Some years ago, I had just started a new job when I purchased one of my first books on NLP. I used it to go through a thought exercise to improve my performance in this new job. The exercise was a bit of an anti-climax, I felt no different and I soon forgot about it. 

Well, a few months into the job, everything was going fine. I had received a promotion already, got on well with my colleagues and I was very happy, enjoying going in every morning and positively sparkling with energy. 

Then, the manager had some very good news for us. We were finally going to be moving out of the dilapidated old building and into a purpose-built office in another part of the complex. Woohoo!

We moved and… I began to miss the old office. The desks here were too close together. Any key could open any filing cabinet. The lighting was poor, the air-conditioning too cold, the chocolate machine often out of order… you get the picture. 

On top of this, I grew disgruntled and unhappy in my role and decided to leave. 

Shortly thereafter, I remembered that thought exercise and it all made sense. It had worked after all.

I had subconsciously “programmed” myself to be in peak performance mode when I entered the office – the old office! 

Now, the old office was dire. Clutter everywhere. Paint peeling off the walls, one central light fitting in the middle of the room, desks so old, some were propped up on books. And woe betide the person who set a coffee cup down on that extra wobbly surface next to the printer. Yet, somehow none of this had mattered and I had performed magnificently. 

I was a bit shook up when I made this connection. Did it mean that I was a poor performer unless I had an NLP technique to back me up? 

The good news is absolutely not! The potential for Peak Performance resides within us already. But environmental factors can affect it. After some self-analysis, the environmental factor that affects me is lighting. If there is good natural light, nothing else matters. 

image: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/hisks

What I had done with that NLP thought exercise was put that need for good lighting on hold as soon as I entered the office. The green door of the office was the trigger that told my subconscience “okay, forget the lighting, do some work”. 

The new office didn’t have that same green door so there was no trigger to help me bypass the need for the good lighting. So I was hit by this missing essential and because I strongly value it, it cast a shadow over everything else. 

Now an NLP Master with almost 5 years of NLP behind me, I can see I made a classic newbie error back then. 

I applied a technique without understanding what the real issue was. The real issue lay in my sense of priorities. I valued the sense of peace and well-being that comes with good natural light over and above the sense of personal satisfaction that comes with performing at my best. 

Now there is nothing wrong with this. Peace and well-being are noble values. However, in an office where I am unable to change the environment, these values, in this order of importance, become inappropriate.

In this situation, there was no damage done. I found a better job where I was very happy. 

However, applying a “quick-fix” can be blinding. Remember, I remembered my NLP  thought exercise and was able to isolate and identify my triggers. If I hadn’t been able to do this, I would have completely missed the relationship between natural light and my outlook at work. So this blindness would have left me free to have the same pattern occur again and again and again. 

NLP is a natural process 

Just as we hypnotise ourselves naturally throughout the day, we NLP ourselves throughout the day too. When we step into the other person’s shoes before responding we’ve unwittingly applied a version of the “Different Perspectives” NLP technique. 

When we say “I don’t know what I ever saw in him/her”, we’ve unwittingly applied the techniques of “Disassociation” and “Reframing”. 

I had a message from someone on facebook who mentioned he had overcome his commitment issues by “cooling things” with his current girlfriend. Subconsciously, he pictures his relationship and feels an inexplicable constriction. So naturally, he wants to move away from this pain. He feels happier now but I don’t know how his girlfriend feels about the “cooled” relationship. 

As powerful as the techniques are, it’s unlikely that one NLP technique will solve his commitment issues. The key lies in resolving his inexplicable constriction. A technique could relieve this, but it will be temporary relief if the root of his issue lies in a part of his psyche that he is unwilling or not ready to explore yet. 

Self-awareness is brutal as it brings us in touch with aspects of ourselves that we’d rather not admit to, even to ourselves. 

However, papering over the cracks and blinkering our vision does not do us justice.

We’re all better than that. 

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There’s a certain zen quality to the springtime freshness of New Year occurring in the starkness of winter.

Behind the introspection and reflection, the hope and promise of 365 days of opportunity beckon alluringly and we can dare to dream.

It’s quite nice how we all have these days of opportunity available to us. Yes, there are demands and obligations on our time but we all have those, so really it’s an even playing field as far as time is concerned.

