NLP Liverpool

Coaching Tips

The Pre-suppositions of NLP

Part 1 - The ability to change the process by which we experience reality is often more valuable than changing the content of our experience of reality.

“The manual is not the training!”

–Richard Bandler. (Co-creator of NLP).

Anyone who has been on a training course or workshop of any description will, undoubtedly, have received a manual to support the training.

For some courses, the manual offers all you need to know and learn to pass the assessment at the highest level. Whilst for other courses, the manual is merely an adjunct to the training, and it is for the trainer to ensure the student understands and can use the skills effectively to the highest standards.

Almost 20 years ago, whilst delivering a Practitioner course, a student asked me to explain “The presuppositions of NLP” – she’d previously done a self-guided course and simply hadn’t understood them.

I’m going to take you through my process of helping her make sense of them; and coaching her at the same time. The headings should give you some insight into the techniques used.

We started with the first presupposition of NLP:-

“The ability to change the process by which we experience reality is often more valuable than changing the content of our experience of reality.”

My student was a golfer and had asked me earlier to help her improve her game – she had a particular hole that always caused her problems.

Firstly, I asked her to remember the last time she had played that particular hole, and she immediately looked forlorn.

I asked who she was playing with and if there were any people watching? She said she was playing with 3 good friends and no one else was watching.

Changing the content

So, I asked her to add Annika Sörenstam (World no.1 female golfer at the time) into the mix, plus a caddy for everyone. She told me this made it feel worse, as she was even more nervous.

“… interesting …” I said,

“No!” she replied “… it’s horrible!”

“OK, so go back to the way it was originally” I told her.

Changing the process

I asked her how she “did” the memory, whether she had a visual image that went with the memory.

Unsurprisingly, she did.

I quickly elicited the “sub-modalities” of that memory.

The visual

Was it through her own eyes, was it in colour, or black & white? Was it a large image, was it panoramic or bordered? Was it close, or distant? Was it a movie or a still?

The auditory

Were there any sounds that went with it? There weren’t – it was eerily silent!

The kinaesthetic

Where did she feel the feeling of embarrassment? Did the feeling move, and in which direction, etc?

Playing with submodalities:-

Amplifying the uncomfortable state

I asked her to make the picture bigger and brighter and slow the movie down, watching as she descended into a “jelly” of embarrassment. This served to amplify the state, so she could learn that she had control over it.

Diminishing the uncomfortable state

Next, I asked her to shrink the image down and to step out of it and watch on from the sidelines. I asked her to make it black and white, put a pink feather boa around it and shrink it to the size of a tiny, 20-year-old cracked phone screen.

She looked far less embarrassed, so I asked her to add some circus music to it. She started to laugh.

I asked if the experience felt the same … “No, it’s ridiculous!” she scoffed.

Then, the light dawned, the lightbulb went on … “AHHHHHHH” she said, “NOW I get it, change the PROCESS, not the CONTENT”

Or to put it another way … “The ability to change the process by which we experience reality is often more valuable than changing the content of our experience of reality.”

So, today, choose a mildly embarrassing memory and let yourself experiment with changing the process of how you remember it.

Remember, past experiences are in the past, how you recall them is entirely up to you.

Have fun and learn loads. If you need any help, contact me, it’s always a pleasure to chat all things NLP.

Call us on 0151 931 5184 or email us at enquiries@nlpliverpool.com

In Part 2, we'll look at "The Meaning of The Communication is the response you get".

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