What language does your stressed brain speak?

A distinct language of the stressed brain.

 
In earlier blog entries I have written about the thinking mindset and the reactive mindset.  As a quick recap the thinking mindset is characterized by higher cognitive functions such as critical thinking, judgement, attention span, impulse control, solution orientation, cognitive flexibility and so on.  We find ourselves in this mindset when we feel a good degree of confidence, certainty, and oversight.  Unfortunately, this can quickly change.

Similar to how quickly the weather can shift in the northern Europe, so can the key-elements in a situation.  We can move from certainty to uncertainty and from having oversight to being overwhelmed.  With this shift come a change in our mindsets from thinking to reactive.  In the reactive mindset all of the higher functions that characterize the thinking mindset pretty much go offline.  What we are left with are the survival, instinctual behaviors of fight, flight and freeze.

Have you considered that mindsets have their own distinct language?

This is a question that I have my asked myself many times when I am in a coaching session with a client.  Typically, when I begin a session my client is some state of distress.  It could be an issue of looming deadlines and not enough time or a key direct-report who is giving him/her grief.  He or she may start our meeting in a reactive mindset where their focus is on only the problem and where they are hijacked by their emotions.  As they describe the situation their language instantly reflects their negative mindset.

As I ask more questions for clarification or elaboration, my clients are forced to start the arduous climb to the thinking mindset.  It requires cognitive energy to answer the questions and to articulate their thoughts.  With this heavy investment comes rewarding dividends.  That is, my clients are no longer plagued by the reactive mindset but are caught in the upward spiral of the thinking mindset.  There is a shift in their language that is characterized by forward-thinking, solution-orientation, and a broad spectrum of possibilities.

Even though I have been doing this for close to 13 years, my observations are still only anecdotal. Nonetheless, I have found the language used is a significant indicator of a constructive shift in mindset.

      If we are in the thinking mindset our outlook tends to be constructive and optimistic, and we use
      words such as solution, challenge, approach, possibilities.  When we question to figure out what
      has gone wrong we tend to ask questions like what is the reason?  In this mindset we are
      searching for an explanation.

      If we find ourselves in the reactive mindset our outlook is bleak and pessimistic, and we use
     words such as negative, problem, impossible, never.  When something does go wrong we ask
     questions like why now?, why does this have to happen?, where instead of searching for an
     explanation we are instead seeking a justification.

How does this relate to stress and self-management?
 
Individuals can sometimes be very harsh on themselves, where if it had been someone else they would have been much more lenient. This over-critical view really shines when someone chides himself for not getting something done.  I'll hear him say something along the lines of  'I should have done something' or 'I have to do something'. Simply thinking or saying this to yourself immediately begins the slide into the reactive mindset.

The answer is not being able to stop the reactive mindset from occurring, because that would only be an effort of futility.  If our brains interpret a situation to be a threat, whether mild or severe, it will automatically go into a reactive state.  The answer is to stop the reactive slide and begin the climb toward the thinking state of mind.

Part of self-managing your stress has to do with monitoring your thoughts and being award of what you say.  This is not very easy to do when your mind is occupied already with concern and worries. The key is to be able to shift your reactive language to a more thinking language (i.e. forward-thinking, solution-orientation, and a broad spectrum of possibilities).

An example of this is to shift from saying 'I need or have to do this...' to 'I want or would like to do this...'. Instead of asking yourself to justify your action by questioning, 'Why did you do that?', you instead search for an explanation by asking 'What is the reason...?'

Mind Your Language

An integral part of self-management in relation to stress is monitoring what we think and what we say.  There is a distinct language set depending on our mindset.  If we can become just a little more disciplined in how we use words in stressful situations, this can go a long way in modifying how we deal with stress.  

Curious? Wish to know more? Visit us at www.MINDtalk.no

How to build self-confidence in order to be more assertive?

A common challenge many of us face in the daily grind is the ability to be assertive. There is a trepidation about moving forward and speaking up.  In the moment when we feel we want to speak up we instead tend to choke-up.  Many of us have become very adept at convincing ourselves to back-down and close-down.

This may play out when we need to have a difficult conversation with a colleague; when we feel it's time to give corrective feedback to a direct-report; when we want to speak up during a meeting to share our opinion; and a whole host of other situations. When it is time to step-up, we politely bow our heads and step-down.  It is only afterwards when the window of opportunity is closed that we kick and berate ourselves and quietly promise ourselves next time...

More than likely, although the situation will be different, the same elements will come into play and we will find ourselves hunkering down and clamming up.  This is a pattern that does not need to continue and can be broken.  Our lack of assertiveness can be due to a fear of conflict, upsetting people, looking stupid, feeling silly and so on.  Often you will find the common denominator to be a confidence issue.

