All communication – interpersonal (with others) and intrapersonal (with you) starts with you. With NLP you can understand others to be able to adapt to them, respect their model of the world and better influence a positive outcome; but the most important person to understand is yourself.
With NLP you are able to better understand yourself and what your triggers are. Triggers might be anchors that trigger a positive or negative response.
We filter information through our five senses and our various programs including our history, beliefs, values, memories and other unconscious filters. Everything we do and every emotion we have has some sort of neurological reason for it – we see, hear or feel something and it automatically releases a chemical or hormone and we react depending on that.
Most of us go through life thinking “well, this is just how I am” – whether that be optimistic, anxious, positive, depressed, outgoing, slow or anything else. But – it’s not ‘just how you are’ – it’s how you’ve been programmed. Your Model of the World is based on the foundations of your programming. NLP will help you to understand what programs are running. And, of those programs, what programs are working, not working, outdated, redundant or broken.
When we are communicating with others, we often react unconsciously due to what has been said or done or even how someone looks at us. These unconscious reactions are anchors and our behaviour is a direct reaction due to these anchors. When you can better understand yourself and the triggers in your life, you can communicate better because of this.
For example, if I know that conflict causes me to retreat into myself, knowing this allows me to do better. I will know that I may need more time to explain myself, I may need to explain to someone what has just happened or even to learn to handle conflict in a new and beneficial manner.
Additionally, if I know that I am prone to being very detailed, this gives me information to work with if I’m talking to someone who is more big picture oriented. It gives me a choice of altering my style of communication or not. Yet another example would be when I’m communicating with someone who has very different ideas or beliefs than I do. By first understanding my values and beliefs about myself – I can be more congruent when communicating with others. We have found that when people don’t understand themselves it is easy to be swayed, influenced or manipulated in a way that is not useful or beneficial.
