While everyone remembers the humor and the shock of the “seven dirty words” in the 70’s, most people missed the great definition of the process of nominalizing George gave in the introduction to his most well known comedy routine. Here in his own words (who else’s would you use) George gives us a wonderfully simple explanation of the process of nominalization:

“I love words. I thank you for hearing my words. I want to tell you something about words that I uh, I think is important. I love..as I say, they’re my work, they’re my play, they’re my passion. Words are all we have really.

“We have thoughts, but thoughts are fluid. You know, [humming]. And, then we assign a word to a thought, [clicks tongue]. And we’re stuck with that word for that thought. So be careful with words. I like to think, yeah, the same words that hurt can heal. It’s a matter of how you pick them.”

You can read the entire transcript here (Warning: the content does live up to its name): “George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words”

George Carlin, one of the great wordsmiths of our time, died of a heart attack today.

STRAGEDY: When Your Strategy Turns Into A Tragedy

by Jan Prince, NLP Author, Practitioner and Trainer

All of us operate out of unconscious patterns that “get us what we have always gotten.” When these patterns repeatedly harm our relationships or our careers we are unwittingly creating our own tragedies. If we can examine and experience these ineffective patterns in a detached way we have the opportunity to change them dramatically.

Working with a client one day I accidentally labeled her pattern a STRAGEDY – we were both amused because it was so apt.

In this article I will give a brief overview of the STRAGEDY questioning process and an example of how you can use it with a client. In later articles I will go more deeply into the finer structures of the technique. Don’t let the simplicity of it fool you – it is amazingly impactful because it uncovers the STRAGEDY and turns it into a positive strategy.

I present it here in a format that is helpful for those of you who work as coaches or therapists helping clients change limiting patterns.

If you know NLP well, you will recognize that this is an amalgam of several basic NLP processes, although you do not need to know NLP well to use the process.

Overview of the Five Basic Steps of the STRAGEDY Questioning Process:

I. Identify the issue, circumstance or interaction in which the client is consistently unhappy with the results.

II. Ask what happens, who does/says what, and the order in which it unfolds and write down the steps and the order in which they happen.

III. Repeat each step back to the client, filling in any missing pieces and making sure that the context, behaviors, thoughts, feelings and motivations are included. This may take several iterations before all of the nuances are uncovered.

IV. Once complete, prompt the client to repeat his stragedy aloud. You may want to have him repeat it several times until it is evident he understands his complicity in getting the unfortunate results.

V. Help him identify which step he wants to change and brainstorm new ways to think, feel, or behave to create a new strategy that results in positive outcomes.

Following is an example of how this has worked.

In step IV behaviors, feelings, thoughts, beliefs and identity issues are noted by bracketing and bolding them. Throughout, the questions and comments from the therapist are in bold and Ellen’s are in standard text.

The therapist begins by asking her what the problem seems to be.

********************

Step I. Identify the issue.

Ellen is a former accountant who decided to stay at home and raise their three boys. She was furious that her husband Don was always complaining about her housecleaning. She felt he was putting her down in front of their children. The ensuing arguments were causing a lot of tension and anger between them, and it was having a disastrous effect on the way she felt about herself.

STEP II: Ask what happens and the order in which it happens – write it down.

So that I can really understand this situation, tell me how it starts – what happens first?

Well, this morning is the perfect example: At the breakfast table Don said, “The kitchen is a mess.”

And then?

I got angry and defensive.

What makes you angry?

Because he is criticizing me again.

What makes you think he is criticizing you?

Because he expects me to do something about it.

How do you know that?

Because if something isn’t right, I have to fix it.

Because?

Because I’m responsible.

And you are responsible because?

I don’t know – I just have to be.

And if you aren’t responsible?

Then I am bad.

Step III. Reflect each step back to the client to make sure all the steps are uncovered.

Ok, let me back track on your strategy so far (therapist refers to his notes)

When your husband complains, you get defensive and angry because you think it is criticism, and that means you have to fix it, because if you don’t, you are bad. Is that right?

Yes.

And if you are bad, then what?

I get anxious and lash out.

And then what happens?

Don gets mad and we have a fight.

And then?

And then I feel even worse!

So let me make sure I’ve got this right: When Don complains, you get defensive and angry because you think it is criticism and that means you have to fix it because you believe that if you don’t fix it you are bad. And the thought of being bad makes you anxious and you lash out, and then you feel bad.

Right.

