was running one of our rugby training sessions - it was a dry evening and so instead of changing into boots I just wore trainers. There was a hint of laziness in this! As the evening wore on the grass got dewy - and, in the course of the activities my right leg shot out in front on the wet grass and I hyper-extended the knee, exacerbating a 34 year-old injury.
In the time since then, on and off, I've suffered somewhat - and in spite of remedial treatment, I often felt that nothing was getting better. In fact there have been days when things were decidedly worse! Running has been impossible - sleeping or sitting in one position for a length of time makes the act of standing up awkward and painful. So driving, getting out of bed etc is a bit of a trial. Even though I've always taken the view that walking as normal as possible is a good corrective way of recuperating from leg injuries, my limp is getting more noticeable (so people tell me).

With the people I coach, I talk a lot about living fully in the Now - playing in the Now. Now is where it matters - yesterday has gone - tomorrow never comes. And once the importance of the Now is accepted and fully engaged, then perceptions and beliefs and lives begin to change. I've talked to people about accepting themselves as they are "right now" and noticed some really fundamental changes in their physiologies - changes that signal some real shifts for them on the inside. However - when it came to applying-to-self with respect to that knee I've been stuck.

Until now! Until the "cosmic" line up began to impact....

1. In the course of studying, reading and listening to interviews by those involved with The 3 Principles (Mind, Consciousness and Thought) I have come to understand that Thought has been getting in the way with regards to my sensual experiences and perceptions about this injury. Day by day I have been adding emotional content to the pain and discomfort - and this has been the cause of the lack of healing.
2. I was watching an interview on DVD with Tim Hallbom and Robert Dilts called "Journey into the structure of your beliefs & how you create reality". Fascinating and engaging as this was, I really paid close attention when Robert Dilts began talking about his mother (Patricia Dilts) and her life after the recurrence of metastatic breast cancer. Hers is a powerful and inspiring story (related in My Pathway to Wholeness - 1992), and resonates with those of some dear people I have known also.

One of the things I particularly remember in the 1999 eclipse was how the birds fell silent and then re-awakened once the eclipse had passed. Watching Robert Dilts relate the story of his mother rather silenced the birds for me in the run up to event number 3.

3. I have a number of Twitter accounts, and as is the case I often get sent messages or read postings that have a link to what is often quoted as "something useful" or "a gift". Without the benefit of endless free time, I rarely follow these up - but on this one occasion I did. Was it random or providence? It turned out to be a 10 minute guided meditation by Jim Kitzmiller called "Perfect Self Meditation".
The essence of this particular meditation is that from here (and every) moment of NOW, we just need to notice and acknowledge that what we are is perfect - nothing more, nothing less. This is really so very simple, that it is easy to take forward into everyday consciousness. As such it transcends Thought and becomes Consciousness, and just needs to be noticed and affirmed.

After first listening to the meditation I just stood up straight and walked to another room, rather amazed that there was no period of leg straightening, no initial or residual limp. It felt curious and liberating. I then re-listened with particular focus on some aching and very sensitive teeth in my upper jaw. Again, the pain dissolved and I was able to drink various hot and cold items without any recoil!
From that evening I have re-listened a number of times and the continuing and ongoing results are equally positive.

I'm not a person particularly prone to miracle cures from the outside, but I do know that the Mind knows no bounds. And in that, we are all capable of far more than we ever think we are. Certainly, for me, the conjunction of these events - the arrival of these three trains of thought in the station at the same time - has set in motion something significant.
And this will - going forward - be something I know will be of use to me and many others I come into contact with in the coming weeks, months and years.

The message is -
We should never under-estimate the relevance of anything we do, no matter how unconnected or random or pointless it may seem.

PW

Losing my car keys!

2010-10-31T15:13:00.003Z

Last Saturday afternoon I watched our 2nd XV rugby at home. In the bar after the game, I became aware that my car keys had gone - no longer in my various pockets.

I went out to the pitch and proceeded to retrace as many steps as I could, remembering where I'd walked in the course of watching the match. I was confident at this stage I would find them, and I engaged in some conscious-unconscious dialogue to pool all resources! All to no avail!

I left the car at the club field and got a lift home. Next day was pleasant and sunny, so I incorporated walking the dog with re-searching the relevant areas of the field. Again, no joy. I then went to the police station to see if they had been handed in. This turned up nothing either!
At this stage I was beginning to think the best method was to use a metal detector - without really applying some of my own previously used methods.

Monday came,and it was another sunny day - so I set out once more to search.
Only this time I decided to be meticulous in (a) my walking the search areas and (b) my close attention to those areas.

In the course of a lot of my technical sports coaching, I tell players to REALLY watch the ball, study rather than just look at it. I concluded that in the course of my previous searches I had been looking for something small enough to be covered by leaves and hidden in lengthy grass. I wasn't giving it my 'best shot' in other words - I was guessing, and not even best guessing.

I duly found the keys, and with it came a surge of feeling of success and freedom - rather akin to how I felt when I passed my driving test many years ago!

Apart from the obvious - what learning opportunities has this presented for me?

* Was the losing of the keys unconsciously noticeable?
* Heed my own advice and use ALL the sensual resources available to me.
* Avoid guesswork when quality information is easily available.
* Is this kind of search an analogue or a digital process? When I know the answer, act accordingly.

PW

Sensations

2010-10-12T09:36:00.003+01:00

This post is inspired by two random yet, for me, synchronous posts by colleagues on Facebook.

The first was a quote by the artist Paul Cezanne:-
"For an Impressionist to paint from nature is not to paint the subject, but to realize sensations."
This reminded me of a recent conversation with my mother about her own method of painting when she sets out to paint a copy of a Great Master. Her best work in this field comes not from the perfection of the copy itself but her representation of the original in style, form and depth. And in the execution of that representation, she (too) is realising sensations - both hers plus also, and moreso, the originating artist.

The second was a mention of an album by Ludovico Einaudi, composer and pianist - a particular favourite of mine, and whose music inspires for me a whole range of experiences and evocations, on many neurological levels.

These two posts, read one after the other, sparked a chain of thought that led me to go onto YouTube and play a piece by Ludovico Einaudi set to a video someone had filmed in the Canary Isles of two sunsets. Now I have played this clip many times and am quite familiar with both the film and the music. However - THIS time I came to watch and listen with the quote by Paul Cezanne very much in my mental foreground.

Here is the address:-
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34Vn57n9h1M"

The experience was transforming, and transcended all previous experiences of this particular clip.

You may need to play it several times - but I invite you to pay close attention to the following:-
* Allow your eyes to focus on the light source of the film (it is the setting sun)
* Allow your auditory attention to first follow the melody line, mostly played by the cello - and then next time follow the bass line, played by the piano.
* Finally allow the focus of your eyes to rest (converge) at an infinite point beyond the light source.

Notice your sensations as you do these actions. Notice how your experience changes, each time. And finally notice all the changes in your overall state.

PW

Dealing with your "Bulls"

2010-09-09T08:05:00.005+01:00

We all encounter dilemmas - and quite often we encounter a number all at once. At these moments we are in danger of overwhelm, emotional overload. As we struggle to pull each one into perspective, we lose perspective on the others - our "bandwidth" of coping and resolving is not broad enough.

One definition of a dilemma is - "state of uncertainty or perplexity especially as requiring a choice between equally unfavorable options". The phrase "The Horns of a Dilemma" seems to have originated from Roman times from the Latin phrase argumentum cornutum or "an argument with horns". In modern parlance this is finding ourselves "Between a rock and hard place", and it leads us to "Not being able to see the wood for the trees".

Focussing on the metaphorical horns for a moment, we often anticipate dilemmas as charging bulls.

When I was young I spent quite a lot of time out walking in the countryside. Because I was an only child, this activity was mostly enjoyed in the company of parents, aunts, uncles, older cousins - in fact, I was almost always the youngest there. One of the features of being in older company is they are more mindful of the dangers surrounding them, and especially those relating to a small boy! A prevalent danger when the footpath entered a new field was perceived as "is there a bull here?" In the mind of small boy, EVERY field might possibly contain a BULL - whilst the percentage is (in reality) very, very low. Couple this perception with an over-active imagination, and the bull - and those HORNS - is a perpetual and clear and present danger!

Looking at the metaphorical parallel - one dilemma is probably something we can deal with. Two dilemmas - becoming difficult. More than two - panic, overload!
With one dilemma we can choose to either RUN for survival to a place of refuge, or confront the bull and be a matador or just plain smart. And that's how we all cope to a greater or lesser degree. With two or more dilemmas we now have horns coming from multiple directions.

So how do you deal with your Bulls? Do you stand firm, or do you run for cover? If you are being charged by multiple Bulls, what then?

There's a shift we can experience in this metaphorical landscape, which can be really useful in throwing open some more windows on broader perspectives for us. It's the Disney effect - the cartoon representation of what is happening for us. How would a Disney cartoon character deal with the Bulls? What options are there? Some immediately spring to mind...

Jump on a bull's back and control the horns - wait and wait until they are really close then jump out of the way so they crash into each other - become a charger yourself and chase after the biggest bull - PLUS the more you think about it, the more examples will spring up for you.

The thing is - by looking at reframes and alternatives you are presented with multiple options - plus by looking at them within the framework of a metaphorical landscape you are presented with an inner, unconscious representation of what the problem(s) mean for you and how you can resolve them. The "trick" is to translate the best metaphorical outcome back into real life terms. And this is where you need to trust your unconscious to guide and present you with the most favourable choice.

All the answers are there within you - you just need a strategy for dealing with your Bulls!

PW

Tennis - Insider Nuggets or the continued quest for the Holy Grail?

2010-09-06T08:44:00.006+01:00

In the course of watching Andy Murray's demise at the US Open 2010, I heard something mentioned from Peter Fleming on commentary that rather made my jaw hang limp.

He was talking about tennis players at this level just having to "...allow their subconscious to run the show once they are in matches. If they try and think their way through a match then they're lost..."

Firstly I was delighted to hear a former top flight player acknowledging the role the SUB(or UN)conscious plays in sporting contests. Psychology is a crucial factor in all sport, and there are a number of sports where psychology plays an enormous part in players' success or otherwise. Also, away from any of the martial arts, in heads-up one-to-ones, tennis is just about the best sport there is for us to see this in action. Even golf, where psychological approaches are well considered, it is still more about the player v the course, than player v player.

Secondly, Peter Fleming and fellow commentator, Mark Petchey, went on to talk about confidence, and "wouldn't it be great" if players could have this installed for them at an unconscious level.

Now I moved to the edge of my chair, thinking that they were about to reveal some "insider nuggets" about what is one of my stock in trade processes - Sports Hypnosis. Instead, I was almost falling off the chair when I heard this:-
"I know there are people who can do this, but there aren't that many in the world - and I've never heard of it's use by anyone in tennis."
Can this be for real? Surely at the top level, there are enough SP's** working in tennis to be able to extend to their clients an efficacious and beneficial use of changing states, and an ability to utilise hypnotic phenomena within those state changes, to instal and anchor confidence and a whole range of other desirable resources. Surely?

Or perhaps this IS a case where the only thing a pickpocket sees, when in a room full of saints, is their pockets. The familiarity of rocket science to a rocket scientist means that what is a straightforward and everyday process to him, is seen as amazing, bizarre, wonderful, off the wall, complicated and insoluble to everyone else.

I have watched crumbling sportspersons from the absolute beginner to those at the very, very top of their chosen sport - knowing that I (and countless colleagues) would be able to guide and effect in them the changes they most require.

