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C O A CHIN G


How NLP offers different ways to get you out of trouble


Somehow it seems like we, the individual people, have lost track of ourselves. Neuro linguistic


programming (NLP) shows us why we let our minds fall prey to bad strategies and bad thoughts. by Adriana James


O


n television and radio stations, politicians and pundits construct images of toughness


to help you out – tough on crime, on terrorism, on humanistic-inspired idealism, on economic recovery, etc. They are all tapping into sensitive spots, emotionally loaded with fear that blocks critical thought among the public. They propose brute and harsh


reactions on every misdeed, but the reality is that we’re not getting any better. The public is left with a general sense of hopelessness and a vague hope for a better future – but in fact not much changes.


“Somebody, somewhere will do something for you” Issues like “There is nothing we can do”, “Things are bad and this is how it is”, “Everybody experiences the same but


in some future time there will be some help” were in the public debate and they all were reframed in favour of “Just wait – somebody, somewhere will do something for you.” And most everybody accepted this new way of thinking. Why did this happen? The shift towards “we can do


nothing individually and on our own” is man-made. It is not real. If we all wait for somebody else (politicians, corporations, institutions, media pundits and other cultural icons) to be able to find solutions for us, we will wait for a very long time – generations maybe.


Critical thinking neutralised Our ability to think for ourselves has been made even harder because we are bombarded by marketing tools to seduce us to buy products or even into their ways of thinking. For example, in the advertising of fast food chains, a message was repeated over and over again over years until everybody bought it. The result is that everyone who is in a rush, everyone who wants a simple, quick and inexpensive meal will end up “loving it.” In NLP this is called ‘anchoring’. The


NLP can assist in developing new strategies for efficiency in dealing with time – how to make things happen faster and easier so we can have more time off.


30 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017


linking of great images, inducing happy emotional states, repeated on and on forever ended up in the common belief that fast food is a great way to have a meal. It is this on and on repetition of an idea, linked to certain images and certain emotional states, that effectively neutralises critical thinking.


The law of mere exposure Psychologists, by experimentation, discovered that it is a natural tendency of people to become more receptive to whatever kind of message the more they


are exposed to it. This is called “the law of mere exposure.” We should question ourselves whether this habit is healthy for our general well-being. Because we bought into the fear, many


of us fearfully went along with the new thinking. Hopelessness and helplessness follow just behind.


The do-nothing attitude The famous American psychologist Abraham Maslow was clear about the fact that that there is also something else which stimulates our apathy – the do-nothing attitude. Besides our sense of entitlement


(“I deserve that others do this for me” attitude), we are sometimes tempted to do nothing but wait in apathy and indifference for something to be done. Maslow was also acutely aware of the importance of relaxation and time off for our ability to think clearly about different solutions to our problems. Our own personal well-being, as well


as the well-being of the community as a whole, is based on each of us finding solutions by making well informed decisions. Currently our relaxation and time off – time in which we can just think about solutions – is under assault. Most people have to struggle to earn a living and this means that for most of us there is less time for critical thought. NLP can assist in developing new


strategies for efficiency in dealing with time – how to make things happen faster and easier so we can have more time off.


We are easily fooled into wrong thinking when we are scared Psychologists have also discovered that our ability to think critically and for ourselves is severely limited when


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