Our Thoughts

#filters #nofilters

Now that the modern world can be communicated on the go via smart-phones and social media, you may be more familiar with the hash tag symbol # Used to ‘tag’ or code posts so that they can be found more easily (where have we heard language like that before NLP’ers?) ‘hashtags’ have found their way into the everyday. I digress with a purpose, I’m still talking about filters. For the sake of this blog, filters work in two ways; helping us to sort information through a process called “delete/distort/generalise” or to change perception – like a polarising lens on a camera like

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

At this time of the year one of the great linguistic truths of NLP emerges; the concept that words can be “semantically packed”. What do we mean? We mean they can be rich with intended and unintended meaning (and understanding that we all use words in this way is a gift NLP can give us) Let us explain….well, for one person the word Christmas can mean warm fires, the smell of a roast in the oven and genuine feelings of joy – all in an instant. Some others are not so lucky. Hang on though. If we are “meaning making

Wearing your invisible crown

It feels so good when we get what our heart calls for, the journey may be tough it may be easy, it is our own and we make of it what we can. We were privileged to spent 3 wow weekends with another group of (now newly graduated) Practitioners of NLP, what they taught us, and showed themselves and each other will stay long in our memory. So whatever you have earned, learned, or shared take pride (yes really) in your achievements, as well as those plans – and buff up your invisible crown and make it shine. You never

Where does your energy come from?

A physicist will tell you that it comes from the sun, a biologist will tell you from the food you eat. How would you answer that question? In NLP we might look at the first 2 answers in the form of ‘chunk size’ (something our new students of NLP will experience from the 18th September when our Practitioner course begins) the physicist has a higher chunk size view – yet they are both right and their answers are connected. Perhaps if I asked you “where does your energy go?” you would find that an easier question to answer. On challenges

A change will do you good

In conversation with one of the founders of a charity I am working with, he turned to me and said “I used to think I was good with change, now I realise I’m not necessarily” This got me thinking about our appetite for change, the types of change we have in our lives and if I would comment in the same way. How do you see change? Is it something you dread, run from, choose to ignore? Maybe look forward to, perhaps you initiate it? Do you think of your home town, and what is different? Perhaps we are all

If you hate your job, leave.

The Buddha once said “If you hate your job, leave. If you hate your hate, leave that too”. I couldn’t help but think about the sentiment of this quote when I read this. In it the author seems to suggest that if you work in advertising, like I do, you are never going to be happy; that you will always be grumpy. I don’t agree. I believe that grumpiness [or any other emotion we experience] is a choice we make depending on how we interpret what is going on around us and inside of us. I know it might not feel like a

Expectations

I’ve just experienced one of the nicest, most fulfilling weekends in sometime. I wonder why. Was it the sunshine? Was it sleeping in without an alarm? Was it drinking Albarino by the glass. Was it the craft fayre and the purchase of some gorgeous trinkets for gorgeous people? Yes. But probably, no. I reckon it has much more to do with the absence of expectation. I entered this weekend with an open mind. Without a plan. My only desire was to experience. To be. To enjoy. To take it as it came. And I did. And as a result I’ve just

Come on, Vogue!

So, by now you may be wondering as you and I know to be true, what exactly is this going to be about? Well NLP of course. For some time this blogger has been taking inspiration from music, film and tv to explain the fundamentals of NLP to a novice audience. This blog today is the start of a trickle feed of some of these gems. I obviously assert the rights of Madonna to be credited for the lyrics, and their performance, and I’m sure she’d be thrilled with the positive intent in both her music and in this interpretation.

The law of attraction…

How many of you feel I wonder the warmth, and sense of connectedness when for the first time or for the umpteenth time you hear the sound of someone’s voice or see them in your mind and precisely at that time….there they are? A friend responded to my email with….”that’s the law of attraction, I was thinking to myself, ‘I must call and talk about…” We had a lovely volley of emails, and we are meeting up soon. Funny right? How many times have you called for the phone to not even ring before you hear a ‘hello’ from the

Getting out what you put in (or…how Prof Brian Cox helped me learn)

A few weeks ago, I went on a short course to explore TFT, or ‘Thought Field Therapy’. I was spellbound by a practitioner at the NLP Conference in November last year, and along with most of the audience it seemed, I wanted to know more. Invented by American Psychologist Roger Callahan, the principle is based around the diagnosis of an imbalanced energy field around our body, that can be rebalanced through the ‘tapping’ of a coded sequence onto key parts of the body. As I struggled with what was being taught my mind began to look for something that would

Everything takes longer than I we you think

So it is about this time of every year when those new year resolutions get heavy to carry, harder to make happen. We know don’t we as conversation turns to ‘how’s it going?’, or perhaps a bigger sign of what is around the corner ‘when’s your next holiday?’ It is now, in grumpy grey and cold February, no longer Xmas and not quite Easter when we can start to feel we have failed, that we have let ourselves down. Woah! Back up. Who needs language like that? NLP teaches us that there is “no failure only feedback”. So in this

So what’s new, you?

So here we are, survivors. Of both the Mayan Apocalypse (or Mayan’s running out of paper) and of the Christmas and New Year party season. Babies have been born, families have bid goodbye to loved ones, and this writer has been touched by the ‘universal law of nutrition’ – that is; ‘a little of what you fancy does you good, and a lot makes you fat’ New Year, semantically packed with our own and others meaning, often leads us to consider making changes in our life. Promises or resolutions for improvements. How many of these are familiar; giving up smoking,