Modern Jedi NLP Mind Mastery

Posts Tagged ‘Unconscious Mind’

What’s the difference between being brainwashed and being influenced?

And by the way I’m not suggesting that you totally agree with everything in this post because I’m a nice guy and have your best interests at heart.

It’s just that you know there are times when you find yourself suddenly craving a big Mac or salivating about that new GM muscle car or the new Ford mustang or just absolutely have to have those special tooth whitening strips so you’ll be more attractive…

And moments before you watched the commercial or read the ad, you weren’t even thinking about it.

The question is….are you being brainwashed? Or just influenced?

According to my secret sources in the US Military, for brainwashing to be present all 5 of the following conditions must be met. So ask yourself now

1. Have you been removed from your normal environment of influence or confined to the “compound” and not allowed to leave no contact with “outside”?
2. Have you been deprived of sleep getting less than 6 hours per night? (psst are your children brainwashing you?)
3. Are you given emotional, physical or psychological pain or punishment if you disagree?
4. Do you get pleasure or rewards if you agree to “get with the program”?
5. Has your bio-chemistry been forcibly changed through diet or drugs?

Now maybe one or two of these elements are present in your marriage, your job, your sports team, church, chamber of commerce, fraternity or sorority, etc.

But remember, all 5 elements must be present for more than a weekend. After all it may take a bit of time to be internalized into your unconscious mind.

Now. You don’t have to think about army basic training or “bootcamp” unless of course you want to…But if you were to think about it imagine this:

1. You are far from home and confined to some sweltering, mosquito infested “base”
2. You are woken up at the crack of dawn every day by scratchy recording of a bugle playing reveille. When you least expect it they wake you up in the middle of the night for “drills”.
3. If you don’t “get with the program” you are shouted at, made to do extreme physical penance (“GIVE ME 50 PUSH-UPS WORM”) and are subject to other emotional and psychological punishment.
4. If you get along and follow orders and are a good little soldier you get praise, awards, medals, shore leave, extra dessert etc.
5. Think about the food in the military! Just eating S.O.S and mountains of potatoes every day will change your bio chemistry.

I don’t know why but all of a sudden I’m thinking about this Christian summer camp I went to with my church youth group for a week the summer between 9th and 10 grade….

Hmmm.

1. I wasn’t in my normal environment. It was way nicer. A beautiful camp on a pristine lake in the mountains.
2. They kept us up late singing songs and woke us up really early. Averaged about 5 hours a night.
3. They didn’t shout or use overt physical pain. But they made use feel guilty as hell about all the impure thoughts we were having about the opposite (or same) sex. And all the sin we were carrying around with us. It felt painful to me. Very painful. So very, very painful. Forgive me Father for I have SINNED.
4. If you gave your life to Jesus you got applause and that special feeling of “getting with the program.” Plus some of the cutes girls were serious bible thumpers and I wanted “in” with them. ooooo more SIN for which I must feel shame and guilt!
5. Damn! No drugs or bizarre food. The food was good. For some people it was “better than home” Nobody was made to drink actual cool-aid or eat bugs.

So even though 4 out of 5 is pretty darn close, I managed to survive Christian summer camp with all my skepticism and doubts intact. Never underestimate the power of bad food or at least very different food to tip the brainwashing scales. It’s all in the details.

Now let’s talk about TV.

1. You are not isolated from your normal environment of influence. When you’re watching the tube you are most definitely in a zombie like trance but you are usually sitting on your own couch.
2. You’re sleep patterns are not interrupted. In fact many people prefer to fall asleep watching TV. There seem to be few reports of people sleep walking into a Hummer dealership with a bag of cash after falling asleep in front of the telly.
3. A really good commercial may remind you of the pain you are already in and may anchor pleasure to the idea that you can get out of pain by making a decision and taking action. Think about your hard earned dollars sneaking out your leaky, inefficient old windows… pain.
4. A master of influence will definitely link pleasure to his or her idea or outcome for you. … now think about how wonderful the snug, tight, energy efficient thermal windows will be as they save you bushels of cash over the next 30 years…
5. An argument could be made that McDonalds food will change your body chemistry and get you hooked. Or all those pharmaceutical ads for the weight loss drug (with the rectal leakage side effect) could get you hooked and change your bio chemistry. But you’re still in your own home and they have yet to figure out how to get the TV to dispense their stuff. Plus, the other elements of brainwashing must also be present and you can…always….

….turn….off…..the ……TV.

So in a nutshell, TV advertising, is not brainwashing. Ads may be powerful. They may be insidious. They may be persuasive. They get stuck like a sappy love song in your rostromedial pre-frontal cortex and play over and over again. They may be hugely influential. They may be hypnotic, mesmerizing and trance inducing. They may not always be a force for good in our lives.

But you can always hit the off button…so it ain’t brainwashing.

