Jamie Smart’s NLP Tip 126 – NLP Presuppositions Part Seven – Your Body Speaks Your Mind – 24 November, 2005

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This Week’s Tip

Hello everyone, welcome to this week’s newsletter & to the 419 new subscribers who have joined us this week (to see previous tips, go to http://www.saladltd.co.uk/archive.htm).  

Last week, we played with the idea that the meaning of the communication is the response you get. This week, we’re going to go into one of the strangest but most fascinating aspects of NLP: the bodymind.

In the mid-90s I stopped drinking. I’d been a heavy drinker / alcoholic since I was thirteen years old, but stopped soon after I got married. Within a few months of stopping drinking, I started to develop back and shoulder problems. I went to my MD, but he couldn’t find anything wrong. A friend suggested I visit a kinesiologist, and explained what they did. A kinesiologist sounded to me like a new-age cross between a hippy and an osteopath, so being the hard-core rationalist that I was, I declined. A few months later, I was still complaining about my shoulder, and my friend said “I won’t tell you again: try alternative medicine”, so I went to see Anne-Marie, a kinesiologist. I was amazed. She got me to hold my arm out, then started asking me questions and testing the strength of my arm’s response to each question. She asked my body directly what help I needed and got direct yes/no answers from my body. This was my first conscious experience of the NLP idea that mind and body are one system.

Mind and body are one system

The idea that the mind is somehow separate from the body is a relatively recent one, proposed by the French philosopher Descartes. I’m not going to get into the argument of whether they’re separate or not. My way of looking at it is simple: you can treat mind and body as though they are one system. You can (if you wish) treat physical symptoms as though they have a mental or emotional source. Is this actually true? No. Does it mean you shouldn’t go to your doctor if you have funny spots on your bum or a broken arm? No. But it does mean that you have another way of understanding physical conditions / symptoms if traditional medicine is unable to come up with a satisfactory solution. Do the following exercise with a friend / colleague.

1)      Stand facing your colleague with your right arm extended straight out to the side from the shoulder. Say “My name is [your name]” then get your friend to press down on your arm while you resist. Allow them to get a sense of how much pressure it takes to move your arm down. Stop, then extend your arm out to the side again, and say “My name is [not your name]” and get them to press down again. Notice if the response is different.

I’ve done this with hundreds of different people, and most of the time, there is a noticeably weaker response to the [not your name] statement. It’s like the body is giving a clear signal of agreement (strong) and disagreement (weak).

You may be thinking “Ah, but I was tired out after the first one”, so repeat it using your real name again. It should test strong.

I like to think of the body representing the unconscious mind (spoken language = conscious communication, body language = unconscious communication). It’s just a rule of thumb, but it works for me. Of course the conscious / unconscious think is really more of a continuum, going from deeply unconscious (Eg. cell division) to highly conscious (Eg. my choice of title for this article, which is actually the name of a fascinating book by Debbie Shapiro, Your Body Speaks Your Mind).

2)      Stand up and say “I’m very weak” ten times like you really mean it, with weak, weedy body posture. Then do the arm test again and see what happens. Then shake it off, and say “I’m incredibly strong” 10 times, in a loud, powerful tone of voice, and with strong body posture. Repeat the arm test.

The connection between your thoughts and your physical response is rapid (and vice versa). This is one of the best examples I know of why it’s a really good idea to say nice things to yourself.

I once heard someone say that physical symptoms are the body’s dreams.  That seems to make something rather magical out of something which often seems quite horrid. I look at it in a slightly different way: If something is emerging as a physical symptom, it means my body has tried every other way possible to get my attention about something, and I’ve been ignoring it.

While this may seem fanciful, it’s amazing what information you can get about yourself and others if you try on this frame. I’ll give you some examples:

- When I developed my shoulder problems, I was doing a new job that I was unsure about and felt like I was carrying (shouldering?) a huge amount of responsibility.

- A friend of mine was recently diagnosed with an enlarged heart. It just so happens that he works in a caring profession and has been continually warned about taking his clients problems home with him (caring too much, anybody?)

Milton Erickson used to pay very close attention when people used what he called ‘organ language’ (actually, Erickson paid very close attention all the time). Organ language includes phrases like:

- It’s a real pain in the neck

- She’s a pain in the ass / backside

- That was a kick in the guts etc

It can be interesting to consider the possibility that the entire bodymind (name for the single system of body and mind) is communicating when someone speaks.

I know that many in the medical profession find this way of thinking a bit far out / unscientific, but remember that Erickson was an MD. The medical model is fantastic for many things, but like everything else, it’s just a belief system (albeit a belief system that has been well tested, and delivers lots of good stuff). It’s always nice to have some alternatives when one belief system isn’t giving you the results you want.

It’s now nine years since I last drank alcohol. There’s much debate in the medical, psychotherapeutic and recovery communities about whether alcoholism is a physical illness, a matter of weak willpower, a moral issue, evil spirits etc. Gregory Bateson (epistemologist and patron saint of NLP) studied alcoholism and came to the following conclusion: that an alcoholic drinks to move their system to a more balanced, sane position. The drinking is a symptom of a person’s system (mental, emotional and physical) being in some way out of balance. It’s an attempt to rebalance the system. While this idea may enrage those who consider it to be a moral issue, it makes a great deal of sense when I speak to people who abuse drugs and alcohol.

I’ve used NLP successfully with people suffering from various ‘physical’ symptoms, ranging from chronic migraine to ME.  I have a limited number of individual coaching slots available, either in person or by telephone. If you would like me to do some individual coaching with you, either by phone or in person, email nikki.leigh@saladltd.co.uk or ring 01455 445705.

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What if you could:

·         Earn more money

·         Influence more people, ethically & effectively

·         Increase average order values & close ratios

·         Achieve greater consistency of performance

·         Eliminate objections before they arise

·         Enjoy the influence process more and more each day

Look at this testimonial we got from Andrew Hoyle after he got his copy of the Ethical Influence with NLP CD set!

Dear Salad

I have just listened to the Ethical Influence CDs for the sixth time. The more I listen, the more I learn, this is fantastic stuff. I am an NLP Practitioner already but really learned some amazing new stuff from this programme. I have listened to Jamie present a couple of times before this and believe that he is an excellent communicator and really embeds the training well. I find that, you can do this stuff all of the time.

Oh, and I love the “Pizza Walk” that is really the best bit. You can do just about anything, after that.

Keep doing it well

Regards

Andrew Hoyle

Imagine yourself being able to:

·   Help people to feel a sense of trust, even before you’ve met them.

·   Get them to forget objections & obstacles, as they listen to you.

·   Find ways to create motivation and confidence in unfamiliar situations.

·   Get clients to take decisive action, and stick with the decisions they take.

Have a great week & I’ll be back soon! J 

best wishes,

jamie

jamie smart

director of training

jamie@saladltd.co.uk

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