What is Neuro-Linguistic Programming?

What is NLP? NLP gives you control of your life. It turns anxiety into confidence, lack of direction into focus, self-doubt into self-belief.

NLP is based on the belief that everyone has the ability and resources within them to be successful. It understands how past experiences influence your reactions and understanding of current situations; some of those reactions may not be helpful, thus creating a vicious cycle. By using specific language, NLP breaks a unhelpful reactive cycle, enabling you to take control.

One saying that is often used in NLP is “The map is not the territory.” But what does that mean? It means no-one is the same. We are all individuals; moulded by our different experiences and beliefs, so we see the world in our own unique way. We each have our own ‘map’ to guide us to understand and respond to everything around us.

So, if the ‘map’ is individual to each person, the territory is everything else: other people, work, home, everyday life and so on. As we respond to that ‘territory’, we all experience it in different ways. But does that mean our way is right? That our ‘map’ is getting us the results we want?

In the 1970’s, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, the founders of NLP, noticed that people were successful in certain areas because they tended to have a clear method or strategy for that success. After studying many people, it became clear that those strategies were transferable into ‘less successful’ areas of their lives, with remarkable results. They had adapted their ‘maps’ so they experienced the ‘territory’ in a positive way. This was the birth of NLP.

Based on that, NLP uses language (Linguistic) to help you to change how you process experiences (Neuro) in order to achieve your desired results (Programming).

NLP and the senses.

Have you ever heard a song or smelt a smell that immediately transports you back to a particular time or situation? You feel exactly as if you are there? In NLP, we realise that you experience things and store memories using the senses, or 'representational systems.' As well as seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling, your 'inner dialogue' is also important as it creates and sets the mood for that memory.

As senses are used to store memories, they can also be used to change feelings, behaviours and responses to those memories, as well as similar experiences. Many of the discussions and processes involved in NLP rely on the senses and how they impact you.