Sometimes we do things that seem to be a problem. But often, those “problem” behaviours or patterns of interaction actually give us something. They provide a way for us to experience something that we want. So as we look at a “problem” and chunk up to several levels behind the obvious, we can find that we all have hidden agendas.

Some people get angry if the person they arrange to meet at a specified time is late.

Maybe they really want happiness. If you ask them, “what does getting angry give you?” and then ask them “what does ___ give you?” you could discover that they really want happiness. So we might pursue that desire through a series of conditioned intermediate states that lead us to get angry when people are late. Now accepting people being late isn’t necessary the solution – but what if we can be happy while we are experiencing someone being late to meet us.

An old friend was going through a tough time once and said to me, “I’m going to look back on this terrible experience and laugh about it.” What I couldn’t understand – and what I asked her – was, “Why wait?” If you can have the state that you want now, why would you delay it and impose rules that stop you from getting what you ultimately want.

So, for me, Joanna’s session was about getting yourself back in the driver’s seat of your bus…

It was quite similar to some of the New Code (Dr John Grinder) patterns like Outcome-Intention-Consequences that we went through in the Practitioner the previous weekends.

I also appreciated Joanna giving her take on “What is NLP?” and a bit of background into the early development of the field. With her wealth of corporate and NLP experience, it was very insightful.

Thanks Joanna – we’re looking forward to next time!

(Coming up – 14 December at our favourite riverside location… with a Christmas Party!)

Event sponsored by REV - thanks again, Jeff!