I just completed my training as an NLP practitioner with TCI (the coaching institute) in Melbourne. Neuro Linguistic Programming was created in the 1970s by Richard Bandler (a mathematics student) and John Grinder (a linguist) and explores the relationships between how we think, how we communicate and our behavioural and emotional patterns.
For those who know my background (which has involved an eclectic approach to self development including experimentation with kineisiology, reiki, life coaching, martial arts, buddhist meditation and the study of human behaviour, belief and influence) its probably no surprise that i found the tools and principles of NLP to be extremely congruent with my existing world view.
I learned a number of techniques and principles (to be shared in later posts)
that greatly empower my ability to communicate with other people, to create results in my own life and to become an even more positive influence on the world around me.
What struck me as odd (after seeing first hand the awesome potential of the tool applied first hand) is the number of people who have expressed their fear and distrust of NLP to me.
one of the ideas I love (which originates from Carl Jung) is that “Perception is Projection” – that there is nothing in the outside world that isnt projected from our psyche onto the world around us. This is a concept i first encountered whilst learning NET (neuro emotional technique) and practicing various forms of Buddhist meditation. I like to keep it in mind when im tempted to complainor fight against external events or behaviours…
“If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections,then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against. He lives in the “House of the Gathering.” Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day.
“Psychology and Religion” (1938). In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.140
