We can’t touch time, or smell it. Yet it is utterly inescapable. But, research shows, time is – at least partly – something we control in our heads.
Although we rely on other ques when they are available, have you ever woken from a good sleep because you have told yourself you must get up at a certain time? I know many times when I set an alarm for getting up for a specific event, my body wakes me about 2-10 minutes early.
The body clock determines our most fundamental behaviours: when we wake up, go to sleep, and eat. But it also determines our physical strength and performance over a day.
However basic the clock’s functions seem to us today, its existence was only proved in 1962, by a French caver.
19th September 1962: Michel Siffre, the scientist who spent nine weeks alone in a cave 400 ft underground in southern France has his eyes covered to protect them from the light. He is being helped by two gendarmes to a helicopter on his way to Nice. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
Michel Siffre had been planning to study the movement of a glacier through an underground cave, when he realised the enormous potential of his experiment for the field of biology.
“I had the idea of my life: I decided not to take a watch in the cave. I decided to live without time cues,” he said.
By isolating himself underground, away from daylight, clocks or routines, he hoped to discover whether the body had its own rhythm. And if so, what it was.
“I decided to live following my feelings of hunger, my feelings of going to sleep. In the cave it’s always dark, then your body follows its own sense,” said Mr Siffre.
His plan was to call a surface-team of assistants every time he woke, ate, exercised or urinated so every one of his biological functions could be monitored.
Each time, he would give an estimate of the date and time, and the surface-team would compare this with the real time. This he did for two months, before emerging into the real world. Mentally, he had completely lost track of time, but the results showed his body had kept up a rhythm.
While the length of Siffre’s waking days varied widely, from 40 hours to just six, a clear pattern emerged. The average length of his days was just over 24 hours. Evolution, it seems, had tailored his body’s clock to run closely to the Earth’s day length.
It’s now known that the body clock is controlled by a tiny pea-sized organ in the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN. This tiny region commands a chain of chemical and nervous instructions that ripple through the body, controlling how each organ and tissue functions over the 24-hour day.
“I can’t believe I just said that, I am sorry – it came out all wrong that is not what I meant. I am sorry, I should think before I speak …” As my friend, Jan, trying to explain the situation over the phone with her boyfriend, Chris, responded “yes, you should have” and he then hung up on her. This happened six years ago.
Have you ever experienced the “I shouldn’t have done that” moment? May that be the email you have just sent, things you said or the action you just did? While with Microsoft Word, you can click on “Undo”, or with Gmail you can use “Undo Sent” in 5 seconds or with LinkedIn you can have “15 seconds to un-publish”, but when you are interacting with another person, there is no way to “undo” what had just happened. Worst of all, as my grandma puts it “I can forgive, but I won’t forget” and “by the time that one says sorry, it is already too late”.
The best thing is “don’t do it”; stop before it happens. It seems simple, but to Jan, it sounds like “Mission Impossible”. This article will explain to you how our response is formed and how we can create change with NLP.
It is all because of the Amygdala
I first heard about the Amygdala when I learned about the “fight-or-flight responses”. Listed in the Gray’s Anatomy as the nucleus amygdalæ), the Amygdalae are almond-shaped groups of nuclei located deep the brain in complex vertebrates, including humans.
The amygdalae perform primary roles in the formation and storage of memories associated with emotional events, where they form associations with memories of the stimuli. This is for both fear and appetitive (positive) conditioning. In his recent interview with Harvart Business Review writer, Peter Bregman, Assistant Professor Joshua Gordon, a Neuroscientist at Columbia University, “There are direct pathways from sensory stimuli into the amygdala …, the emotional response centre of the brain. When something unsettling happens in the outside world, it immediately evokes an emotion”.
The Interplays of Mind and Body
Figure 1. An Illustration of the different parts of human brain
I remember the time that I was an IT project auditor, appointed to check on the quality of a project delivery as was carried out by a group of contractors. To ensure the quality was up to standard before it was handed back to in house support staff, I as a junior programmer and the only permanent staff member representing the company, was requested to carry out a series of auditing activities. As I carried out my work diligently and finding multiple areas that required re-work, the program manager and project manager (both contractors) become very unsettled.
One night as I was working late, they invited me to go into their office, which is situated in a rather prestigious club. The program manager, in front of her team of six people sitting on either side of her, pointed her finger at me with one hand and slammed the table with the other and roared “How dare you second guess me with your audit report”. Unsettling, was an understatement, my first reaction was to cry and slap her face for humiliating me in front of a group of strangers. My heart was pumping hard, my breath was fast and I felt my brain become very fuzzy. I heard myself saying in side “No you can’t slap her, she is just trying to scare you; take a deep breath, wait a minute, then respond.”