At this point Ellen is looking a little amused.

IV. Once complete, prompt the client to repeat her stragedy out loud. You may want to have her repeat it several times until it is evident she understands her complicity in getting the unfortunate results.

Ok, why don’t I lead you through this and you repeat each step after I do.

1. When Don complains about something in the house (circumstance);

2. you feel defensive and angry (feeling)

3. because you think it is criticism (thought)

4. and that means you have to fix it (belief)

5. because if you don’t, you are bad (self-concept – identity)

6. and then you get anxious and lash out at Don, (behavior)

7. and then you feel worse. (resulting state).

Yes, that is exactly what happens!

So how is that working for you?

She is a little stunned by the simplicity and counter-productiveness of it.

The therapist helps her repeat each step several times (which has been explained as a stragedy – a strategy that has turned into a tragedy), helping her fill in any missing details. By the fourth iteration she is laughing — her perspective is shaken and ready for an intervention.

Step V. Help the client identify at what point in her STRAGEDY she could think or do something different, and brainstorm new behaviors that would create a more satisfactory result. (The earlier in the pattern, the better.)

Ellen, if we were to change one step of the STRAGEDY, what would it be?

She is a little stuck.

What would happen if you didn’t think of it as criticism, just a comment?

Well, I sure would feel different.

And if you didn’t take it as criticism, how might you respond instead?

I’d feel a little detached and maybe ask him what he thinks we can do to keep it in better order.

How would that be for him?

She chuckles:

Well, he would be very shocked and I wouldn’t feel it was all my responsibility. Maybe we wouldn’t have an argument.

The therapist led her through a scenario using the new response to see how it would affect the rest of the interaction. She liked the results and decided to try it at home.

At the next session she reports that it is easy to catch herself early in the old pattern and changing the one step has allowed her to feel less defensive. Don has become more involved in household chores, and fewer fights have created a less stressful atmosphere.

*********************

Notice that a stragedy’s structure usually involves:

A: an event;

B. a reaction to the event (a feeling, thought, behavior);

C. guided by a belief or interpretation;

D. a behavior resulting from that interpretation;

E. a response to that causing the next “event”;

and on to the next iteration of A to E.

I have found that uncovering the details of the interaction (with the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors clearly identified), naming the pattern a STRAGEDY, and verbally repeating each step allows the client to see the fallacy in her reasoning and to detach from the old pattern. More often than not they find it amusing.

Rarely do I have to challenge a belief or interpretation – the process seems to cause clients to do it themselves! My assistance is needed to help them identify an intervention point, brainstorm specific reinterpretations or new ways to respond, “try out” the new responses, and predict how this will affect the rest of the interaction.

All of those with whom I have worked report that it becomes quite easy to catch themselves before they get beyond the first step or two of their old pattern and to do something else.

I have been amazed that something this simple can have such a powerful impact.

Next in Part 2 I will write about the importance of uncovering as many aspects of the pattern (using Dilts’ neurological levels structure) in order to make the intervention as effective as possible.

In the meantime, try it out and leave some feedback in the comments to let us know how it’s working for you!

Here’s Tom Best in a clip from “The Living Encyclopedia of NLP” Defining and Demonstrating the famous NLP Eye Accessing Cues! LIke it? Give us a thumbs up on YouTube!

The first variation on the Swish, the distance/color swish, is a nice variation. Here it is, again from the classic NLP Comprehensive 24 Day Practitioner Training Trainer’s Manual.

A number of people have asked about this classic. Here’s the link to more information, and a special savings for you - enter this coupon code “Classic” (no quote marks) and get $100 off the cost of the manual!

Frame: Size/brightness is only one (out of literally thousands) of possible combination of submodalities that you can use for the swish pattern. This time instead of size and brightness, we will use distance and color as the submodalities to make the cues picture chain quickly to the desired self‑image. Typically as a picture goes farther away, it loses color, and as it comes closer, it gains color, so this is a natural combination.

If the size/brightness swish Continue reading ‘Submodalities Part 4: Distance/Color Swish’

Interesting updates from the scientific community on the perennial debate around the influence of language on perception and thought.

When Language Can Hold the Answer

“Naming, Dr. Lupyan concluded, helps to create mental categories.

The finding may not seem surprising, but it is fodder for one side in a traditional debate about language and perception, including the thinking that creates and names groups.