Now I know you didn’t totally agree with everything I’ve said in the past or right now or in the future so if there are other things you agree with me on feel free to leave a comment below or just think of me as a genius for the next few moments….that’s right…I know you’re wondering and it’s a good thing to wonder what NLP language patterns I’ve woven throughout this post that just might influence you to not just think of me as a genius but as someone who’s got your best interests at heart…

I’m not suggesting you leave your comments and questions below!But if you did leave a comment below what would you feel good about saying? Thanx! – Mark

© 2009 by Mark Shepard

Just got this question from one of my NLP students and clients. I’m sharing it with his permission.

Hi mark I am wondering before you do swish patterns and other NLP techniques, don’t we really have to clear our fears with the Timeline Therapy Techniques™?

When we worked together 1:1 and I was able to allow joy to come in my life for the first time, it was a good start but my other issues about living life and business issues are still coming up.

When a fear comes up should I do Timeline on myself with the issue to get it clear first?  In other words what is the checklist to follow for tools to use when a fear arises that is holding me back?  I feel at this point I  should be able to use the tools I am learning in your course and what I picked up at our breakthrough session .

I really understand that we are the only ones that can cure ourselves.  Thanks so much.

-Name Witheld

Here’s my response:

An important Key to NLP Success: As long as we’re alive stuff will come up. It’s like your Unconscious Mind  “gets” that it can release stuff now and so it keeps offering up new “layers” to be addressed. I also want to remind us all that when we do make a major shift to not discount it or negate it just because there is still more work to do. There will always be more to shift. That why it’s so cool to have a wide choice of NLP tools to choose from.

I find that when I clear something with timeline it typically stays cleared if I have gotten the root cause event. Sometimes, I’ve had to go back and clear a slightly different limiting decision that seemed to have the same root cause.

I prefer to do time line therapy techniques ® to clear the limiting decision and chain of negative emotions first. Then I’ll use the swish pattern to “program” the new response I want into my neurology. If you do a Swish pattern enough times it’s cool because the old negative “knee-jerk” trigger will now bring up the desired state or picture.

It’s hard to give a “check-list” of first do a. then b. then c. I tend to follow my intuition with what to do when.

What I love about NLP, Hypnosis, Time Line and EFT is that I can do a lot of things on my own to clear stuff that comes up at the moment it gets in my face. That’s one reason I truly believe in teaching my clients how to take charge of their own change rather than see me as the “curer” or “healer”.  That said, sometimes though we just can’t get enough leverage on our selves to shift something.  At those moments it can save a lot of time and angst to get help from a trained practitioner of NLP.

In those cases, I find it a lot easier to have someone else do it with me. That’s yet another benefit of the NLP Training because you not only learn how to do the NLP techniques on your own for yourself and for other people, but you actually get to take turns with the other students in being the “client” in our 4 day bootcamp. So you can clear a lot of your own stuff in the process of learning NLP. You also make friends with other people who “get” you and who are interested in clearing their own issues and blocks. So it makes a lot of sense to come to the training and then do trades afterward with the students you meet.

If I’m in a moment of  “challenge” and I just need to shift something immediately, I  use EFT.  I tap and speak the “set up phrase” LOUDLY! It seems the more emotion I have towards clearing something the more powerful EFT tapping is. If you’d like to learn more about EFT click here:  Get a free EFT Starter package

Here’s an example:

“Even though I thought I’d cleared this @#^&*$%!@$*%$!@# problem, I deeply and completely accept myself!”
I do a couple rounds unashamedly focusing on the problem and wallowing loudly in the whiny victim mode as much as I want while tapping the EFT acupressure points. I have so much fun with this that often that’s enough to snap me out of my funk!

Then I start feeding in positive how and why questions like:
“Even though I haven’t yet found and released the root cause event of this challenge, why do I deeply and completely accept myself?”

Finally I just tap on

“Why do I deeply and completely accept myself and why does it work out better than I can possibly imagine?”
“Why do I love myself? Why do I attract all the resources and assistance I need to clear this once and for all?”
Why do I resolve this in a way that’s even better than I can possibly imagine?”
etc.
Usually EFT clears  pretty much everything from headaches to limiting beliefs.

If it doesn’t do the job for a particular issue I will next use swish patterns and other NLP submodalities techniques to get relief.

If I’m still not shifting the issue, then I will call one of my students/colleagues and get them to do Time Line Therapy with me. Sometimes I can do Time line by myself but I tend to space out and drift off unless someone is there keeping me on track.

Depending upon the issue, when I can’t get enough leverage on my “stuff” by myself, I call Joann Dunsing or Joe Schroder or Kathy McAfee or Kim Kasperian.

Remember that Tiger Woods has a coach and Michael Jordan had a coach. One of my greatest and most humbling lessons is that sometimes it saves a lot of time and money to get with someone who can get you the results you can’t always get on your own.

I have even just handed the Time Line Therapy™ script to someone who knew nothing about it and just had them read the damn thing. It worked like a charm because it kept me on task. The script doesn’t do the clearing, we do. So as you learn various techniques approach using them on your own issues or “stuff” with an attitude of wanton curiosity and playfulness.

I hope that answered the question and was helpful for those of you who are working to “Defeat The Dark Side In Your Personal And Professional Life. Master Your Mind For A Change with NLP!” )

Why does it work out better than you can possibly imagine?

