NLP, the UK’s poor summer weather – and bus driving

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:

Anchoring: In NLP we consider an anchor to be the relationship between a stimulus or trigger and a mood: we learn to associate certain moods with certain triggers. When it come to weather many of us grow up in families where people treated wet and cool weather as a negative anchor – as a signal to feel gloomy or fed up – so we learned to do so, too.

Lifestyle: Lots of Northern Europeans take Mediterranean holidays in winter or spring because, even though the weather isn’t usually warm enough for sunbathing or swimming at that time of year, they do get to spend more time out of doors – eating outside, drinking outside and just strolling about. It lifts their spirits they say. Now this could involve  Seasonal Affective Disorder but maybe, just maybe, it might be to do with the fact that ‘back home’ they would spend the time looking out at the rain rather then buying good rain gear and spending more time outside…

Expectations: From about November many of us begin anticipating the balmy sunny days of summer – the period of three or four months of good weather which ‘keeps us going’. (In doing this we are, in effect discounting two-thirds of our year in the expectation of enjoying one third.) And when these expectations are not met – when this one-third of our year turns out to be wet and cool – we disappoint ourselves.

Rapport through misery: there’s a saying which goes roughly along the lines: ‘misery seeks companionship’. So if I’m miserable because of my response to the weather I’ll seek others who share my views and we’ll moan about it together. Instant rapport! At work, in queues, in waiting rooms, on buses and trains, etc., we can complain about the weather, about how our plans are spoiled, about how it affects us, about how this year’s weather is the worst for years, about global warming (“… and what about this here global warming then – we could do with a bit of that around here, I’m telling you!”)

Who’s driving your bus?:

When our moods are influenced by outside factors we’re not metaphorically driving our own buses. We’re back-seat passengers. Being driven along by other people, by the weather, by the media, and so on.

This is one of the key themes on our own Pegasus NLP ‘Core Skills’ course: how to begin driving one’s own bus more of the time rather than being a passive passenger. Because if my mood is being automatically influenced by factors over which I have no control then, obviously, I’m not in charge of me. Not a good place to be, really.

A while ago we were holidaying in south-west Cork. It was a warm June but on this day the weather changed and produced that special Irish version of rain – a steady, fine drizzle that can completely soak you in minutes. We were walking down Baltimore’s main street and passed our guesthouse. The elderly and very sprightly landlady was standing in her doorway, dressed in a wrap-around housecoat, looking out at the rain. I commented ‘Pity the weather’s changed!” to which she replied “Ah sure that’s lovely soft rain – good for the skin…”

She didn’t know about NLP and Reframing – she didn’t need to.