The thing is - (and here there is just a hint of cynicism), we seem to be more accepted by, and accessible to, the beginners and learners!

My perception is that "Insider Nuggets" are UNCONSCIOUS processes, while the "Quest for the Holy Grail" is a distinctly CONSCIOUS process!

** - (SP's: Sports Psychologists)

PW

The Shortest Distance

2010-09-05T10:59:00.004+01:00

On occasions when I'm discussing with clients about reaching their goals, there are a number of instances when I need to use the idea of "The Shortest Distance". This idea presents itself, conceptually, when some arbitrary barrier comes along to halt the passage towards achieving THAT goal.

In these cases I always use the illustration of the world record for running the mile, and the "myth" that had grown up around breaking the 4-minute barrier. It was finally broken by Roger Bannister back in May 1954 - and it appeared that once the 4-minute barrier had been broken, that further sub 4-minute performances were being reported from all over the world. Mankind had surpassed that (almost) unbeatable barrier!

In reality the march towards breaking the barrier was relentless - and it was the dearth of timed running activities during the 2nd World War that halted the steady progress and reduction of all timed athletic performances for various distances.

For those outside athletics, it became a popular notion that "4 minutes" was a well rounded figure and a watershed in man's advancing prowess - rather like the previously unconquered Mount Everest up to 1953!

A study of Bannister's running career from 1948 onwards shows that his exceptional talent was considerably enhanced once he added serious training into his regime; plus there were regular planned assaults on the mile record using pacemakers and measured lap times within the breakdown of the distance itself.

The timed logical argument is this - in a run taking 240 seconds (or 4 minutes), the SHORTEST DISTANCE between 241 seconds and 239 seconds is 2 seconds - or less. Divide that by 4 laps of an athletics track and it becomes less than half a second per lap. And less than half a second per lap for 4 laps is utterly achievable!

In terms of goals, there is no such thing as an arbitrary barrier - save that installed by a person's belief that it cannot be reached or surpassed. If we think we cannot do something, then we are right - and every attempt has the built in safety net of being able to say:-
"See I was right," upon failure, and therefore reinforcing my belief OR (in the event of success) "Well how lucky was that?"

Limiting beliefs and arbitrary barriers are only mental constructs.

Plus, if you are moving towards achieving a goal and find the "final push" hard to achieve - look at the structure of your achievements to date in this journey and reframe your perception of the SHORTEST DISTANCE required to arrive at your destination. Take a more calculated and unemotional logical view, and you'll soon discover that in terms of "seconds" you only need a less than 1% overall improvement.

Small increments are always achievable.

PW

First Match of the new season - How good was the Prep?

2010-09-04T10:48:00.003+01:00

Excitement - anticipation - nerves aflutter -

It's the first matchday of a new season for the team I coach. There's been ten pre-season sessions in which we've addressed their fitness, strength and conditioning, re-awakening personal and positional skills, playing patterns and organisational aptitude.

So this afternoon is the 'moment of truth' - are they under-cooked?

Well, for me, this is the first port of call in laying down some mental approaches for the season - and in playing down the pitfalls of today's encounters; not so much versus the opposition, but rather for my players versus themselves.

There is always the expectation that I am going to unwrap some pearls of wisdom in a pre-match talk anyway - and today will be no exception. However, the focus I want them to bring is twofold.
1. Sowing, cultivating and nurturing a winning mindset.
2. That today is still part of preparation, still a step along the journey. There is NO finished article, because even if they reach the standards they aspire to and I envisage they will achieve, then that is not the end of the story. There is the next level to go for, and then the next, and so on in an inevitable drive towards being the best they can possibly be. Everything in those terms is "Work in Progress" (and I have used that perspective earlier this year with wonderful consequences for the young sportsman concerned.)

When all is said and done, my players are all capable of far, far more than they think they are - and once that is embedded in their mindset, then it is far easier for them to focus on PROCESSES and not OUTCOMES. Getting the processes right will lead to achieving the outcomes we all want. In order to win any prize in the Lottery the abiding essential is the buying of a ticket - it doesn't work any other way!

I will report back on a later blog on how everything progresses!

PW

Don't Think of a Black Cat!

2010-08-17T09:09:00.005+01:00

The human mind does not process deletives.

If I say "Don't think of a black cat," you have to first of all think of a black cat in order that you can try and carry out the instruction.

So for a place kicker in rugby or gridiron, or a free thrower in basketball, "I mustn't miss this kick" or "Mustn't miss this throw" will be more likely to lead to a miss - as the player's internal dialogue focusses him towards the positive element in what he's saying - "miss.."
He'll most probably be also considering the consequences of missing the kick or the throw, and piling the pressure upon himself, and his physiology will start to reflect this and tighten up. He'll be consulting the MAP of his kicking or throwing world and remembering the previous instances when he missed, what happened, how he felt, how everyone else felt, the responsibility, and so on. This map is now also highlighting all the hazards and difficulties. Suddenly it seems he's trying to kick a concrete ball into the smallest of target areas.

Negative instructions bear a particularly bitter fruit when the stakes are raised. Playing a wrong note or missing a catch in practice is no big deal after all. But the same process in context on stage or in a packed stadium adds an entirely different set of pressure variables.

They placed a piece of gymnastic apparatus, the beam, on the floor and invited a group to walk along it. At four inches wide it posed no internal or external problems, no physical or mental difficulties. The same beam was then suspended between two tall step ladders and the group was again invited to walk along it. Reluctance spread like wildfire as the consequences were significantly raised. Falling off was now an issue as there was a prospect of pain and injury. Small losses of balance would (they thought) be magnified and lead to unsatisfactory outcomes. If that same group had been taught to walk blindfold perfectly along the beam, would height above the ground have been an issue?

Many performance shortcomings can be laid at the feet of our internal dialogue, where our thoughts and words echo around the chart-room where we keep our Maps of the World.

At times like this it is vital to have a strategy to deal with physical and mental distractions, and internal dialogue, in a positive way.

* Establish a habitual thought pattern to lead into the skill or performance process.
* Perform deep, abdominal breathing which gets a good supply of oxygen to the brain and around the body, helping more rational thought processing, relaxing joints and muscles so they can function properly within the requisite technique.
* Set up a set of anchors to be fired at particular pressure moments. Anchors that elicit a beneficial state of mind and/or body.
* Use localised trance to activate or close down certain areas of the body.
* Use momentary visuaization to focus or override input from the five senses.
* Use an internal dialogue inhibitor such as a) a floor to ceiling eye-roll or b) a dampener for micro movements of the tongue by resting it delicately close to the upper set of gums.

Some of the above are routines, some are emergency 'tricks'. The routines can be built into a more complex strategy that you know will work for you. Set it up and test it out in practice. Practice is your "beam on the ground" scenario after all! The more you set it up in a "blindfold" kind of way, the more control you will have when the real situation comes around, when you are "2-3 metres above ground without any safety net or landing below".

Dealing with stressful and pressure moments in performance, which you know will always be there, is your key to mastering the process and getting the outcomes you want - with or without a Black Cat!

PW

Light at the end of the tunnel

2010-08-16T10:18:00.005+01:00

I was talking with a client the other day who was "sick and tired of failing."
This was very broad-brush so I metaphorically held up for her one of the cue cards to break down generalisations - "always??"
She laughed, "No, not really. I'm really angry and depressed about a venture that failed about nine months ago."
"Ah, so it was the venture that failed - not you?" I asked.
She smiled and nodded, adding, "but the way I'm feeling has started me comfort eating and drinking again, and it frustrates me big time 'cause I've no perseverance or self-discipline. Things were going so well before."

So her train of wellness was happily chugging along until an external factor derailed it, which is the kind of scenario we all encounter from time to time. Except that for her, now, she's so intently looking back in anger and self-judgement that she's actually "walking backwards" into the future. Since by it's very nature the future is somewhat unknown, walking backwards into it is likely to be full of pitfalls, trip-ups, tip-overs and a whole load of things to keep derailing that train.

"Picture this," I said,"you're running a bath and the phone goes. You go to answer and get engrossed in conversation. Suddenly - OMG - the bath is overflowing! What's the first thing you do?"
"Pull the plug?" she asked.
"What's the FIRST thing you do?" I repeated.
She thought, then lit up like there'd been a dawning. "Turn off the taps - THEN pull the plug."

"So this anger," I said, "is it with some thing or some one?" It transpired it was someone, who was pretty much responsible for the venture problem. However it also turned out that steps had already been taken to expunge the anger issues (rather like turning off the bathtaps.)
"Frustration, then..." I asked next. "Can you tell me about it it?"
It appeared to be a generalised frustration that 'life was on track but now off track and although it'll be ok in the end I don't know when that'll be, and things will probably get worse in the meantime because...' etc etc.

PW: "So is there anything else about that frustration?"
CL: "Like being in a long, dark tunnel. I can see the light at the end but it's so small so I don't know how far away it is."
PW: "So that light - what kind of light is that light?"
CL: "It's a ray of sunshine."
PW: "And is there anything else about that ray of sunshine?"
CL: "It's bright and warm and all around. But just a long way off, and I don't know how far."
PW: "And considering tunnel, what kind of tunnel is that tunnel?"
CL: "It's very dark and I can't see what's there or anything around at all."
PW: "And is there anything else about that tunnel, very dark and can't see?"
CL: "Well I suppose it's like I'm stuck in it right here and now. And I want to be where the light is but can't see where I'm stepping."
PW: "What needs to happen for tunnel so you can see where you're stepping?"
CL: "Need to put up a few lights."

Now things were on the move!
She'd need to get in an electrician to rig up the lights, because she'd always ask an expert. Where from? Back at the other end of the tunnel, where she'd come in. So the tunnel has an entrance (behind her and quite near.) Is there an electrician there? Oh yes - but actually he'd need a lot of wires and a lot of lights. So what else would work? She'd get candles, lots of them, from the candle shop! And how would she light them? "I've got a lighter," she said gleefully.

We both laughed at this stage and she was getting quite animated as she worked with this 'tunnel' metaphor of hers. I asked about what sort of light she'd get from lighted candles, and she said it was a warm glow, like you'd get at parties. So I asked her about parties, and how she felt at parties and gatherings, and just got her to elaborate on THAT kind of experience.

Pretty soon she was moving down the tunnel towards the 'Ray of Sunshine', using candles to light the way, having parties, gatherings, times of good mood, and just generally being able to see where she was going.

"And where is frustration now?" I asked
"That is so helpful - can't say I notice any, as we speak."
"And I'm not advocating that you have endless parties as you move along the tunnel, you understand. It's just that you can make all the right choices about using the candles as you go."

In conclusion, I did invite her to leave around at home, in her handbag, other relevant places, some visual and kinaesthetic anchors that linked to this whole elaborate tunnel-and-light metaphor.
Candles and a lighter seemed appropriate.

She went away happy as a sand-girl!

PW

Can you put it in a wheelbarrow? Beware nominalizations!

2010-08-13T09:45:00.004+01:00

I was working with a group of young cricketers yesterday and we were talking about hitting various types of shots and what to do with our hands and feet in order to best play these. Finally, I asked them the question that actually stands for ALL ball sports. "What is THE most important thing you need to do when batting?"

There was a thoughtful silence apart from the sounds of brains in action until finally a very bright 9 yr old, probably the most talented young player I've yet encountered, blurted excitedly, "Concentrate!"
"Getting warm," I said, "So what is concentrate? I have a carton of fruit juice here with me. It says on it MADE FROM CONCENTRATE. Is it like that? Better still - Can you put it in a wheelbarrow?"
You know how kids tell you non-verbally when they don't understand and yet remain curious to know what it is you are talking about?
So I repeated, "Can you put it in a wheelbarrow? You can with concentrate for fruit juice - yes? So what about YOUR type of concentrate?"