The one thing that goes furthest in expanding the quality of every single moment we live is our own attitude.

Imagine if you could go to any point in history and have the 365 days of thinking, decision-making and action that lay before anyone five years before they hit the big time. Think Madonna, Richard Branson, Johnny Depp or JK Rowling five years before you heard of them. Would you use those days in the ways that they did? A little differently perhaps?

And back to the present moment and the 365 days that lie before you now. How will you use them? Think about what your heart wants. Think self-belief. Think action.

It’s more than a New Year’s Resolution. It’s your life.

Inaction disables opportunity. Hopping aimlessly, albeit purposefully, from goal to goal dilutes and weakens opportunity. Blaming others and complaining destroys opportunity.

Whether you’re making plans for the year ahead or setting yourself things to achieve on a daily basis, I hope the days ahead are full of opportunities you can relish and cherish.

Happy New Year!

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Sometimes, ultimatums are an essential tool to get you travelling on your road to success again. But other times, they’re an unfortunate stress by-product that you didn’t really mean.

Before you emphatically issue that righteous ultimatum, perhaps it would be worth double-checking your reasons behind it.

The Checklist

1. Are you pulling a double bluff to provoke a particular response? If so, consider where you’ll be if they don’t bite.

2. Are you running away from dealing with a particular issue? [also see 3]  Big one this as some situations present bigger learning opportunities than others. If there’s a pattern of this issue in your life, you may as well face it head on and break the cycle.

3. Running away/Ignoring/avoiding someone or something and turning the other cheek are entirely different beasts. Don’t y’all be confusing them now.

4. Are you angry? Might be best to take some time out and review the situation later.

5. Are you seduced by the short-term pleasure of revenge you’ll get? Once you’ve had that satisfaction, your ultimatum will still be there. Will you be able to manage that huge slice of humble pie in front of you?

6. Are you secretly in denial of the grain of truth in someone’s words or actions? Embarrased even? No need to punish the messenger…

7. Have you thought about what it’s going to take to reverse the ultimatum? If you have, you’re not sure enough to be issuing it just yet.

8. Are you unsure of how to express your needs in any other way? There’s often a high degree of pain, anger or desperation (sometimes all three) behind that ultimatum moment. These can prevent you from seeing the range of alternative options, actions and opportunites open to you.

9. Do you want to control somebody else because you know what’s best for them? Would you be happy if someone controlled you?

10. Is this ultimatum just another in a line of regular, empty ultimatums? To be effective, ultimatums need to be issued with discretion. Save them for the important things.

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Anger can serve a purpose when it motivates you to find a solution to solve a problem. 

But people often feel that they have no control over their anger and that it is just a part of their personality.

Anger is an expression of inner conflict and when someone becomes used to allowing this conflict to be expressed in a certain way, this is what gives the illusion of anger being an intrinsic part of personal identity. Allowing anger to bubble and fester limits your options.   

1)  The Barker
He’s known for barking orders at subordinates, waiters and shop assistants. For added power, he may use public sarcasm to humiliate. Fear of losing their job makes his unfortunate targets putty in his hands. 

The Limitation: Short-term service but long-term disloyalty and behind the scenes ridicule.

2)  The Blamer
He points a finger at everyone else for everything wrong in his life. A pro at playing the victim and waiting for others to come crawling for forgiveness. Judge, Jury & Executioner, he plays on the inherent desire of people to do right by others. 

The Limitation: Continually waiting for others to provide the solution fuels the belief that life is hard and everyone is a fool. It causes a blindness to recognise help and an inability to assume any personal responsibility.

3)  The Slow Burn
He has submitted to his fate. The level of his anger is so intense that it has all but destroyed his ability to feel it. He doesn’t have an opinion or preference and goes along with what everyone else suggests.  It puts him in the background where he doesn’t have to share too much of himself and can be left to his own devices. 

The Limitation: This anger explodes with absolutely no warning. The explosion can be felt for miles.

4)  The Forest Fire
Generally sociable and engaging, he shields himself from everyday stress, perhaps by using food, alcohol or drugs to provide a distance. Without this coping mechanism, he flares up in short but powerful bursts of disproportionate rage. 

