How can the psycho-technology of NLP help you become a better flirt?

A wonderful state of affairs

We spend our entire waking [and some of our sleeping] life moving from state to state. At one time or another we have all experienced states of calm, excitement, confidence, joy, curiosity, compassion, love, contentedness, fun, freedom and much, much more.

The state we are in will greatly affect our behaviour in any given situation. It is much easier to pass an exam when we are confident. It is much easier to learn when we are curious and having fun. It is much easier to help people when we feel compassion. It is much easier to flirt with someone when we have certain states in place. We then become capable of creating great states in other people.

This is one of the major keys to flirting and indeed any human interaction. A sports coach will not motivate his clients if he is in a ‘couldn’t care less’ state. If he is motivated himself he will convey the sensations of motivation as he works with his client. When you go there first yourself, others follow much more easily and willingly.

You can use NLP to remember and recreate any states. AND, when you are at the peak of the state you can create a trigger that, when activated, will automatically recreate the state. We call these triggers anchors. Throughout our lives we have unconsciously picked up anchors for many states some good some not so useful.

I bet you have a piece of music that, when you hear it, causes you to remember in detail the sensations associated with something that occurred whilst listening to that music. Many couples have an ‘our song’. The music is an anchor to the states you experienced. When you play the music you are ‘firing’ the anchor.

Do not attempt to teach this stuff without proper NLP training and do not learn with people who have not been properly trained themselves. Always ask for their qualifications - look out for your self.

Here is a simple exercise for you to try. Read through the instructions then do the exercise.

1. Select some physical action that is easily re-doable. Some people make a fist, some people say a word to themselves, others see an object or a symbol. This will be your anchor.
2. Remember a time when you felt really confident. If you can’t immediately remember a situation, imagine what it would be like when you are confident or think about someone who exudes confidence. Become fully aware of what it is like when you or someone else is confident. What did you see? What did you hear? What did you feel and where did you feel what you felt. Notice where the feeling starts and where it moves to
3. Stay in the memory and get back that good feeling. When the feeling starts, imagine that it is getting bigger and spreading all round your body and returning to its source empowered. When you feel that the state at its peak, use your anchor – say the word you have chosen, do the physical action or visualise your object or scene or do a mixture of all three – it’s your choice.
4. Now think about what you had for breakfast. This is a way of breaking the state or getting back to ‘neutral’.
5. Wait a moment then activate your anchor i.e. do the physical action that you linked to the good feeling [see 3 above] . You will notice that the feelings, sights and sounds of ‘confidence’ begin to replay themselves in some degree. This is just a start and you can do much, much more to really recall and relive good states.

This very basic exercise has many additional and useful parts to it, and initially, it works even better when you have someone facilitating you. Skilled NLP practitioners know how to work with themselves and others to create great states and make permanent changes.

On the Flirting weekend we will think about what states you think are necessary to have in place in order to flirt successfully. We will consistently work on re-creating and anchoring these states until they become easily accessible. It is not necessary for you to have used NLP to attend this weekend, because as you learn from me and others you will find yourself beginning to use the stuff easily and elegantly.

Believing makes it so

What you believe about yourself and others will determine how you act. I have a girlfriend who has 2 film-star calibre sisters. My friend is not 'classically' beautiful but she exudes confidence and self-esteem by the bucket load. She draws to her all the people she needs to make her life a success. When she was young her mother and father constantly told her, ‘you are beautiful’ ‘you are clever’. . She told me that she believes she is beautiful. She wasn’t born with those beliefs – her parents programmed them into her.

If someone believes certain positive things about themselves, chances are that, even if they are not everyone’s ‘ideal’, they will be far more successful in developing relationships. There are tools in NLP that we can use to create and programme into ourselves new and empowering beliefs that, once integrated, will allow you to easily attract the people that are right for you.

We all have things we used to believe utterly and now don't. Santa Claus? The Tooth Fairy? We all have things that we completely and utterly believe. For example, do you believe that you have to breathe to live?

An exercise for you to try: As you stop for a moment to think about something that you truly believe in, notice what is going on. When you visualise where is the picture you see? How big is it? Does it have colour? What kinds of feelings do you get and where? Are you hearing anything, either your internal voice or an external voice? And when you think of something that you don’t really believe to be true of yourself but might like it to be so, notice the differences between that and a true belief. I suspect there will be differences in what you see, hear and where you feel it.

These differences are called submodalities. They are the details of your sensory experience. Hearing is a sensory experience, the tone of what you hear, the location, the pitch, tempo and timbre are submodalities of the experience of hearing.

When you see things in your mind's eye, the submodality differences occur in whether it the picture appears bright or dull, panoramic or small, coloured or black and white, moving or still, or whether we are seeing it from inside or viewing it from afar. There are specific submodalities associated with each of your senses. You can play with these and improve your outlook on life and the way you talk to yourself and what you feel.

We can use the methodologies of NLP to apply the submodalities of a true belief to one that we want to believe truly. . On the flirting weekend you will identify the beliefs you want to have about yourself but don’t YET and change them so that you experience them in the same way as you experience those true and immutable beliefs you already have.

Love that Language

Richard Bandler, the originator of NLP, started by asking himself what it was that excellent performers did that made them excellent as opposed to just mediocre. Many of the excellent performers he studied were therapists. These people were all superb communicators who were able to easily exert powerful influence on others. Bandler and John Grinder, his co-originator, distilled those differences of behaviour into learnable patterns.

They identified the language patterns of successful influential communication. One of the people they studied was the world-famous hypnotist, Milton Erikson. Bandler and Grinder discovered so many useful patterns of language from Milton Erikson, that they created the Milton Model of language.

When you begin to master the Milton model of language and you have in place the beliefs about yourself and as you create the right states for what you want to do, your abilities to influence others will soar.

On the Flirting Weekend we will be playing with these ‘hypnotic’ language patterns and noticing how they can be used to create great states and useful channels of thought in people you communicate with. We will learn to use these powerful tools with integrity so that everyone involved is a winner.

More to come after these messages

NLP and Influence

Is NLP manipulative? When you think of a kitchen knife you probably think of it as a tool to chop vegetables or cut bread. Some nutters might use the kitchen knife to inflict bodily harm on others. Where is the harm? In the knife or in the person who uses it. Should we ban everyone from owning kitchen knives because they could be used as lethal weapons? I think NOT!

There are medically qualified people who use their knowledge to cure people. Dr Crippen used his medical knowledge to systematically poison people. Medicine is not evil in itself. It is not the tool, but the user of the tool that creates good or bad situations. NLP is like a knife, it is a tool that can be used for good or evil.

I choose to use my NLP skills for good. When I enter any situation I ask myself whether I want it to be a win-lose or win-win. I know which I prefer, how about you?

During the Flirting Weekend we will be using many processes and activities to empower you to flirt successfully. We will be employing the tools of NLP to create in ourselves the beliefs, states and abilities that will greatly enhance your ability to flirt successfully. As you go through the weekend you will begin to notice changes in yourself and be aware of your new abilities to make things happen as you want them to happen.

Of the many different activities we will be engaged in during this weekend, some will be based on NLP some derived from other fields of personal development. All are designed to help you design and use your own personal flirting style.

One thing you can be sure of is that you will learn what you want to learn and take away what you need to take away when you decide that you are going to play full out and be open and curious to whatever it is that you need. On the Flirting Weekend you will learn how to apply the tools of NLP for a specific purpose but what you learn will also serve you, not only as an aid to superb flirting, but in every area of your life.