The Ultimate Introduction to NLP: How to build a successful life. Richard Bandler
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that. It’s about being able to pimp up your brain!
Joe laughed. He loved the idea that you could make changes to your mind just like that TV show where they took rusty old wrecks and transformed them into shining supercars! He remembered how sceptical he had felt when his sister had suggested that he go on the first seminar. Up to that moment he had been feeling stuck, out of options, and the idea that he could choose who he wanted to be – well, that had sounded just like wishful thinking. Now, he felt different. He listened attentively as Richard continued:
One day, the guy who owned the house I was living in called me and told me that Virginia Satir was going to be staying in the area, so I should keep an eye on her and make sure she was comfortable. Now, Virginia was the reason why I got sidetracked from mathematics and science and ended up co-creating NLP: she was a very talented psychotherapist who could actually produce consistent results.
The first time I saw her, I was outside working on my car, changing an oil filter, and suddenly this woman walked up the driveway. She was a vision: very tall and wearing a Day-Glo green dress, bright red high heels and big horn-rimmed glasses. She was staring at me with a big smile, so I got up, looked at her, and went, ‘Can I help you?’
And she said, ‘I certainly hope so. I’ve never used a wood-burning stove and I wouldn’t want to set the house on fire.’
As we walked towards her place, I said, ‘So, you’re Virginia. Everybody says you’re a great psychotherapist. What exactly do you do?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t really do what other people do. I try to get my clients to be happy.’
Now that made a lot of sense to me, so I asked, ‘Does it work?’
And she said, ‘I’ve been very fortunate, because I’ve been able to help many people whom no one else could help.’
‘Like who?’ I asked.
‘Well, I work a lot with schizophrenics who are hospitalized, and I discovered that if you bring their whole family in, some of them don’t seem so crazy anymore.’
Being someone who studied systems, I found this very interesting.
So, Virginia offered to take me with her. She was doing some training with the staff in a mental hospital and when I watched her work, everything she did seemed to make perfect sense to me. The questions that she asked were very effective and very systematic, but all I could hear from the staff were things like ‘Oh, she’s a miracle worker! Isn’t she so intuitive?’ Translation into human: ‘It’s not my responsibility to learn these skills, because they’re based on who she is, not what she does.’
Virginia understood that the map wasn’t the territory and she took that concept to a level that, to me, was a revelation. Of course, she did a whole lot of things – some of which you’ll get to learn later today – but basically what she did was, instead of interpreting what people said in a metaphorical sense, she took it literally. When someone told her things didn’t ‘look’ good, she assumed they were talking about a picture inside their head. And if they said something about the ‘sound’ of things, she knew they were referring to an internal sound. Most importantly, she understood that people needed someone who could ‘speak their language’, ‘see things their way’ or, if you prefer, ‘grasp their inner world’.
Joe was confused. What did Richard mean by this?
Now, let me give you an example that will make things clearer to you. One day Virginia is working with a couple because they are fighting so much their marriage is nearly wrecked.
‘He never does anything at home,’ the wife begins. ‘It looks as if he doesn’t even live there. I run around all day trying to make the place look decent and he just makes a mess out of it.’
And Virginia goes, ‘I see what you mean, Lucy.’
Guys, this woman keeps describing her pictures, and Virginia acknowledges this.
Then Virginia looks at the husband and goes, ‘How about you, Bob?’
Bob says, ‘She just screams all the time. It’s impossible to have a conversation with her. One minute everything’s quiet, then the next thing I know, she’s wailing about something I don’t even know about.’
The husband tends to use lots of auditory or sound words. Do you hear that?
Good. So Virginia goes, ‘I hear you, Bob. Now, Lucy, have you tried telling him these things without getting angry first?’
‘It’s impossible,’ Lucy says. ‘Look, I put the trash next to the door so that he sees it when he goes out. Will he take it out? No. Then I wait to see if he’ll take it out when he comes back. In the morning it’s still there. Then I see to it myself and when he shows up, I’m already fuming.’
‘OK,’ says Virginia, ‘let me see if I can give him a clearer picture. Bob, you heard your wife out. What’s your story?’
‘It’s like I told you, like she’s tuned me out or something. How am I supposed to know what’s going on if she doesn’t talk to me? It’s not that I enjoy the regular screaming and shouting.’
After a brief negotiation, always matching her words to those of the person she’s addressing, Virginia gets Lucy to agree to try telling Bob what he’s supposed to see. In exchange, Lucy gets her way on another hot issue.
‘He tells me he loves me all the time,’ Lucy goes, ‘but he never shows it to me.’
‘How would you want him to show it to you?’ Virginia enquires.
‘I’d want him to notice if I put on some nice clothes or did my hair. I’d love it if he came home with flowers.’
‘I see,’ says Virginia. ‘Let me show you something, but you need to picture the words as well.’
This is Virginia’s way of overlapping Lucy’s visual experience with her ability to talk and listen. This is what made her the genius she was.
Then she turns to Bob and translates Lucy’s experience into something that he can understand: ‘Now, you listen to me. Are you aware that when your wife puts on a new dress and you don’t look at her, it’s as if you told her in the sweetest voice how much you loved her and she turned a deaf ear to you?’
‘Well,’ Bob retorts, ‘that’s exactly what she does.’
‘That’s because she needs you to tell her that you see her, that you watch her, that you pay attention to how she looks. Do you hear me on this?’
‘Loud and clear.’ Then to his wife: ‘It’s when I look at you and see how beautiful you are that I feel like telling you how much I love you. I just didn’t realize that needed to be said out loud. I’m sorry.’
A smile crossed Joe’s face. His girlfriend talked an awful lot about how she saw their relationship, whereas he preferred to discuss things. ‘Wow, this is something that could really prove useful in strengthening our relationship,’ Joe said to himself, his inner voice suddenly more confident.
Richard, too, had found it useful:
So, in the first books we set out to design patterns that everybody would be able to learn. Everybody could learn to listen to what Virginia did and to ask the same questions as she did. In fact, you will learn more about it this afternoon. Is that correct, Alan?
All heads turned. At the back of the room, Alan nodded with a knowing smile.
Now, back in the Santa Cruz Mountains, one of my neighbours was an Englishman named Gregory Bateson.
A brilliant man, very much of an intellectual, very well known, Gregory had read my first book – actually