The Limitation: Feelings of helplessness over the future create internal panic. Unable to manage stress, there may be a problem in maintaining lasting relationships.

5)  The Force
He knows exactly what he wants and will do what he can to get it. Sometimes there is actual or implied violence in his methods. He exudes authority and power and uses fear and force to manipulate and control others. 

The Limitation: Complete self-absorption results in an inability to accept the validity of others and the fluid nature of reality.

Can you think of other ways anger shows itself? Add them below.

For help with stress and anger management, please contact Reeta Luthra: http://www.paradoxofreality.com

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 Life is something to be lived in, not something to be lived through.  

Taking control over a certain problem area in life can be quite tough. Obstacles appear bigger and hope dissipates as we make undue associations. Understanding that we are separate from this problem that haunts us helps our sense of deserving the solution. This helps our determination to do what it takes to gain control. 

To illustrate this, Oprah Winfrey comes to mind.

Born in poverty, Oprah was sexually abused from the age of 9 into her teens. She was a runaway, experimented with drugs and lost a baby at the age of 14. You can read more about Oprah Winfrey here.

Despite being a victim of an overtly dysfunctional start to life, she seems to have grown up with three keys that she would later take full advantage of.

Key 1: A loving grandmother who looked after her until the age of 6, teaching her to read, recite and speak in public.

Key 2: A loving but very strict father with high standards who sought to break through her rebellious behaviour and prioritised her education.

Key 3: An ability to recognise and use keys 1 and 2 to unlock doors to overcome the dysfunction that caused her so much misery.

Keys 1 and 2 contain so much more than just the physical process of education. They contain role models. Attitudes and beliefs to learn from and grow with. Oprah has said how her father and grandmother inspired her confidence to achieve more from life.

The first black female news anchor in America, she has become one of the richest and most influential women of the present day. Economists have estimated that Oprah’s endorsement of Barack Obama was worth over a million votes.

It is however Key 3 that unlocked the door through which the other two keys could be accessed. We all have this key, although the ease of using it can depend on the level of anger or resentment or fear that coats it like a layer of rust.

Often, blaming other people, circumstance or even ourselves for stopping us doing something blinds us to our own potential as it leaves us waiting helplessly for outside forces to change.

Wayne Dyer met Oprah to congratulate her after a particular success. She listened to him list out her achievements and when he asked to whom she attributed her success, she took a moment to think back on her rocky path, looked at him with eyes glittering with joy and quietly said “I did this”.

“I did this”.  Powerful words indeed.    

For help with finding your key, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. http://www.paradoxofreality.com

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We all have times when we are faced with a choice that seems impossible to make. The pros and cons of each choice seem to be evenly matched. And even when one choice is more appealing, the other option just will not let itself go and keeps itself firmly wedged in your mind.

So what can you do?

Sometimes people develop a coping strategy which commonly is one of the following things:

1. Freeze and take no action

2. Do something - anything!

3. Let someone else make the decision

The people who freeze may be taking no action but they have not stopped dwelling on it. The decision turns in their mind causing anxiety and discomfort. They may secretly be hoping that the decision will go away. Sometimes it does - if an offer runs out for example, then the choice has been taken away from them and they breathe a sigh of relief and blame circumstances for not letting them get what they wanted. These people can wake up in ten years time and be devastated at how time and opportunity has slipped by.

The people who do something, anything, are determined not to let life slip by. But by making rash or impulsive decisions, they let go of the reins, make poor emotion-triggered choices and can end up somewhere they did not really want to be. Impulsiveness can be a great quality - after all, life would be dull if you ran your days to a strict agenda. The kind of impulsive behaviour that becomes a problem is when decisions are driven by a subconscious fear. These people can wake up in ten years time angry at how all their efforts came to nothing.

The people who let someone else make the decision fear the responsibility of consequence. As all actions have a consequence, this fear can be particularly crippling as it puts the brakes on action. The reasons are many and varied ranging from having been denied the opportunity to experience having control to hating the potential conflict from wanting something somebody else does not want. These people can wake up in ten years time totally immersed in a life that is not their own.

It is normal to have times when decision making is difficult and causes a bit of stress. The problem occurs when your decision making strategy becomes incongruent with yourself and you find yourself constantly unhappy with what is going on around you - especially when it seems like everyone else is having all the fun.