There was a bit of laughter and someone mentioned 'trick question' - and yes I suppose it is a trick question in a way. However this lad had already been tricked into thinking he knew about concentrate until some linguistic NeLPer like me started to redraw this particular 'Map of The World' for him! The fact he failed to come up with an alternative definitely meant he was echoing "coach speak" or "adult speak" without a full understanding of meaning.

Then one of the others said, "Watch the ball."
"Exactly," I said. "Watch the ball. For us in cricket concentrate MEANS watching the ball, AND paying attention to other important things so we can best decide how to do what we want to do. If we don't watch and pay attention then we are guessing. Sometimes we'll guess OK, sometimes not."

As sports coaches (and in life in general) we often nominalise a set of collective actions into one word - which we understand as "code" for that set of actions. However danger lurks in that nominalisation because we can't "put it in a wheelbarrow", because (as it is) it is intangible. Think about words like concentrate - confidence - focussed - stressed out etc.

So how many nominalisations do you use, without REALLY fully understanding what they are code for? Have a ponder and notice what you notice - then ask yourself "Have I got the REAL and FULL EXTENT of what this is about?" You may make some interesting discoveries! You'll certainly help broaden your perspectives and perceptions. And that's part of what NLP DOES - not what it is IS!

PW

Weaving spells with localised 'trance'

2010-08-09T10:09:00.003+01:00

Weaving spells: hands and arms, legs and feet

For some time now I have been using ‘localised’ trance to coach the technical side of batting in cricket. Now this isn’t trance in the sense that those that I’m coaching are hypnotised or ‘put under’ – perish the thought! Clearly this wouldn’t work – no, this is using trance from the premise that for every conscious experience we are in a particular state (frame of mind, balance of consciousness), and as that state shifts throughout our waking experience then each change of state involves moving into an ‘altered state’.

Previously I have used this methodology in the course of coaching a number of sports, and it was only once I became a practitioner of hypnosis, did I fully understand the nature of states and the opportunities available when those states are in a process of flux or change. More recently I have been (and increasingly am) fascinated by the work of James Tripp and his advancing work in an area he calls ‘Hypnosis Without Trance’. This paradigm shift opens doors to endless opportunities – because now that coaches have a ‘label’ for what is taking place in terms of both micro-techniques and macro-techniques, then exploration into taking this process forward can start to gather pace.

Educating the body

The ‘mechanics of batting’ in cricket is all about educating the body in understanding and executing both major and minor motor movements with the head, hands and feet. These mechanics are then used, in conjunction with critical judgement of the characteristics of the ball in flight, to bring about the execution of any particular shot.

This is actually the structure used in any sport involving striking and catching a ball (or any object for that matter). In football for instance, these mechanics are executed by kicking, chesting or heading the ball; in bat or racket sports the ‘striking implement’ becomes an extension of the hand or hands, and the education here involves the hands manipulating the implement to best effect.

A particular session

I had a session with a 10 year old player primarily in order to help loosen her wrists, elbows and shoulders thereby freeing-up her ability to strike the ball with better control.
I started by asking her to swing the bat and play some imaginary shots. Her ‘top’ hand (the hand at the top of the handle) started off in a good position but at the moment of striking and the follow through afterwards this hand in particular looked extremely out of position and uncomfortable. I got her to play the imaginary shots one handed with a lightweight plastic stump. I asked her to “notice in your starting position you can see the back of your hand. Watch the back of that hand as you are playing in slow motion, and as you do, pay attention to what is happening to the back of that hand at every point along the way.” I then got her to watch me doing the same thing in slow motion. “Pay attention to what you are doing compared to what I am doing. Now gradually speed up what you are doing, still noticing the back of that hand and just allow your other hand to gently hold the stump and start to work in partnership with the other hand. Notice how different this now begins to feel compared to before.” Very soon she was swinging smoothly and freely from the hands and wrists, and the elbows and shoulders just appeared to have opened up automatically and now also had much more freedom of movement. I exchanged the lightweight stump for her bat and the action continued to work well.
I then laid a row of static balls on the ground and asked her to step forward and hit each one in turn. Her foot movement was bizarre, as she lifted it in the style of a prancing horse! I then asked her to show me how she walked down the street – noticing as she did how high her feet came off the ground. “Now, when you step towards each ball I want you to step only as smoothly and comfortably as you do when you are walking down the street.” This nailed it – and the end of the exercise was to go about 15m away and throw some balls down for her to hit and see now how she was doing it both in the step of the foot and on the movement of the hands.

Setting up and using a chain of small state-changes

Now this is a fairly standard approach I make for players who have issues with either their hands or feet. The thing is that this method sets up a chain of changing states, very localised, in the hands and feet. Added to this is the instruction to “notice” and “pay attention” to what parts of particular limbs are doing in the course of some slow motion action. Part of the noticing instruction involves the visual, part involves kinaesthetic, and the RAS* is focussed to gather this sensual information. The player is now building an experience of competence at an unconscious level by my guiding them to utilise these altered states by getting them to focus on what is happening on both the inside (kinaesthetic) as well as the outside (visual).
Using the ‘walking down the street’ analogy as a means of correcting this player’s ‘pranced step’ is again far more effective than most other methods. Firstly it gets away from any “don’t do that – do this” instruction, which I always avoid because of the “DONT”; secondly I’m getting her to engage with a relaxed and natural process – just walking down the street. In order to show me how she does it, she has to go on an inner search for a long-embedded and now autonomic process, and then ‘get into a state’ of walking down the street. So immediately she experiences an alteration in state. While she is passing into this altered state, she is noticing by focussed attention, how her feet are moving relative to the ground and the rest of the body. Here too there is visual and kinaesthetic sensory input. It is literally one small step from this experience, to replicating it when stepping towards and striking the ball. I have found that in most instances this method of correcting the biomechanics of stepping towards the ball works once and forever. Why? I think it is because, once again, the correct action has been installed unconsciously while the player was in (or entering into) an altered state.

Farewell to conventionality

I could of course coach this conventionally by getting the player to perform endless repetitions of the motor actions. And in doing so, yes the actions would pass into muscle memory and eventual unconscious competence. However, using localised trance and the nature of altered states, means that players can advance quickly through laborious processes and start to get down to the REALLY important part of striking the ball – timing; through the development and improvement of judgement using hand-eye co-ordination.
I have even used this methodology on players with dyspraxia and achieved excellent results. It seems that because the programming that runs the motor movements has been installed unconsciously, the brain is able to run the programme in a much better way.

Another benefit I have experienced by using this way of installing technique in the unconscious is that part of this seems to become ‘hot wired’ into autonomic functionality. I have seen dramatic changes in players from one week to the next, knowing that they haven’t spent time practising the technique in the intervening days. Their unconscious mind seems to have done all the background processing necessary to raise the level of competence quite dramatically. What might be deemed as unconscious learning without practice.

There is clearly more to unconscious learning than meets the eye – (and hands and feet!).

PW

* - RAS - the Reticular Activating System. The brain's perceptive filter.

Remember to breathe!

2010-08-09T09:38:00.003+01:00

Our cricket club's Under 15s side had a match last Sunday morning. It was warm, pleasant and sunny and our side had batted particularly well and there was little possibility of the opposition matching our score. This type of match situation gives our skipper the opportunity to involve the less regular bowlers in the game.

One of the lads at the end I was umpiring was struggling to relax and bowl with consistency. In amongst the good balls were wides and his control was teetering on the very edge!

Earlier in the season he'd been in this situation before, but on that occasion I'd been watching from off the field of play so could only remark about it afterwards. I told him then about how much composure helps his accuracy when bowling and about how important breathing helps composure.

Back to this Sunday morning, and all I could hear from behind me as he came round to bowl the next ball was short and shallow breathing - almost panting - with an open mouth. After the next ball I caught his eye and said "Remember to Breathe!" He knew exactly what I meant and as he smiled his shoulders immediately relaxed. Everything went fine for him from then on and there was no more anxious panting.

Was this coaching while the game was in progress - something we frown upon as officials? Yes it was - though it wasn't coaching in terms of anything to do with the game. So my three little words said almost in passing had exactly the desired effect for him, and I had my excuse ready!

Breathing is so important in performance for relaxing the body and clearing the mind. When you are doing anything "under pressure" check your breathing first. Control it and it will then help control all that you are asking your body and mind to do.

PW

Using carbon-fibre 'cheetahs' metaphorically!

2010-08-08T00:36:00.006+01:00

"I want to sort my head out" said a recent client.

In athletic terms she needed to maintain standard timings for specific runs, and she felt that although she was physically capable in fitness terms, that a self imposed barrier - a kind of defeatist voice within - was telling her "you're losing ground, you're off the pace, you're not good enough". The end product for her was a kind of "can't do, won't do" scenario.
PW: "Has this always been the case for you? Always like this?"
CL: "No. I used to be well up to pace and put in good times"
And then she explained how someone had got on her case, critical, unfairly judgemental and prejudiced, and this was when things had started to go off the rails.
PW: "So how would you describe this situation as it keeps occurring for you?"
CL: "It doesn't happen when I'm playing other sports like rugby or lacrosse, all which involve running. These sports have a purpose. Only when just plain running, where the purpose is beating the clock."
PW: "So you're detached in other sports which have another purpose to them and fully engaged with this issue in ordinary plain running. So, what do you feel is happening?"
CL: "I'll tell you what it feels like. I run up against a brick wall and I can't get over it"
PW: "What can you tell me about this brick wall?"
This 'barrier' had a familiar ring to it and so I seized upon the metaphor she'd presented and decided to run with it.
CL: "It's sort of pinky red bricks and pretty high." I invited her to elaborate further on her pinky red brick wall."It's about 8 feet high, and 6 or 7 feet wide and about the the thickness of a brick in depth."
PW: "And is there anything else about this 8 foot high, 6 or 7 foot wide pinky red brick wall that is one brick thick?"
CL: "It's important to know what's on the other side. But I can't see over."
PW: "What needs to happen for you to know what's on the other side?" Quite a pause here.
CL: "Well I could go round but that would be cheating and would mark my time down. I can get over six foot walls like on assault courses, but not eight foot ones."
PW: "What needs to happen for you to get to the other side without cheating?"
CL: "I'd need a set of foldable steps...but they'd be really awkward to carry while running," and there was another pause and she chuckled, "a pickaxe would be very effective...no but that would be awkward to carry too." And then I waited for almost half a minute, when there was a totally physical response of realisation. "I could use sprung legs, using those blade things - whatever they're called." I think she meant carbon-fibre 'cheetahs'. "They would work brilliantly."

I invited her to visualize how to clear the wall using her 'cheetahs', going through the process, reaching up having sprung off them, vaulting almost and using her hands to pivot over the wall and landing the other side, and continuing with her run to the finish.
PW: "Make a film of this, enhance it on your mental video-console, add a soundtrack, make it as compelling as it needs to be for you. And how does this now feel for you?"
Her physiology had changed, she seemed animated, excited. Plus her head seemed somewhat 'sorted'.
CL: "Is that it? Is it really that simple?" she asked.
PW: "If you can see yourself doing it, then there's a high probability that you will do it in reality. Your unconscious has found a great solution for you - utilise it!"

PW

Nothing is ever nothing at all

2010-08-05T11:21:00.003+01:00

Early one day recently I posted a link to a clip on YouTube from Blackadder 4. It was the one called “I Spy” and related to Blackadder and Baldrick playing I Spy which started thus:-
Blackadder: "I spy with my bored little eye something beginning with ‘T’."
Baldrick: "Breakfast. My breakfast always begins with tea. Then I have a little sausage. Then a boiled egg with some soldiers."