Espen Bredesen's Playbook

Espen Bredesen is a world champion Norwegian ski jumper who competed actively from 1990 to 2000. Along with his list of accomplishments was winning gold and silver medals at the 1994 Winter Olympics at Lillehammer.  Ski jumping requires an individual to rocket themselves down a very steep incline, launching into the bright-blue air, while all the time believing that you will land intact and with some measure of grace at the base of the hill.  As you can imagine, confidence in one's abilities is paramount.

One of the techniques Espen Bredesen used when training was visualization.  The ability to use the full extent of his brain to not only visualize a competitive event, but to make it as visceral as possible - to completely immerse himself mentally in the situation.  The brain can not tell the difference between what is reality and what is imagined.  It is only the tiny aspect of our conscious mind that allows us to make this differentiation.

By visualizing himself at the top of the ski jump Espen Bredesen's brain actually thought it was happening.  The more detail he adds (i.e. the feel of the wind on his face, the tensing of his legs as he prepares, the colors and texture of his surroundings, the grip on his ski-poles etc.) the more real it seems to the brain. His confidence is high when the day of competition finally arrives and he finds himself at the top of the ski jump.  A large part of this is due to the fact that he had rehearsed so often in his brain that it laid down a well-worn neural pathway -  a strong sense of certainty of what was to be expected and what he needed to do.

Brain Skill One

We can take a lesson from Espen's play book.  One very effective tool is to visualize the meeting you are going to attend and the participants.  Run the meeting through the theater of your mind.  Who are the supporters and who are the antagonists? When might you have to share your opinion? How will you present yourself? As serious or informal? Add details and richness to the image.  When the actual time for the meeting arrives your confidence will be higher than if you had not gone though the visualization exercise.  With confidence comes a certain degree of assertiveness.

Brain Skill Two

A second technique is to reassess the pleasure and pain that you associate with being assertive.  Most times we will assign massive amounts of pain to speaking up and equal amounts of pleasure to staying timid and quiet.  The idea is to do a 180 on this.  That is, we need to reconfigure what we associate with pleasure and and what we associate with pain.

You can do this by articulating your thoughts on paper.  List the pleasure you will have by being assertive (e.g. I will feel confident; I will have contributed; I will feel I took the chance; people will know I have a voice and can speak up etc.)  Also you will want to list the pain you will have if you are not assertive (i.e. I will feel I've lost another opportunity; I will feel regret; I will have let another chance slip by to prove I can make a valuable contribution; people will start to question by value since I never seem to contribute etc.)

Brain Skill Three

A third technique is to simply search your memories for times when you were assertive and spoke up.  Keep your thinking on the lessons learned and the times when it paid off.  The simple act of recalling past events of past successes primes our brains for confidence and motivates us to be assertive.

Through visualizing how a meeting may play out; reconfiguring our pain and pleasure association; and reflecting on past wins has a significant affect on putting us into a confident and assertive mindset.

Curious?  Have questions?  Please visit me at MINDtalk

How does priming affect performance?

Take a moment and study the following five words:

      Florida           Forgetful            Bald            Gray             Wrinkle

Psychologist John Bargh and his team at New York University gave this particular set of words to a group of students and asked them to assemble a 4 word sentence from the set of 5 words. After completing the task the students were asked to walk down a hall to do another experiment.  Unbeknownst to the students the actual experiment was to measure how long it took them to walk the short distance down the hall.

The results showed time and again those students that had to form a sentence with words that had an elderly theme walked down the hall significantly slower than other students given different 5 word combinations.

Even the the word old was never mentioned the students minds were primed with the word old.  This had a direct influence on their thoughts and behavior (i.e. the act of walking down the hall slowly).  The kicker is this - it all happened below the radar of awareness.  The students had no idea that this priming had affected them so significantly.

Afterwards, all the students were asked if they believed the first experiment had any influence on their performance on the second experiment.  The answer was a resounding, 'NO'.  When the students were asked if they recognized a common theme in the words, the answer again was no.

What is priming?

This brings us to the topic of this blog - priming. What is priming?  Priming refers to a increased sensitivity to certain stimuli due to prior experience. Priming it believed to occur outside of conscious awareness, it is different from memory that relies on the direct retrieval of information.  The way it does this is through what is termed - associative memory.

One idea triggers other ideas in a domino-like effect.  Each mental domino is connected and supports the other.  An idea awakens emotions that in turn awakens physical behavior and reactions.  A great majority of this associative workings goes on without much conscious realization.

What is reciprocal priming?
 