So what do you do?

Accepting ownership and balancing responsibility with your own personal goals is a trick that is worth learning.

The first thing to do is to become aware of how you are in any given context. Look for a pattern. Be honest with yourself and recognise the pattern. Recognising and admitting you have a pattern that you would like to change is the courageous first step to self-actualisation.

The next thing to do is to examine the engine of this pattern. What are the fears and the behaviours that keep this pattern alive? When do they kick in? What are you thinking? What do you believe?

The final step is to change it. What do you want? What needs to change? What do you need to believe in order to bring out that confident person inside you?

Decisions are your stepping stones through life. Some stepping stones can be wobbly and if you are on a wobbly one and not enjoying it, there is another stepping stone close by waiting for you to recognise it and hop on.

The goal is to take ownership of your decisions and to remember that NOW is the time to fix the next ten years.

For help with your decision making strategy, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. http://www.paradoxofreality.com

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My friend Teresa (not her real name) has been a bit upset this week. She came across her 2008 New Year Resolutions list and found that she’s not able to tick a single item off it.

With just a few weeks remaining before the new New Year, she’s glum that she’s “still a fat, shy, frumpy wino with an ex-boyfriend tied to her with elastic, stressing about a job she has been dying to leave since she started it 6 years ago.” Her words, not mine!

Teresa has been making resolutions each year to lose weight, drink less, get a new job and go out more. But these resolutions do not see the light of day because in her mind they are simply hopeful wishes - ones that she feels would be “nice to have” but they’re not really for “someone like her“.

So she doesn’t take them seriously. And when we don’t take something seriously, we can’t commit to it. And when we can’t commit to it, we become unable to identify with it in a way that brings about the right mental energy to make it happen.

If this doesn’t make sense, think about what happens in your mind when you want something easy - like a cup of tea. You might say “Mmmm, I don’t half fancy a nice cup of tea” and picture a nice hot brew. Perhaps you feel its comforting warmth on your tongue. Maybe you hear the comforting boil of the kettle. Without even knowing it, you’ve put a lot of energy and commitment into this simple thought about wanting a cup of tea. This energy and commitment is what allowed you to do what it took to make that cup of tea happen.

How can you allow yourself to think about your goals with the same level of familiarity and ease with which you think about a cup of tea?

1) Envision Success.
See yourself achieving your goal on the TV screen of your mind. Have this on constant replay, even if you have to set reminders on your mobile phone to do it.

2) Address the emotional conflict underlying your goal.
Many goals involve a loss (lose weight, lose the drink, lose a habit, quit smoking). Loss brings apathy, grief, abandonment and insecurity. If you find these emotions casting a subconscious veil around your goal, a solutions-orientated therapist can help you with this.

3) Take committed action.
Goals without action are daydreams. Daydreams have a beauty that gives your life hope. But daydreams rooted in fear take the hope away and you get distorted self-limiting and self-depreciating beliefs forming in their place instead. Action with commitment addresses fear and gives legs to your daydreams.

Teresa’s decided she won’t be starting 2009 with her same old dog-eared list of guilt-ridden resolutions. Teresa started working on her confidence and self-esteem today. She’s not that bothered about her weight really but she is ever-so-tired of being socially shy and awkward.

If you have overdue resolutions hanging around from 1st Jan 2008, dust them off and bring them into your daily awareness. What can you do to make a start on them today?

1st January 2009, Teresa is going to be brimming and sparkling with inner confidence, enjoying a day full of hope, joy and enthusiasm.

How about you?

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Through accident or some strange quirk of fate, I’ve met several people (not clients) this last week who all happened to mention that they had a lot of “baggage” they were carrying.

The interesting thing is that only one them actually believes that the baggage they are carrying is disposable. The others are all holding on tight to theirs, knowing it is doing them no favours, but treating it as precious cargo regardless. Some of them are holding tight because they genuinely believe that there is no way out for them.

I think we’ve all done this from time to time. Sometimes, we need to keep this baggage with us. We went through a lot to “earn” it and we can’t just drop it, because surely that would mean trivialising what happened. And who wants to trivialise something that important?

