Hi friends,

I really would like to share these principles of Neurolinguistic Programming with you.
You might want to research NLP by yourself some more, however. This is just to get you interested. NLP is one of the ingredients of Emotional Freedom Technique, but really a field of psychologfy which came up with a lot of interesting insights.

I translated this text from German late nights with little time, so consider it a rough version, hopefuly close enough to the authors intentions.


 

Basic Rules of Neurolinguistic Programming

From: Walter Luebeck, Handbuch des Spirituellen NLP

(Handbook of Spiritual NLP)

1. Communication is always taking place

It is not possible to not communicate. On the five levels of the senses, seeing, hearting, feeling, smelling and tasting, information is constantly being exchanged. The interpretation often is subconscious and all people, who are in reach of communication will be influenced one way or other. For example, the one who does not speak in a discussion only moves the accent of his active communication into the four other channels of communication which are available to the senses.

1. The purpose of the communication is the reaction it elicits.

If communication is effective can be tested by examening if the recipient of the information can understand what the sender wants. If he is unable to understand, no matter how well the intention of the sender was, the recipient is simply unable to follow. Also the message must be designed so that the recipient will act according to the intention of the sender....

3.       People react according to their model of reality, their ideas,

and not according to reality itself.

If 400 years ago you had told people about electric light, airplanes, or cars, probably they would have laughed about you. ... The generally accepted worldview, our map of reality, has changed and thereby the reactions of people to certain things. Today on the other hand many have difficulties with the idea that subtle forces could be real and influence peoples well being. 400 years ago hardly anyone would have doubted that.

4.       Body, mind/spirit (Geist) and soul are different aspects of the whole human being. Change in one part influences also the others.

You have surely have experienced it too: someone is very happy through a turn of events, and you see it in his body. He walks differently, his posture, his mimicry express his great inner joy. Similarly bodily harm can fill a mind with fear and affect his ability of logical thought. Modern body-oriented psychotherapies (bioenergetic, core energetics, Reich body work, etc.) use these connections systematically for the wellbeing of their clients.

5.       The most flexible person determines his social environment

If you are fixed on certain ways of behavior towards others you might get into some difficulties. If you give directions of work always in a tone of command you will create some resistance with people who are not used to that or who prefer more harmonious forms of behavior. If, on the other hand, you are not able to move lethargic people if necessary with a tone that cannot be ignored you will get stuck in certain situations. Whoever can command both modes and use them flexibly will be able to deal constructively with a wider range of problems. This way he will automatically more easily become a decision maker than others with a more limited range of options.

6.       Unhappy, sick people are not broken - they only use what they can and have in ways which don't fulfill their needs.

Someone who lives in harmony with himself and who accepts lovingly all he is, his needs, and his weaknesses, is happy and content. The one who tries to be somebody else and rejects parts of himself lives in conflict and spends his energy and time in useless struggles against his own identity. That causes unhappiness and disease. That is why people who want to live a good life only need to develop understanding for themselves, and let what they are express in ways that fit them. For example, the one who tries to make a career in a profession that doesn't fit him wastes his abilities. If he sought work that fits him he would have more recognition and success, and his creations would be more useful to the world.

7.       Everybody acts at any time as good as he can

Did you ever notice that you said to yourself: "Wow, if I had known that long ago, I would not have made that mistake!" That is surely right. Only you had to accumulate experiences up to this point in time and integrate them into your personality to be able to learn this important step. It simply was not possible yet at that time, and that is why you did something with a less satisfying result than you could do it today. In a few years you will think similarly about what you are doing now. So what?! We all change continuously, learn and become more competent. Allow yourself to accept your abilities of today, use them and to anticipate joyfully those things you will be better able to do tomorrow, because you decided to learn from your life.

8.       Any kind of behavior in some context is useful and valuable.

Imagine you constantly express yourself unclear, rarely live up to your word, preferably criticize others for their faults, and avoid to do something yourself and take actual responsibility. "That would be terrible!" you might think now. "Who would want to deal with me? I would be ruined in my profession. Nobody would take me serious any more!" Well, perhaps in your environment this kind of behavior is really not useful. But if you were a politician you would have good chances for a steep career.

            This example might appear extreme, but think about it: there are so many different life situations, cultures and subcultures. No matter what you do: at least under some circumstances it would be purposeful to act that way.

9.       The more choices a person can use for the creation of his life the less conflict and the more contentment he will have in his life.

