The Practice Group
Nigel & Jenny Heath:-
Address: Jinglewood House Ltd, Lyndhurst Road, Landford. Wiltshire
SP5 2AS
All of Nigel’s other reports:
2004 NLP reports
2003 NLP reports
Nigel’s report for July 2009
November 2008 one Sunday morning at 8.30 in a little cafe near Baker Street tube
station. Jenny and I were grabbing a quick croissant and coffee before going on to
the NLP conference when in comes Lisa Wake. It’s always good to catch people before
the first caffeine hit brings them into full consciousness. And before we all left
the cafe to go to the conference Lisa had agreed to come down to NLP-
With the top down on her car, arriving with bonny pink cheeks. The heat was debilitating
that night, even the bugs found it hard to sing, and even harder to sting. We opened
all the windows, turned on all the fans and moved v e r y s l o w l y. Lisa
began with an introduction and explained her background and her current direction
in NLP. She acknowledged that time and experience often lead her to forget what it’s
like when starting out on the NLP journey of discovery. We had her permission to
jump up and down and shout ‘jargon’ at the tops of our voices if she slipped into
deep NLP speak. I’m glad to say there was no need, though the flapping of many arms
may have helped to cool the room, but may have caused the lights to keep switching
on and off. (Ancient chinese proverb -
Lisa set the frame for the evening by telling us about a visit to a customer who needed her to be her best. She maintains that to be so demands that you treat yourself as a customer first and make sure you have serviced your needs so you can be your best. If you are not being the best for yourself how can you then be your best for someone else?
Briefly drawing the NLP communication model Lisa reminded us of the limitation of
conscious awareness and the 7 + or -
Lisa gave us all a handout with full instructions for using Robert Dilts Generative NLP format, with adaptations. Working in pairs we chose a ‘recent resource’ or something we felt we were good at, our special talent, (just one will do for now!) to model how this changed as we moved from present to past and future in 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions. I think I’d better draw you a picture, it’ll be much easier to explain then.
My partner and I found a bit of floor with square carpet tiles, which gave us a nice delineation of the spaces. She went first and I facilitated. (My natural reticence preventing me from deciding which of my special talents to work with).
Standing in the middle square, also known as ‘Recent Resource’ I helped her fully
associate into her skills. Once we had played with their sub-
When she visited spaces on the left in 2nd position she pretended to be a colleague
or ‘outside’ person who would have a positive and objective opinion about her skills
and a good message to give to the her that was until recently in the middle of the
squares. On the right or 3rd position column she became a close relative or friend
to receive their comments and remarks on her excellence. In the future 3rd position
she became a new friend she hasn’t yet met. Ahh, the power of NLP! As I read through
the notes Lisa supplied I realise we may have added further adaptations to the instructions.
This for me is the great value of NLP-
All this took us up to, through and beyond the break.
In the ‘wash up’ there were many more ‘better me’s’ than we started with, and several
people found their original skill had grown through the process of viewing it positively
from 8 different perspectives. Lisa explained this with a picture sort of like the
one on the left. When we are born the head is mostly empty. For some this changes
and the cavity becomes filled as we grow older. First of all making emotional connections
(feelings) and then as the frontal lobes blossom making cognition (meaning) and connections
with the basic brain stem. Sometimes negative emotional charges causes a block to
the easy flow of neural connections and the exercise we had just done had opened
up new pathways and maybe bypassed the odd emotional block.
Lisa shared with us her
resource anchor, and rubbed it to show the effect. It was a special moment, and if
you were not there one you will have to wonder about. We had a question and answer
session on how to use this process or bits of it in life, coaching, business and
relationships, and Lisa shared stories of how she had adapted this model in all these
areas. Check out the story in her book about the camel.
Supplies of her book were available at a special price and she had also brought along some CD’s which were all snapped up.
Visit Lisa’s site to buy your own copy and find out about her NLP training courses, including a Masters Degree, consulting work and other interesting plans she has to bring NLP respectably into mainstream life.
Finally many thanks to Lisa for popping in to spend a great evening with us on her
way to Cardiff from Yorkshire. (The pretty way). If you missed this evening make
sure you go along to the NLP conference on November 13th -
