Using Your Brain – for a CHANGE, by Richard Bandler
OK, here’s the second Richard Bandler book on NLP I’ve read lately – a little better than Frogs Into Princes in readability and practicality. This book is also a transcript of a seminar, but it’s geared more towards us lay-people rather than the many-years practiced psychotherapists. If you were only going to read one of the two books, read this one first.
In it you’ll learn one of the main principles of NLP – helping you to release automatic, habitual responses and enabling you to create many, more helpful resources to use in those “habitual” situations that have been holding you back. Read the book for some great examples of how NLP was used to quickly release phobic responses (like fear of driving over bridges). The really cool stuff is how that same program used to release phobias can help you to release any habitual, automatic (and often emotional) responses to situations that keep you from creating the life you really want to live.
I’ve heard a variety of stories about Richard Bandler and John Grinder, the creators of NLP, and I particularly appreciated hearing from Richard’s own voice (in this book) the importance of releasing the automatic responses, but not eliminating the option of responding in those old ways. Even when you release an automatic response of fear or rage or sadness, there are still going to be times in your life when it’s important for you to respond with those emotions. It’s important that you have a full choice of options, resources, and emotions to choose from when you are responding to any situation.
If you can’t already tell, this is a bit of a soap box for me … I really dislike it whenever anyone tells me there’s ONE way to solve my problem (and they have that solution). There are just so darn many approaches anyone can take to life – we are all highly creative, intelligent and resourceful beings. I think because NLP often uses programs to model other people’s success strategies, some people have muddied it into a tool for controlling behavior – choosing what strategies are best for you instead of recognizing that you are creative enough to choose the best strategy in a given moment. In my practice, and I’m happy to see that in some of the originator’s earlier works, the whole point of NLP is to release the stuck patterns allowing you, the naturally creative and resourceful individual that you are, to choose new responses from a large variety of options.
OK, I’ll get off my soap box for now. If you’re at all intrigued by NLP, try getting this book from the library (it’s also out of print) or just take the practical approach and contact me for an NLP coaching session so you can see how it directly helps you in your life, wherever you are right now. There’s nothing quite like a direct experience to know what feels best for you!