Some hours passed by and then, quite unwittingly I had 2 boiled eggs for lunch – with soldiers! I posted about making this discovery as well, by saying:- "Was this self-persuasion, self-induction or something even a little deeper? Or perhaps nothing at all?" And then I replied to myself – "No! NOTHING is EVER Nothing At All"

This got me thinking about how much there is in that phrase –
"Nothing is ever Nothing at All"

First up I looked on Google –
There was nothing specific, just a lot of arrows pointing to Ronan Keating’s song "Nothing At All".
Then I found a reference to Canon Henry Scott-Holland (1847-1918), Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral. He is most well known for ‘The King of Terrors’, a sermon on death, that starts:- "Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room."
Next, I remembered someone once saying that in Mozart’s compositions EVERY note has a purpose, and that no note he ever wrote could be deemed as "Nothing at All" or insignificant, without significance. Here, I felt, I was getting warmer to the argument of "Nothing is ever nothing at all".

Then I looked at the ambiguity between saying "Nothing is ever Nothing at All" and "Nothing is Never Nothing at All". It’s one of those phrases where emphasis on each of the words is key, and the tone of voice in which it is phrased also changes the meaning around the pivot of 'EVER' and 'NEVER'.

So, is "Nothing At All" an entity here, an argument where No Thing has a different meaning from Nothing. Is it like Disease – which is dis-ease? Or is it more like seminate and disseminate? And there’s also "Never", which is meant as "not ever".

This is all rather like the linguistic argument I propounded in the preface of "Don’t Think of a Black Cat" – where I took Shakespeare’s "To Be or not To Be – that is the question" and applied it loosely to the NLP presupposition "The Map is not the Territory" (where the ambiguities around the verb To Be are exposed). The Map is only a partial representation of how to navigate the territory – it’s not the reality of the Territory. I’ve done something stupid doesn’t mean I AM stupid. In the end I concluded that "If To Be is not To Be, then is THAT the question?" Whereupon at least one much respected friend and colleague who was totally baffled, summed up the whole book as "That kind of stuff leaves me stone cold I’m afraid. Does absolutely nothing for me."

So what does it really mean, "Nothing is ever nothing at all"?

You know when you are in a conversation and the person starts to say something and then stops. We might say, "What were you about to say?" and often their response is "Oh...no, it doesn’t matter..." or "Oh, it’s nothing." We all have that unconscious knowledge that it DOES matter, but there is something in their conscious mind holding back the saying of it. It may be they are still grasping at being able to express it properly – or rather, express it in a way that they feel might be best appropriate for us, or for the current circumstances – or rather express it in a way that still hides their true intent – or rather.....and so on. I find there’s a really useful conversational tool that allows them to keep that reticence and yet also allows them to express themselves in a way satisfactory to them. It is to invite them to say it metaphorically. It means they are opening up, and in a way that is not the black-and-white unshadedness of abrupt bluntness.
Or perhaps their use of ‘Nothing At All’ is actually a metaphor in their unconscious language for "I’ve placed what I really want to say behind a curtain – so you can’t see it" in a magician’s-style ‘sleight of thought’. By responding metaphorically both you and they are now communicating at an unconscious level far more than consciously. And the significance of that unconscious communication is all bound up within ‘Nothing At All’.

So, nothing IS EVER nothing at all.
• Every note in Mozart’s compositions has significance. Every note has a relationship with the other notes and with the silences that surround those notes. The very meaning of his music EXISTS in the often conscious nothingness of its appearance.
• Not many things may EXIST in a vacuum but a vacuum has properties, and therefore a vacuum is not "nothing" but is a relative state of nothingness. It does have EXISTENCE.
• In Ronan Keating’s song, "You say it best when you say nothing at all" - the implication is that unconsciously you express yourself to me in the most significant way without the need for words. And that the meaning of your expression EXISTS in that "Nothing At All".
• Canon Henry Scott-Holland’s "Death is nothing at all", in my perception, alludes only to the non-existence of a state of aliveness and not to a closure of the timeless nature of EXISTING. The ‘nothing at all-ness’ of death is therefore best understood at an unconscious level.

And what has this all to do with Blackadder, Baldrick and boiled eggs?

Why absolutely nothing at all! .....Or has it?

"I'm turning into my mother!" - Behavioural models

2010-08-02T14:39:00.004+01:00

I went out earlier and our neighbour's dog was barking continuously though not in an annoying way. A couple of 6 yr olds were walking towards me and as they passed by I heard one say in his deepest voice,"That is a baaaad dog."
I chuckled and then thought about which of his close family members he was modelling with that voice that was clearly not his 'own'.

In our formative years we spend so much time modelling behaviours from those nearest to us - starting with parents, siblings etc and then as we grow, and our circle of 'known people' in our world gets bigger, we start to model more and more people.

Parents still remain the biggest influence, however. And for many mothers with young children, there will come that day - that defining moment - when they say, "I caught myself saying something to my child that my mother once said to me. I can't believe I'm turning into my mother!"

Of course for some this recognition comes as a startling experience, though it's as well to remember that these are what go to make up family traits and idiosyncrasies. They don't mean that she THINKS like her mother. or has every one of her beliefs and values, necessarily. They are behaviours and responses.

We have a family photo of myself, my father and my son (when aged about 5), on the beach and all looking at something in the distance. We are all side by side, standing the same way, holding the identical physical pose. Amusing, yet predictably understandable.

Specialised traits:
My father never used to mimick or use different accents when he spoke, but I can remember discovering (at about 7 or 8) how much people would laugh at impressionists and also discovered that with practice I could do it quite well. (Peter Sellers and Peter Ustinov have a lot to answer for!) The older I became, the better I got. Its now just another part of what I am in behavioural terms. However my son got to model me from a very early age - and consequently he is a master of accents, mimickry and impressionism.

My daughter, although she lapses into 'other voices' from time to time, has done far less modelling upon my behaviour. No, her behavioural model has been more her mother - and I guess as time goes on she will continue making occasional discoveries that lead to her saying "I'm turning into my mother!"

PW

NLP and Sensual Understanding, the 3rd dimension in Coaching?

2010-07-29T14:08:00.002+01:00

Open yourself up to the possibility....

In the course of my sports coaching I teach cricket to primary school children in curriculum time. Now, not all the pupils are going to view learning cricket with much enthusiasm for a variety of reasons – from not liking any PE per se, to it being a “long and boring game” (an acquired critical judgement), to “I’m no good at it” (another acquired critical judgement), to “I’m a girl and cricket’s a boy’s game”.
We were warned about this in our coach tuition module, that highlighted the differences between a) coaching at clubs where everyone wanted to be there and had a common purpose and b) coaching in schools where this diverse disinterest level was going to be prevalent.

There are things to help break these barriers – being outdoors in the summer sun and air sure beats being in the classroom; girls’ and women’s cricket is a fast growing sport; are two that immediately spring to mind as undeniable presuppositions.

So what else can help break the barriers?

In the tuition module we watched a rather cheesy and occasionally amusing DVD of a coach approaching, planning and delivering a curriculum session on cricket, and then had to comment on various aspects of it. Helpful as it was in a conceptual sense in providing a framework for execution of the task, the parts we all found equally amusing and uncomfortable were areas where we couldn’t see ourselves doing it THAT way. So - this now brings a coach’s individuality into the equation. Now, there is ‘coaching by the book’ and ‘coaching by personality’ – and it’s generally assumed the most effective way is going to be by managing the shifting and changing balance of the two.

To my mind there is a third dimension here – and the nearest I can get to a short description is ‘coaching by sensual understanding’.

If a coach has an awareness of ‘sensual understanding’ then suddenly the whole activity is transformed into 3D. And seeing, hearing, feeling ANYTHING in 3D brings the whole experience to life!

What do I mean by ‘sensual understanding’?
I see it as an understanding that
• Communication, both outwardly and inwardly, in language, both verbal and non-verbal, should be sensory based.
• Because we are designed for a world of experience through our senses, our technical coaching makes more impact if we pay attention to sensual or sensory-based learning.
I firmly believe that the more coaches encounter and have an understanding of NLP, the more they are drawn towards using it to enhance their ‘coaching by sensual understanding.’

So how have I found using NLP beneficial and leads to this ‘sensual understanding’ when coaching, particularly in schools?
1. Preframe the term and each session
2. Assume, through positivity, that the presuppositions of NLP are expressed to the children in ways they can understand
3. Allow them to gauge their experience of batting, bowling, fielding not in my terms but in terms that are REAL to them
4. Allow performance of how they have learnt and understood through that experience to be expressed in a free and unconscious (intuitive) way

Here are some examples of the above:-

Though it may sound a bit wacky, I tell every new group that they are geniuses – and that they don’t yet know what they are geniuses at, and they need to open up to the possibility that some of that genius can be expressed in their playing cricket.

There is no failure only feedback - If it’s possible in the world then it’s possible for me. It’s just a matter of How – There are no unresourceful people, only unresourceful states – People are not their behaviours, and for things to change first I (or they) must change – Every action has a positive intention. Children very soon understand where you are coming from if these presuppositions are part of your core beliefs.

Get them to listen to what their bodies are telling them, and gain a greater understanding of what is happening, what they are doing, and through that gain better control, and to try different ways to gain even more experiences. Remembering always that this is their perception of their experience and not anyone else’s. Communicate with everyone bearing this in mind. Use their language, their calibrations.

Provide sufficient ‘game’ or performance opportunity to allow expression without conscious technical thinking. The more exciting and fast moving the game, the better the likelihood of amazing expression. Some of the most astonishing feats and personal moments of absolute quality has been in this type of game play. Take away rational and critical thinking and the body is allowed to express itself truly ‘from the inside-out’. Sometimes beyond the generally accepted acquired technical level for that individual.

So the kids I coach in schools love what cricket allows them to do and feel and be. They believe it is what it is through the way it is presented to them. They now believe, through sensory discovery, that they are capable of far more than they think they are. And if that’s true for their cricket, then it’ll be true for other things as well. They understand the presuppositions of NLP without knowing what they are; and now they have a better view of the world, a better map of the world; and know that they are not that map and that they can be their true selves whenever they want –
just by allowing themselves to open up to the possibilities......

This model should be true for all of us, all of the time.

PW

Extra-ordinary rewards.

2010-07-27T09:58:00.004+01:00

Someone asked me recently which I preferred - coaching or therapy. And I found it particularly difficult to give them a straight answer. Each involves communication, rapport, understanding, influence, instruction, guidance, correction, revelation, patience, humility, honesty, clarity....well, I could go on for there's a lot more besides. Oh - and being positive. That's very important.

To be fair, I love doing both, since the common thread here is about making a difference for people. Life's too short after all!

There's a lot of giving of time and attention in what I call my working process, and the rewards are:- satisfaction at helping to make changes and advances for people - and yes I also get paid for most of it as well. The payment is just for my time though, and not the outcomes although I might earn more if I was paid by results - but then again I might not!

There's the human and personal side of rewards as well, which are beyond satisfaction and beyond monetary considerations. I don't feel the need for testimonials, although I can see the benefit this brings for those who do. I prefer to get affectionate thanks from those I've coached, sometimes greetings in the street years later, which says so much. I also get sincere thanks from parents, who have seen their child grow in stature as a consequence of my work with them. Plus I have enjoyed the success of teams and individuals who have discovered they are capable of achieving far more than they dreamed of.

