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I am sitting in a café as I write this. Now, some weeks, I know exactly what I’m going to write about, days before I write this tip. Other times (like now), I don’t. So as I sat here wondering what I was going to write about, a voice in my head said "Trust your unconscious mind."

When I first started learning NLP, I read many references to the unconscious. People explained that the conscious mind is capable of doing step by step thinking, while your unconscious makes vast intuitive leaps. They said that the conscious mind can hold a limited number of things in awareness, while your unconscious can track everything that’s going on around you. I learned that the conscious mind is a relatively recent evolutionary innovation, while your unconscious has been around for eons.

I did a Personal Enhancement training with Richard Bandler a few years back, & his main message to me was "You need to learn to trust your unconscious." John Grinder has suggested that to practice NLP, you must develop excellent rapport between your conscious & unconscious mind.

Of course, the idea of ‘the unconscious mind’ is just an idea – it doesn’t really exist. But it seems to be a useful way of describing a human being’s ability to receive, store, access & influence many things which seem to be outside of ordinary conscious awareness.

In his fascinating book The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker talks about people who tell him that their dog has excellent intuition, because it seems to growl at people who turn out to be ne’er-do-wells. De Becker disagrees with this. In his opinion, the dog is responding to its owner’s unconscious signals of distrust or suspicion. The implication of this is that the person’s unconscious mind is able to ascertain almost instantly whether someone is good for us or not, and gives clear signals to this which are then…ignored. We have been taught to disregard many of our unconscious signals, but you can allow yourself to become more aware of them.

1) Before you choose your next meal, ask yourself "What would I like to eat?" & pay attention to the response you get.

One of the quickest & easiest ways of widening the channels of communication between your conscious & unconscious mind is to actively involve your unconscious in decision-making. Questions such as…

• What would I like to do tonight?

• How do I feel about [situation x, y or z]?

• What shall I wear today?

• Who would I like to telephone? etc

...can all serve as ways to start opening up channels of unconscious communication.

2) Sit quietly with your eyes closed and ask your unconscious mind if it is willing to communicate with you in consciousness. Ask for ‘an honest unconscious communication’ as a ‘yes signal’.

It is possible for you to establish direct contact with your unconscious. When you ask for ‘an honest unconscious communication’ (HUC), pay attention to the signals you get. Unconscious communications my clients & I have received include:

• Stomach rumbles

• Eye twitches

• Nostril flaring

• Finger twitches

• Spontaneous internal images, sounds or feelings

• Skin colour changes etc

The key with an HUC is that it should be something that you can’t do consciously. While some people receive unconscious information through internal dialogue, this tends to be the domain of the conscious mind, so I prefer responses from the other representational systems (V, K etc.)

3) Once you have received an HUC to serve as a yes signal, you can ask your unconscious Yes/No questions.

In some cases, people receive an alternate signal to serve as a ‘No Signal’, while in others they just have an absence of the Yes signal. Either way, explore & find out what results you get.

A few tips regarding your unconscious:

	Your unconscious will always serve your best interests. If you ask a question & don’t get the answer you want, assume that there’s a very good reason for that! Then ask a different question.
	Your unconscious doesn’t process negatives in the same way as the conscious mind. Communicate in positive terms, leaving out the nots, nons & nos.
	Start with smaller things then work your way up to the big stuff. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
	Be polite to your unconscious. Say please & thank-you J

Next time I hope to give some reports about your success stories with trusting your unconscious so please let me know.J

best wishes,

jamie

PS. How would you like to learn NLP in a small group training where you get 1:1 attention from me? On our 2-day Introduction to NLP you’ll get the opportunity to really increase your skills & start getting more of what you want in your life. With us, you & your results count.

jamie smart

director

info@saladltd.co.uk

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©2003 jamie smart all rights reserved

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