-Mark Shepard, NLPT
Certified Master Practitioner and Trainer of NLP, Hypnosis & Time Line Therapy™

p.s. Any questions or comments? Leave them below. Please pass this post along on Twitter, or Facebook or StumbleUpon etc.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

For a little taste of the training play the audio mp3 above from the Modern Jedi NLP Certification Live Training audios.

I start the NLP Training program off with a number of nested story loops inspired by the teaching tales of Milton Erickson …enjoy!

This first week we’ve been covering some of the core, foundation concepts of NLP…

• What the heck is NLP anyway?
• How we create our experience of reality (Reality. What a concept!)
• What is your unconscious mind and how does it affect you?
• What are the “presuppositions of NLP”, convenient beliefs that enable us to create remarkable results in our lives

Want to learn more? Since the new On-Line/Hands-On NLP course is designed for you to go at your own pace you can still join our current class! Defeat the Dark Side in Your Personal or Professional Life. Master Your Mind For A Change with NLP (For less than a latte)

Click here to discover: Modern Jedi NLP Trainings

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

This is Part 1 of a Question and Answer call about Mark Shepard’s Modern Jedi NLP Online Course (recorded 4/29/2009)

Introduction to the Modern Jedi NLP Online Course

• Convenient
• Affordable
• Multi-media
• NLP Community Master-Mind
• A few examples of Real People Using NLP Michael Guerin and Rob Bronson
• Graduates of this course will be able to be certified NLP Practitioners or they can just use the tools and techniques to improve their lives.

Q: What is NLP?

A: Neuro Linguistic Programming is all about how you run your mind. How you interpret the external world and make sense of it internally. It’s also the study of excellence. It’s also all about how you communicate with other people.

NLP is partly modeled on the work of Dr. Milton Erickson, MD “the father of Modern Hypnosis” as well as some of best Therapists, athletes, business people, etc.

Your behavior, thoughts, reactions, interpretations of the world, etc are under our control…if we knew how to access the “programs”. People can make incredible improvements in their lives, relationships and work rapidly.

Q: Can NLP help with changes where a person knows they should eat more vegetables but just never does?

A: Yes. I give a short introduction to NLP submodalities on the recording.

Q: A question about Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic channels of communication.

A: I give an example of making a quick change with a client using kinesthetic submodalities (over the phone while in the grocery store)

Q: How young can a client be and what intelligence level is needed for success with NLP?

A: Works great with kids. Works with all intelligence levels as long as a client can access their imagination.

Q: Can you explain about how your unconscious mind doesn’t recognize the difference between what is real and what is a memory or an imagined event?

A: Explained with example

Register for the Modern Jedi NLP Online Mind Mastery Course

This is Emily Bernard’s second post about the NLP personal breakthrough session we did to address the PTSD she was experiencing after having been stabbed 14 years ago. If you’re just joining the story you can get the Introduction and Part 1 here:

• PTSD Case Study Introduction
• PTSD Case Study Part 1

Emily Bernard writes:

“Mark and I began our first session with an interview. He asked me a series of questions about the problems—anxiety, fear, dread—I have experienced since I was stabbed in 1994.

His questions made me think.

They weren’t the usual “What happened? And then what happened?” kinds of queries. Mark’s questions put me in the center, if that makes sense.

Immediately, he was guiding me to reframe the event—and the enduring negative feelings created by my memory—so that I could see myself as having a role—not in what happened (the past is the past, of course), but in my subsequent reactions to it.

I once read somewhere that humans use only a small fraction of their enormous brain power throughout their lifetimes. It wasn’t that I felt my brain expanding as Mark and I talked, but his questions led me to a new doorway in my mind. Suddenly, the literature he sent me about the powers of the unconscious mind began to make sense. We have more control over what goes on inside of our heads than we often believe we do.

After more than an hour of this intensive interview, Mark and I broke for lunch. Again, I was impressed by his gentle spirit, his warmth and sparkle. He was as eager to get back to work as I was. So, after this short break, we began again.

The second part of our session involved reconstructing a timeline. Mark guided me back in time as I explored the roots of negative emotions and limiting decisions. We went further back than I was honestly comfortable with—at first. For me, I think the strength of this work is how much it pushed me to do and think things that I wasn’t comfortable with. It pushed me out of my comfort zone, and all those habitual ways of understanding and narrating myself and my relationship to the world.

Mark and I went into the recesses of my memory, and I found myself able to recount experiences that I had thought I had buried. I was able to speak about things that I had talked only to a few other people about.

Mark was not judgmental; his demeanor was calm and relaxed the entire time. Because I felt safe, I went further and further back. And before I knew it, I was ready to be hypnotized.”

- Emily Bernard

In part 3 I’ll share what those questions were that I asked Emily as well as key ways what I do is different from traditional therapy.

In part 4 Emily will share her experience of being hypnotized…

In the meantime if you’d like to:

Defeat the Dark Side and Master Your Mind For A Change.
Discover How You Can Learn NLP in 17 Minutes A Day For Less Than A Latte