There is also something called reciprocal priming.  That is, by physically smiling it evokes optimistic emotions and thoughts.  By physically frowning it will evoke more pessimistic emotions and thoughts. Based on the above mentioned experiment by acting and behaving old it will make you feel and think old.  Remember cognition (i.e. thinking) is not limited to simply the brain, you also think with your body.  Cognition is embodied.

How can I use priming to my benefit?

Priming shows us that stimuli in our environment can trigger thoughts, emotions and behavior through associations that our brains make.  If we know we are going to move into a meeting or situation where we need to perform at our best we may want to consciously act on priming our brains - to utilize our brain's associative machinery to our advantage.

Some ways of doing this is to play a much-loved song that motivates you and fills you with the rush of endorphins.  Standing in front of the mirror preparing yourself for the day ahead, you may want to have a Post-It note stuck on the mirror with five words that trigger constructive associations.  You may want to avoid reading the newspaper or watching the news in the morning (we all know how the newspaper is choker-blocked with all the good things that have transpired in the world in the last 24 hours).

When it comes to problem-solving and decision-making we want to prime our thinking so it is solution-oriented and forward-focused. One of the easiest and most effective ways of doing this is asking yourself questions. What is the next step? What are the knowns? What do I control? What can I influence? Who can I go to? What has worked in the past? What's another way to look at this? Where could I find the answer or part of the answer?

It is a hard pill to swallow to know that we are not allows in control of ourselves.  That a great majority of who we are and what we do is vastly influenced by our environmental triggers, and a great majority of this goes on below our awareness.

Priming is some ways similar to breathing.  It functions automatically, but when we become aware of our breathing we can control it.  This to some regards is what we can do with the phenomenon of priming.

Curious? Wish to know more?  Please visit us at MINDtalk

Are you staying hungry?

Not long ago, I facilitated a round table discussion for a designer furniture store helping them to take a hard look at themselves.  The focus was on understanding who they were, where they wanted to go and what needed keeping and what needed fixing.

The store began as a few scribblings on a napkin at a cafe.  In a span of five years, they have grown into a thriving business with a modest turnover.  At present, they are the exclusive agents to some of Sweden and Denmark's well-known, designer brands.  Their presence amongst architects, interior designers and other such professionals is growing at a pace that would make many envious.

But as you may have already guessed their growth and success were no easy feat.  Every meter gained had to be earned with an investment of effort and energy.  Most businesses fail within the first twelve months.  If they survive that then there is the 24 month hurdle to overcome.  If a business has managed to stick around 5 years there is a greater sense of stability and that it is doing something right. 

From my experience a sense of success can sometimes breed a sense of complacency or even worse a sense of superiority.  That is,  sometimes people think they have stumbled on to the secret formula of success and all they have to do is keep on doing what they are doing.  Of course as many businesses know this is more like the formula of crash and burn.  It has been written about in hundreds of articles and books.  Nonetheless, what were once global empires of enterprise are now empty ruins only spoken in terms of what once was or has been.

One of the latest examples of an empire crumbling is Research In Motion (RIM) makers of the famous or infamous Blackberry.  At the top of their might they spoke arrogantly about the demise of the iPhone.  RIM truly believed no significant development had to be made to their phones.  They thought they knew what the business world wanted. It seems they thought wrong and are presently trying to cling on to a market that is nearly beyond their reach.  Since 2007, their market value has tanked by 65%. RIM's desperation is tantamount to building a sandbag wall after the flood has already hit.

As for the designer furniture store their near future looks extremely bright, but they are under no illusion that it will always be so.  Their success has not gone to their heads and left them feeling satiated.  It has rather rekindled their hunger to stretch the business beyond where they are today.

I believe hunger in business is a necessity and should never been undervalued.  Hunger stokes the drive to strive.  Every now and then I think it is important for an individual or a business to create their own wake-up call and to take a hard look at themselves.  Simply asking the question, 'Are we staying hungry?' is a strong first step.

Curious? Wish to know more?  Please visit us at MINDtalk

Thinking about NLP? You had better think again.

Contribution by The Skeptics Dictionary

neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)

I think the more you want to become more and more creative you have to not only elicit other peoples' (plural) strategies and replicate them yourself, but also modify others' strategies and have a strategy that creates new creativity strategies based on as many wonderful states as you can design for yourself. Therefore, in a way, the entire field of NLP™ is a creative tool, because I wanted to create something new.   --Richard Bandler

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is one of many New Age Large Group Awareness Training programs. NLP is a competitor with Landmark Forum, Tony Robbins, and legions of other enterprises which, like the Sophists of ancient Greece, travel from town to town to teach their wisdom for a fee. Robbins is probably the most successful "graduate" of NLP. He started his own empire after transforming from a self-described "fat slob" to a firewalker to (in his own words) "the nation's foremost authority on the psychology of peak performance and personal, professional and organizational turnaround." The founders of NLP, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, might disagree.