And then there's the rewards it's just too hard to describe.....

In SATS 2010 there was a section called "Simply the Best" where pupils had to write a piece to their local newspaper recommending someone to be nominated for an award.

In one of the primary schools I visit to coach cricket in curriculum time, the Year 6 teacher gave me a copy of the piece one of the girls in her class had written. Bear in mind this teacher has seen many school years and taught both my son and daughter! She was rather moved to give me this short piece of work - as indeed I was to receive it. So in spite of what I said earlier about testimonials - yer tiz!

"I am recommending Mr Wright for a Simply the Best award.

I am proudly recommending my cricket teacher Mr Wright because I think he is brilliant.

Even though I'm not really a fan of cricket, Mr Wright still makes it fun for everyone. When you need help, he is always there. Also he is very honest. So if you need an opinion, I bet he will tell you the truth. I'll even bet you money if you don't believe me!

Most of my friends are not very confident playing cricket. Good thing Mr Wright has a positive attitude to keep them smiling!

Mr Wright is simply the best of all. He truly is. He has the 'wright' to win it!"

So what was it you wanted to see me about?

2010-07-25T16:22:00.004+01:00

This is Part 2 of my initial interview with the client who writes and performs comedy.

....having pointed out to this client that unbeknownst to her she is a 'hypnotist', she ploughed on with her journey of discovery!

“So what is NLP?” was her next question.

I explained it in a way that was most appropriate for her and actually showed her that she was also an NLP practitioner in a number of ways.
By the way comedians use reframing, by the way they use analogue marking, by the way they use anchors (especially linguistic or vocal anchors), by the way they use state management, rapport, pacing and leading. This actually makes them highly skilled practitioners.

“What actually is ‘timing’ in terms of a comedy performance? What is your understanding of it? How do you perceive it? ” I asked her.
There was a momentary pause as she collated her references in her ‘mental in-tray’. This too was interesting, and I used it a bit later to illustrate something for her.
“Timing is knowing when to say or do the next part of the script or sequence to maximum effect. That’s probably one thing that defines it for me.”
“And that ‘knowing’ – is there anything else about that ‘knowing’ - like that?” I asked.
“It’s like being totally in tune, in harmony. Like finding the most comfortable part or the most resonant part, where everything feels just right.”

Then I asked, “Can you see anything else about timing that is like that ‘knowing’?” Not very subtle I grant you, but I wanted to shine a light on a rather unexplored corner, and she was going with the flow here after all! There was a longer pause as she searched for more detailed references.

“When I try things out for myself first, I have an idea about how the script might work best – or even at all! Visualising, reading aloud, positional practising. But I don’t know for sure until I go out on stage. Every audience is different, so getting an understanding of them soonest helps the most.”

“So your performance is a dialogue, where you are unconsciously reading their responses and body language to help build rapport. You use non-verbal pacing and calibrate their state, and then lead them into your act by altering that state and guiding it where you want. You use all these techniques unconsciously and these are the very elements of the comedians performing art. And timing is that innate understanding where the pause is only as momentary as is necessary as revealed to you by the audience and your own intuitive and unconscious knowledge.”
She nodded, thoughtfuly and repeatedly.
“To my mind," I said, "that constitutes a master NLP practitioner!”

I’m happy to conclude that she now realises that, in addition to being a good comedienne, she is also an excellent hypnotist and NLP practitioner. That it is also OK to smile, chuckle, laugh, indeed express anything in a hypnotherapy session since that is indicative of an altered state and is there for the hypnotic guide to utilise, or not, as the case may be.

My final question was, “So what was it you wanted to see me about?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLHMAFfXYNY&feature=related
Seemed apposite!

PW

Consciously, everything is an altered state - isn't it?

2010-07-25T15:23:00.002+01:00

I met a new client who is a comedy writer and performer. This blog is what happened in Part 1 of my initial interview with her.

In the course of chatting with her I asked if she’d ever had hypnotherapy and if so how was the experience for her.

“Only a couple of times. First time I just got a fit of the giggles. I work in comedy and listening to the therapist’s voice going deeper I just saw the funny side and couldn’t stop laughing. I don’t think it was a very effective session because of that. The second one I was pretty tired so I didn’t ‘resist’ as much and that may have been more useful.”

An interesting perspective! And on a number of levels.

The preconception among many is that hypnosis requires a trance state, however they define that to be (perhaps involving their being something rather akin to sleep), and so if that isn’t happening, or they feel ‘conscious’ or ‘wide awake’, then it’s not working. The nominalisation, whether hypnosis or ‘IT’, implies that a spell is cast or you put something on and it changes you (as in the films The Mask, or The Tuxedo). In each of these examples the conscious is ‘shut down’, memory fades and ceases, and we become under the control or influence of the hypnotist. This preconception bolsters the fearful, the resistant, and those predisposed to expose. “Maintain consciousness – stimulate the critical faculty – and this stuff won’t work!”

Now we’re back to the story about the pickpocket in a room full of saints – all he sees is their pockets. But what if the pickpocket is also a saint – do the other saints see him as a pickpocket or as one of their own? What if it is a room full of pickpockets dressed as saints. What if it is a room of ordinary people at a Come As a Saint party? Do all saints have pockets? Do pickpockets have pockets?

Why am I rambling here? The point is about perspectives, preconceptions and understandings. I’ve mentioned in the past about asking people at a gathering, session or meeting “How many ways can I get out of this room?” They look around, count the exits (doors, windows etc) and then each come up with an array of answers. I then show them the different ways of getting through just one door by walking forwards, backwards, sideways, crawling, hopping etc – until they realise there are thousands of ways of getting out of the room. Some say “Ha, trick question” to which I reply “No, just perspectives, preconceptions and understandings. I merely asked how many ways can I get out of this room. The rest of it YOU made up.” Here they disappear into quiet thoughtfulness.

However – back to my client.
If you start from the perspective or understanding or preconception that hypnosis, trance - call it what you will – comes from the manipulation of changing states of mind then everything starts to open up. Every moment of every day we are in some particular state or other. There is a chunk of the 24 hours when we are asleep, or in a state of unconsciousness. Things are still going on in the body – we are still breathing, heart is beating, numerous other autonomic functions are chugging away in the background. When awake we move through the day in a continuous variety of states that are altering all the time. Amongst these altering states there are some contemplative, some reverie, some of total focus – and others with an almost infinite mixture of conscious and cognitive levels. Each change involves us moving to another state. Altering our state – our state is ALTERED. And if we view hypnosis as being “in an altered state of consciousness” then it is easy to see that something hypnotic can happen to us all at ANY time.

And so it is, if you think about comedy and our reactions. Laughter is symptomatic of an altered state. And as I told my client at this point, “When you make your audiences laugh, you induce in them an altered state. You are actually a hypnotist – and the better the comedian is, the better a hypnotist they are.” She understood perfectly what I meant, as she went through a range of internal references to prove or disprove this statement. “So what was happening when you got the giggles in that first hypnotherapy session? Laughter (and a fit of giggles is almost unconscious laughter) which is an altered state. The hypnotic guide will use this to good purpose even in a therapy session. On stage, if a member of the audience is having a fit of the giggles, what do you do?” She replied immediately, “Exploit it. Laughter is infectious. That fit of giggles will spread through the audience, without me having to say very much more except heighten the moment.”

It is interesting here that she used the word ‘heighten’, because another perspective of heighten is ‘deepen’ and this is also part of the hypnotic process.

I pointed out to her that rapport is also very important in the hypnotic process, as rapport opens up channels for dialogue on all 3 levels: Conscious-conscious, conscious-unconscious and unconscious-unconscious. Once it is realised that this is going on, the possibilities for influence expand dramatically. I asked her about rapport for comedians – “On stage you are looking to get rapport with your audience as soon as possible? What happens when you’ve got it?” She replied, “Everything goes great. It flows. It’s an all round wonderful experience.” “And when you haven’t got it, what happens then?” “You bomb,” she said.

"Exactly my point," I said. I could see she was beginning to treat this meeting as something of an education, quite forgetting why she had come to see me in the first place.

Distraction and absorption, leading to temporary amnesia and probable time distortion; my initial interviews and chats do tend to go down this network of roads. I've even had a colleague tell me that the consequence of reading my online postings is that he spends hours buried in a thesaurus.
However, the point is that states metamorphose like shifting sands, and by noticing and understanding these shifts, by cultivating rapport, pacing and leading we become artfully persuasive and influential. We are all doing this - all the time - to a greater or lesser degree. And some of us wear our tuxedos all the time!

(Part 2 of the interview will follow shortly)
PW

What happens when we have too much choice?

2010-07-24T19:42:00.003+01:00

This is a great and meaningful TED talk by Barry Schwarz on the paradox of choice.

http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html

In essence he concludes that the more choice we have, there is a finite point beyond which we actually become miserable and disaffected by this so-called "freedom to choose". A kind of law of diminishing returns.
And endless choice, he avers, is paralysing. When faced with so much 'opportunity to get just what we want', the downside is that we blame ourselves when it doesn't come up to expectations. And it is these levels of expectation that make the choosing so difficult, and so paralysing, because the responsibility has been handed down to us. If the product is inferior it somehow becomes our fault, because we should have (could have) made a better choice. Making decisions often degenerates into "But what if I choose the wrong thing? Why can't this be easier?"

I remember hearing a joke years ago about a foreigner arriving in an English town, but hardly able to speak a word. He was hungry and noticed a cafe was well frequented so he went in an joined the queue. He overheard most of the customers ordering ahead of him "Cuppa tea, chunk o' pie." So when it was his turn he copied them and asked for "Cuppa tea, chunk o' pie." It duly came and he ate and enjoyed. Weeks went by and he would regularly go down to the cafe and ask for "Cuppa tea, chunk o' pie". After a while he grew tired of the same old fare and thought he'd try something else he'd heard asked for. Next visit it was "Egg and bacon, cup o' coffee." The reply was "How d'ye like yer eggs? -fried, scrambled, poached, coddled, sunny side up, hard, soft, runny. how d'ye like yer bacon? -back, streaky, rind on or off, crispy, how d'ye like yer coffee? -black, white, frothy, milky, with or without sugar....."
He stood for a while and said "Cuppa tea, chunk o' pie."

PW

Not really a re-launch!

2010-07-21T12:14:00.002+01:00

I'm on something of a publicity drive on my book "Don't Think of a Black Cat" at the moment. It's not really a re-launch though, more (in recorded music industry parlance) along the lines of re-issuing "back catalogue".

What's different?

Well the price of both the paperback book as well as the download version is slashed. The book you can get from AMAZON, direct from my publishers LULU or order it up in your favourite nearby bookshop. LULU also do the eBook download version. For UK based clients only you can also get personally signed copies direct from me.

Will it be useful for me?

The book is aimed at bringing a level of understading NLP to the uninitiated, the burgeoning beginner, the curious layman. The countless millions who wait for each day to "happen" to them; who perform to "the best of their abilities" without realising there is a whole heap more they themselves can bring about to improve their every experience; who suffer, often for years, events and conditions that blight their lives in varying degrees.

It is not...

It is not an academic tome, nor is it a revealing textbook. There's nothing here you won't find elsewhere in other books or online. It is more of a chronicle of my perspectives, my discoveries as I made my way in to NLP. It's written in a conversational style with plenty of "live" interventive descriptions and some occasional humour too - my first tutor and mentor liked the narrative and said it made him laugh and smile, which I took as a huge compliment. There's practical exercises too designed to allow the reader to open up to begin their own usage.

Interested, curious, tantalised, want to know more.....?
Then my work is done - the rest is down to you!

