Relationships

The word relationship is derived from the Latin relates which means to bring back or restore, yet this term is most commonly used to refer to a state of connectedness between people; especially an emotional connection.

In Webster’s dictionary relationship refers to an aspect or quality that connects two or more things or parts as being or belonging or working together, or as being of the same kind. It is also defined as “the attitude or stance which two or more persons or groups assume towards one another”.

I’ve been thinking a lot about different relationships recently; when I first started to study NLP and Hypnosis I was amazed that there are people using these techniques and skills (some to an incredibly high degree) in some areas of their lives yet fail to utilise them in others. Thus creating incongruence between what they teach and how they behave.

I remember on my Practitioner training with McKenna Breen a decade or so ago, Michael Breen saying “there are people who talk the talk and others who walk the walk, when looking for further training make sure you choose someone who walks the walk”.

At the time I didn’t truly understand what he meant, until now ........................

Solution States

What are problems?

There are problems with problems, sounds silly I know but if you take that statement literally the major problem with problems is that they force us into thinking that something is wrong. When in reality the problematic result that we get is the right results for that particular strategy.

So what is a problem? A problem is a particular result that is different from what you wanted, or the difference between where you are now and where you want to be.

Most of us have been trained from a very early age to respond to problems by avoiding them, learning to move away from them which is very different from moving towards our goals. Looking at problems in a very different way through our perceptual filters – our model of the world.

Defining the problem

The first thing important in solving any problem is knowing your role in the problem. What did you do that created that result? Without a clear idea of your position in any situation you can’t be sure that your plan will work.

First of all get any negative thinking out of the way. Dissociate yourself from the situation and take another look. What is it about this particular event that makes this the right result?

A good place to start is to look at some basic presuppositions

1. The map is not the territory
This is just a way of saying that our beliefs and ideas about people, life and the world aren’t necessarily accurate. They are just a guide. People don’t act on things because of the way those things actually are but from their own personal thoughts of how they are. It may be that you have been following some old rules or guides in your work that are actually getting in your way rather than helping you.

2. All behaviour has some positive intent. People make the best choices they see are available to them at the time.
No matter how strange you may think someone’s behaviour is there is some good reason behind everything that they do. Sometimes it takes a while for it to make sense but with patience it will. Maybe you get stuck at certain times and don’t yet know why or maybe you are thinking of this situation in a particular way. This kind of thinking can make your task very difficult. If you assume that you have a good reason for being stuck, then it can change your way of thinking enough for you to find a better direction.

3. The meaning of the communication is the response you get.
Good communicators take responsibility for getting others to understand them. People respond to what they think they hear, see or understand. Assume that people are responding appropriately, if this isn’t the response you were looking for time to figure out how you got that response and what is needed to get the response you want.

4. There is no failure only feedback
Everything we do, successful or not, can be learned from. If we take results as feedback, they can teach us a lot about how to behave. People who kick themselves for their mistakes usually don’t take the time to carefully analyse the causes and effects; they’re too busy kicking. They don’t learn all they can. Those who don’t learn from their own history usually repeat it.

5. Everyone has all of the internal resources they need
People are resilient they are smart and capable. When they don’t’ seem to be any of these things it is because they are not in touch with their natural internal resources and strengths.

The statements here are designed to help you review how to make changes in your thought processes so that you can deal with “problems” differently, to get to grips with what is needed to achieve those goals.