Monthly Archives: June 2012

Allowing your client the space they need

A lot of coaches and solution-focused therapists are taught almost from the word “go” that it’s not good for the client to talk about their issues. That the session should focus on creating goals and solutions, rather than dwelling on problems.

I totally agree with that. To a certain extent. But let me first tell you why I think it’s important to stay in a solution-frame rather than a problem-frame. To begin with, when clients look for help, it’s safe to assume that by then they have recognised that they have an issue. Therefore they must have thought about it a lot, perhaps talked about it even more, with friends, family or a counsellor. And if they’re still coming to see you after that, it means that all that dwelling hasn’t necessarily helped…

So it’s time to do something new. Through some skilful questions, we allow the clients to explore new possibilities and start to discover some routes they may have not been aware of before. Continue reading →

Losing weight with NLP

Summer is almost here, as the weather shows…finally! So you might have planned some sunny holidays soon, and it’s time to think of getting in shape to parade on the beach :-)

I often hear people talking about dieting a few weeks before going on holidays. And perhaps, you’ve noticed as well that diets don’t really work…Because eventually, you’ll put back on the weight, and will have to do another diet before your next holiday before you put on weight again etc. You get the picture.

With NLP, I’ve found a very good way to avoid turning into a yo-yo and staying fit all year long. Because it’s not about dieting, it’s about having a different lifestyle. So how can you use NLP to make sure you stay on track and healthy most of the time?

  1. Set your goal: specifically, what is your ideal weight? Instead of focusing on how much pounds you want to lose, which might be discouraging, I suggest you focus on the weight you want to achieve instead. Focusing on a positive outcome will indeed motivate you much more.
  2. Take a moment to think of the following: How will you know concretely when you’ve achieved your goal? How will it feel? What will you be saying to yourself? How different will you look?
  3. Examine your current food intake: perhaps get a food diary to keep track of what you eat. Are you eating a lot of processed food? Refined sugar? Carbs? What is the food you recognise as not contributing to you being fit? Once you’ve made a list of the non-healthy food, make a list of what food you would like to eat more of instead. That can include vegetables, protein, fruits…
  4. Use the brilliant NLP tools that are the Swish or changing Submodalities, to start shifting your tastes; you’ll train your brain to want more of the healthy food whilst disliking the junk food.
  5. What about your exercise pattern? Are you exercising regularly? If not, what’s stopping you? Lack of motivation? In which case I recommend doing a spatial anchoring process to get yourself in an exited and dynamic state when thinking of your next session at the gym. I find the spatial anchoring is more effective than a normal anchoring in this case, as you’re actually creating bigger changes at the  physiological level as well as in your mind.
  6. Sometimes there are some deeper underlying causes to over-eating. It may cover up for emotional emptiness, anxiety or even anger…you could use a parts process or a core transformation to discover your hidden secondary gain, and gently allow it to update and resolve. If you’re interested in those processes, feel free to check my previous post on that topic.

I found the combination of those techniques very effective on myself and on my clients; as the brain learns quickly, you might find you’re going to progressively and effortlessly get into a healthy routine. One of my clients from a couple of years ago managed to lose two stones in a month and reported that he didn’t even have to sacrifice anything, he said “it’s as if my tastes had changed”.

I recently bumped into him in the local supermarket and was delighted to see he was still slim and fit! He was beaming when he told me how easy it was for him to stay healthy.

So enjoy those tips, and I’m looking forward to hearing how quickly you’ll shift your eating habits and look wonderful in your swimming suits!

 

 

Traditional NLP vs. Person Centred NLP

Sometimes I’m asked if what I do is really NLP. Because my therapy style is so integrative as well as person-centred, it can create some confusion. And I’ve been thinking a lot about this over the last few days, and have come up with some interesting observations I’d like to share with you.

To begin with, I place the NLP presuppositions at the core of NLP. They aren’t just some assumptions that help in the presenting and accepting of new approaches. I was recently telling a friend how not only do I work with those presuppositions, but they’ve also become entirely part of me, I breathe them in as well in my everyday life. Because I find it impossible to preach to my clients that “there are no failure, only feedbacks” and then not believe it in my own life; Or challenge them on their view of the world, reminding them that “the map is not the territory” and not apply that in my everyday interaction with the world.

Traditional NLP is too often seen as a quick fix tool that allows people to quickly change the way they feel about things, cure phobias or stop smoking. And that’s how it’s unfortunately advertised and used by most practitioners out there. Continue reading →

You don’t know?

When I work with clients, I generally start my sessions by asking lots of questions to find out what their issues are and what they want to achieve through the work we’re doing together.

Those Well Formed Outcome questions are a therapeutic tool per se, as they’re designed to help the client looking at their issues in a different way. By challenging their generalisations, reconnecting with the deeper meaning behind their deletions and distortions, they already start the change process.

One of the most common answers I get, however, is “I don’t know”. I’m always very intrigued by this kind of reply, as I’m wondering what is it that the client doesn’t want to face by avoiding answering my question. Don’t get me wrong, there are some times when one genuinely doesn’t know the answer. Such as if I ask you to tell me what’s the first name of Einstein’s grand mother. However, you could say that you don’t know but you could find out. Continue reading →

What is depressing you?

One of my first step when working with depression is often reframing the issue and challenging the nominalization.

What is a nominalization? it’s a term developed by the creators of NLP, Bandler and Grinder that describes how an action has been transformed into a noun. Such as the action of failing, that became the noun “failure”. The ultimate way to figure this out is to use the wheel barrow test: If you can’t put it in a wheelbarrow it’s a nominalization!

What’s the point in spotting nominalizations? When you transform an action into a noun, it gives it permanence and a solid existence independently of you. And when you say “I’m a failure” It defines your identity rather than your behaviour (I failed at something). An action on another hand completely depends on you, as you’re the person performing it, therefore you’re the one who has got control over it. Continue reading →

Scared of public speaking?

One of my clients is a professional musician and this morning needed some help with stage fright. I found this session very interesting as having been a professional musician myself I have faced similar issues and successfully developed NLP based strategies to handle them.

But I’ve also realised, as I worked a lot with people suffering from public speaking anxiety and performance nerves that the internal thought processes in all those situations are very similar. I taught them those strategies and it did work as well as with the musicians or actors I worked with in the past.

The most common reason why people get nervous when performing is that they disassociate. Meaning that they step into their audience’s shoes looking at themselves performing. And wondering what people think of them, or even worst, assuming that their audience is judging them in a negative way. The best approach I found in dealing with that pattern is to force myself to stay associated, which means fully engaged in my sensorial experience rather than lost in my thoughts ; Focusing on the content of the performance, whether it’s the music, the lyrics or the words. In a sense it’s very close to meditation, because our (negative) thoughts are the strongest element that pollute our experience. And by taking control of those thoughts, we are able to step into our experience in a better way and access our useful internal resources.

Here are a step by step simple process to help improve your performances: Continue reading →