After attending the NLP seminar in Marin a few weeks ago, I went onto iTunes and purchased Richard Bandler’s book “Get the Life You Want.” Bandler was one of the co-founders of NLP back in the ’70′s.
The book is pretty good, offering a succession of examples of use of a few NLP techniques.
One of the things that struck me about the book was Bandler’s assertion that feelings are actions.
It's ok sad clown, turn that frown upside down!
Feelings about social qualities or even self-valuations are often “doings” not actual “be-ings.” The way Bandler proves this assertion is by showing how you can change your mood or feeling by changing your physiological state – breathing faster, deeper, shorter, or smiling, laughing, singing, or dancing.
Put yet another way – while physical qualities are pretty much as-they-are (skinny, fat, long legs, small feet), feelings or thoughts are more often “actions” rather than true physical “qualities.”
For instance, if you say that you don’t get along well with people, what you’re saying is that not getting along well with people is something that you do, not a quality of what you are
if you feel awkward in social settings, that means that you do awkwardness.
Do What You Want To Do!
That’s the basic premise of NLP – change your life by gaining control over your physiology. It requires, above all else, a very strong super-conscious. You have to be able to observer yourself in the moment, and make decisions about what you want to be like right then.
Tell me about the laughing place, Uncle Remus!
Control versus Manipulation
I do like the techniques in NLP, and especially the concept of being more in-tune, and more in control of your physiology – thoughts, feelings, and actions. But a lot of what’s in Bandler’s book really struck me as manipulation. I’d prefer to see the circle return to the external world, but Bandler isn’t really concerned with that. And I’m not sure that I blame him. There’s very little we can actually control in the outside world. But I don’t think that means that you stop being intimately involved with it altogether.