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NLP - NeuroLinguistic Programming

NLP is the application of information and processes through which we can change our subjective experience of reality. Having a good day? Well, HOW do you know you're having a good day? What images, feelings, sounds register in your mind as "good"? NLP is a study of the HOW of our experience - how the mind processes what we take in through our senses, makes meaning and behavior, and how we use language and our 'mental coding system' to store, access, and use that data. If you can learn HOW your mind/body system creates meaning and experience - then you can change it. NLP is a philosophy, a tool set, and a structure through which we can release feelings, thoughts, and habits that we do NOT want, and CREATE feelings, thoughts and habits that we DO want.

NLP was 'developed' years ago to create a field of study and application that encompasses methodology from some of the most progressive people in fields ranging from psychology and language to science and math. This was a new way of thinking about stuff that had been around, well, since humans have existed. This was the beginning of an evolving model of how to use the language of the mind to consistently achieve specific and desired outcomes, the art of modeling what already works in others to achieve a desired outcome within ourselves. NLP is a multi-level method of communicating - allowing access to both the conscious and subconscious processes of the mind. It encompasses techniques for expanding perceptions and beliefs and creating behavioral flexibility. NLP is many, many things to many different people, used for many different purposes.

Those that use NLP effectively are those that understand the evolutionary element in the philosophy. The underlying purpose and meaning in the paint-by-number processes allows a true NLP Master to move beyond the canned processes to a new level of flexibility and effectiveness The founders of NLP themselves have 'moved on', and continue to develop and grow in new directions...all the while allowing the fundemental understanding that is inherent in that beginning model to inform what they do. NLP, at its core, is about understanding human behavior - the mind and motivation - and using that understanding to direct mind and behavior accordingly. In addition to being used for therapy and personal growth, NLP has become a useful tool in business management and efforts toward personal excellence - studying and modeling those who excel at any given endeavor, and applying the elicited 'formula' to achieve similar results.

A brief nod to 'the history'...

Neuro-Linguistic Programming was developed in the 1970's by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. Bandler was a student of mathematics and psychology, Grinder was a linguist. Together they created the first NLP model - the Meta-model - and continued to work together for years. NLP started out as a model for interpersonal communication, a study of patterns of behavior and the elements of subjective experience, and grew from there. Bandler and Grinder studied some of the great therapists of the time -Virgina Satir, Fritz Perls, and perhaps most importantly, Milton Erickson, and created formulas and models out of their highly successful processes.