Newsletter: mentally changing moods…
When you’ve had a moment to read the newsletter add a comment and let me and others know about your experiences in using NLP or other methods to throw off a weary mood or attitude.
10 Responses to “Newsletter: mentally changing moods…”
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August 24th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
This arrived at just the right time! I have been feeling ill, stressed and depressed for weeks and the “same old routine” makes me want to scream! So, I will read the newsletter again tonight (after taking an alternative route home from the office of course!
and then see what changes I can make over the weekend. However, does anyone have any tips for coping with a non-NLP’d partner who is in a completely negative groove and always looks at the downside of everything? The moment I get home my happy mood just disappears and I am weary of trying to be positive in the face of the gloom! Clare
August 24th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
There’s potentially a whole other newsletter in your question, Clare. Meanwhile, the first thing to consider is the old NLP slogan ‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always got!’ This applies especially in relationships. If we respond to the other person’s behaviour in the old way we get the old responses.
But… if we respond differently then, possibly and after a while, they may begin to respond differently to this.
Typically, if our partner complains about how awful life is, we’re tempted to disagree with them and try to get them to see the bright side. But this rarely works. In fact, it usually makes them more convinced than ever that their view is right.
So ‘anything’ other than this will likely be a step in a new direction. Then you keep varying how you respond to them until they start to change their complaining.
That’s one thought - let’s see what other thoughts people have…
August 24th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
It was a real coincidence that I read the newsletter this evening. Only just last night I picked up my book on buddhism again (after months of not practising any of those ideas which I think have alot in common with NLP) in an attempt to reinforce a positive mood to fight against problems at work and only this morning I decided to walk to work (in an attempt at walking meditation to get me in the “right” frame of mind). Consequently I got to work feeling a lot more positive and cheery only to bite my children’s heads off when I went home at lunchtime! (Delayed response to what I had been “smilingly” suppressing towards my boss while at the same time I was telling myself that I was not irritated by him!). I find that although it’s possible to change your own mood and although I can more or less see that the same circumstances can be perceived differently according to the mood you create for yourself, it is another kettle of fish to not fall back into your “usual” mood as soon as you’re faced with just that little bit too much of what pushes your negative buttons (usually the boss, partner or children!) or even worse just suppress the bad mood until it finally explodes into an uncontrolled verbal attack on your first “victim”! Tracy
August 27th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
This is a really interesting discussion and seems to fall into two distinct areas, the one being about self-management and mind-body states; the other about managing our interactions with others.
A key (in the metaphorical sense) lies in the realisation that we have choices, not just in what we do but in how we feel in any given situation. A “mood” is a state of both mind and body and NLP has an enormous range of methods and techniques for breaking the pattern, de-fusing and subsituting alternative responses. (see NLP course handbook).
Relationships have their own ecology, especially if they are stable or have lasted a long time. Some dialogues may also become highly scripted and repetitive/predictable..
Reg’s advice about responding differently is very sound and reflects a strong body of research that helps people by looking at exceptions. Instead of getting bogged down by detailed analysis of why the problem occurs, it is sometimes much more effective to look at what makes a difference when the problem does not arise. When people are described as “always”..in a mood, depressed, irritable, bad-tempered the first step is to notice when they are not. Then the trick is to explore how they did it and then do more of what works.
I would suggest that it is always better to influence behaviour by extending the range of choices people have and let them see that they can determine more for themselves. When my partner says that the weather is “miserable”, I know it is just raining……..but above the clouds the sun is shining just as it always has. But sometimes people really want “miserable” and they only have choice if they can see (and feel) the alternative.
Partners are a whole area in themselves; spare a thought for all the partners of anyone that has just been on a NLP course.
Mik
August 28th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Hi Tracy
I agree with you about the similarities between NLP (or, at least, how we explore it in Pegasus NLP courses) and Buddhist thinking - and Taoist thinking, too.
And then there’s the thing about denying to yourself that you were irritated with your boss - so the children get it!
One of the things you’ll remember from your NLP training about Anchoring is that anchors bypass our positive thinking and our good intentions/resolutions! So, as long as an anchor (a relationship between some stimulus and our response to it) exists, it will influence our moods. And that’s a given!
There’s no point in giving ourselves a hard time for falling foul of an anchor. Better to use the opportunity to identify and replace the anchored response - or, if appropriate, discuss the matter with the other party (your boss, in this case).
You might like to check out these articles:
http://www.nlp-now.co.uk/nlp_anchor_hunt.htm
http://www.nlp-now.co.uk/calibrated_loops.htm.
August 28th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Hi Mik
Yes, I do think there is room for a support-group/network the long-suffering partners of NLPers! A few of us were (almost seriously) discussing this a while back.
It’d give them a place to share their experiences of being on the receiving end of a strange language, of never being able to win an argument, of being the first one to be experimented upon when the NLPer arrives back from their latest course, of never being ‘in the right’, of having their every mood analysed and explained to them, of never being allowed to really enjoy a good gripe or ‘misery session’…. and so on and on and on.
(Of course, this wouldn’t apply to the partners of Pegasus NLP people since the latter’s behaviour is, of course, both impeccable and exemplary… or is it?
)
September 5th, 2007 at 11:52 am
I just wanted to say that I really appreciate these emails. They are a useful prompt and reminder ………
Thanks
September 12th, 2007 at 11:42 am
late joing ! - all very well, but what does one do when both partners are NLP “trained”? guess we have to admit that even NLPers (?) are human? - or do we………
September 13th, 2007 at 7:01 am
Steady on, Gonesailing, ‘admit that even NLPers are human’?? That’s going a bit too far I’d say…
September 17th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Ohhhh! Did I open a whole can of worms? It’s great to hear all your opinions though. Over the weekend (I hope those of you on the Adventure had a good time?) I tried NOT responding to anything negative other than with a brief aknowledgement of whatever remark was made. So I smiled and said “oh, right” “oh dear” and “Oh, really?” a lot! At first there was confusion….WHAT? Clare isn’t trying to make my life wonderful and solve my every problem? Why not? Didn’t she hear what I just said?! After a while two things happened, one was that the moaning became somewhat muted since the person was not getting the usual response but couldn’t complain becuase I was being so nice!, and two was that I genuinely stopped worrying so much about it, like I’m not responsible for the job they choose to do, the money they earn and how fed up with it they are, any more than they are responsible for those things about me!
Getting off the point slightly, has anyone read “The Laws of Attraction”? It’s not about relationships as it sounds, it’s about attracting only the things you want into your life. I found the new-agey “messages from the collective consciousness” stuff a bit hard going, but have had some good results using the attraction tecniques. It’s worth suspending disbelief at the beginning of the book (if you are a bit cynical like me) and reading the whole thing.