What is NLP?

So often I get the question, what is NLP...allow me to indulge you.

NLP stands for neuro linguistic programming and was created in the late 1970's by Dr Richard Bandler and Dr John Grinder. Back in the early days, Bandler was a mathematician and Grinder was a linguist. They set out initially trying to uncover why some of the well known experts were successful with some clients yet not with all of them. Collectively, they studied the work of the then forerunners, Milton Erickson, Virgina Satire and Fritz Pearls. 

Bander's brain, as he watched, listened and observed both the client and the expert, picked everything up in patterns. Over time, he created nearly predictable mathematical equations for the behavioral responses that emanated from those patterns. He understood the collective research and found an immense amount of patterns that created the now foundation of NLP, the Meta Model.

Grinder, the linguist, quickly distinguished that language was a fluid space. Elaborating that the meaning that one person gave to a word was wildly different than the meaning given by another. For example, we all have a universal agreement that this content that you are reading now is written in English. Yet we do not have a universal meaning for each word used inside the English language. That in itself creates a powerful awareness on how language is easily misconstrued. As we communicate with each other, we internalize the words while giving them our own personalized meaning, derived from our own personal histories (or as I will dive into later, our maps). Let's dive in and I'll circle back and create more clarity on this. 

NLP - Let us isolate each word and break them down a bit more.

N - Neuro - Often times when I say neuro, people think brain. However, our entire body has billions of neurons throughout it, not just in our head, that make up our neurology. And our neurology responds to the world around us through our five senses. Know that before we had access to words, we relied on our primitive senses to guide us through. Those five senses I refer to as KAVOG (Kinesthetic, Auditory, Visual, Olfactory and Gustatory). As we experience these five senses, our neurology 'lights up' and responds. Think of the different responses that occur in your body when it's your child's cry, or the smell of your favorite scent, or the sound of your partner saying 'I love you' or the feeling that arrives when your favorite song comes on. Your body immediately responds because of the way that your specific neurology has been programmed. The key to this is understanding that each and everyone's neurology has been programmed differently. There is no one fix or no one medication that can change each and every person's neurological response collectively. 

L - Linguistics - Although people often think that linguistics is spoken word, spoken word only accounts for roughly 10% of communication. The balance of that space is picked up in tone, cadence, flow, pace, volume, energy, non-word noises and so many other audible things. We are constantly computing and internally processing all of this information, subjectively. Aside from that space, we have also anchored words (at a highly unconscious level) that we often refer to as 'buttons' and are immediately triggered as they are spoken. That response is yours alone. read that one again. Reflect back and remember what happens in your brain when you ask someone how they are doing and they respond '...good...' (your head cocks to the side) and you immediately know that their audio doesn't match their video. Because the energy and tone they shared behind '...good...' didn't actually feel good at all...it felt really flat. So although the word good was spoken, nothing else around offered any evidence of good. This is how linguistics work.

P - Programming - Often times this words throws people and I remind them that NLP was created in the 1970-80's when computers were being built and programming was a cool word. If NLP was created today, I'm certain P would stand for Patterning. With that being said, we have, over time, been programmed by our parents, our peers and the world around us (as well as ourselves) to respond, think, believe and process things in patterns. Because your brain is constantly at work remembering things, processing things and keeping you alive, efficiency is key. The most efficient way to track all of these things is to create patterns. Each one of us has a myriad of patterns that run at a highly unconscious level, ensuring efficiency. Due to this function, we often normalize our patterns and/or have zero awareness around them and accept their outcome as normal. And, because they've been there for so long, we have no idea that these spaces and patterns are editable. We simply accept them as who we are.

Tying all of that together, NLP is the study of human behavior. It's the study of the patterns of human behavior. It uncovers the process through which we get to our end result. Behaviors don't just happen. Behaviors are actually a result of the emotions that built them. And emotions are created from the stories we tell ourselves. This can get really deep, really fast if we dive in, so let's keep it brief. Behaviors come as a result of consistent emotional patterns. Simply put, the more we run the pattern the more we evoke the behavior. 

People often say things like - 'that's just who I am' without ever understanding, it's not who they are...it's simply who they've become, over time. This happens because we normalize our behaviors. We normalize our responses. And we often normalize dysfunction. The best part about NLP and the most fun thing for me is teaching people that all of these spaces are editable.

It doesn't have to be who you are.
You can be whoever you want to be.

It just takes a very skilled NLP Practitioner and some deep clarity from the person seeking a new outcome, to make change possible. 

With that being said, know that NLP often gets a bad wrap because most people don't understand it. It gets lost in translation from one practitioner to another. People have referred to it as dark psychology and/or a pseudoscience, neither are true nor have any validity. When people don't understand things they tend to push them away and/or minimize them (perfect example of an unhealthy, destructive pattern). For me, learning NLP directly from one of the creators, Dr Bandler, was imperative. Nothing got lost in translation. 

NLP is an art. It's a language. NLP helps us understand the spaces that don’t make sense. NLP is something that a skilled practitioner fully understands yet is always learning more of. It's like cooking. No chef on this planet could ever master every recipe because there's an infinite amount of potential ingredients and a multitude of genres to create recipes from...it's endless. Human behavior is much the same. We've all come from different backgrounds, different parents, different households, different morals, different highs and different lows. There is no one answer for the multitude of different behavioral responses each person experiences. Yet understanding the process of how people got to that exact behavioral response is the key to changing them. 

Before I get off on a tangent, allow me to close with this. Right now, my current focus, leading into my life's work, is uncovering what's possible when using NLP to release unprocessed trauma patterns. Trauma is destructive and often hides in the background. Left untreated, it expands and wreaks havoc on our lives. In my humble opinion, unprocessed trauma is the leading cause for most, if not all, anxiety and addiction challenges. Uncovering these spaces and finding techniques that help people heal is my main focus. Stay tuned here and join me on this journey as I uncover some pivotal content. 

Also, if you or anyone you know is interested in learning more and/or becoming trained in NLP, stay connected. I am creating classes and courses that will be available in the next month or so and will post them as soon as they're available.

Stay conscious friend. Your brain is more powerful than you think.