What happens at the moment of facing an unsettling situation is that our body is ready to respond; in the past it was “fight or flight” response. When we perceive or sense that there is danger, the sensory information is relayed through hypothalamus to the brainstem (The brainstem (or brain stem) is the lower part of the brain, adjoining and structurally continuous with the spinal cord.)
Figure 2. Hypothalamus in our brain
That rate of signalling increases the rate of noradrenergic activity, which means that the stress hormone – norepinephrine is produced and affects parts of the brain where attention and response actions are controlled. Both epinephrine and norepinephrine, directly increases the heart rate, triggers the release of glucose from energy stores, and increases blood flow to the skeletal muscle. The person experiencing the stress now becomes alert and attentive to the environment and ready to act.
This chain of events creates various degrees of changes and reactions within us chemically and physically. In NLP, the easiest way to explain is by understanding New Code NLP’s “Chain of Excellence”, simply put; your level of performance (or behaviour) is dependent on your emotional state (which is related to your brain chemical productions), which will have a corresponding physiology and breathing pattern (respiration).
When I ask myself to wait and take a deep breath, I am asking myself to change my breathing pattern, physiology and emotional state so that I can perform or behave in the way that is optimal for the situation.
At the same time, I am also allowing myself the time for my prefrontal cortex to work. According to Dr. Gordon “The key is cognitive control of the amygdyla by the prefrontal cortex. If you take a breath and delay your action, you give the prefrontal cortex time to control the emotional response”. And he says it only take the prefrontal cortex a second or two to respond.
It seems Google’s 5 seconds is a good guide. So, go back to my experience at the club, I took a breath to calm myself down and wait for a while and responded in a way that no face was slapped, no tears were shed and the issue was resolved with the right level of escalation within the company hierarchy.
As to Jan, after calming her down through breathing exercises, I asked her to mentally play out how she would like to respond and step into Chris’s shoes to notice how he might re-act. Based on how Chris might re-act, Jan made changes to her approach to convey her feelings and messages differently. Six years later, Jan shared that “that day when we (Chris) argued over the phone, marked the turning point in our relationship, because we learned how to manage our emotions as well as being considerate to each other’s feelings”.
How NLP techniques can help you
One of the fundamental skills that NLP teaches is the individual’s ability to self observe and become very self aware of how they are contributing to the current relationships that they are observing. In other words, we are observing the role that each of us play in a current situation and create alternate behaviour accordingly.
Not only do we teach people how to become self-aware, with NLP we also teach students how to really step into another person’s shoes and consider other people’s perspectives, not just our own. To be able to self-observe and consider other people’s perspective is key for building successful relationships, creating harmony and makes us human.
Another fundamental skill that one can learn from NLP Practitioner training is how to re-program our own responses or neural-pathways to create change. The simplest way that you can do is remember a time that you might have lost your temper and reacted very strongly, only to regret what you said or did later. This is a bit like watching a movie frame by frame, right to the end of the event.
As you watch this mental movie, notice the frame that presents the behaviour that you would like to change. While noticing the frames you would like to change, pay attention to note your alternative behaviours that might be more suited. It is like you are the producer in the editing room, chopping and changing the sequence of the film over and over again until you are satisfied with the film. Once you feel good and satisfied with your new film, act it out mentally or physically as if you are in the film. Pick three more potential situations that might happen in the future where your new behaviour would be useful, create a new film and act it out mentally or physically, as if you are rehearsing a role.
Another simple way is using NLP’s “Chain of Excellence”. These days, whenever I notice I am about to react in a way that will only make things worse, based on the NLP “Chain of Excellence”, I might change my breathing pattern, my physiology or simply pause to give my prefrontal cortex the time to respond differently and change my emotional state.
There you are – a few very simply ways you can use NLP to enhance and improve the quality of your life today. Improving the quality of life is one of the main benefits that our students get from our NLP training programs. Now is a good time to become aware of how to improve your lot in life, because our next NLP Practitioner course is starting very soon in Brisbane.
Improving the quality of your life and your emotional intelligence is an investment for the rest of your life.
This year we will reach out to the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast as well. So, an invitation from us to you to make improving your quality of life a priority this year, learning NLP will be a good way to achieve that. If you want an NLP training course that is as good as you will find, contact us. We value our reputation for attracting the best students who really want to make a difference in their own life as well as others.
