Scion of NLP

Archive for August, 2009

Yesterday I put out a question to readers about what was one thing in life that you believed would make everything better (which I’m still open to receiving more responses if you haven’t sent one yet) … now, at this point in our story I really believed: “When I finally have the ‘Perfect, Healthy, Happy Relationship’ then everything in my life would be great!”

… and it’s really no surprise … considering the experiences growing up in a dysfunctional family combined with the need to ‘rescue’ people in order to have any level of self-esteem, it’s no wonder why my goal was focused around the ‘Perfect’ relationship! … but then it actually happened — I actually found her! Yep … believe it or not I found the perfect female counterpart. She lived in small town Saskatchewan and she had issues very similar to mine … family, friends, self-esteem, bleak future, etc. We were perfect for each other … simply because we complimented one another — when I was down she ‘rescued’ me and when she was unsure I ‘rescued’ her … it was the ultimate happy & co-dependent relationship!

So that’s how it went — I encouraged her to grow and change for the better, and she did the exact same for me … and things got better … there was even a point where she supported my crazy idea of pursuing this odd communication course called, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) … and that’s where I learned to transform myself & help others transform too … it should only get better from there, right? … or, at least, that’s what I expected …

Based on how I ended yesterday’s snippet I should clarify something — No, I do not have multiple personalities … (really! I took a vote and Me, Myself & I all agreed!) ;p

So, when I said that all the experiences of my youth happened to a completely different person, what I meant was that who I am today is nothing like the person I was when dealing with all those difficult experiences of my childhood. The kid that was trying so hard to figure out how to handle severe illness, extremely dysfunctional family issues, ongoing school bullying, etc. … that kid only had the unhealthy behaviors and thinking patterns which he had learned while growing up … that’s all he knew how to do in order to deal with all the sh*t Life was throwing at him …

The person I am today is someone who has overcome those habits of depression … I have much more choice … much more freedom of perception … and a much happier life!

Now, although I can tell you that I have the ability to beat down my depression, it does deserve a bit further of an explanation … it was kinda like overcoming an actual mountain of unhealthy habits … the act of climbing out of the valley with hope to reach the sunlit peak was a long and arduous journey … and it all started with one basic strategy: “Once [INSERT GOAL HERE] happens then everything will be better!” … and I would try that particular strategy over and over and over again … like an addict I was always looking for that “one quick fix” — the one thing that will solve ALL my problems.

After doing that with a long list of goals in my life I eventually found the one that would put me on the right path … & the solution was so simple — all it took was someone else’s life!

If our case study was a “feel-good” movie, this should be the climactic point where our protagonist turns his life around, suddenly gets all better, achieves the big victory and wins the heart of the damsel! … hmmmm … uhhhmmm … no … I hate to be the one to break it to ya, but that just ain’t real life my friends …

No, this kid didn’t get “all better” over-night … in fact, his depression never completely went away — now, I realize that at the end of yesterday’s piece I told you we’d look at the “cure” to Clinical Depression … and, when you pull it all apart, the truth is that the cure for Clinical Depression is exactly like the dis-ease itself; it’s not an end goal but rather a new set of behaviors that focus instead on positive perceptions … and, in the same way, they’re something a person must continually work to maintain in order to have on-going positive life experiences!

… so, in the true sense of the word, there really is no “cure” for Depression … however it CAN be “Overcome!” … which is what this kid went on to do — he eventually discovered how to control his perceptions so that he could experience a good life instead of the depressing one he had learned to perceive during his youth … and if you’re wondering, “Does Depression still dog the kid to this day?” — Oh, hell ya! … it’s kinda like the evil Voldomort in the Harry Potter movies; it keeps trying to come back and seize control, but with the magic of NLP he can dispel it back into the shadows of his past … simply because he recognizes what his mind is doing as it’s happening, and he has learned to acknowledge it without letting it take control of his life …

… I know this because (as many of you may have already guessed) the kid in our case study was ME … but, I’m no longer that melancholy kid bullied by his emotions … these days I’m so far separated from those experiences of my past that most times, when I think about them, I often feel as if they happened to a completely different person … because, as I’ll explain, they did …

Since we’ve covered the entire part of the case study that demonstrates the creation and development of behavioral patterns of depression, it is now time to start identifying the process by which each of the subsequent components were addressed and, eventually, solved … however, before we can do that I’d like to briefly review what our case study has shown us about depression:

• “Depression” is actually a learned perception … it’s a way of filtering one’s experiences to remove or downplay positive aspects of an event while distorting and generalizing the remaining awarenesses in order to fit one’s negative beliefs about life …
• Because of depression’s way of manipulating and twisting the person’s perceptions of “actual” experiences in order to make them congruent with the negative beliefs about life … when a person is in the deepest state of mental and emotional depression, ONLY negative thoughts and emotions can exist … thus, the only tool available to fight back will be their advanced skills of “selective perceptions” as a way to twist the “depressed view” of the facts to fit something more positive …
• Using negative emotions to drive this unhealthy habit of manipulated perception as a way to fight depression should be considered only a temporary “band-aid” solution for the worst case situations …
• Although it is possible to address the resulting internal negative self image of depression using external ‘Rescuer’ behaviors, this too will only provide short-term relief from the symptoms of depression and is unlikely to cure the dis-ease …
• In the end, Depression is a set of behaviors which focus on creating a negative cycle of perceptions — this means that Depression is not a single state of mind but rather it’s something one must continually feed with unhealthy habits in order to maintain the unpleasant feelings.

