Pegasus NLP Blog

Archive for August, 2009

Freedom to evolve and change

In relationships many people run an interesting program: it’s okay for me to grow, develop, evolve, change, etc but my partner must remain just as they were when I first met them!

He/she mustn’t get old, get slim, get fat, get fit, take up new interests, change their habits, their appearance, their lifestyle, and so on and on – or at least, they mustn’t do any of these without my permission and blessing.

Now, you realise, although I use the term ‘we’ I’m not talking about you or me, here. I’m talking about ‘other people.’  They are the ones who run this program – not us. Read the rest of this entry »

Freedom to have a life of your own

In this, the 5th of the 6 Relationship Freedoms, we agree that we each have the freedom to have an independent life ‘outside the nest’.

We can each have our own separate friends and enjoy our separate activities and interests – as well as valuing and enjoying our relationship with one another.

In a nutshell

It goes along the lines: ‘You have the freedom to a life and interests of your own. You can enjoy friendships, places and activities which do not interest me. And I do not see this as a threat to our relationship.’

It’s great that we love each other and get along so well. But this is a relationship rather than a prison.’ Read the rest of this entry »

I began the ’6 Freedoms’ posts back in February. The series evolved out of my preparation for my presentation at the 2008 London NLP Conference (I’m presenting at the 2009 NLP Conference too, btw).

The 6 Freeedoms series is about challenging the concept that being in a relationship is about duty and responsibility and ownership rather than about happily sharing at least part of our journey through life together – and for as long as it suits each party.

The first four of the 6 Freedoms appeared  (links here) sporadically over the months since February 2009 and then, because of the very few comments made on the blog articles, I decided that the series didn’t have enough interest to continue them.  But I was wrong – as is evidenced by what people have said. Over the past few weeks I have had a question on the Pegasus Twitter (@pegasusnlp) as well as some emails asking when the series will be resumed (email address is “reg at pegasusnlp(dot)com”  – you’ll have to add the @ and the . because otherwise my spam will rocket!)

So then I checked the Blog stats and it does, indeed, appear as if the series has evoked quite a bit of interest.

As a result the next two in the series (plus a wondering-out-loud about a possible seventh) will appear over the next few days.

The latest Pegasus NLP Newsletter is about using NLP to prepare for important personal, social and business interactions.

Based on the Pegasus NLP version of the NLP Perceptual Positions Technique, which we call Different Perspectives, the newsletter provides tips for

1. Being clear about what you want
2. Determining how you will behave in the meeting
3. Identifying how the other person will likely to be approaching the meeting – and experiencing your communication with them
4. Ensuring you remain in pro-active rather than re-active mode if things are not going your way.

NLP can change lives. No question about it. But some workshops, and especially those in the high-energy, revivalist, ‘we teach through hypnosis’ camp, could do with having a sort of health warning attached as in ‘NLP could damage your relationships.’

For example, let’s say Jack is like most of us. He has high and low moods, is slightly neurotic with various fears and irritations, is sometimes chatty and sometimes withdrawn, is sometimes confident and sometimes doubts himself – in other words he’s a reasonably normal human being.

Jack also knows he could do more with his life and he decides that a quick dollop of NLP is just the thing for him. So he say’s goodbye to Jill, with whom he’s lived for some years, and heads off to his ‘transforming experience’ NLP workshop. Read the rest of this entry »

There has been some twittering/tweeting on @pegasusnlp about how wet and cold weather, especially in summer, negatively influences our moods – or seems to act as a trigger for us to feel less buoyant and cheerful. This has been evoked by July and August, here in the UK, being unseasonably cool, wet and windy.

So, as you can’t get much across in a Twitter 140 character message, I thought I’d raise the topic here.  This is more of a wondering blog post than a definitive clarification of what goes on.

If we use NLP to ‘model’ the experience of many of us looking out at the cool and wet August weather a number of things come to mind: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s interesting how many of us reasonably competent and well-adjusted human beings can be reduced to gibbering wrecks at the prospect of an important examination or interview.

For some of us the nervousness begins when the date of the event is announced. Once this occurs we immediately begin rehearsing for a disastrous interview or examination, for panicky feelings, for the inability to think, and so on. And as the event draws nearer our negative rehearsal becomes more realistic (since we’re done it so many times), our preparations become more frantic and our nervousness builds to an almost incapacitating level. We’re moving into panic. Read the rest of this entry »