Did I get what I wanted with NLP?

2010-07-21T11:56:00.003+01:00

Normally my interaction on sundry forums involves short posts, but occasionally I am more expansive. Recently, on NLP Connections, there was a thread which questioned "Did you get the results you were after when you first connected with NLP? Were you overjoyed - disappointed - surprised?"

My reply was thus:-

Being a lifelong student of everything, especially NLP, I'm going to have to frame my comments in the present - since in terms of what I know there's more to come and it certainly feels as though I've come a long way as well!

Am I getting the results I was after?

Yes, geometrically, exponentially. It started off slowly and gathered a momentum of its own as I moved from all the 'apply to self' scenarios into using it in a sports context with people I coach, into using it specifically with clients in mainstream and therapeutic contexts.

Am I overjoyed-disappointed-surprised?
To be fair - none of the above. For me its more like enthused, enthralled, curious and investigative.

Within the last 3 years and especially the last 18 months my view of NLP has moved from it being an entity in itself into it being a perspective of thinking, being, viewing the world, communicating with that world and the people in it. That has accelerated my enthusiasm, enthrallment and curiosity and level of investigation.

What I once viewed as the 'core' of NLP seems now, in my understanding at any rate, to have more body of material outside it than inside. In that there is more and more to be discovered beyond the confines, as this 'way of thought and action' spills over into neighbouring disciplines and newly emerging processes. Its rather like broadening one's vocabulary when learning a language whilst, all the time, that language is also expanding.

Many clients ask me what NLP is, perhaps expecting (from how it has been described to them) that I will be 'doing it' to, with and for them. Every answer I give is different, probably tailored by my unconscious understanding of how the answer might be most useful for them. This isn't from some arrogant standpoint being that 'I know what's best for you'. Its more from the point of giving a natural, interesting and revealing answer in a natural, interesting and revealing way. I'm not expecting to be "right" with these answers, and for some the answers may be so far from the 'defined norm' that I might appear that I don't know what I'm talking about! In a lot of cases I am deliberately (and artfully) vague - which is particularly disarming for them and thus permits a level of unconscious dialogue that may not be possible in other ways.

I have some wonderful gurus and teachers who accompany me on this journey of discovery. Most of them are not aware I hold them in this status! I am particularly fortunate in that by having to pay for all my tuitions myself, that I have trodden outside the borders of training-for-trainings-sake. I suppose I've been lucky in that financial constraints have made me take the better route to choosing courses and trainers since, as you say Chris (Chris Morris, forum moderator), there is an element of the 'less than honourable' out there in the marketplace. However - there are many in our 'community' who do what they do for the greater benefit of the community - and one of those great benefits is a this particular web forum. I have gained much help, information and stimulus by my involvement here.

To conclude - I know that had I NOT studied and started using NLP over the last 15-18 years that (a) I wouldn't be the inner person I am now, (b) wouldn't be capable of doing the things I am doing now, (c) wouldn't be as effective a coach or therapist as I am now. I also know that I will never arrive at the 'temple of knowingness' and rather everything is just a step along the journey of knowledge. That way, tomorrow I will be more effective, thoughtful, creative and fascinated than today.

The Meaning, the Words and Music - Part 1

2010-07-04T11:37:00.006+01:00

An FB friend, Dr Gabrielle Mancuso, posted this quote today which got me musing and contemplating:-

The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him? ~ Chuang Tzu

Here's where I've reached thus far...

The words are the vehicle for the meaning -
When a man has forgotten the words, does he retain the meaning? If he forgets the words through lack of attention (and retention) has he ever had the meaning in the first place? -
If I have found the meaning and someone seeks me out to talk with me, in order to convey the meaning to him will I need words to transmit or convey that meaning? -
If this is so and I have forgotten the words, where will I find them?

And so it is thus, there are more questions than answers!

In applying the Chuang Tzu quote to music, we realise that the meaning is hidden in the relationship between the notes, the silences, the rhythm, the tempo. And if the meaning is thus hidden, can we always re-generate that meaning using the same exact relationships? Or are those identical musical notational relationships also dependent upon our perceptive filters and interpretations and state of mind? Furthermore this leads to the performer of the musical notations, and HIS understanding of the meaning, and also his changing states of mind.

So my conclusions (at this moment in time you understand!) are that - for an understanding AND conveyance of meaning, words and music are equally important. And, the better we use them, the more meaning we can receive and impart. I genuinely feel that music is a non-verbal language, and actually conveys more meaning at higher levels than words do.

For 'levels' I am referring to Robert Dilts' model

Working Life Balance & Harry Chapin

2010-06-28T10:47:00.005+01:00

In the course of one of my consultancies I see many people - usually somewhere on the corporate ladder - whose weight and food related issues pretty much all stem from lifestyle/work/stress areas.

It doesn't take much knowledge of statistics and extrapolation to realise that probably 85% of the corporate working population are affected by this in some way or other, and are NOT taking steps to deal with it in a helpful and appropriate way. There are always excuses - and these flag up instantly as showing that the person(s) concerned are at EFFECT rather than CAUSE. They are victims.

If you watch this 10 minutes talk by Nigel Marsh it will surely resonate with you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXM7MpoVAD0&feature=youtu.be

I laughed and cried as I watched. It is meaningful, relevant and poignant. Classic scenarios such as "I'll have a life when xxxxx happens..." abound.

I was talking to some people really close to me last weekend about the song "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin - and of course it is a cautionary tale about aspects of Working Life Balance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etundhQa724&feature=related
There are many versions of the song but Harry's means the most to me because of the level of special vocal nuance he had in performance.

The beacon of responsibility shines brightly in the messages from Nigel Marsh and Harry Chapin - being reponsible for and taking charge of our own lives, for if we don't then someone or something else will steal it from us. And, as I see regularly with clients, it is quite a battle to get it back.

PW

People will change only IF THEY want to!

2010-06-24T09:36:00.003+01:00

One of the enduring features from my previous blog post is that People will only change if they want to and are ready to.

I hear alarm bells and see flags waving whenever I hear "My xxxxx says I should see you because of my yyyyyy," or "I'd like you to see my xxxxxx because they've got these issues and would like help with them." In each of these examples the ACTUAL person with the issues has not taken responsibility for them and therefore always sees the way they are feeling or acting as being something OUTSIDE of their influence, as if they are a victim, possessed, powerless, leading to an "IT comes over me..." or "these things happen to me" situation.

I was in a social gathering one time and a lady whose boyfriend, having discovered what I do, told her that she should talk to me because I could "fix" her. Almost in an effort to please him (and shut him up) she started to chat with me about her phobia of spiders. It was clear, however, that (a) she had come to terms with the phobia in her own way, (b) was not driven to distraction by her phobia so much that she felt compelled to deal with it.
Clearly at an unconscious level she was tolerant of it and not ready for change.

Smokers who think they want to quit need to first explore areas where they have secondary gain - ie something they experience as a result of smoking that they would lose if they gave it up. This is manifest in a number of ways; personal, social, chemical for example. At an unconscious level they are not ready to give up. (Plus - I always chuckle when I see ads for nicotine patches or gum when they add the proviso "requires will power".

The 'depressed' client from my previous post is clearly not ready for change at an unconscious level, until she ackowledges her anger and takes responsibility for it and her other actions. The only outcome will be that her casefile grows bigger and fatter.

Irrationally, I previously had a tendency towards rage behind the wheel of a car until I took responsibility for my "shadow" (see an earlier blog). Since then I have driven with a mild manner, and an inside-out understanding of the nature of my own thoughts, feelings and actions. Here I noticed a message from my unconscious that allowed me to take conscious responsibility in a proper way.

If someone makes an enquiry for another person, then I always leave it until they speak to me or contact me THEMSELVES. That way at least they have been personally responsible for the enquiry. Referrals are more difficult - although here again, I always ask the referrer to get the person to contact me direct.

Another case I had was where a father asked me to "see" his daughter because she had failed several driving tests and HE thought this was what she needed to help her composure and confidence. When I arrived to see her, she was clearly petrified because she thought I was going to "control her mind". We just chatted and once she realised I wasn't Svengali, or was going to make her behave like a chicken, then the session became meaningful and helpful.
In her case, while she herself was ready for change, her father had 'pushed her' into seeing me even though she was old enough to make her own choices. Hopefully, her understanding of what she is responsible for and capable of are now much clearer - plus her fear of hypnotherapists is laid to rest! One thing I'm sure of - that she is now a fully qualified driver.

The rapport-busting greeting! No Failure only Feedback...

2010-06-20T12:14:00.005+01:00

Over 99% of my clients want to make changes and are looking for guidance. There's always the exception - and I'm happy to share this with you all!

"This client has depression" - I was informed by the person who made the referral, and also by the client when I met them for the initial interview. I gathered the client and those nearest were at their wits end, and that, in terms of therapists, I was something of a 'last resort'.

We talked; I explained what I could do and areas we might work on; she had a morbid distrust of hypnosis; however, NLP and other approaches would be fine; so we proceeded, I led her through a number of techniques which might be useful for her and then she booked to see me 9-10 days later.

First appointment proper she reported that following my initial interview she had 4-5 great and non-depressing days which were rather scuppered by a train of events she did not react to very well. Good news - on the face of it.

The session continued and early on I am told that she is now feeling impatient for re-discovering some more of those good feelings that had recently lifted her spirits. Next,
halfway through the session, she tells me its not as good as the first one and she's getting nothing out of it. I remind her that halfway through the first session she also had no idea of the positive effects our conversations might be having until AFTER I'd left. Session finishes and we arrange the next one.

Next session day comes around. I ring her doorbell and she greets me with, "Oh its you. I was going to ring you to tell you not to bother to come because in the last session you were a complete waste of time."

I perceived the thunder of hooves as the horses of rapport bolted through the stable door and off down the road...

Now this is supposed to be a client with "depression" and all the associated feelings of low confidence, self esteem, pointlessness etc. So where is impatience, annoyance, rudeness (perhaps) and criticism coming from? This client is definitely angry about a lot of things, but doesn't want the world to see her anger, so she hides behind depression. The thing is - the more people come into contact with her depression, the more they twig that its a facade. The exceptions are her nearest and dearest - oh and perhaps her other therapists.

Having taken the trouble to make the journey to the appointment I gave her some more time, and laid it on the line for her that everything she does and feels involves her choice. She can choose to feel the way she does, or not - because (by her own admission) when she wakes up in the middle of the night she chooses to feel "OK". I realise now, of course, why this is!

Suffice to say, I knew she would not be looking to see me again - however, I am grateful to my various gurus for examples and insights that have cushioned whatever professional misgivings I may have had through this experience.

"There is no failure - only feedback."

Totally covert NLP?

2010-05-31T09:11:00.003+01:00

Normally for some of my consultative client sessions, I am asked what is NLP? Never following a script for this, I tend to go with what I intuitively feel might be the best explanation for each particular client. Remembering of course that the % of people who have even heard of NLP, let alone have an inkling of what it is, is really quite small.

In a recent client session, a lady explained how she was affected by boredom and loneliness and how, at particularly vulnerable times of her day, she would 'comfort' eat. This was followed by remorse and upset at having succumbed to doing something that she knew was not doing her any good.

She didn't ask me what NLP was - so I surmised that she either knew or had an idea, and continued on the path of casual chat I'd outlined at the beginning of the session.

