What is NLP?
A little blip about NLP:
Transformational NeuroLinguistic Programming is a therapeutic modality that provides an engaging way to explore how one’s behavioral patterns and identity structure was formed.
For someone who wants change, it can be useful to understand the parts within that have been vying for things to remain as they are. And so together, you and I will find ways of appreciating, respecting and working with those parts rather than fighting against them. In some cases, those parts will be offered resources to create new neural pathways and options toward your deeply valued and long held desires. Sometimes creating new neural pathways can be as simple as reframing how we have been holding a piece of our past internally.
This offers a client change implemented from the inside, so they don’t leave the session feeling like they need to remember to be different.
Is NLP for me?
I’ve tried so many different types of therapy and none of them worked?
I can’t tell you if NLP will be the magic pill that makes self exploration and change go down smoother for you. But I can offer you some insight as to what makes NLP different from other modalities and what to expect in a session.
If you are still curious after that, you are welcome to book a free exploratory session with me to find out for yourself.
Rapport between practitioner and client: The foundation of deep healing work
The foundation of Transformational Neuro-Linguistic Programming is rapport with self, and rapport with others.
Whether a person is going to a teacher, a doctor, or doing any kind of therapeutic work, one of the key ingredients that makes the whole operation run smoothly is rapport with the person across from them.
It is hard to learn from someone we don’t trust, or feel comfortable exploring deep parts of ourselves with, when they haven’t taken time to make us feel at ease. The doctors and practitioners that seem to get the best results are the ones who make the people in front of them feel seen and heard. This doesn’t happen through compliments or even just through repeating phrases.
But something really important does happen when a person feels mirrored, acknowledged and seen for their wholeness. This allows their neurology and nervous system to relax and for the healing work to go deeper.
Each one of us can probably think of a time when we have felt especially on guard while speaking about something personal, in those moments it is possible that the person you were speaking with was not able to establish rapport, or to make you feel secure in opening up to speak.
Conversely, we can also each probably reference a time when someone made us feel seen and validated and we felt a green light to relax and speak freely.
At that point perhaps either the other person was generating rapport with us or vise versa.
The cornerstone of this work is rapport, in that it is like the oil that greases the wheel that makes the machine operate smoothly.
What sets NLP apart from other healing modalities and change work?
They’re are actually many components that set NLP apart from other modalities, in addition to rapport.
Session tempo and pace:
Clients and I work together to assess a tempo that will serve their highest outcomes. Typically, a session moves faster, with more precision and depth than a traditional therapy session. A person often leaves feeling like they have discovered more about themselves in one session of transformational NLP than through months of traditional therapy; and this is not for everyone. Some people do prefer this fast paced rate of change and growth and some people prefer to take it slow, in which case I recommend doing fewer sessions that are spread further apart. Part of what we do together is assess a pace and tempo that will work to serve the client.
The change process:
Lastly, through Transformational NLP we look at how a person’s beliefs were formed in life and sometimes do a repatterning process. This can provide an immense relief to someone who has been living with restrictive trauma patterning. For many, they have assumed that their trauma patterning was their personality and through this process they begin to see their true nature emerging for the first time.
The nicest thing about this work is that because of the repatterning process, which makes new behavioral options available to them, a client does not leave with homework.
This is because the resources have been made available from the inside out.
Ready to take the next step? Book an exploratory session.
Why NLP Works
People do not wake up and just decide to struggle with things like procrastination, addiction, feelings of isolation, etc. These behaviors are learned responses formed by beliefs and decisions made when the body was in a response to stressful or traumatic situations at a young age.
Each undesirable behavior we spot in ourselves or someone else was put in place as the solution to overwhelming pains that existed before; these coping behaviors were created to help us survive. We probably weren’t making adult sense of the world and emotions back then. But we know that these particular beliefs and behaviors worked, because we did survive. And thusly, they became linked to our survival.
Each person reaches for the best feeling option on their map. When we were little, our understanding of ourselves and the world was very narrow. Also in times of trauma our grasp of things narrows in even more. So…humans do the best they can with what they have.
Through the experience of life, it is helpful to update our map of ourselves and the world so we remember that we now have even more options than we did when we were little.
If you would like assistance with repatterning of beliefs, behaviors, and/or identity level change through grounded and yet magical change work, then you are in the right place.
Some of my specialty areas:
Sexual abuse
Addiction (all types)
Executive coaching
Connecting to and prioritizing my own needs and desires
Late stage individuation
Family history of mental health issues
Immune issues
Other themes that often come up in an NLP session:
Having trouble figuring out what I want
Trouble communicating my needs
Issues concerning relationship to parent, partner or child
I wanted to send my child to therapy but I guess I’ll work on this myself
I wanted to send my parent or sibling to therapy but I guess I’ll work on this myself
There is something I want more of in life
There is something going on in my life that I don’t want anymore
Issues concerning self worth , self confidence, perfection, anxiety and overwhelm.
Clutter
My parents want this for me but I want something else
I am afraid of being seen and or shy away from being big or bold in life
I’m often late places
I procrastinate things
I have trouble with follow through
I have a phobia of …
I’ve been experiencing ongoing physical pain
I’ve been experiencing some persistent situation
I’m in a funk
I’d like to be better at remembering peoples names.
Gender transitions
I have been bullied or experiencing unfair treatment
In short NLP can be used to address a wide array of issues from the micro to the macro , from environmental to behavioral changes all the way down to identity level change.