NLP IS ENOUGH IF YOU HAVE THE SPIRIT!

I wrote that “NLP is enough” and now I have to qualify that. NLP is enough is actually only valid if you have the spirit. What spirit is that? The spirit of NLP. I began developing that idea in 1989 when I was taking notes of the Bandler Master Practitioner Training in San Diego. Eventually I decided to make that the theme of the notes which we turned into a book with the same title, The Spirit of NLP (1996, Crown House Publications).

I think I was very fortunate to pick up on that in those years when I was first learning NLP because, above and beyond the content information of NLP, I learned the spirit. I learned the spirit that brought about the surprising and unexpected discovery of NLP itself ... and which later enabled me to continue the creative discovery of more aspects of NLP leading eventually to Neuro-Semantics.

What is the spirit of NLP? First and foremost it is an intense curiosity that asks all kinds of questions right out of the gate, even “crazy” questions— questions that you might not suspect would lead anywhere. To understand that, remember that the three individuals responsible for NLP were outsiders to the field of psychology. They hardly knew the current paradigms of psychology and so when they met two incredible therapeutic communicators (Fritz and Virginia), because they didn’t know so much of the content (Gestalt or Family Systems), they asked a lot of crazy questions which enabled them to see things others had not.

The spirit of NLP is also one of skepticism. Instead of believing everything presented in psychology as “the truth,” they doubted it and they questioned it. Of course, too much skepticism can lead to cynicism, disbelief, and even subversiveness. And that is something that the founders actually had far too much of! The founders so happened to live at a time in the cultural environment of the US in the 1960s / 1970s where all sorts of things were being turned up-side-down. Everything was being questioned and doubted. There was the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Right Movement, the Anti-War Movement, and with that the anti- government movement. It was the time of Rock’n Roll, Drugs, Dropping Out, and being skeptical about anything anyone over 30 said (they were all under 30!). So the founders brought a subversiveness to the field of Psychology. [A negative consequence of that was the negative image that NLP created in that field. Something we are still trying to overcome and undo to this very day.]

The spirit of NLP is one of experimentation. It is one of try it and see what happens. This is a spirit that considers there’s no such thing as failure, only feedback about what works and what doesn’t and a willingness to give it a go. This active pragmatism, in turn, led the founders to wildly experiment with their original groups long before they formalized their discoveries. Three years they experimented with the language patterns of Perls and Satir and then the hypnotic language patterns of Erickson ... long before any publications.

When you add these factors together— intense curiosity, skepticism, wild experimentation— what do you get? You get a person who is passionate for “going for it” trying new and untested things, and being willing to examine one’s own assumptions. And if you take on this spirit— you will create an intense committed state that’s flexible, playful, and proactive. Do that — and you’ll discover how NLP is enough today for you to become masterful in your field.

Is that all? No. If you read The Spirit of NLP, you will find more—

Yet while the original founders had a pretty wild and wonderful spirit that generated such an incredible model in such a short time, the original founders also lacked certain qualities. They lacked a true sense of community. They lacked a spirit of collaboration and they failed to model healthy leaders who pull people together for a vision greater than themselves. That was their Achilles Heel. The result was conflict, division, egos getting in the way, people refusing to acknowledge each other’s contributions, and the lack of ethics. They failed to model healthy communities and to build in ethics, accountability and responsibility.

These additional qualities give us some more elements for a healthy spirit of NLP — or shall I say, of Neuro-Semantics or Neuro-Semantic NLP.

For more, check out The Spirit of NLP. www.neurosemantics.com/products/the-spirit-of-nlp/