NLP has something for everybody, the sick and the healthy, individual or corporation. In addition to being an agent for change for healthy individuals taught en masse, NLP is also used for individual psychotherapy for problems as diverse as phobias and schizophrenia. NLP also aims at transforming corporations, showing them how to achieve their maximum potential and achieve great success.

What is NLP?

NLP was begun in the mid-seventies by a linguist (Grinder) and a mathematician (Bandler) who had strong interests in (a) successful people, (b) psychology, (c) language and (d) computer programming. It is a difficult to define NLP because those who started it and those involved in it use such vague and ambiguous language that NLP means different things to different people. While it is difficult to find a consistent description of NLP among those who claim to be experts at it, one metaphor keeps recurring. NLP claims to help people change by teaching them to program their brains. We were given brains, we are told, but no instruction manual. NLP offers you a user-manual for the brain. The brain-manual seems to be a metaphor for NLP training, which is sometimes referred to as "software for the brain." Furthermore, NLP, consciously or unconsciously, relies heavily upon (1) the notion of the unconscious mind as constantly influencing conscious thought and action; (2) metaphorical behavior and speech, especially building upon the methods used in Freud's Interpretation of Dreams; and (3) hypnotherapy as developed by Milton Erickson. NLP is also heavily influenced by the work of Gregory Bateson and Noam Chomsky.

One common thread in NLP is the emphasis on teaching a variety of communication and persuasion skills, and using self-hypnosis to motivate and change oneself. Most NLP practitioners advertising on the WWW make grand claims about being able to help just about anybody become just about anything. The following is typical:

NLP can enhance all aspects of your life by improving your relationships with loved ones, learning to teach effectively, gaining a stronger sense of self-esteem, greater motivation, better understanding of communication, enhancing your business or career... and an enormous amount of other things which involve your brain. (from the now defunct http://www.nlpinfo.com/intro/txintro.shtml archived here)

Some advocates claim that they can teach an infallible method of telling when a person is lying, but others recognize that this is not possible. Some claim that people fail only because their teachers have not communicated with them in the right "language". One NLP guru, Dale Kirby, informs us that one of the presuppositions of NLP is "No one is wrong or broken." So why seek remedial change? On the other hand, what Mr. Kirby does have to say about NLP which is intelligible does not make it very attractive. For example, he says that according to NLP "There is no such thing as failure. There is only feedback." Was NLP invented by the U.S. Military to explain their "incomplete successes"? When the space shuttle blew up within minutes of launch, killing everyone on board, was that "only feedback"? If I stab my neighbor and call it "performing non-elective surgery" am I practicing NLP? If I am arrested in a drunken state with a knife in my pocket for threatening an ex-girlfriend, am I just "trying to rekindle an old flame"?

Another NLP presupposition which is false is "If someone can do something, anyone can learn it." This comes from people who claim they understand the brain and can help you reprogram yours. They want you to think that the only thing that separates the average person from Einstein or Pavarotti or the World Champion Log Lifter is NLP.

NLP is said to be the study of the structure of subjective experience, but a great deal of attention seems to be paid to observing behavior and teaching people how to read "body language." But there is no common structure to non-verbal communication, any more than there is a common structure to dream symbolism. There certainly are some well-defined culturally determined non-verbal ways of communicating, e.g., pointing the back of the hand at another, lowering all fingers but the one in the middle, has a definite meaning in American culture. But when someone tells me that the way I squeeze my nose during a conversation means I am signaling him that I think his idea stinks, how do we verify whether his interpretation is correct or not? I deny it. He knows the structure, he says. He knows the meaning. I am not aware of my signal or of my feelings, he says, because the message is coming from my subconscious mind. How do we test these kinds of claims? We can't. What's his evidence? It must be his brilliant intuitive insight because there is no empirical evidence to back up this claim. Sitting cross-armed at a meeting might not mean that someone is "blocking you out" or "getting defensive". She may just be cold or have a back ache or simply feel comfortable sitting that way. It is dangerous to read too much into non-verbal behavior. Those splayed legs may simply indicate a relaxed person, not someone inviting you to have sex. At the same time, much of what NLP is teaching is how to do cold reading. This is valuable, but an art not a science, and should be used with caution.

