NLP Ready, Steady, Cook; with Nigel Heath.

For our first session of the year I always like to get the little grey cells working and so we embarked on a 'generative' NLP adventure.
We began by collecting 'stuff' to play with:-
1) Meet your Gremlins.
2) Job of your Dreams.
3) Helping other's with health problems.
4)Negative Nora. The energy thief!
The graphic description of Nora, "every cloud has a silver lining Nora." "There's probably a great big black one right behind!" and her ability to drain energy from her victims hit a chord with most of us, so we started with Negative Nora.
We soon had a long list of Nora's characteristics:-
Low self-esteem; judging; negative talk, both internal & external; a blamer; never wrong; cynicism; fear of failure; victim of other's mistakes; yes ... but; definitely STUCK; ability to pull any discussion down to minute detail where agreement is almost impossible!
Just before the mass suicide pact we switched to how we were going to manage our own state.
We explored our own choices when faced by Nora and other Negs; What resources did we currently have? What new resources would we like to create? How should we manage our own state? Where had we set our boundaries? What changes do we need to make to ourselves? Do we have a shield or bubble to protect us? Do we actually want to do anything about this? (Some of Nora's colleagues have hit on a great strategy for dealing with her. They ask if she is going to be at a meeting and if so they don't turn up!)
This all felt much better and we chunked up to see if we could devise a quick system for installing the resources we each wanted to respond positively to Negative Nora and also to sick relatives.
We borrowed the idea of a circle of excellence and made our own circle of optimum state. The outline model we worked on together contained:-
1) Be true to our own values.
2) Respect for Nora. (She's doing the best she can).
3) Positive self talk anchored to a sense of gratitude and triggered by Nora's behaviour.
4) A pause button - to freeze everything before reacting inapropriately.
5) Holding Nora's values in a place called "possibility". (somewhere we can choose how much if any we assimilate of other people's stuff).
6) Courage to disagree.
7) Respect for ourself & our own choices.
8) A shield or bubble.
We broke into groups of 3 and took this model further by making it our own. There was much laughter and discoveries of new and useful resources, including a handle for tuning out the moaner, rather like tuning out a radio station. This became firmly anchored as a tool by some ribald additions to its use! (You had to be there really).
We just had time to meet, greet and delete some Gremlins. Sorry that should be name, frame, and shame. Or maybe name, frame and re-frame, or tame.
This is parts work and helps to identify some parts that are not pulling in the right direction for us or cause us to feel uncomfortable, or behave in a way that we would prefer to change. If you are new to NLP I've probaly lost you completely here, but stick with it as it will become clearer.
For example I identified a part of me which I call 'Pedantic Piers'. I drew a picture of PP with a large and intrusive fore-finger with which he points out minor innacuracies in others and highlights 'words' of significance. He is aided and abetted by 'Dan the Diverter' (a signpost with confusing directions on it) who will leap into a conversation with a remark or comment that diverts or sometimes de-rails the speaker so they become lost and confused! (Even sometimes quite cross! Obviously no sense of humour!) Should Dan and Piers fail they can always rely on 'Colin the Clown' (no prize for guessing what he looks like) to finally scupper any real sense of reality. Getting the picture? Yes I probably am slightly mad, but look who's talking.
We had some discussion on the need to shame these parts as opposed to recognising them as us and giving them love. Or maybe getting them to 'use' their behaviour more ecologically in future. Whatever suits you, its worth knowing what you are up to and recognising the power of these parts. Rather than shame maybe we could re-frame them, or tame them. For example someone said they had been 'trying' to change, and I immediately wanted to leap in and tell them to stop trying (thanks Piers). I resisted and proudly announced that I had wanted to leap in and tell them to stop trying but I wasn't going to! It was tactfully pointed out to me that I had just done exactly that. (See me in the study later Piers!)
We then had no time for finding the Job of our Dreams, maybe another day, if they ever let me out of this straight jacket.
Where does all this get us? NLP is a dynamic set of tools that can be endlessly changed to fit your own needs, and improve your own flexibility. All that is needed is a desire to make things up differently and better for you and those around you.
As always I made my own learnings from the evening and had a lot of fun in the process. Thank you to all who participated in the evening.

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