NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming I reply. Oh .... he says thoughtfully, that's quite a mouthful but it's just gone .... SWOOSH .... right over my head. Well, I reply, that may be so, though it is certainly heading in the right direction, allow me to explain by breaking it down into smaller chunks.

Neuro has to do with the workings of our brain, our thoughts emotions and memories.

Linguistic is about the language we use in order to communicate our thoughts and this can be both verbally and physically (ie. body language.)

Programming refers to the habitual modes of thinking and behaviour we engage in daily, in other words, our habits. We engage in them so often that they become programmed into our brain and they can be either resourceful and have positive results or unresourceful and have negative results.

NLP recognises that all behaviour has a structure and .... that structure can be taught, learned, modelled and changed. For example, unresourceful behaviours can be replaced with resourceful behaviours.

So you see John, it isn't going over your head at all .... it's in there all the time.
Thanks, he replies, I'll have think about that .... and so we sit in peaceful silence watching the Sun sparkle on the lazy river as Swans glide majestically to and fro, until John asks .... 

What can NLP do for me?

Noticing that John is now curious, I answer .... Allow me to share with you some of ....

The Presuppositions of NLP

• We are always communicating in all 5 of our major senses ie. through sight, sound, feeling, taste and smell.
• The meaning of our communication is the response we get.
• The map is not the territory as people respond to their map of reality, not reality itself.
• We create our own reality.
• We have within us,all the resources nescessary to achieve whatever we want in life.
• There is no such thing as failure, only feedback.
• Every behaviour is useful in some context.
• People always make the best choice available to them at the time.
• People who are most flexible in an interaction will have the most success

NLP has some very powerful tools which allows us to access our own and each others representational systems by going beyond the surface structure of communication and accessing the deep structure of our individual realities. This can be empowering in all areas of our lives such as our career, relationships, health and wellbeing by allowing us to achieve positive results and banish our limiting beliefs....
Which reminds me of the story about ....

The Chicken and the Eagle

There was a chicken farmer who was a very keen rock climber. One day, climbing a particularly challenging rock face, he came upon a large ledge. On the ledge there was a large nest and in the large there were three large eggs .... Eagle eggs.
He knew that it was distinctly unecological and undoubtedly illegal, but temptation got the better of him and he discreetly put one of the eggs in his rucksack, checking first to make sure the mother eagle wasn't around. He then continued his climb, drove back to his farm and put the eagle egg in the henhouse.
That night the mother hen sat on the huge egg, the proudest chicken you ever saw and the cock seemed pretty pleased with himself too.
In the fullness of time the egg hatched and the baby eagle emerged. It looked all around and saw the mother hen. "Mama", it squawked.
And so the eagle grew up with its brother and sister chicks. It learned to do all the things that chickens do .... clucking and cackling, scratching in the dirt for worms, flapping its wings furiously and flying a few feet into the air before crashing to earth in a pile of dust and feathers and believing above all things that it was totally and absolutely a chicken.
One day, late in its life, the eagle-who-thought-he-was-a-chicken happened to look at the sky.
High overhead, soaring majestically on the thermal currents, flying effortlessly with scarcely a beat of its powerful golden wings,was .... an Eagle.
"What's that?" said the old eagle in awe, to his farmyard neighbour. "Its magnificent, so much power and grace, poetry in motion".
" That's an Eagle"said the chicken "That's the King of the Birds, it's a bird of the air, but we're only chickens, we're birds of the earth".
And so it was that the eagle lived and died a chicken .... because that's all he thought he was.       The Magic of Metaphor by Nick Owen

" So I'm a chicken, is that what you're saying?" asks John jokingly
" You are whatever you want to be", I reply .... Whatever you WANT to be.

 
" If you think you can or you can't .... You're right."    Henry Ford

Writers note: 
John now lives in West Hollywood, USA. developing his career as an Actor

Change your Life with NLP ...... click here