Finally, NLP claims that each of us has a Primary Representational System (PRS), a tendency to think in specific modes: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory or gustatory. A person's PRS can be determined by words the person tends to use or by the direction of one's eye movements. Supposedly, a therapist will have a better rapport with a client if they have a matching PRS. None of this has been supported by the scientific literature.*

Bandler's Institute

Bandler's First Institute of Neuro-Linguistic Programming™ and Design Human Engineering™ has this to say about NLP:

"Neuro-Linguistic Programming™ (NLP™) is defined as the study of the structure of subjective experience and what can be calculated from that and is predicated upon the belief that all behavior has structure....Neuro-Linguistic Programming™ was specifically created in order to allow us to do magic by creating new ways of understanding how verbal and non-verbal communication affect the human brain. As such it presents us all with the opportunity to not only communicate better with others, but also learn how to gain more control over what we considered to be automatic functions of our own neurology."^*

We are told that Bandler took as his first models Virginia Satir ("The Mother of Family System Therapy"), Milton Erickson ("The Father of Modern Hypnotherapy") and Fritz Perls (early advocate of Gestalt Therapy) because they "had amazing results with their clients." The linguistic and behavioral patterns of such people were studied and used as models. These were therapists who liked such expressions as 'self-esteem', 'validate', 'transformation', 'harmony', 'growth', 'ecology', 'self-realization', 'unconscious mind', 'non-verbal communication', 'achieving one's highest potential'--expressions which serve as beacons to New Age transformational psychology. No neuroscientist or anyone who has studied the brain is mentioned as having had any influence on NLP. Also, someone who is not mentioned, but who certainly seems like the ideal model for NLP, is Werner Erhard. He started est a few miles north (in San Francisco) of Bandler and Grinder (in Santa Cruz) just a couple of years before the latter started their training business. Erhard seems to have set out to do just what Bandler and Grinder set out to do: help people transform themselves and make a good living doing it. NLP and est also have in common the fact that they are built up from a hodgepodge of sources in psychology, philosophy, and other disciplines. Both have been brilliantly marketed as offering the key to success, happiness, and fulfillment to anyone willing to pay the price of admission. Best of all: no one who pays his fees fails out of these schools!

the ever-evolving Bandler

When one reads what Bandler says, it may lead one to think that some people sign on just to get the translation from the Master Teacher of Communication Skills himself:

One of the models that I built was called strategy elicitation which is something that people confuse with modeling to no end. They go out and elicit a strategy and they think they are modeling but they don't ask the question, "Where did the strategy elicitation model come from?" There are constraints inside this model since it was built by reducing things down. The strategy elicitation model is always looking for the most finite way of accomplishing a result. This model is based on sequential elicitation and simultaneous installation.

Many would surely agree that with communication like this Bandler must have a very special code for programming his brain.

Bandler claims he keeps evolving. To some, however, he may seem mainly concerned with protecting his economic interests by trademarking his every burp. He seems extremely concerned that some rogue therapist or trainer might steal his work and make money without him getting a cut. One might be charitable and see Bandler's obsession with trademarking as a way to protect the integrity of his brilliant new discoveries about human potential (such as charisma enhancement) and how to sell it. Anyway, to clarify or to obscure matters--who knows which?-- what Bandler calls the real thing can be identified by a license and the trademark™ from The Society of Neuro-Linguistic Programming™. However, do not contact this organization if you want detailed, clear information about the nature of NLP, or DHE (Design Human Engineering™ (which will teach you to hallucinate designs like Tesla did), or PE (Persuasion Engineering™) or MetaMaster Track™, or Charisma Enhancement™, or Trancing™, or whatever else Mr. Bandler and associates are selling these days. Mostly what you will find on Bandler's page is information on how to sign up for one of his training sessions. For example, you can get 6 days of training for $1,800 at the door ($1,500 prepaid). What will you be trained in or for? Bandler has been learning about "the advancement of human evolution" and he will pass this on to you. For $1,500 you could have taken his 3-day seminar on Creativity Enhancement (where you could learn why it's not creative to rely on other people's ideas, except for Bandler's).

Grinder and corporate NLP

John Grinder, on the other hand, has gone on to try to do for the corporate world what Bandler is doing for the rest of us. He has joined Carmen Bostic St Clair in an organization called Quantum Leap, "an international organisation dealing with the design and implementation of cross cultural communication systems." Like Bandler, Grinder claims he has evolved new and even more brilliant "codes".

...the New Code contains a series of gates which presuppose a certain and to my way of thinking appropriate relationship between the conscious and unconscious parts of a person purporting to train or represent in some manner NLP. This goes a long way toward insisting on the presence of personal congruity in such a person. In other words, a person who fails to carry personal congruity will in general find themselves unable to use and/or teach the New Code patterns with any sort of consistent success. This is a design I like very much - it has the characteristic of a self-correcting system.

It may strike some people that terms like "personal congruity" are not very precise or scientific. This is probably because Grinder has created a "new paradigm". Or so he says. He denies that his and Bandler's work is an eclectic hodgepodge of philosophy and psychology, or that it even builds from the works of others. He believes that what he and Bandler did was "create a paradigm shift."

