The more I use the principles and concepts of NLP, the more I can see the deeper relationships that are intertwined with some esoteric properties and self-development tracts that I love to fill my own life with.
Therefore it may seem like we are teaching techniques, (which would be the case in a lot of ‘cash cow’ NLP organisations) yet what is really being delivered are ancient concepts and paradigms that become the ‘windows’ of our computer screens. That’s where the self development aspects will come into play.
Further to that, the learning that takes place on my courses are not about learning by rote. True learning is a completely unconscious process, that allows each individual to expand their parameters of thinking itself. In that way, the belief systems are altered, limitations lifted and the whole field of learning is expanded to a level that shifts people’s lives.
When people leave the training, they almost never comment on which technique they have learnt – or how much they can remember. Mostly delegates talk about what changes they have made in their life. How their wife or children seem different and relate with more love or compassion. How their financial situation has completely altered in their eyes after seeing the bigger picture more clearly now.
How does that happen?
We make it very clear that our courses are intense: That each person will be challenged with their own limitations, concepts, belief systems and integrity. Then each day there is more to learn – so much that the conscious mind cannot possibly handle it. At that point, there are choices to be made. Each person can resist the limitations of the conscious mind, or surrender to the abilities of the unconscious mind and higher self.
The analogy of the captain of the ship makes sense here: The captain of the ship (the conscious mind, the direction giver) gives a command, and the rest of the crew, engine, rudder and boat go in the direction the captain has given. Therefore the relationship with each person’s conscious and unconscious mind would be one of delegation. Yet not as one or the other as subordinate; as a relationship. Milton Erickson, the famous Hypnotherapist used to say that
clients would only be clients whilst their conscious mind was not communicating with their unconscious mind
During the four or seven days, my job is to put each person back in touch with the whole of themselves, integrate parts which have become incongruent with the whole – and get the goal setter (conscious mind) and goal getter (unconscious mind) to speak to each other in a language they both remember and observe.
NLP and Self-Development by Terry Elston
