NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming. The word ‘neuro’ signifies neurology (the brain) while ‘linguistic’ refers to the words we use to interpret our experiences. ‘Programming’ encompasses our values, strategies and behavioural patterns as a whole. NLP is a multidisciplinary modality, which means that if you were to look it up using your favourite search engine, you would get many different definitions.

In my eyes NLP is a set of beliefs, presuppositions and an overall attitude designed to give a person more behavioural flexibility, a wider range of choices in any situation, and ultimately, the maximum amount of personal power at any given time. Such results are achieved by beginning to change your perspective from more conventional thinking by adopting this dynamic and expansive set of beliefs.  NLP is one of the most powerful methods to gain confidence, let go of stress and anxiety, overcome fears and phobias, quit smoking and setting goals to manifest destiny.

One of the major presuppositions with the ability to give you an amazing amount of empathy and, moreover, the ability to respect another person’s model of the world, is a theory titled ‘the map is not the territory’. It basically states that through your life and developmental periods, you are exposed to different experiences and react in a multitude of ways depending on an endless amount of variables.

For instance, if a group of friends was asked to sit down and have a meal together, and each one was later asked to recall their account of any particular event or conversation during the evening, you would more often than not find that each person experienced a very different version of ‘reality’. This is due to the fact that we have all developed different perceptual filters over our lifetime and as a result, we delete, distort and generalize different sets of information through our five senses in our own unique manner. What is so exciting about NLP is that by adopting a belief that ‘the map is not the territory’, an entirely new level of perception opens up in regards to how differently people take in information. This also opens you up to more advanced and effective forms of communication, simply by expanding your awareness.  Tune in for the next installment appropriately titled: What is NLP part 2?