The following claim by Grinder provides some sense of what he thinks NLP is:

My memories about what we thought at the time of discovery (with respect to the classic code we developed - that is, the years 1973 through 1978) are that we were quite explicit that we were out to overthrow a paradigm and that, for example, I, for one, found it very useful to plan this campaign using in part as a guide the excellent work of Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) in which he detailed some of the conditions which historically have obtained in the midst of paradigm shifts. For example, I believe it was very useful that neither one of us were qualified in the field we first went after - psychology and in particular, its therapeutic application; this being one of the conditions which Kuhn identified in his historical study of paradigm shifts. Who knows what Bandler was thinking?

One can only hope that Bandler wasn't thinking the same things that Grinder was thinking, at least with respect to Kuhn's classic text. Kuhn did not promote the notion that not being particularly qualified in a scientific field is a significant condition for contributing to the development of a new paradigm in science. Furthermore, Kuhn did not provide a model or blueprint for creating paradigm shifts! His is an historical work, describing what he believed to have occurred in the history of science. Nowhere does he indicate that a single person at any time did, or even could, create a paradigm shift in science. Individuals such as Newton or Einstein might provide theories which require paradigm shifts for their theories to be adequately understood, but they don't create the paradigm shifts themselves. Kuhn's work implies that such a notion is preposterous.

Grinder and Bandler should have read Kant before they set off on their quixotic pursuit. Kant's "Copernican revolution" might be considered a paradigm shift by Bandler and Grinder, but it is not what Kuhn was talking about when he was describing the historical development of scientific theories. Kuhn restricted his concern to science. He made no claim that anything similar happens in philosophy and he certainly did not imply that anything NLP did, or is doing, constitutes a paradigm shift. Kuhn claimed that paradigm shifts occur over time when one theory breaks down and is replaced by another. Scientific theories break down, he claimed, when new data can't be explained by the old theories or when they no longer explain things as well as some newer theory. What Bandler and Grinder did was not in response to any crisis in theory in any scientific field and so cannot even be considered as contributing to a paradigm shift much less being one itself.

What Grinder seems to think Kuhn meant by "paradigm shift" is something like a gestalt shift, a change in the way we look at things, a change in perspective. Kant might fit the bill for this notion. Kant rejected the old way of doing epistemology, which was to ask 'how can we bring ourselves to understand the world?' What we ought to ask, said Kant, is 'how is it possible that the world comes to be understood by us?' This was truly a revolutionary move in the history of philosophy, for it asserted that the world must conform to the conditions imposed on it by the one experiencing the world. The notion that one has the truth when one's mind conforms with the world is rejected in favor of the notion that all knowledge is subjective because it is impossible without experience which is essentially subjective. Copernicus had said, in essence, let's see how things look with the Sun at the center of the universe, instead of the Earth. Kant said, in essence, let's examine how we know the world by assuming that the world must conform to the mind, rather than the mind conform to the world. Copernicus, however, could be considered as contributing to a paradigm shift in science. If he were right about the earth and other planets going around the sun rather than the sun and the other planets going around the earth--and he was--then astronomers could no longer do astronomy without profound changes in their fundamental concepts about the nature of the heavens. On the other hand, there is no way to know if Kant is right. We can accept or reject his theory. We can continue to do philosophy without being Kantians, but we cannot continue to do astronomy without accepting the heliocentric hypothesis and rejecting the geocentric one. What did Grinder and Bandler do that makes it impossible to continue doing psychology or therapy or semiotics or philosophy without accepting their ideas? Nothing.

Do people benefit from NLP?

While I do not doubt that many people benefit from NLP training sessions, there seem to be several false or questionable assumptions upon which NLP is based. Their beliefs about the unconscious mind, hypnosis and the ability to influence people by appealing directly to the subconscious mind are unsubstantiated. All the scientific evidence which exists on such things indicates that what NLP claims is not true. You cannot learn to "speak directly to the unconscious mind " as Erickson and NLP claim, except in the most obvious way of using the power of suggestion.

NLP claims that its experts have studied the thinking of great minds and the behavior patterns of successful people and have extracted models of how they work. "From these models, techniques for quickly and effectively changing thoughts, behaviors and beliefs that get in your way have been developed."^* But studying Einstein's or Tolstoy's work might produce a dozen "models" of how those minds worked. There is no way to know which, if any, of the models is correct. It is a mystery why anyone would suppose that any given model would imply techniques for quick and effective change in thoughts, actions and beliefs. I think most of us intuitively grasp that even if we were subjected to the same experiences which Einstein or Tolstoy had, we would not have become either. Surely, we would be significantly different from whom we've become, but without their brains to begin with, we would have developed quite differently from either of them.

