This one will shock some people.
What if you find about your closest friend’s Facebook page that he “scored big” with the girl you like a lot? Do you confront him? Rat him out of your friends list? Ignore what he posted and shove the hurt somewhere down in a secret pocket of your heart?
What if you find out from a Tweet that your mother has planned a great vacation around the world, talked to all other close family relatives about it but she never mentioned it to you? Do you call her on it? Do you pretend you still don’t know? Do you behave “normally” like nothing happened?
What if you find out from your company’s official email to all employees that the position you were promised is now given to somebody else, somebody from outside the company, a newbie? And this after you talked to many people about your forthcoming promotion!
What do all of these experiences have in common? Well, as I’ve written elsewhere, they’re all part of the category called “life happens”.
People experience these kinds of things. Few decide to “fight it off”. Others sit down and “cry it out”. Others go to all the friends and relatives and complain, complain, complain. In fact everybody complains. Out and loud.
But for some, situations like the ones exemplified above act as encouragements to take a new step. The shock and surprise (if big enough) can act as a catalyst. It is like magically a new world opens up. These people try out new strategies – they date a new girl, they resign and find a new and better job and stop being offended by mom’s silence. And then, out of nowhere, with no particular reason, life changes show up. Something changed.
The family and close friends don’t recognize these people anymore. They say – “You’ve changed!” “You’re not the boy/girl, man/woman I used to know. What happened to you?” They assert that maybe something is wrong with you. How could you leave your old girl just like this? You must be out of your skull resigning your old job and surely you’ve been extremely lucky to get a new job. And surely mom has just forgetting to tell you wasn’t a big deal anyway.
Sounds like a report from the book of unfulfilled expectations.
It is a long-forgotten principle of human mind (in NLP we simply call this “focus on what you want”) that no matter what happens to you, you can fix that problem. You can still enjoy life and be happy. If you choose to, of course. But it is a matter of focus. What are you focusing on?
You can spend the rest of your life mistrusting all your friends because of the experience you just went through, you can begin to believe that you’ll never be promoted anywhere and you’ll never achieve what you want no matter how hard you work, you can blame your mom forever or,.. you can change your focus by changing something inside you so that you have different resources to deal with all these examples and more.
In order to understand a little how this works, let’s see some basic principles from NLP.
In NLP Practitioner, one of the first things we teach is a diagram of the NLP Communication Model. (Click on the link for a complete description of how this works).
The NLP Communication Model explains how out of just about 11 million bits of information received through your neurology every second, you select a pitiful amount of 126 or so bits which you delete, distort and generalize, filter through your experience of time, matter, energy, though your own values, beliefs, decisions, attitudes, and some others, and then what you’re left with is your internal representation of the outside reality.
Get that? It is not the “true” reality? It is only your interpretation of it. That’s why in NLP it is called the “Internal Representation”.
Now let’s take the following into account: One of the basic NLP Presuppositions (meaning basic beliefs) is “The map is not the territory.” What’s in your mind is not necessarily what’s happening in reality. It is unique to you.
What? Not everybody is the same?
Actually not. Not everybody’s inner map is the same. Of course, there are similarities which help us appreciate, connect with and relate to other people. But beyond that, our inner maps are unique.
There are things omitted, and there are things emphasized.
Wait a minute? This means you have a choice. You have a choice of selecting another map. You have a choice of being hurt and rejected by your girlfriend and betrayed by your best friend. You have a choice of staying in the same job after you’ve been refused promotion even if you were promised it. You can stay frustrated or disappointed that your mom did not talk to you about her plans. Or not,.
Depending on the level of hurt experienced, many times changing your inner map and Internal Representation so you can be more resourceful in dealing with the unexpected, is easier said than done.
But just by knowing that what you think and believe about an event is most of the time an incomplete and maybe even faulty reflection of reality, can help a lot. You might have lived your whole life believing something is so, but just because you believed in Fairy Tales didn’t make it so.
With that in mind, you can now begin to see that it is possible to change your old limiting beliefs and limiting decisions about yourself and others, beliefs and decisions which are part of your inner map. If you don’t know how to change your map, this could be a daunting task since it operates unconsciously and therefore automatically. And only by changing your inner map you can begin to focus on what you want. That’s the catch.
But you can let go of your negative emotions using Time Line Therapy®. And that will automatically change your map in many positive ways. What other technique you know that allows you to let go of negative emotions and limiting decisions from your past in a matter of 10 minutes each?
Would that make a difference in your inner map? Of course it would! It would improve it dramatically. Will it help you to focus on what you want? Certainly!
I hope that reading this article will give you a little insight on some aspects of your mind and that you realize now one important thing: you don’t have to be prisoner of bad things that happened to you in the past.
I also hope you’ll take the time to want to update your inner maps with new skills that will allow you to move forward with ease in your life. Because if mistaken or outdated, your inner maps can keep you stuck. Remember they work automatically (IE unconsciously). And they will keep producing the same experience of life over and over again.
This applies to all of us. No matter how good our life is right now, I cannot imagine it not being better.
Maybe I will see you in one of our future trainings. I am happy to discuss with you and assist you to change your personal “map” in a new way you desire. That’s a lot of fun.
Until next time, be well.
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