The great thing to realise when we say we are carrying baggage is that we only start calling it Baggage when a part of us is ready to move on from it. Until this point, we don’t really think of it in that way. Until this point, it’s still something we are very much a part of.

So, when you’ve given that pain the B name, remind yourself that if it was precious cargo, it wouldn’t be hurting.

What is Baggage?

Baggage is a collection of a whole load of different things and emotions.  They get in the mind and all they want is to be acknowledged. We don’t always acknowledge things when we should so they fester and poke and prod.  They weigh heavy in our soul and taint the way we view our current opportunities. Left too long, the body joins in with aches, pains and even illness.

Facing and acknowledging the pieces of the baggage in the way that they deserve, allows us to understand the message they contain. It allows us to appreciate our true depth. It also allows us to kind of pay it its last respects so that it can move on… so that you can move on.

Integrity & Honour

There’s a way of letting go of baggage. If it’s done with integrity and honour to your inner self, you feel lighter and you notice that old and unhelpful patterns are broken.

The process involves understanding that the part of you that is feeling the emotional pain is hurting because of an underlying need. Empowering yourself through identifying and addressing this underlying need is going to play a major part in helping you to release this baggage with integrity.

A fundamental principle of NLP states that “A person is not their behaviour”. Appreciating this principle as fully as possible is going to play a major part in helping you to honour both yourself and anyone else involved as you release your baggage. This becomes incredibly important where your baggage involves other people (especially family members, past relationships and people who have died).

The Paradox of Reality is that the precious cargo was indeed there all along. It reveals itself once you have taken the letting-go process through to completion. The precious cargo is a profound freedom and strength.

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The second therapy being released under the low-cost Project Sunrise programme is now open for application.

It is a therapy specifically for adult skin problems - the acne, spots, blackheads, whiteheads and pimples that set in for no apparent reason.

This study is based on work I’ve already done where helping clients with other issues results in them seeing improvements in long-standing physical conditions that include skin disorders. This adds further weight to extensive research done by others that many illnesses are psychogenic in nature.

Through my work, I have isolated common psychological factors that seem to be contributing factors to acne. Simply put, this study aims to build on this work by honing in on these factors and resolving them.

The premise is that acne and other skin disorders are a stress response. This 10 week course is designed to address the known issues that trigger this response. The result is clear skin AND emotional relief AND an improvement in your self-esteem. I would expect the benefits to include:

There are a limited number of places available - to apply please visit: http://www.paradoxofreality.com/acne_skin_problems_therapy.html

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Project Sunrise is a programme I set up a year ago to provide people with an affordable way to address specific symptoms.  This project allows the refinement of therapies to specific issues. All sessions are delivered to the usual high standards with the same ethical and professional assurances that apply as standard to all clients.

The first of two new therapies under this project is now open for you to apply. There are spaces available for both in-person and by-telephone delivery methods - spaces are limited however.

Purpose of study: We have already found Therapy for weight loss works with great success when delivered in-person or over the telephone. Having identified certain common areas, we are now looking to identify if these areas actually are causal factors and to develop a technique that specifically hones in on these areas, providing the same great results but within a shorter timescale.

No drugs, no intrusive methods, no fad diets.

Fluctuations in weight are natural and normal. However, when weight “sticks” and won’t shift even though you’re trying hard to diet, it’s likely that there is a psychological block. To many people weight (food) is their best friend. There is a feeling of deprivation, loss and perhaps anger around the thought of giving up food.

Inner conflicts sustain the psychological dependence on excessive quantities of food. Diets do not address inner conflict. Diets fuel and keep the inner conflict going!

This study addresses psychological dependence on food and the mental structure of your thoughts in particular areas.

The approach and methods used to address weight issues have been applied with great success in the past. The difference between the full weight-loss therapy and this study concentrates on specific areas to identify an even more rapid way to resolve the weight-loss conflict.

Benefits to you:

Duration of study: 10 weeks - Applicants must be able to commit to 10 x 1 hr sessions to be taken by the end of March 2009.

For more information and to apply, please visit: http://paradoxofreality.com/low_cost_weight_loss_therapy.html

Details of the second therapy being offered under Project Sunrise will be released soon! (Be the first to find out about it by following me on twitter)

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