What We Believe

Firstly, we believe that words have a lot of power, and that the majority of our lives is determined by words; the words we say to ourselves, the words others say to us, and the words in symbolic form entering our consciousness from the environment, but also that the map is not the territory, or rather, the word is not the thing, only a representation of the thing it points to. For example, when we're in a restaurant and the waitress brings the menu over, we don't start eating the menu! We use it as a guide for the thing it represents; the food. The menu is not the thing, just like the lines on a map are not the actual roads, it is to be used as a tool to get you to the place, and the same is true of words... when words are treated as the things, we end up in a whole lot of trouble, dissatisfaction, unhappiness, pain and suffering.

See Over/Under Defined Terms and The Meta Model.

Finger/words pointing to the moon/message. 

Don't bite my finger, look where I am pointing.

We don't believe people are broke and need to be fixed. What we do believe is that everybody has made bad choices in his or her life. We believe everything that happens in our lives is a choice. Not necessarily that we can choose every little thing that happens in the universe, but that we can choose how to respond and behave. We also believe - or rather, we know - that the main reasons why people have made bad choices is because of the linguistically-challenged/ignorant folks in our lives. I'm talking about the parents, role models, preachers, the media... all these people have conditioned us to believe their bullshit. You know the ones, the teachers who say "you will never be artistic/musical," the school bullies: "you're a failure, you'll never succeed!" The parents who yelp "you're not good enough!" And the TV and magazines "you're ugly, you should be ashamed!"... and so on ad infinitum. The messages are there all the time spewing out of the mouths of the unconscious communicators of the world, like projectile vomit. Also, from the cunning preachers who know exactly what they're saying, and the effects of their words.

If it ain't broke... then how can it be fixed?

So, with knowing that everything we do is a choice, we believe that all of our actions are skills. Even the negative things like depressing ourselves, convincing ourselves we're no good, and that we will never be happy, etc.
We don't cure people, we generally challenge their limiting beliefs and perceptions in order to give them more choice in how they want to behave and respond in the world.

Regarding change: we don't believe change should take a long time, and in fact, doesn't. The brain just doesn't work like that. Whenever a change is made it is done instantly. Take someone with an addiction, for example: they may want to change for years on end, and may even take dozens of steps to overcoming their addiction, but at what point has the desired change been made? Because the whole time the desired outcome hasn't been achieved, nothing has been done. It's like trying; trying is failing. If I say I tried to open the door, it means I failed. The change happens at the very last moment, when a person says "enough!" and internally, on the neurological level a synapse fires and creates new neural pathways - literally rewiring the brain. The only time we have is Now, and it's funny how so many people procrastinate... and they do it immediately! My policy is if you're going to procrastinate, then do it tomorrow!

We believe that feeling good is good, and feeling bad is bad, and that you have the power to change that, if you want. But so many people actually make themselves feel bad and give lots of reasons why they do it. What we like to do is make people feel good... for no reason whatsoever.

You have everything you need... almost.

We believe that, as humans, we are born with everything we need to be happy, successful, motivated, loving, interesting and intelligent... but we weren't born with guides or instruction manuals on how exactly we go about doing those wonderful things. We are all apparently at the mercy of fate, and that whatever happens to us is impossible to change. But what if I told you this isn't the case at all? What if there was a set of simple to use tools to get what you want in life? Instruction manuals on how to use your own brain for a change? That would be great, wouldn't it? Well, that's the sole purpose of NLP. It is to find out what works, then do it. And what Richard, John and many others have done is create a set of tools that has infinite depth in its efficacy and application, that is staggeringly simple and completely consistent.

We are all born with with a mind, a body, a heart and a soul, the most powerful things in a humans' life. Imagine what you could achieve if you utilized all those to their full extent!

Practicality.

We don't believe that what we do is a science, or that anything we do needs scientific evidence or proof, because all we are interested in is doing what works, and if that makes no sense on paper, scientifically, then great! It doesn't change what we do or the results we get. If I say to you "according to science, it can't be done," and then proceed to do that very thing, does that mean that it never happened, or that it was a lie, or that the limits of science are stopping people from getting what they want, all because it hasn't been performed in a lab by men in white coats? Also, science fails to take into account the most powerful force in the universe - consciousness!

For us as therapists the truth is whatever works, because we want results, not theories. We want what works and we want it in the quickest and easiest ways possible. Those are our goals: speed, ease, and effectiveness.

While we believe that the unconscious is about 90% more powerful than the conscious, we don't actually believe in an unconscious. We call that a nominalization; it's a process word , a verb, that has been turned into a noun, a thing. We process most things unconsciously, and some things consciously. A large portion of what happens to us gets stored away in 'the unconscious' and we act on those things without really being aware of them. Examples of unconscious processes are: digestion, your heart beating, blood circulating, your eyelids closing when a fly comes right at your eye, and perhaps most interestingly (at least to us) - language. Language is almost entirely an unconscious process, and most importantly, the things in life we don't want. Because who in their right mind would consciously choose to suffer? But we say that it's all still a choice, we just have to know how.

As stated in my first post, we almost never ask why. We believe 'why' questions are largely unhelpful in achieving change. The main question we ask is how; we looking for processes, not reasons or justifications.

Above all, we believe that beliefs themselves should be useful and should serve us, rather than us be a servant to them. After all we did create them, and we can erase them too. Just imagine a world where nobody believed in their ability to achieve their goals... humanity would literally never evolve!

There is no such thing as failure, only feedback.

As a wise man once said, "The mind is a beautiful servant, but a dangerous master."

And finally...

We can't do everything!

While most Neuro-linguistic Programmers make lofty claims of being able to do the seemingly impossible, not everyone succeeds in this, though most of what we talk about is just expressed in a way to make it sound more difficult than it actually is (using unfamiliar jargon etc.), because a large portion of what we as humans can do is a lot simpler than we are led to believe, so we can - and do - achieve some of the things that seem impossible, but it would be foolish to think we can do the more serious things, like cure Cancer & Diabetes, attain immortality, achieve world peace and equality, and so on... most good NLPers are aware that some of the claims they make sound very grandiose and not feasible in reality, but we know that the human mind is an incredibly powerful machine, and while we have created and modified countless tools and techniques to do all kinds of wonderful things, we have barely scratched the surface in our abilities to use mind, body and soul in perfect harmony. As people who make a living doing change work, we - perhaps more than anyone else - believe in the power of the brain, and the ability of the individual to Be and Do way more than anybody ever imagined, and NLP is a field with infinite capacity and motivation to achieve the impossible.

As the saying goes... where there's a will, there is a way!

"Do not believe what I'm telling you, just because I say it. Verify everything in your own experience. If it works for you, use it. If not, forget it."