In Conclusion

It seems that NLP develops models which can't be verified, from which it develops techniques which may have nothing to do with either the models or the sources of the models. NLP makes claims about thinking and perception which do not seem to be supported by neuroscience. This is not to say that the techniques won't work. They may work and work quite well, but there is no way to know whether the claims behind their origin are valid. Perhaps it doesn't matter. NLP itself proclaims that it is pragmatic in its approach: what matters is whether it works. However, how do you measure the claim "NLP works"? I don't know and I don't think NLPers know, either. Anecdotes and testimonials seem to be the main measuring devices. Unfortunately, such a measurement may reveal only how well the trainers teach their clients to persuade others to enroll in more training sessions.

Minding your business with brain based science

Business owners, especially solopreneurs, often experience symptoms of overwhelm. This often feels like not enough time, energy drain, being pulled in several directions at once, and an inability to focus. Overwhelm feels debilitating and stressful.

If you feeling like you're "spinning your wheels" perhaps the following analogy will help. Winter driving can sometimes involve getting stuck, and if you accelerate while your vehicle is stuck in the snow, you only dig yourself in deeper! The same is true for your business; the harder you work, the more effort you expend, the more stuck you end up feeling. If you are working harder and spending longer hours on your business while continuing to feel stuck, the overwhelm comes with trying to balance everything while wanting to move your business forward, and as your focus and energy diminish, your sense of overwhelm increases.

The solution? Evaluate your work, your habits, and your willingness to make positive changes. Here are some brain science-based suggestions to help business owners move out of overwhelm - or avoid it completely:

1. Develop a plan. This may seem obvious, but many solopreneurs operate spontaneously according to external demands. This is particularly true of creatives; however, it's important to have a business plan that keeps you grounded and operating from that level.

In order to create a workable plan, you'll need to harness the power of your will to make changes in your business. The brain is capable of forging new connections to hone skills and modify old habits, but also likes to conserve energy by resisting new neuronal connections, so you'll need to ignite your will to change by forming a clear purpose. Ask yourself what might happen if you don't create change. What opportunities might be lost? What benefits will come with your proposed plan and changes? What will it be like when your changes become a habit?

2. Operate from priorities. Once you have a plan in place it's important to work from focused priorities, which helps to keep your energy focused. Without priorities it's easy to be in reactive mode. If your priorities are clear, you can stay task-focused, which will help you to be calmer and more focused energetically.

If you want to experience enhanced clarity and focus in your business, you'll need to develop neural pathways in your brain. One way to do this is to ask yourself: How does a clear and focused person sound when speaking, laughing, acting questions? How does a clear and focused person listen, walk, sit, gesture? What does a clear and focused think about?

3. Develop systems for your business. Create systems and a process that works for you and your business. You might try using a journal to record your creative impulses so that you can stay task-focused. This way you'll be taking action, but still staying focused on your current task.

If you become distracted from your stated direction by feelings of anger, annoyance, confusion, jealousy, or other such feelings, brain research provides a way to deal with your distraction - by labeling the feeling. Neuroscience calls this "labeling the affect", and as we do so, the part of the brain feeling the emotion is calmed, so that we can return to clarity and purpose. Practice making mental notes throughout the day such as "I am eating" or "I am pleased" or "I am thinking about the proposal." As your facility with this practice increases, you will find yourself able to remain calm in the eye of the storm.

4. Estimate realistic time-lines for your business goals and projects. The timelines allow you to feel as though your business development is unfolding at the proper pace, without feeling pressured to have everything done at this moment. If you mentally rehearse how you will feel once your goals and project timelines are complete, your skill levels improve and your brain is changed. Mental rehearsal is an effective tool for self-leadership.

5. Give yourself the gift of support. Successful business owners are willing to accept outside support and create systems of accountability. Without support your unproductive habits (those that are your 'default') and "inner" obstacles will continue to create bottlenecks in your business. A mentor or coach can give you an invaluable and objective perspective, assisting you to change the course of your direction by managing your inner resources, attaining optimal living strategies and expanding your influence, leveraging your time - and working less - to contribute and achieve more.

Contribution by Sue Stebbins

Changing Your Brain By Changing Your Mind

Contribution by Melanie A. Greenberg

When it comes to managing stress, the Eastern traditions may be especially effective. The Western health model is based on diagnosing the underlying cause of a problem and then finding an active medical or behavioral intervention to remove it. People with chronic illness are often urged to "stay strong," or to have "a fighting spirit." Eastern medicine has a more holistic view of disease as indicating a lack of balance or an energy blockage. The solution is to bring the body and mind back into balance using gentle, noninvasive techniques such as herbs, manipulative techniques, movement, or meditation.