In stark form, the debate was: Does language shape what we perceive, a position associated with the late Benjamin Lee Whorf, or are our perceptions pure sensory impressions, immune to the arbitrary ways that language carves up the world? The latest research changes the framework, perhaps the language of the debate, suggesting that language clearly affects some thinking as a special device added to an ancient mental skill set.

(BUT) Just as adding features to a cellphone or camera can backfire, language is not always helpful. For the most part, it enhances thinking. But it can trip us up, too…

• The extent to which language affected color perception depended on the side of the brain being used…
• Language also has a significant role in seeing and remembering where objects are in space…
• With numbers, the importance of language evidence is much clearer. It appears that the ability to count is necessary to deal with large, specific numbers. And the only way to count past a certain point is with language…
• Language helps us learn novel categories, and it licenses our unusual ability to operate on an abstract plane..(but)The problem is that after a category has been learned, it can distort the memory of specific objects, getting between us and the rest of the nonabstract world.” Click for entire article at NYT

Starting our “Sampling” series, this is an audio clip from the beginning of one of our Classics, “Stories That Change People” by David Gordon. MP3 format with intro by yours truly. I posted the first 50+ minutes which include a couple of great stories and the what and how of Metaphoric Change according to David. Click HERE to download your sample clip!

Find out how to get the whole program HEREIf you don’t know who David Gordon is, aside from being a warm, wonderful, and very bright person, as one of the original developers of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, he has helped create and shape the field for almost 30 years.

Though his work has touched virtually every aspect of NLP, David’s primary areas of contribution to the field have been in the use of therapeutic metaphors, inspired by his work with Milton H. Erickson, and the pursuit of modeling. Modeling has consumed most of his professional attention for the last 20 years.

In addition to training thousands of people in NLP, hypnosis, therapeutic metaphor, and modeling, David has written many articles on NLP, as well as books on various aspects of therapy, including Therapeutic Metaphors, Phoenix: The Therapeutic Patterns of Milton H. Erickson (with Maribeth Meyers-Anderson), and The Emprint Method and Know How (both with Leslie Cameron-Bandler and Michael Lebeau).

In preparing this address, naturally the first thing I did was look again at the conference title: “Modeling Excellence in an Increasingly Complex World.” And I thought back to when I was a kid, and recalled that it seemed pretty darned complex then, too. We were diving under chairs to protect ourselves from atomic bombs, and crowds of white adults were screaming at a little black girl trying to go to school, and we were fighting the communists everywhere, and flying people to the moon. All in all, seemed pretty busy to me then, too.

Continue reading ‘On Modeling Excellence in a Complex World’

THE SWISH PATTERN
(Richard Bandler)

Joke: A young recruit in the army began acting very strangely one morning. Instead of his regular duties, he was continually moving about, searching for something in a very distracted way. When questioned about it he would only say, “I’ve got to find it. I know it’s here somewhere.” When they asked him what he was looking for, he would only say, “I don’t know,” and continue searching. After a few more hours of this they sent him

Continue reading ‘Submodalities, Part 3, The Swish’

Following on your proactive practice with last week’s introduction and preparation, you’ll be able to step right in to this fundamental and powerful piece of NLP. Ideally use the same partner to work with, although if you enroll a new one and take them through the introductory portion again, you’ll just learn that much more! Continue reading ‘Submodalities Model, Part 2: Mapping Across’

Of course NLP is manipulative. That is one way to put NLP processes and understandings to work. Human behavior is by nature manipulative. From our first breath we manipulate our environment and caretakers to ensure our needs are met. We manipulate ourselves by the minute with our thoughts, positive and negative. We manipulate others with our love, our politeness, our anger, and our tears.

If I engage Continue reading ‘Is NLP Manipulative?’

Submodalities are one of the predominant models in NLP. They have been used in creating some of the most powerful interventions including the Swish Variations, the Forgiveness Pattern, Mapping Across, the Grief Pattern, and 20 more that I know of. The entire area of Timelines (which we will explore later in this series) is just one area of submodalities.

This first part is a simple explanation and exploratioin of submodalities. You’ll need someone to work with, so enroll a friend or two and have some fun. The elicitation exercise alone is a pretty transformative Continue reading ‘Submodalities Model, Part 1′

Lately I have noticed with increasing frequency and delight the number of instances of discoveries and principles and understandings first generated in the field of NLP that are now becoming known and verified by mainstream Western science.

It was in NLP that the understanding that people

Continue reading ‘You Can’t Lose Bad Habits?’