A high degree of adaptability enabled people to survive even under extreme environmental conditions. Think only of the Eskimos or the Aborigines in the deserts of Australia. Who is not flexible is worn out in the continuously changing situations of life. A smart man once said: "The only constant in life is change," and I believe we both can agree with him according to our experiences. Because flexibility is so important in life it is an important part of every NLP counseling to create more possibilities of choice for problem solving. Something will function well eventually. Someone who can only deal in his way with problems has bad cards when his habitual way fails.

10.    Everybody is able to reach everything - in his own way

Years ago I met an important person. He was small, disabled from birth, sitting in a wheel chair. He didn't have much strength in his arms and needed help with eating. Before I met him I would surely have thought, "what can someone like that do with his life." Now, this man taught me better and I am very grateful to him for that. He plays keyboards and different blowing-instruments, gives cabaret shows with others, organizes shows, and wrote an interesting book. He lives in his way and makes the best of what he has.

            Everybody who tries to do things like others will reach less than the original and require more effort and time. But who marches towards his goal in his special way will also reach special heights. If Einstein had tried to paint like Dali he would have missed many wonderful relevations about time and space. And had Dali tried to compose music like Karajan many beautiful and phantastic pictures would not have been painted. Instead the world would have had another mediocre, frustrated conductor. How did Frankie-boy Sinatra say: "I've done it my way."

11.    Everybody has already everything he needs to manage the problems of his life - he must only learn to use it the right way

Between us: actually you know exactly what makes you happy and content, don't you? Why don't you live that way then? Okay, I believe I know some of the answers, such as: "It's not possible. What would the others think! That's amoral. I don't know how I can get it. I don't deserve that. If I did that I would cause problems and I don't want that. It is exhausting and I am not used to it." And so on.

            Well, you know what you need to get along in life, but you don't know, how you can fit it into your life in the right way. And that is an important goal of NLP.

12.    There is no failure, only results

You might have failed repeatedly, or at least think you did. Why I say that, you want to know? Well, let's assume you always had bad grades in math and Latin. That was bad. That's why you couldn't study medicine, as your parents had liked to see, but became a designer what you always liked anyway. That was good for you. Looking back you could say that you created your way through school successfully so that you could become a designer. Crazy? Well, as life plays. But maybe you are still miserable today about the bad grades in math and Latin and feel inferior. Then it would be time to drop that heavy load from your shoulders and give yourself a slap on the back. Because you did very well in creating the right thing for you in the long run. And that deserves a big applause.

            If you are not content with the results of your actions consider carefully if they do not suffice for the satisfaction of your needs, if you placed a scale of values of others over your own values, or if maybe through unexpected results a worse outcome was avoided (as in above example). If you manage to consistently come up with results that don't lead to success and reward in your current life circumstances consider if there are other circumstances that kind of ask for these achievements. Of the result of an action is considered to be a success or a failure depends on the perspective and the circumstances. More about this you will find in the chapter on "reframing."

13.    Problems taste better in small portions

Any problem can be solved if the steps to its solution are small enough. What do you think? Can you eat a whole apple cake at once? If your mouth is constructed similar to mine it will not work. But that is exactly how people often deal with difficulties. If they can't manage to solve a problem instant5ly and completely they often conclude that they can't handle it. To come back to the apple cake: If you eat one or two pieces every day you will finish it easily in a few days, and you will enjoy it. Try this strategy sometimes with your problems. Don't do everything at once, but break things down into small pieces, so that the managing of problems which appear too big at first becomes easy and fun. In NLP language this is called "chunking down." Taoist philosophy says: "The longest voyage begins with the first step." When you get more practice you can attempt to swallow larger portions of your problem cake. We call that:" To chunk up."

14.    There is a good intention behind every problematic behavior

Some people who want to stop smoking treat the part of their self that is responsible for their dependency as an enemy. By my experience that misses the facts by far. In the long run smoking is certainly damaging. But in the short run it can be helpful to reduce stress, to dampen frustrations, to initiate or maintain social contacts - look at the groups of smokers at work or in seminaries - , to obtain moments of rest and many other benefits. The part of the subconscious, which is responsible for smoking, does not plan anything bad. It even would according to the experience of many therapists choose more beneficial ways to satisfy these needs if they would work as well and are as easily available. NLP assumes that any behavior, no matter how insane it appears, is the most appropriate and useful a person can do to manage the circumstances of his life in the short run according to the current perspective of his subconscious. If this positive intention is assumed in therapy the subconscious becomes much more cooperative with finding a solution to the problem than if it is treated as the enemy. Whatever you love is your friend. What you hate, fear or despise, is your enemy. Always!