… hmmmm … all that seems kinda depressing doesn’t it? … so let’s start looking at the “cure” instead …

During an earlier part of our case study I briefly mentioned how the young boy in our story had tried to play the role of ‘Rescuer’ when his mother played the role of ‘Victim’ … and of course when he succeeded it made the little child very happy! — this lead to his decision that the only way he’d be worthy of having a happy life was to rescue everyone …

Being older now the young man still held that belief deep down inside, and it was that part of him which hungered so desperately for other people to notice him and praise him for being helpful and kind … and, like drugs, it became an addicting escape from all his self-recrimination … by the time he reached high-school it had consumed him — he was that kid in school who was always there for his friends … so much in fact that there were times his misguided kindness was taken advantage of …

Experiences which lead to any kind of emotional pain and suffering would simply plunge the teen back into the whirlpool of depression that was always churning inside him … his only means of pulling himself out was to turn his focus outward … to rescue the world and re-gain a tiny bit of self-esteem and hope …

It went on like this for years — hate the world … save the world … hate himself … like himself — back and forth over and over again … until he was able to find a better way to turn his life around … which is where Daniel (me!) comes into the story …

It’s interesting to note that the kid in our case study grew and learned in the same ways as most children — in the 0-5 year stage he soaked up all his mother’s unhealthy habits of depression without question. Following that stage, in the 6-13 years old stage, he started to try on the behaviors of people outside his family … he looked for role models and heroes trying to find people who commanded respect and never got picked on …

… now, you may be asking, “Who were those people? Didn’t they show him better options than anger and depression??” … to which I’ll ask, “Who were the people foremost in this kid’s awareness who NEVER got bullied?” … that’s right, the ‘Bullies’ themselves! … and so, that’s where he first learned how to use anger and hate to beat down his whiny, wussy, depressing perceptions …

.. but, following that stage in his life he began the 14-21 year old stage where a person begins creating their own individual identity … and it was in this stage (when he really looked at who he was) that the young man first realized how messed up his perceptions where & how they were limiting his choices in life … it was in this stage he recognized that he was the true cause of his own pain and suffering — HE was his own worst enemy! …

Now, having becoming aware of all this without any healthy ways to handle it, the kid simply went with what he had learned in childhood … more hate and anger — blaming himself now, instead of life — until, in the end, he simply became misanthrope … hating the world, hating life, and hating himself … however, there was hope — there was a better choice which he would quickly come to see!

People may think that anger, hate, fear, etc. may not be the best options for dealing with ‘Depression’ … however, most people don’t truly understand how the mind of a depressed person works …

Someone dealing with depression doesn’t know that how they are thinking is unhealthy — in fact, it’s the exact opposite! As someone with personal experience in this I can tell you that when one is depressed they actually believe they see things more clearly than the rest of the world … and the kid in our case study was exactly the same …

… this kid could have made a great lawyer! — he was well skilled in the art of debate because his mind had become quick & sharp at turning & twisting the facts in order to fit his own perceptions … but (as anyone who does “Energy Work” will tell you) although we can occasionally use negative energy as a power source (i.e. stress for a procrastinator), the fact is that negative energy will actually deplete you even further …

Keeping up a facade built on ‘anger’ and ‘hate’ was hard work & actually drained his strength and determination even more … and so, by the time he was a teenager, this kid found himself in a cycle — commonly referred to in Psychology as a “Downward Spiral” — where his negative perceptions only allowed him to see all the difficulties in life … which made him even more frustrated and hurt … emotions he’d use as motivation to keep going “in spite of a bad life” … confirming his belief that “life sucks” … and that would feed his negative perceptions of himself, his life and his future …

… in the end, it was a whirlpool of depression that he would always be at risk of falling into for the rest of his life …

In NLP we sometimes refer to the way people perceive how the world is (or how they think it should be) as their internal map or model of the world. One of my previous students found that to be one of the most powerful benefits of her training — it allowed her to more effectively understand and relate to other people. Her name is Laura and here is the video I made of our telephone interview:

Two NLP coaches whom I know personally actually coached this kid several years ago, and they will confirm the fact that when they asked about his thoughts on suicide the one point which he was adamant about was the virtue of the act … (many of you might be thinking, “Huh?” … “the virtue of suicide?” … “WTF?” … yes, most of us in life will agree that suicide would obviously be the wrong choice … however, not everyone sees it that way …

You see, even as an adult this kid looked back on those situations and, in every one, the things which he faced in life were simply too much for him to handle … at that point in his life he simply didn’t have the skills, abilities, knowledge and inner resources he needed to deal with the adversities life was throwing at him — his comment to my NLP colleagues was basically “…based on where I was at mentally & emotionally along with everything I was facing in life, I he absolutely, completely, wholeheartedly believed that the best choice would actually have been to end it all!”