Given that this year in our training, our business consulting and through NLP Cafe and other forums we will be focussing on Modeling, it would be a good time to re-publish some of the defining articles on the subject. This entry is an article first published in The Model Magazine, Edition 3, 2005 – An Announcement to The NLP community from John Grinder (the Co-Creator of NLP) and Carmen Bostic St.Clair. It includes and Introduction by Robert Dilts.
Integrating Professor Albert Ellis’s Rational Emotive Therapy & Philosophy (REBT)
We often live by many rules in our life. These rules express themselves in the use of language we use which consists of ‘musts’, ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’. Professor Albert Ellis calls them ‘mustabatories’. He also coined the phrase awfulising. Here are some samples of both:
I must have love or approval from everyone that I meet.
I must perform all my tasks perfectly, making no mistakes, if I am to be worthwhile
Because I want people to treat me fairly, they must do so.
If I don’t get what I want, it is terrible and I cannot stand it.
It is easier to avoid facing things than being responsible.
Some people are bad, wicked and evil; they should be blamed and punished for this.
My happiness is caused by factors outside of my control, so little can be done about it.
My problems were caused by past events and that is why I have problems now.
I should be upset by other people’s difficulties.
At times people might not be consciously thinking about these statements in words, but they respond in their emotions and behave like they do. It is only when people start to consciously think about the subject, the ‘truth’ comes out.
Having rules in our lives is not a bad thing. There are things we need to live by and uphold. It is important to understand it is when our mustabortories rules our lives that we become rigid in our way of thinking and subsequently our emotions and behaviour. It is important to be able to assess the usefulness of these rules we live by and create change by generating choices.
Rational / Irrational Pairs
Transform musts into preferences:
I must keep my house absolutely clean and tidy and perfectly presentable at all times.
I like to keep my house clean and tidy and presentable so I feel comfortable and proud of my house
I can keep my house clean and tidy and presentable so I feel comfortable and proud of my house when I can or one day a week
Anti-awfulising versus awfulising
Awfulising: It is such a disaster that I did not present myself well in the meeting; my future in this company is numbered.
Anti-awfulising: I did not do well in presenting myself in the meeting, but that is not the end, I am capable and I am wondering if there is another way to get my points across and learn from this experience to do better next time.
Low (LFT) and High Frustration Tolerance (HFT)
LFT: I just can’t stand failing my test, my life is ruined
HFT: Not passing my test is hard to handle, but it is not the end of the world
We can change how we feel, create more choices and live a happy life by thinking differently.
Dean Ornish is a clinical professor at UCSF and founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute. He’s a leading expert on fighting illness — particularly heart disease with dietary and lifestyle changes.
Dean Ornish talks in this video about simple, low-tech and low-cost ways to take advantage of the body’s natural desire to heal itself.
Dean Ornish shares new research that shows how adopting healthy lifestyle habits can affect a person at a genetic level. For instance, he says, when you live healthier, eat better, exercise, and love more, your brain cells actually increase.
Stop wringing your hands over AIDS, cancer and the avian flu. Cardiovascular disease kills more people than everything else combined — and it’s mostly preventable. Dr. Dean Ornish explains how changing our eating habits will save lives.
Dr. Dean Ornish wants you to live longer, and have more fun while you’re at it. He’s one of the leading voices in the medical community promoting a balanced, holistic approach to health, and proving that it works. The author of Eat More, Weigh Less and several other best-selling books, Ornish is best known for his lifestyle-based approach to fighting heart disease.
His research at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute (the nonprofit he founded) clinically demonstrated that cardiovascular illnesses — and, most recently prostate cancer — can be treated and even reversed through diet and exercise. These findings (once thought to be physiologically implausible) have been widely chronicled in the US media, including Newsweek, for which Ornish writes a column. The fifty-something physician, who’s received many honors and awards, was chosen by LIFE Magazine as one of the most influential members of his generation. Among his many pursuits, Ornish is now working with food corporations to help stop America’s obesity pandemic from spreading around the globe.
“Instead of trying to motivate [patients] with the ‘fear of dying,’ Ornish reframes the issue. He inspires a new vision of the ‘joy of living’ — convincing them they can feel better, not just live longer.” Fast Company
Dean Ornish, M.D., is the founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, where he holds the Safeway Chair. http://ctsi.ucsf.edu
John Grinder talks about the importance of unconscious signals in New Code NLP.
John Grinder was interviewed by Peter Salisbury in Paris November 2009.
Use this link if the embedded version doesn’t work for your browser.
…offering certificates co-signed by the founders of the International Trainers Academy – John Grinder, Carmen Bostic St Clair and Michael Carroll. This course is the only one available in Australia and NZ of this type.