Conversationally we explored some areas for her that might lead to more positive outcomes, without even a hint of the mention of food. In fact the bulk of the conversation centred around music, singing and her (future) involvement with that. We talked about that in particular because at the mention of the topic her whole physiology lit up! Along the way I encountered the usual 'put-me-down' phrases such as "I'm too old", "I couldn't do that", "What people are thinking about me" - and I challenged these, reframed some things, examined strategies and structures of behaviour...and so on. It was engaging and absorbing and she had clearly quite forgotten all about the issues and sentiments that had brought her to see me in the first place.

At the end of the session she said "Thanks so much - that was really interesting and useful - and we haven't even done any NLP!" When I replied, "Haven't we?" she looked really puzzled. "But I thought - isn't it to do with ..." and she listed a whole range of NLP techniques she heard about and was probably anticipating my using in a food-related context. I pointed out that NLP is all these things and much, much more besides - including all of how we'd explored things in the session.

She was even more interested and surprised thereafter - and is looking forward to seeing me again. Totally covert? Not really - I did let the cat out of the bag after all - albeit right at the end of the session. And those of you familiar with my book "Don't Think of a Black Cat" will understand exactly what I mean by releasing the feline from the sack.

Following Your Dream - not someone else's

2010-05-28T10:10:00.002+01:00

Sir Ken Robinson is a wonderful speaker - and when he illuminates for all of us what we REALLY should be doing in education then I applaud till my hands are sore.

I spend all my teaching time encouraging the children to discover what it is they are geniuses AT. I also see clients aged 25-65 who have been tied into lives doing things other people have wanted them to do.

First time I encountered this I watched 3-4 times straight off. I hope you'll be as enthused as I am!

http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

Serious Play and the ability to focus better...

2010-05-23T01:45:00.004+01:00

This is probably not quite what you are expecting from a discussion topic suitably titled...but is prompted partially by this particular TED talk in a link posted by Nina Lancaster on NLP Connections forum:-
http://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html

Now apropos of this and not entirely unconnected comes from a remark I made while talking to a parent of one of my young coachees earlier today.

I was describing how I've recently been challenged to adapt fun cricket games activities for large group numbers. The games tend to take on a somewhat chaotic and highly charged faculty where the participants are challenged to maintain a high sensual attention level through the visual, auditory and kinaesthetic modalities. This is not only highly exciting and stimulating, but also brings out of them some amazing feats of performance. This, I believe, is to do with their not having time to 'think' and therefore over-clutter their mind with inhibitive, cautious, negative and self-conscious thoughts. I've also participated and it is definitely a quite liberating activity experience!

Now the comment I made was that: when the players then later get into a more serious, competitive and formalised game of cricket, they find it much easier to focus because the game is much more ordered and structured and the level of 'chaos' around them is very diminished. Consequently they are not overawed in any way.
Without the practice of functioning at a highly stimulated level, they are more prone to skills or technique 'freezing' when they are in the cauldron of a competitive environment. Its definitely one way of encouraging a process of thinking clearly under pressure, by pushing the envelope of stimulating sensual awarenesses in a fun (and almost crazy) play activity, which is exciting and pleasureable and yet has purposefully serious intentions at a more unconscious level.

Work in Progress...

2010-05-12T17:15:00.003+01:00

It a simple enough phrase..."Work in Progress"...

And yet I've discovered that when using it with young sportspeople, that it actually liberates them from any performance shortcomings where (more often than not) they would hang their heads, beat themselves up, and all the other attributes that go with our culture of instant success, instant gratification, instant...you name it!!

So what is the power behind these 3 words?

1. Well, have a look at the presuppositions when the player hears my response to their assessment of how they've played.
PL: "It went X, I did Y, I didn't do Z, I forgot to do M and I made a mistake with N."
PW: "Yes - and lets be realistic now. These parts of your game - it's work in progress."

What is it? It's work > which presupposes they are putting some effort into the activity away from competition. Which means they are motivated and active towards getting to grips with these parts of their game.
What's happening to the work? It's in progress > which presupposes its on the move from A to B and is improving, getting better. This implies positive and purposeful outcomes are already taking place.

2. Liberating emotional possession of competition errors.
What is the work in progress? IT is! (a nice little impersonal IT) > which actually puts a space between (1) the errors and imperfections of the performance and (2) the player themselves, by introducing that neutral and unemotional wedge (3), IT (ie the work being done to improve those particular parts of their game).

3. No impatient time constraints.
There's no start or finish to Work In Progress either - just a plan, programme and record of improvement, accelerated or organic. These are process goals related to levels of competency, for which the acquisition timescale has never been set.

Part of the difference between my approach to young players and say those of the non-coaching fraternity (ie just adult players etc) - is this very point of detaching the emotional effect of errors of performance from the players themselves. When players are bombarded with a continual chorus of "You should do X" and "You mustn't do Y" and (perhaps the funniest of all) "Don't forget to remember to do Z" - heavens, how confusing is that - these remarks are miles away from my "Keep on with the Plan - because this is all Work In Progress."

So, "WIP" could be my phrase of 2010!!

The Sea omnipotent - Clean Case File #5

2010-05-03T17:30:00.002+01:00

I met a very intelligent, intense and vibrant lady who is MD of her own successful company. She wanted to raise her energy levels through a better understanding of exercise and fitness and have more positive feelings about her appearance and lose some weight. She also felt at something of a “crossroads” in her life. On the face of it, these are all observations, feeling, desires and goals for quite a considerable number of people.

With further conversation we talked around some of her perceived barriers to achieving these desires and goals, one of which was that she felt that she tended to live “in her head”. Outwardly this seemed to me to be a total contradiction, so I asked her to elaborate, if she had a mind to. She said she wanted to ration her emotions because the intensities of some (particularly those inter-personally related) were causing problems with her self control, and this was getting in the way of a better life.

This was actually the real barrier – not the 2 or 3 she’d actually first mentioned! She needed “me” time and this was being eroded on a daily basis by “going the long way round” all inter-personal matters in the workplace. She felt X but was unable to express how she felt about X, and so took route Y to “keep things smooth”. This was suppressing her emotions, rather than rationing them – and the suppressions were not doing her any good.

PW:- When you think of working relationships and scenarios, how would you really like to be?
CL:- I’d like to be calmer, more inspired, listen better and be an enabler.
PW:- And what kind of an enabler is that enabler?
CL:- Someone who gives people time to express themselves and brings the best out of people.
PW:- And when bringing the best out of people, where is more inspired?
CL:- They are one and the same really.
PW:- And thinking about someone listening better, what has to happen to make listening better?
CL:- They have to be quiet.
PW:- And when quiet, what kind of quiet is that quiet?
CL:- It’s calm and attentive and listening.
PW:- And when calm, attentive, listening and quiet…is there a relationship with inspired and enabler?
CL:- Yes, it’s what I want to be. It’s what I need to be, for me, and for everything to work better.
PW:- And thinking of calm, attentive, listening, quiet and inspired….what’s that like?

She did give a ‘looped’ answer here first, and then I invited her to close her eyes and notice what she noticed – and then asked her exactly the same question.

CL:- Ah yes, I understand. I see what you mean….actually I do see a picture of the sea – a vast and vivid picture of the sea.
PW:- And what kind of sea is that sea?
CL:- Well at the moment its placid and calm and in control, and I know it can get rougher when the weather is different. It’s very inspiring and powerful.
PW:- And when you think of an enabler, where is sea then?
CL:- (chuckles) Well the sea is an enabler in lots of ways isn’t it? Shipping, transport, food, moisture, supporting weather systems, supporting life…..
PW:- And when sea is rougher what happens to calm and inspired?
CL:- Well it’s still inspiring and awesome and everything. And it’s only rough on the surface; it’s so deep and strong and powerful and away from the surface it’s still calm and in control.
PW:- And as you think now about living in your head and rationing your emotions – what needs to happen?
CL:- (chuckles again and pauses) I need to be like the Sea.

I drew our session towards a close, and she was animatedly excited and enthused by the prospect of using the metaphorical imagery of her Sea and all the qualities she had bestowed upon it. Here was her “master key” that would help her to become an inspiring enabler, who was calmer and a better listener. In less than 20 minutes with the help of Clean Language she felt confident that she knew which signpost at the crossroads she now needed to follow.

One person's structure of food cravings

2010-04-30T11:02:00.007+01:00

Sometimes I meet a client who has cravings for certain foods, and doesn’t wish to have them erased from his or her menu of “likeables” – which is what would happen if we mapped across submodalities using Like to Dislike technique. It’s quite for ok for us to enjoy chocolates, biscuits, crisps etc once in a while – and to choose to do so on our own well balanced terms!
One particular lady had occasional cravings for a range of foods – generally sweet things – so we examined the structure of how the whole process was working for her. It went like this.....

She was really keen to be able to deal with her cravings as they arose, and not be in the position of powerless “victim”. Another issue was that often she would choose a more appropriate food and would find that, once the process had almost run its course, she would go back to a craved food rather than exit the process. And on this second or subsequent run of the loop she was rarely able to make a more appropriate food choice.
Once plotted in visible form it was easy to notice that with “bad/naughty” foods she got a taste and a picture representation of it before going to get it – whilst with the “more appropriate” foods she just went straight to the ‘GO GET’ action.
We discussed this finding and I invited her to take time and (initially) make a conscious effort, and allow the more appropriate choice food to be run through the TASTE—PICTURE sequence also. It is quite likely that the TASTE—PICTURE sequence is adding a level of pleasure (albeit anticipatory) to the cravings and reinforcing the desire to “go there again” once eating has taken place. By putting the appropriate choice food into this bit of the loop as well, there will (a) be more pleasure from that choice, (b) further eating of that choice on second + running of the process if not full and (c) a probable reprogramming of the craving tendency in its entirety in the fullness of time. Currently she had “will power” to make better choices, but the sequential structure of her process was eroding the real benefit of that will power. Now, with an understanding of what was happening for her during process she is definitely destined for a better outcome.
This, we decided, would be her “homework” project, and she left feeling really empowered and eager to start putting new habits into place!

Metaphors reveal behavioural structures...

2010-04-22T16:58:00.003+01:00

When a client admits "I have issues with X because there are times when I feel really out of control"...then I am sat with virtual machete in hand, knowing that I need to help them hack a new pathway through the jungle of X - because the old and well worn pathway leads to behaviours Y and Z which are very unresourceful.

For me the answer lay in investigating "really out of control", so I put down the virtual machete and launched into the abyss, armed with only some Clean Language questions. I was out to examine the structure of "Out of Control" and how this might be opened up to give the client choices which would lead to solutions.

One of the joys of using Clean is that clients are given free rein to express themselves as much as they like. By providing them with this freedom, there is every chance that the Golden Nugget of a driving metaphor will come into view at some point.
My latest client's metaphor appeared as, "Out of Control is like being on a boat, a fishing boat, with flimsy railings in a very rough sea. Being tossed around and at any time I could be washed overboard."
PW - "What needs to happen to boat and railings in order for more Control?"
CL - "Boat has to be more sturdy and railings higher"
PW - "Is there anyone else on boat?"
CL - "No"
PW - "And with boat out of control, where is steering?"
CL - "In the wheelhouse"
PW - "And where is wheelhouse?"
CL - (pointing upwards) "Over there"
She is really living this by now, and goes into the wheelhouse. I ask her who does steering and she says 'Captain'. She is not 'Captain' and as 'Captain' is not there I ask if she can steer. She says 'yes' and starts to steer. There's a bit of a physiological shift at this point and when I ask what's happening to boat now, she replies that it is steadier and (quite revealing) more sturdy!
PW - "And is there anything else about boat, railings and rough sea?"
CL - "Railings are safer and the sea is less rough"

The session continued for a short while and I explained to her that now her unconscious had revealed the metaphor of "Out of Control" that she might notice how this placed more resources at her fingertips. She agreed there is a need to get off the deck and into the wheelhouse and assume the role of "Captain". This would ensure a return to "Control" and when in control she knew all the right ways to get the answers and outcomes that would be the most appropriate for her.