15.    The more you are aware of the more you can use for yourself

No matter how beautiful the flowers on you way - if you pass them caught up in thinking or fixed on a goal, you will not enjoy them. If you have not learned to recognize the use of a hammer for attaching nails, even with ten hammers around you, you will still use the heel of your shoe to try and get the nails into the wall. Be aware of what is going on around you and try to grasp the sense in it. That is practical spirituality (esoteric). A spiritual wisdom says: "At the finish line you will only receive what you have collected on the way." Someone who doesn't recognize anything on the way  cannot collect anything and is in the end where he was in the beginning. He might only have spent a lot of time moving in circles. However, this can be changed, for example with NLP, even after the fact. For the subconscious part of humans is much more awake than the conscious part. With the help of the subconscious many important presents of the way can still be collected at the goal. And so the exhausted, frustrated looser can still be turned into a winner, who will at least remember one lesson: "Consciousness is the key to happiness!"

16.    The more you love the more power you have

In the spiritual sense love means, as described above, to be in resonance with others, to recognize oneself in them or to feel with them. If you can melt into another - without giving yourself up in any form, which is an important secret - so that you swing with him completely, you can influence him just as you can influence yourself. Of course here also lies the power in the circumference of the own development. Many great healers and spiritual teachers work in this way. The more a therapist can feel with his client the more he can help him to come to himself, to become whole and thereby healthy again (see: "pacing" and "rapport" in NLP language). Love is the greatest power - and the only one that cannot be misused. For who swings fully with another hurts himself when he hurts the other. To come back to the above mentioned secret: before a person can open one's heart for others completely he first must be at ease with himself. He must learn to accept his "I", to develop and use it purposefully.  

17.    The more you take responsibility for that which concerns you the more free you become

Everybody who thinks of himself as a poor, powerless victim of circumstances will have few opportunities to get what he needs to be happy. He is completely dependent on the other he assumes to be so rich and powerful. The politicians, the parents, the children, society, industry, karma, or the "negative forces" can jump around with you, and you are helpless - if you decide so. For with your decision for powerlessness you create a vacuum of power. And nature tries to fill any vacuum as quickly as possible. So it is not the fault of "others" when you give up the control of self- responsibility for your life. Of course in a way it can be comfortable to be a slave. But is that what you really want? If not, decide for you, for your individuality and freedom. Take back your power and begin to take your life in your own hands. I don't know anybody who did that and was not soon much more content than in the old times without self-responsibility. You are the master of your life. Only the one who accepts the birthday present of personal freedom of decision, which the creative power placed in your crib, and uses it can co-create with God and support the development of life in a spiritual sense. The others, in the mean time, make excuses and say that, because they are powerless, they are not responsible for anything anyway.

18.    You are only really successful if you are happy and spread happiness

Your bank account can be full, your life style lavish, your degrees can fill walls, - if you are not completely happy your life is not a success. If you feel good, but don't help others with your abundance, if you don't support them in their constant striving for happiness, in a holistic sense your life is useless. In that case you are not contributing to the development of your environment and thereby to a larger part of creation. Who supports the creation is supported by creation, if he allows it.

19.   If you want to solve conflicts find the goals of both parties and help them to realize them both by cooperation

Conflicts between different people or also inside one person come into existence when it appears to the different parties involved in the conflict that their needs exclude each other and cannot be fulfilled simultaneously. If the attempt is made, as is unfortunately often still the case, to enforce one goal against the resistance and on cost of the others, the conflict is only removed in time and space, but not solved. Everybody whose needs were ignored or suppressed is waiting for his turn. Of course again by suppressing other peoples needs who then try to get their turn to satisfy their needs...This is the vicious cycle we daily follow in the news.

            Now, there is a tested way of problem solving which applies in the macro world of society as well as in the micro world of various parts of a personality. Thereby the common goal which includes all individual goals of the various parties - in NLP language the "meta goal" is isolated and then pursued by all parts. This way nobody looses and there is no shift or protraction of the conflict. This kind of dealing with conflicts is called the win-win method, because there are no losers.

            For example, some people have the problem to want to loose weight and "fight" hard against the pounds. Of course that only works with sacrifice and usually not for long. Why? Well, the part responsible for the "overweight' maybe is trying to do something important, for example a ,short term adjustment to stress in order to protect the nervous system. The part responsible for the desire to loose weight maybe also tries to avoid a crisis which results in the long run from the change in appearance and the strain on the circulation system and the inner organs. In truth both parts want something good. If these subconscious parts of the personality are brought into communication with each other, for example through a method like NLP,  some stress will be resolved because both parts learn to understand the good intention of the other. If they accept each other and their different desires in principle the process can continue. With the help of a NLP-technique called "reframing" both can search for a realistic solution which satisfies all intentions.

