Category Archives: Neuro-Linguistics

What Were You Thinking?

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What Were You Thinking?

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Whew! 15 years of work! Although this is book #5 for me, it was the most difficult to write – because it’s about ME and MY thinking errors (don’t you just love self-disclosure?!). The publisher says that if you use the code MVY7M9SU they will knock off $3. That’s about 20%. Nice!

What Were You Thinking?

Some Common Thinking Errors and What to Do About Them

Authored by Joseph Bennette

A critical look into how our magnificent brains can help us make the most of our lives – and get us into deep trouble. Fortunately, thanks to our big brains we have the capability to solve our own thinking errors – once we know what those errors are. Explore some common thinking errors and what you can do to prevent or correct them. From the introduction: Continue reading →

Clench for Willpower Boost

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Tempted? Clench your lip muscles shut!

Tempted? Clench your lip muscles shut!

A study reported in the Journal of Consumer Research says firming muscles can shore up self-control. Of course, it only works if the choice you are faced with is in alignment with your goals and the muscle clenching is done at the moment of highest self-control dilemma. For example, when faced with the choice to snag a high fat snack when your goal is to lose weight is the perfect time to clench your muscles – adding will-power to your self-control dilemma.

Apparently it doesn’t matter which muscles you clench – what matters is the timing. You must clench DURING a crisis of will-power – like when you’re staring that cigarette in the face! It doesn’t help – in fact it works to your detriment – to clench muscles before the temptation.

So, next time you feel the urge to break your diet, clench your lip muscles shut instead!

Study source: Iris W. Hung and Aparna A. Labroo. “From Firm Muscles to Firm Willpower: Understanding the Role of Embodied Cognition in Self-Regulation.” Journal of Consumer Research.

Don’t Stop?

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It takes more energy to stop a thought than to change it.

It takes more energy to stop a thought than to change it.

Thinking, that is! A study out of Case Western Reserve University shows that it takes more energy to stop a thought than to change it. No wonder it’s so hard to stop smoking or stop berating yourself or stop that tune that got stuck in your head. It just takes too much energy!

Some years ago, I underwent a year of intensive thought transformation in which a group of us focused attention on catching each other or sometimes even catch ourselves saying the “wrong” things – things that detracted us from our goals. “Try” was on the taboo list of words for obvious reasons – it holds a built-in failure. So, each time we’d hear one of us say the word, “try”, we’d say, “Cancel that!” The process seemed horribly difficult as we were catching each other often over that year. In the end, however, the goal was attained and my speech cleared up so much.

I wonder if we were unintentionally making it harder on ourselves by canceling (stopping) our thoughts instead of reframing them – sort of like nudging an asteroid instead of hitting it head-on.

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Proxy Addiction?

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Although questioning is important, asking the right question is much more important - and difficult to do.

Although questioning is important, asking the right question is much more important – and difficult to do.

Proxy or surrogate healing is the act of standing in for another during some kind of therapeutic process.

I consider myself a pretty pragmatic guy. I appreciate how important it is for us to have an answer or some kind of reason for why things happen as they do. We invent religions and gods to help us cope with what we don’t understand or fear. Even science has its own religion of sorts – always seeking to find that illusive reason why.

I, too, would love to know why. It’s in my nature to want to know. Although questioning is important, asking the right question is much more important – and difficult to do. In lieu of proper questions, I’ve often settled with poorly formed questions along with answers I’ve settled upon and defended – answers to the wrong questions or a question asked wrongly. Further, I have tended to put “reasons” behind my settled upon answers – a means by which I can protect my “truths” and make them seem right no matter their veracity. We call this process justification or rationalization.

For a moment, let’s dispense with all reasoning/justification/rationalization and simply look at cause and effect. Something happens and that causes something else to happen. Some cause and effect relationships we have experienced often enough that we feel that we can predict effect from cause.

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How You Say It Matters

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The space around our bodies is simply made for communication and perception.

The space around our bodies is simply made for communication and perception.

Scientists Tamar R. Makin, Meytal Wilf, and Ehud Zohary from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem along with Isabella Schwartz from Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital in Jerusalem wanted to investigate how hand amputations affect visuospatial perception in near space. Through a series of ingenious experiments, they discovered, “…that the possibility for action in near space shapes our perception – the space near our hands is really special, and our ability to move in that space affects how we perceive it.”

Another study, this time by researchers from Colgate University and Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands) revealed something NLP practitioners have known for some time: that congruent action and verbiage communicates messages far better than when there is incongruent action or speech.

The space around our bodies is simply made for communication and perception. When we move our hands, especially, in this space we affect perception – our own and others’. Science is just now showing us that the intuition and understanding of many NLP practitioners and teachers has some validity in fact.

When you shake your head and answer yes, your perception as well as the perception of others you are attempting to communicate with will feel confused and your message will probably be missed or at least be misunderstood.

Sources:
Article “Two Sides of the Same Coin: Speech and Gesture Mutually Interact to Enhance Comprehension” Psychological Science.
Barbara Isanski – Association for Psychological Science

Hemispheric Motivation to Achieve Goals

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Suppose you make a goal to slim down this year.

Suppose you make a goal to slim down this year.

Mathias Pessiglione, of the Brain & Spine Institute in Paris, and his colleagues showed that motivation could be subconscious – and can be associated with brain hemispheres. Apparently, you can be more motivated toward a goal if you face that goal with your most motivated side. Now THAT is some useful information!

Suppose you find yourself setting a goal but having difficulty achieving it. Maybe the reason is not environmental (i.e., you don’t make enough money), or internal in the way you might suppose (you’re not worthy or smart or good enough, etc.). Suppose the problem with non-achievement has to do with which way you physically turn your body in relation to “where” you represent your goal achievement to be in space.

For example, suppose you make a goal to slim down this year. So, you go about setting up a series of short term sub-goals to help you work your way up to achieving your longer range goal of having the body you want. Maybe you follow a goal achievement program and write your goal and sub-goals down. But at the end of the goal time frame, work as you may, your goal seems just as distant as when you started.

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A Competitive Edge – Employee Job Satisfaction

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Organizations and businesses are wise to invest in employee personal happiness.

Organizations and businesses are wise to invest in employee personal happiness.

“The benefits of a psychologically well work force are quite consequential to employers, especially so in our highly troubled economic environment,” Kansas State University researcher Thomas Wright said in a recent article published in the Journal of Management. “Simply put, psychologically well employees are better performers. Since higher employee performance is inextricably tied to an organization’s bottom line, employee well-being can play a key role in establishing a competitive advantage.”

Methods to improve well-being include assisting workers so they fit their jobs more closely, providing social support to help reduce the negative impact of stressful jobs, and teaching optimism to emphasize positive thought patterns.

None of this is new to those NLP practitioners and coaches working with organizations. The importance of this report is as it relates to a business’ competitive edge. In today’s market of rapidly diminishing returns on investment (ROI), perhaps the best ROI is that invested in employee job satisfaction. And to do that, organizations and businesses are wise to invest in employee personal happiness.

The job is not entirely what makes people happy. People can make themselves happy with their jobs. To be happy you must either do a job you love or love the job you do. Either way, you love your job. And when you love your job, magic occurs. Oh, yes, indeed!!

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Blood-red Glasses

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"This suggests these people feel betrayed by others. In turn, they see otherwise neutral actions as hostile and behave badly towards others."

“This suggests these people feel betrayed by others. In turn, they see otherwise neutral actions as hostile and behave badly towards others.”

According to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association, people who feel socially rejected are more likely to see others’ actions as hostile and are more likely to behave in hurtful ways toward people they have never even met.

They’re seeing life through blood red colored glasses – tailored to them by their environment of rejection and exclusion.

“Prior case studies show the majority of school shooters have experienced chronic peer rejection,” said the study’s lead author, C. Nathan DeWall, Ph.D., from the University of Kentucky. “And while not everyone who feels rejected reacts violently, we found they tend to act out aggressively in other ways. We wanted to help explain psychologically why this happens.”

“Across all experiments, the participants who experienced some form of social rejection acted in similar ways,” said DeWall. “This suggests these people feel betrayed by others. In turn, they see otherwise neutral actions as hostile and behave badly towards others.”

Prior research has examined whether emotions play a role in this type of aggression, but this study’s researchers say their findings do not support this idea. “Excluded people see the world through blood-colored glasses and it is our hope that this research can lead to a better understanding of why rejection causes aggression and what we can do to prevent such unwanted and harmful behavior,” said DeWall.

I’m left wondering if this is another case of which came first – the isolation or the perception of isolation and rejection that then appeared as isolation?

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About Physical Sensation and Therapy

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Sight and touch are connected in the brain.

Sight and touch are connected in the brain.

Reported in Medical News Today, a study by University of Southern California shows a direct relationship between sight and feeling. When you see something, you tend to feel it also. Further, when you recall the sight of something, you also retrieve the memory of how it feels to touch what you saw.

I suggest that not only do you feel the sensation of the items you see, you also feel the sensations you felt at the time you saw whatever it was you saw. It’s a memory “package” that includes all sensory and emotional elements involved in the experience.

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