How the Brain Processes Emotion

Our lower brain centers, such as the amygdala or hypothalamus, were made to detect and respond to threats, such as a tiger about to eat us. They generate an immediate "fight ot flight" response to increase the odds of survival, but they can become hypersensitive, interfering with our ability to experience the present moment in an open and relaxed way. Daily meditation practice can help to correct this imbalance and allow us to retrain our minds so we are less likely to overreact with intense anger or fear to psychological threats, such as rejection. Being less chronically stressed can also help our immune systems function more efficiently to fight off disease.

Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Therapy (MBSR) is a meditation program developed by John Kabat-Zinn and researchers at Harvard Medical School to help people living with chronic pain. Central to this form of meditation is a focus on the breath to bring the mind back to the present moment when it wanders off. Over time, this leads to greater conscious control over attentional focus, such that more primitive alarm responses are less able to control our thoughts and behaviors.The final goal of the meditation training is to integrate present-moment awareness into every aspect of daily life.

Research over the past 10 years or so has begun to show how meditation may change the brain and improve mental and physical wellbeing.

Improved Immune Response

A 2003 study by Richard Davidson and colleagues, with healthy employees, showed that 8 weeks of meditation practice changed the pattern of electrical activity in the brain. There was greater activation in the left hemisphere among meditators than people assessed at the same time who did not have meditation training (control group). The researchers also looked at immune response to an influenza vaccine and found that the meditator group had more antibody titers to the vaccine than the control group, indicating better immune functioning. These benefits lasted for months after the intervention.

Changes in the Brain's Grey Matter

A more recent controlled study showed that meditation was associated with increased grey matter in the hippocampus, which is responsible for learning and memory, and decreased grey matter in the amygdala, which is the initiator of the brain's pre-cortical alarm system. These physiological changes parallel the theory that meditation increases conscious control over emotional, behavioral, and attentional response to threat.

Reduced Pain Sensitivity

Researchers are also beginning to show that meditation can change the way we experience pain. Chris Brown and colleagues at the University of Manchester showed that a Mindfulness Meditation course led to less unusual activity in areas of the prefrontal cortex when subjects expected to receive a painful stimulus (such as a small elecric shock or contact with a hot object). Those who meditated reported finding the pain less unpleasant as well.

Shift From Negative to Positive Affect

Patients in another mindfulness study demonstrated significantly greater changes in brain electrical activity from activation in the right to the left cortical hemisphere, from before to immediately following meditation and several months later, compared to a control group. This pattern of brain activity is associated with a shift away from negative and towards more positive emotional experience. In other words, mindfulness meditation regimen appeared to help people to experience more positive emotions such as love, compassion, or contentment.

Does a Briefer Intervention Work?

One reason why people resist meditating is the time it takes. The original protocol involved eight weeks of mindfulness training sessions plus 45 minutes a day of at-home practice. At the beginning, many people find it difficult to sustain attention on the breath for that length of time. Logistical and time considerations make patients more hesitant to sign up or result in dropout. A briefer intervention that could be used more widely in hospital, employee wellness, and outpatient mental health settings might be more cost-effective and palatable to patients.

A very recent study published in the journal Psychological Science shows that a briefer meditation protocol cal produce similar changes in cortical activity. Researcher Christopher Moyer and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Stout assigned subjects at random to either a 5-week Mindfulness Meditation group or to a group put on a waiting list for services. Data showed people in the meditation group practiced at home a couple of times a week for about 25 minutes each time, on average. These meditation subjects showed the same changes in cortical activity as those who got the full intervention in earlier studies; that is, a significant increase in left hemisphere cortical activation. The waiting list group did not demonstrate these changes. This is an exciting finding, since it suggests even shorter meditation periods can significantly increase positive emotional experience in the brain.

For the Reader:

Below are some instructions for a basic breath awareness meditation. Do this once or twice a day for 2 weeks and observe what happens. There is no right or wrong way to do it. Try to accept whatever your individual experience is.

Simple Breath Awareness Meditation Instructions

Pick a comfortable, quiet place where you will not be disturbed
Sit with the spine upright on a cushion on the floor or a chair. If you use a chair, make sure your feet are touching the ground.
Begin to notice your breathing. Try to maintain an open and curious attitude. Notice where the breath goes when it enters and leaves your body.
Do not try to change the breath in any way. It may change naturally as you observe it.
If your mind wanders away, note what it is doing, than gently bring your attention back to the breath.
6. Continue observing the breath for 15-20 minutes.
Reference

Moyer, C. A. et al. (2011). Frontal Electroencephalographic Asymmetry Associated With Positive Emotion Is Produced by Very Brief Meditation Training. Psychological Science