Lucky for his family, humans don’t always choose what they believe to be the “Right” decision … and in this case study, when he was a boy he decided to rebel against everything which he knew to be the “Correct” choice (to take his own life) …

Why? — quite simply it was because he was pissed off with always getting screwed over by life … his thoughts were,”If Life wasn’t going to give me what I want then I sure as hell ain’t gonna give Life what it wants!” — so, in the end it was his own anger, angst, hatred and resentment which he used to fight back against those thoughts and feelings which sought to overwhelm him … he used all that pent up rage to get through those tough times in his life when everything seemed utterly hopeless … however, a coping strategy utilizing negative emotions will cause it’s own troubles in life … ones he’d soon come to face as an adult …

When considering any case study (especially for comparison to one’s own life) there are often overlapping components that, although common in both cases, will have a certain level of uniqueness for each individual case … the immediate case we are reviewing is no different;

Commonly known as the “Karpman Drama Triangle,” we all learn to play certain roles in life … and usually, we each have one particular role which we favor over the others. In the regards to the Karpman Triangle the generally accepted roles people play are that of:

• VICTIM: the person who is treated as, or takes the role of, a being victimized;
• PERSECUTOR: the person who pressures, coerces, harass and/or blames the victim;
• RESCUER: the underdog who intervenes out of an ostensible wish to help the situation.

For the boy in our case study he learned, like many children, to play each different role of the triangle as he was required to … by mimicking his mother’s depressing behaviors he was able to learn the skills of “laying guilt trips,” “blaming and accusing,” “acting out of spite,” etc. — but, as many of us know, these are unhealthy behaviors that eventually lead to stressful relationships filled with hurt and anguish … and that was something the boy realized early on.

At this point let’s remember that this is a little boy who is still only a child … growing up and learning the process of living life under these difficult and troubled circumstances — now, in an earlier part of our story we made mention of the family’s belief that “a child who grows up in an abusive home will learn to adapt simply because they know no better” … and, although it’s untrue, it does hold some small measure of truth … this child learned to adapt his inappropriate communication skills and used them to address his own situation …

… the child thought (as children do) to try and explain everything in the simplest of explanations … and so, he created the belief that, “Life is to BLAME and for me to stop being VICTIMIZED by life I HAVE TO rescue everyone!” (which we might realize is a bit of a big task for such a young person, wouldn’t ya say?) — as you can imagine, it didn’t work because, as we already know, his perceptions were all filtered through anger and hurt … he would never be free of being hurt by “Life” because that was all his mind was looking for and allowing him to see and experience …

… and thus, he simply wished for nothing more than for it all to just stop …

Anger and rage might seem like odd emotions to praise as being helpful … often they’re the type of emotions that lead to trouble, and originally for the kid in our case study it was no different —

Being so unhealthy, the young child required a significant amount of care and attention … which, as you can imagine, was less than acceptable to his 2 older brothers. In the end, they became abusive and mean to the young lad — taunting him, bullying him, doing things to be cruel and mean … and with him being weak with his respiratory illness it only made the kid an easier target, not only for his older brothers but neighborhood children in general — his brothers would go so far as to hold a pillow over his face for minutes at a time … and then, like most children, when confronted by mom and dad they simply denied the whole thing …

… it went on like this for most of his youth — being bullied and abused (physically by class mates and emotionally by his mother) … day after day … year after year … and as time went on his experiences taught him that life was mostly cruel and unfair … in time, he grew angrier and angrier … at his family, at his situation, and at his life in general …

… and on the morning after his first time harboring suicidal thoughts he awoke with a renewed sense of hate and anger towards everything in the world … and, “How would that be helpful?” you might be wondering — the answer: it was an external focus … it took his mind off his internal struggles … it was a distraction from the self-hate and suicidal thoughts …

… and the best part was still on the horizon — you see, he eventually learned to utilize that anger and angst … he would eventually learn how to direct & re-direct it … he would eventually learn to wield the most debilitating emotions a person could experience like his own personal weapons for both defense and attack … and it would be then that the very thoughts and emotions which were trying to kill him would actually save his life …

Issues between siblings and family members are quite common (although probably not quite as extreme as the case study above) so I wanted to share a little video I made about one of my students who has found her NLP training helpful in creating better communication in both family situations and the world in general … her name is Danielle and this is her video: