In “Who Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?” Internet marketing consultant, Karri Flatla, talks about the difference between being in “small business” and being a true “entrepreneur.” Karri illustrates why our language and how we perceive ourselves really does matter to our success as professionals. Click here to read the article.
HNLP Fundamentals
In How Do You Know You Are You? I talked about how our belief systems are the filters through which we experience reality.
THOUGHT POWER + BELIEF
= EMOTIONS
= BEHAVIOR & ACTION
= REACTION TO THE WORLD
= EGO IDENTITY
This formula explains how we decide who we are, who we have been, and who we will be tomorrow. How, then, can we redesign what is occurring in our minds so as to redesign our lives?
Through time we develop our own map of the world. This map does not represent the world in truth, yet it is the best map we have to assist us in surviving this thing called life. Our map is a culmination of every rationalization we’ve made based upon the evidence we’ve experienced. We are, in effect, “meaning-making†creatures.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending upon your point of view—the meanings we create are not reality itself but serve only to paint our individual map of reality, flawed and limiting as it may be. At a very young age, we create these mind maps and set about using them to transverse life’s rugged terrain. As we encounter new experiences, we filter the resulting sensory input through what we have already learned about our world. Then one of three things happens:
More often than not, we choose either 2 or 3, continuing to navigate our world with an impoverished map of reality. In turn, we create a life with limited choices. This leaves us feeling, thinking, and acting like a victim. Is there a way out of the circle we have been caught in, this wheel that seemingly spins without purpose or direction?
YES! The answer lies within this simple formula and is the foundation of Humanistic NLP:
IMAGINATION + EMOTION + LANGUAGE = MANIFESTATION
A common example of how this dynamic plays out in life is if we have had to endure painful, even abusive, childhoods. It is important to honor the emotions we have carried from those experiences, but it is a further tragedy to spend our adult years continuing unresolved pains of the past as if they were still happening today. The one true thing we can say about the past is that it is no longer here. What is here now, in our adult lives, is our ability to ascribe new meaning to the past, a meaning very different from what we created as children. As children we function with a somewhat limited level of wisdom and resources. As adults, however, we have greater wisdom and resources at our disposal and thus the ability to create deeper understanding of what is possible, of what is real.
The only moment of power is NOW!!! We stand at a cross roads every minute, one road being the addictive thought processes that dwell endlessly in the past, the other road being the blossoming of our potential genius. Each one of us is a thread in the tapestry of Humanity. We have a Destiny to fulfill, a Genius to awaken within, a Potential to realize. Yet, until we master our imagination, emotions, and language, the tapestry continues to be degraded by the absence of our full participation.
Stop wasting time. Whatever has brought you to the reality you now experience, your life remains precious. Your destiny is remarkable.
A lesson in the power of language.
The three pillars of Neuro-Linguistic Programming are (1) language, (2) imagination and (3) emotion. While imagination and emotion are often discussed esoterically, language is this tangible thing that is acting upon us and coming from us all of the time. It shapes our culture and forms the foundation of our relationships with one another and, more importantly, with ourselves.
Yet, how often have you taken the power of language for granted? Like the oxygen we breathe, we rarely give it a second thought until something painful happens to make us reconsider our actions, our words, the messages we have put out to the universe.
Language is the tool that directs our thinking, and whatever you are thinking about—whatever your mind is focused on—will determine your success or your failure. How many times though have you said to yourself “I am going to change my thinking,†but all you did was try to change your thinking?(!) This is an exercise in futility. The easiest way to change how you think is to change your language, both internally and externally.
If you continuously language your communications to align with your personal vision of success and abundance, you are, in effect, directing your subconscious mind toward that goal. The same is true of your negative thoughts. If you are constantly expecting the worst, talking about your fears, imagining the future cloaked in possible failure, you will draw those experiences toward you.
We employ just 10% of our mental capacity while the other 90% lies dormant at the subconscious level. What would our lives be like if we learned how to program the infinite capacity of our minds toward our goals and outcomes?
Here are some little known facts about the subconscious mind:
What we require to accomplish is the study of how to awaken and direct our subconscious minds toward our goals. Language is a bridge to this awakening.
The subject on which you are dwelling is the temple at which you pray. Either the God of your negative thought forms or the God of your positive thought forms will answer. Your present day reality is a culmination of answers to your past thoughts. You have brought those answers into manifestation by what you consistently dwelt upon and “languaged†to be real. Because of the delay of time, you have forgotten what you called into being and thus created for yourself.
How will you recreate your tomorrows using the Power of Language?
That is a credo I live by and I thought it was worth sharing with you before we discuss the power of language in this week’s feature article. Those of us who study the principles of NLP understand, on a very deep level, that language is much more than mere words we eject into our environment. Language is a force unto itself and it dwells between us, around us, and inside us.
As someone who spends a lot of time traveling and speaking to people all over the world, I’ve come to appreciate the power of language and its ability to transform people. But my real work comes when I am able to help people quiet the dialog they have with themselves each day, when I can help them then recreate that conversation into something completely realigned with a new dream for their reality.
I am constantly amazed and saddened by how many people in the western world are living in war zone conditions, conditions occurring nowhere but in the grey matter between their ears. Our world seems so chaotic, so random, and so unfair at times that it is difficult to believe we each have the power to effect positive and lasting change. Yet until the individual resolves the war within, there will be war without. And until you align the language of your mind and the words from your lips with the reality you desire, peace cannot be.
So, I think the world really can become a better place, if just a few words at a time.