The newly developed NLP Practitioner Course is being offered as a unique small group coached training in Brisbane. The first of the series started during November 2009, and there is a series of these being offered throughout 2010 in Brisbane, on the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. See our Training Schedule for dates of programs throughout 2010 and our Detailed Schedule for training provided by both our organization and our associates.
Module Descriptions
Our NLP Practitioner Course is practical, effective and full of profound concepts and information. The comprehensive 18-day program brings you the working foundations and principles of NLP. You will rapidly integrate the NLP techniques you have learned into your work and personal life.
Enjoy the unique coaching style of training in smaller classes which has a high facilitator to student ratio maximises your learning and ultimately your investment in the training.
An NLP Practioner qualification is Internationally recognized and allows you to continue with an NLP Master Practitioner certificate at a later stage with us or another NLP Training organization.
Course content
At minimum, the course will cover the following areas:
Calibration (input channels)
Rapport
Representational systems
Language patterns (Meta Model, Milton Model, Verbal Package)
Methods of verifying map alignment
Metaphor competency
Anchoring techniques
Multiple perceptual positions
Chain of Excellence
Epistemology of NLP
Hypnotic patterning, trance, hypnosis
N-Step Reframing
Working with the unconscious mind
Parts Interventions
New Code NLP Introduction (updated to the latest in August 2009)
If after completing our course you choose to be certified (training and certification are separate events) by us, your certificate will carry Grinder, Bostic St Clair and Carroll’s signature. The certification process will be rigorous to ensure the quality standards set by Grinder, Bostic St Clair and Carroll are maintained.
Why choose us?
This is a most unique course and is leading the advancement in NLP Training.
Unique Coaching format so you get maximum result from your training.
Small Class to provide you with quality attention. Our classes are small. The coached style of teaching, together with most effective way to learn and apply the art of NLP, ensuring a unique and accelerated learning experience. Be the one that stands out from the crowd with NLP
Highly Qualified Trainers with international experience.
Exceptional Quality and Practical Excellence.
Our course meets the criteria globally for certification with additional skills, information and knowledge from world leaders in the field of NLP.
Facilitated by currently practicing professional coaches and therapist who brings additional insight.
All of our training content is true to the core of the essence of NLP, which is modelling, at the same time includes the latest advancements that is the New Code of NLP. See NLP Co-creator, John Grinder’s own distinctions regarding training that can be found on the International Trainers Academy website.
This course also offers the ongoing training and support through the NLPCafeBrisbane. NLP Café Brisbane is an NLP practice group, which aims to help NLP Professionals to advance their skills and individuals to learn to use the tools they were born with. We train in NLP Classic Code, New Code, and some of the most up to date developments in related disciplines. Attendance at the course guarantees your support at NLPCafeBrisbane.
Psychologist Philip Zimbardo says happiness and success are rooted in a trait most of us disregard: the way we orient toward the past, present and future. He suggests we calibrate our outlook on time as a first step to improving our lives.
For your emergence to really take hold, it is more about what is going on inside you then what is going on outside of you. When it is going on inside of you , it is happening largely in language. Does your internal dialog support and uplift you, or remind you of self-imposed limitations?
To Communicate effectively, we must increase our Sensory Awareness
In this course, we will help you learn all the various ‘languages’ of human communication so that you can ‘read’ what is really being communicated to you and ensure that you are communicating clearly with others. You should start to understand how we link ideas, memories and feelings by using triggers and learn to dissociate from those which are negative and disempowering and enhance or create links which enable us to be resourceful.
If you attend Effective Communication along with the rest of the course, you will be able to compliment your communication ability by:
Learning the skills of building rapport so that you can let others to ‘see eye to eye’ with you and this allows you to get your message across more effectively.
Understand the difference between goals and outcomes, realising that becoming ‘outcome conscious’ allows you to determine and control your communication and ultimately, your life.
Create your own ideal self by learning to master your internal feelings and emotions.
Derren Brown’s – “Colour Blind” A number of patterns quickly demonstrated (anchoring and submodalities) and explained briefly here.
Derren Brown uses anchoring (on the woman’s arm) and submodalities of what a person believes and what they don’t believe spatially to then change their perceptions of colour on the cards by showing them in the spatially in the same place as doubt/believe.