Encountering Dogma

2010-04-20T13:15:00.002+01:00

I was recently approached by a student writing a thesis called "Hypnotherapy and the Christian" for my views; with particular regard to the dogmatic Christian approach towards trance - often described as evil, and that therapists could be described as "charmers" as biblically referenced in Deuteronomy with the flag of "due warning".

I tend to avoid any religious-based discussions, mainly because I believe in religious tolerance and I acknowledge that with the many peoples, backgrounds, beliefs, histories, ways of life in the world...that religious tolerance is the only way forward for us all to live in harmony. And to live in harmony with each other is (for me anyway) one of the highest ideals. I was brought up in the CofE, have an open interest and respect for all religions - and am comfortable in the company of peoples from all religions except those who are "on a mission of conversion".

So when I encounter dogmatic intolerance my heart sinks. There is no logical reason why hypnotherapy (the beneficial using of trance), Reiki, or a countless number of other therapies, should be considered dangerous, evil or whatever judgement is heaped upon them from the dogmatic angle.
I appreciate the logical and the spiritual don't always occupy the same marbled halls - and I also know that there are chronicled elements within the bible, especially the OT, where history plays a greater role than teaching.
Trance is a naturally occurring state and compliant with the consent of the individual. Ergo, where is the evil? Evil is in the thoughts, eyes and hands of the evildoer - I don't see the dogmatic issuing forth on the evil of knives for instance!

There is a mystery, a mystical element within Christianity that has a special place within its spirituality. I can see how dogma has evolved where the "inexplicable" nature of trance construes some sort of threat to those mysteries. I see this, however, as a misunderstanding of the nature of trance - which deals with the psychological rather than the spiritual. And perhaps the dogmatic issues are more to do with Christianity and its relationship with Science (of which Psychology is a relatively new science) than those therapies which still have an element of 'the unknown' about them.

Like >> To >> Dislike .... And why the white plate?

2010-04-13T00:32:00.003+01:00

Whenever I find myself dealing with removing particular food cravings for clients, by mapping them across to ones they have a certain revulsion to - there seems to be something of a recurring theme...or even a recurring dream, as someone once said to me.

It started when I noticed my own 'repulsive' foodstuff when I had my devouring of Jaffa Cakes habit removed by the power of NLP!! This was when my Like (Jaffa C's) was mapped across to my Dislike (kidneys). My kidneys image included a white plate - the raw kidneys rested, almost regally, on a beautifully pure and pristine white plate.

In ALL the times I've used the technique since, each client has put their Dislike food on a white plate! Now they all volunteered this information without any prompting from me - but I did ask last week's particular client about the significance of the white plate for her. She said it seemed to offset her specimen food (octopus) very well, and in a vibrantly compelling way - which was an answer that resonated with me (and my kidneys)!

I shall give updates on the progress of collecting this data in the months to come. I can't see this just being coincidence, however!

(Mapping Across is a technique within NLP using submodalities)

All Clients are amazing!

2010-04-10T00:21:00.003+01:00

On Thursday I had a second meeting with a client who, I'm discovering, is probably one of the most insightful and amazing people I've met to date.

He is seeing me, ostensibly, to talk around topical areas of exercise, health, food, motivation and such. By mostly listening, and occasional questions however, I find our conversation chunking around (mainly up!) into areas that seem quite remote from our "base camp" - and yet are not, because they are enjoined and engaged with connecting threads of purpose and meaning.

Strangely, talking to him and listening to him reminded me of the character Socrates, featured in Dan Millman's books and film Peaceful Warrior - The Movie. If you aren't familiar, here is a short interview with Dan Millman talking about the character:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4lN5VR8kqU>
Dan also quotes the phrase "When the student is ready, the Teacher will appear" - and this is certainly true with regards to my client, who I am now viewing as a timely mentor for me in the journey I am on.
His comments and insights are really thought provoking and for me, I find myself saying "For what purpose?"
The answer is clearly for my discovery and education - and I am just thankful I have the presence of mind (and working style) to listen and take in all that he says, because were I not to then I would miss a lot of the deeper meanings.

There were two particularly amazing things that came out of our conversation:-
1. We both share a passion for and draw inspiration from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. In his case however, when he was in business he gave a copy to each of his employees. Very interesting!
2. He also ran his business on these philosophical pillars - rather than imbuing the business and every employee with the profit motive, there were two things that stood firm - one was that for every employee this had to be the best job they'd ever had in their life to date, and the other was that for every customer this had to be the best firm they'd ever dealt with to date.
By following this philosophy he felt his work and his business would have true purpose. Not surprisingly, he also reported that the business was hugely profitable - and for all the right reasons namely the people who it served.

We can learn so much from our clients - not just about them, but also from them for ourselves. And the key has to be LISTENING, purposeful listening.

Revealing Metaphors!

2010-04-02T10:10:00.003+01:00

Clean Language questions are great for eventually eliciting a person’s unconscious metaphors, those that are driving, or that are linked to, certain behaviours. Often people have no conscious idea what these metaphors might be, and find that once they are known, immediate and profound changes can often occur.

I was working with a partner at a recent course, and we each had to take both client and practitioner roles for a lengthy period of time, covering a particular issue we would like to have resolved.
I had been experiencing a degree of “writer’s block” in terms of progressing the work on my next book – and so I chose this as my ‘client issue for exploration and resolution’. At no point prior to the day had I even considered what was causing the block, or how I might get round it – I have plenty of other things to deal with on a daily basis, and I took the rather patient line that further inspiration would arrive when it was ready to arrive!

My interview (as client) duly progressed and my practitioner asked me about the background to the issue, about the first book and other recent working life history, in order to build up a picture, for her, of the real “me” as the client. It was a great question session, and it was when she began asking me about the structure and submodalities of how the first book had come to be written that things began to really unfold...
I’d written the book rather backwards way on - with the title (Don’t Think of a Black Cat) firmly in my mind before I’d started, followed by the subject matter of the preface (the map is not the territory), and finally with theme (the NLP plumber) and structure of the main body of the work. Once armed with the subject matter of the preface I then researched and wrote it, so that it was a stand-alone article in its own right. I then gathered information and made copious notes for the main body – and then wrote it. The conclusion and final tidy up came right at the end of the process.

My practitioner partner asked me what I felt, saw, was the most challenging part of the process for the next book. My reply was that it was the gathering and garnering of all the information. I was happy that I needed to write the preface in the way I had done the first time – ie choose the subject and then write an article around it. However, the ‘leg-work’ of processing loads of notes and other information was clearly something that was causing the block in my mind. With her guidance I was able to see that when writing the first book I had no notion of this part of the process before starting out, and therefore it was neither a help nor a hindrance to me.

The next step was the most revealing, however, and I was particularly delighted because I knew that she had no prior knowledge of Clean Language, and yet she had inadvertently used it! We were talking about this garnering of information leg-work in particular with regard to the first book and she phrased the question beautifully thus:-
“And garnering...that’s like what?”
With eyes closed I received a wonderfully clear, colourful and dynamic film of a trawler in a heaving sea and the fishermen landing a huge catch – bulging nets full of wriggling, dancing fish, being hoisted on board.

Here was my metaphor, revealed with stunning clarity.

I could hardly contain myself – and immediately saw the way I was going to be able to proceed with the next book. Get trawling – land the catch – process it, freeze it, and get back to port – tidy it up, package it – then sell it.

I told my partner what had just happened as she was a little bemused as to the nature of this not-so-much-a-lightbulb-more-a-spotlight moment. I explained to her about Clean Language, what it was and how it worked, and applauded her perceptive questioning skills. Hopefully she will be curious enough to pursue the topic more over the ensuing weeks and months as, even at a peripheral level, it has ways of breaking down or bypassing barriers that, on the surface, are tough nuts to crack.

FInd out more on Clean Language here:-

http://www.cleanchange.co.uk/cleanlanguage/
http://www.xraylistening.com/business/

Discovering and using my 'Shadow'

2010-04-01T13:12:00.002+01:00

The Shadow

Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is
embodied in the individual’s conscious life,
the blacker and denser it is.
At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag,
thwarting our most well-meant intentions.
— Dr. Carl G. Jung

One of the features and exercises during my attendance recently at The Art of Enlightened Success with Jamie Smart, was to understand, discuss and illuminate our various own ‘shadows’.

The exercise (among other elements) was to each choose 3 anti-heroes, persons (living or dead – although I chose living) who we considered to be most despicable. We then chose the most repugnant of the three and decided upon their 3 worst attributes, the ones that, as we considered, made them what they are (or were).
Next, we were to take the worst attribute and to assume – as best we could - the persona of this attribute by saying it out loud. For this exercise we paired with a partner, whose sole job was to observe as we said “I am ....this attribute” 3 or 4 times, pausing in between.

Through this exercise we all had a number of sensual and observed revelations. Apart from the outward physiological changes, mine was a very illuminating ‘flash image’ from the unconscious! I had to say “I am inhuman” four times – and on first utterance I had images of the person concerned plus others from history and inhuman acts. On the second I had the momentary flash of myself, associated, behind the wheel of a car!
“Ooops!”

So somewhere within I judged myself as periodically inhuman when driving – and, to be true, I have to admit to occasional lapses into ranting at other drivers, usually when they drive ‘in my boot’ or do something crass. Clearly my unconscious saw this as far worse – so I took this as a learning experience and that here was an opportunity to deal with my shadow.

I knew very well that there would be an opportunity to test things out on the way home later, and thus it was, after a couple of miles I was approaching a roundabout near the A3 when someone drove straight out in front of me instead of giving way. Curiously, I mouthed the customary swear word or phrase though this time without any emotion – and then laughed in both amusement and amazement!

Since then I have been emotion free when driving – in spite of idiots – and am now even progressing to remaining swear-free towards other road users.

Revelations (and corrections) from inside out! I say as always - trust your unconscious...

Cloud Technique - even partially!

2010-04-01T13:04:00.003+01:00

Since discovering (thanks to Nigel Hetherington) the practical uses of the Cloud Technique, which was initiated by Kevin Creedon, I have used it fully and also partially for a number of clients – each time causing an immediate and positive outcome.

On our recent course integration day, I was taking the role of practitioner for my client partner. She had long experienced some issues with confidence in the areas related to matters academic, and so I worked with her in exploring these.
I chose to use a Swish Pattern to replace these feelings with positive, confident ones and embarked upon the process after eliciting all the respective submodalities of how she presented things to herself.

The Swish was 90% effective but there remained a vestige of the representation of the ‘academic downsides’. It was one of those moments when if you stop and try and think your way round a problem then you are likely to be derailed, sunk or something equally un-useful. Bravo to the unconscious – who came to the rescue!
This vestige was “like a small but dense dark grey/green cloud” still up there to the left in her visual space.
Using part of the Cloud Technique, I “grabbed” hold of the clouded vestige and said, “I’m going to throw it out of the window – if that’s ok with you?” She replied it was, so, after making sure that I had got hold of all of it, and that there wasn’t anything left behind, I threw it out of the window and off into the distance where it duly “evaporated”.
“How do you feel about academic, now?” I enquired. She said she was happy to be rid of the negative feelings and, physiologically, this too was obvious.

My previous bloggings about the Cloud Technique are in the Blog Archives or you can contact Nigel Hetherington on his website Communicating Excellence at:-

http://www.communicatingexcellence.com/2009/11>