20.    Healing and development are two names for the same process

If you are sick or unhappy you might be stuck in difficulties which go beyond your current abilities of coping with life. If you want to solve these problems there is only one way: to learn. Or learn to learn and then learn.

In any case, if you go the way of growth at some point you will be big enough not to fall into the ditch that trapped you as a little boy. Now you can step out of it easily.

But be sure, there will be more. The art is to be mindful and watch the ground in front of your feet. Not behind you, not where your feet are, not too far ahead. Just on the point where you will place the next step. If there is another deep hole, sit down at the edge of the crater, observe it carefully, learn from this safe position and grow. Until you are too bid to fall into the hole. Then you can continue until you meet the next trap. But now you know the game and it might actually become fun.

21.    Every human being consists of many functional cycles (subpersonalities). The more of them are considered in his plan of life the stronger, more flexible, healthier, and happier he is

In the course of our life we develop a huge amount of specialists working in our subconscious. One for dealing with difficult people; one for dancing tango; one for skiing; one for tenderness, and so on. Some of these are not respecdted according to their abilities and vegetate at the edge of the personality as unrecognized and unloved geniuses. If you deal consciously and lovingly with yourself and your abilities these underdogs will eventually resurface and ease your life with their subspecialties.

22.   Who learns and teaches is alive

The difference between teaching and learning is only that a certain condition is being experienced under different perspectives. The teacher needs the students for his experience as the students need him for theirs. It is a common way and it is best if the commonality of the experience is not forgotten in face of the different perspectives.

            In its essence life is learning and teaching. That's what we are here for on this level of existence. That is how we develop and how we take part in the development of the whole creation if we want to. Someone who thinks he doesn't need to learn any more decided for death, for leaving this world. He doesn't want to grow any more. And what doesn't grow dies. That can be observed in nature every day. The one who doesn't want to teach does not want to contribute his experience, knowledge and enthusiasm to the development of the whole system of creation. He doesn't care about the system. For what doesn't carry fruit does not help with the nourishment of others and doesn't support the maintenance of life through reproduction. And who does not support the growth, even though he could, is somehow convinced that it is not important to maintain the system. Because if he thought it was important he would take care of it...

            The system in its wholeness, again, is this level of creation. Who does not want to take part in it, for whatever reasons, has decided to leave it behind. Well, maybe he just needs a little rest before he jumps back into the struggle. That can be a part of the natural harmony of opposites. Whatever decision you may choose, be sure, that you agree to the consequences of your decision and then stand up to it. For, in the end, you are the master of your life.

23.    If the most flexible part of a living system uses his power under consideration of the three basic spiritual principles "development of consciousness," "increase of the ability to love," and "strengthening of self-responsibility" it is supporting the spiritual development of the whole system

We discussed already that the person with the greatest variety of choices for his behavior is the most flexible and best able to create his life and his environment according to his purposes. But is every use of power that results from these abilities spiritual? According to my opinion only if the power is being used with the consideration of the three spiritual principles "love", "self responsibility" and "consciousness". If the exercise of power supports in everyone concerned the increase of these three qualities, around the original carrier of power an environment of people will be created who will develop their own abilities by helping him.

            If you have power and don't want to stand around carrying the burden of the system all by yourself, use it in order to support the people, who want to grow, along the lines of the three spiritual principles until they can walk by themselves.              

24.    Disease means separation - health means to create unity

According to the esoteric law of Hermes Trismegistos, a great teacher of old, "What is inside, is also outside" and "As above, so below." Therefore in every human being we find the whole creation. And in the creation we find all parts of a human being. A hint to the truth of these sayings was found by science when it was discovered that every little cell of a human body contains all the information for the development of the whole body. The world is a hologram. If something in the environment is rejected, we find an echo of this separation in the body. The stronger the rejection, or hate, or envy, the stronger is the rebound, the separation from a part of the self. Everything that is rejected from the wholeness of the body becomes afraid and fights for survival, for recognition. Separation in the body happens through tension and cramps. These cause automatically a reduction in blood circulation and thereby nutrients. Also removal of metabolic products is reduced. Who does not want to go through life any more might develop problems of circulation in the legs. Who doesn't want to carry his burden any more might contract his shoulder muscles and have pains. 

            In this way separation furthers all kinds of disease. By loving acceptance of parts that have been split off we create the conditions for all kinds of holistic healing. The sick learns to create unity and by this process of consciously releasing the separation he grows into a higher level of the ability to love.  (Which can be demonstrated with the new healing techniques of Emotional Freedom Technique and Quantum Touch, remark of translator)

Wow, looks like it worked. Have fun