Emotional intelligence expert Lisa Caldas Kappesser unveils how to identify, use, and enhance emotional intelligence to make a smart career choice, find the best job, and score the job offer. Her book, The Smart New Way to Get Hired, provides a quiz that helps job seekers assess their level of emotional intelligence. Practical exercises and examples teach them how to stand out in the job search, by using four areas of emotional intelligence: self awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills. Readers also learn how to overcome job search roadblocks and gain confidence and skills in understanding themselves and in dealing with employers and colleagues. The Smart New Way to Get Hired is highly practical and spends less time on theory and research and more time on how readers can make the most of their emotional intelligence.
Hire Ground, January 21, 2010 Do hiring managers know your ‘emotional IQ’?
By Randy Woods, NWjobs
[excerpt] original article
Ever wonder how some people manage to sail through the job search process? Even though you plan your answers meticulously and research positions as much as possible, there are some people who seem to know how to make a connection quickly and nail the interview every time.
True, an abundance of brains, charm and luck may have something to do with it. Career coach Lisa Caldas Kappesser, however, says something far more subtle is more often at work. The hiring managers are picking up on what she calls “emotional intelligence” coming from the interviewee. This isn’t intelligence that shows up in someone’s resume or work history, it comes across in the way a person communicates, both verbally and nonverbally.
“Employers look for emotional intelligence when they hire or promote employees,” says Kappesser, president of EQ Coaching Solutions. “They’re developing structured interview questions and giving assessments that tap into emotional intelligence, because research has convinced them that such intelligence is a critical part of developing high potentials, star performers and leaders.”
Here are a few techniques from Kappesser’s book to help strengthen your four main skill sets and boost your confidence in time for your next interview.
Focus on three main points. Choose three messages that should be highlighted throughout your overall interview performance. It could be technical skills, experience or ability to solve problems. Whatever works for your particular situation, “plan how you will get these points across through your answers to interview questions,” Kappesser says.
Research what the company needs. It’s amazing how many job candidates still don’t bother to read any further about potential employers beyond the job listings. “Employers admire candidates who show genuine interest in their company by being knowledgeable,” she says. “Share with them how you plan to meet those needs.”
Know your brand. “Ask yourself how you want others to think of you and remember you when you leave the interview,” Kappesser says. If you emphasize what is unique about yourself, this image will remain in the hiring manager’s mind and could help you stand out from the crowd.
Create a good communication flow. Demonstrate your interest and communication skills by asking questions, especially if you don’t understand something, she says. But remember to be brief. “Let the interviewer ask for more details about any information you share,” she adds.
Smile and show a sense of humor. It seems obvious, but many interviewees are too nervous to allow their sense of humor show through. A little levity, Kappesser says, “helps create a positive connection with the interviewer, which can give you the edge over other qualified candidates.”
Writer and editor Randy Woods has filled out more job applications than he can count — so you don’t have to. Email him at hireground@nwjobs.com.
FOR all the fun we have with them, illusions do serious work in illuminating how our brains work, and in particular how perception works. They may also help us understand how consciousness developed, and tell us about our “neuro-archaeology” and the behaviour patterns laid down in the nervous system over evolutionary time.
But let’s concentrate on perception: it is tricky enough. I’ve tried to classify illusions in a way that shows the principles underlying them, starting with physical causes, moving on to physiological disturbances of neural signals, and finally to cognitive processes – where the brain tries to make sense of sensory signals, not always successfully.
The distinction between physiological and cognitive is not straightforward. It’s rather like the distinction between how a machine works and what it does. For example, a can opener needs two descriptions: the mechanism of levers and cutters, and what this does to open a can.
That distinction between physiological and cognitive has “real-world” consequences. Think of the placebo effect, which suggests close connections between the physiological and the cognitive-psychological. So different types of illusions could be significant in ways we do not yet know. That’s why I have constructed my Peeriodic Table of Illusions (bad pun intended) thus: blindness, the ambiguities, instability, distortion, fiction, and paradox, plus their causes.
…. We know what we see is very different from the images on our retinas because perceptions are scaled, like maps. So what sets the scaling for seeing the sizes and shapes of surrounding objects? Using ambiguity illusions I found that the scaling in Ponzo and Muller-Lyer illusions can be set from visual cues, such as the convergence of lines by perspective, or from the current perception of distance. The fact that the same retinal image can give more than one perception, as when perceptions “flip”, is useful because it lets us separate “bottom-up” (from the eye) from “top-down” (from the brain) processes. This way we know that a perceptual change without a change in the eye must be top-down, from the brain, and not bottom-up, as there is no change in the image….
19th September 1962: Michel Siffre, the scientist who spent nine weeks alone in a cave 400 ft underground in southern France has his eyes covered to protect them from the light. He is being helped by two gendarmes to a helicopter on his way to Nice. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
The continuation of the newspaper article is in French also.
