Archive for the ‘Deep Structure’ Category

Being a behavior modification coach who specializes in helping people change habits of depression I’ve become more and more aware that there are a lot of things I can offer people who are dealing with depression — I have learned dozens of skills and techniques that can help anyone combat the standard patterns of depression (both thoughts and behaviors) … and yet, those are not the things I want to share most! Those, I’ve discovered, aren’t the things people with depression need most.

As someone who’s faced the demons of depression, fought the battle against the beasts, and has come to terms with the fact that for the rest of my life I will have to work to keep them caged, I’ve learned a lot of things along the way. I know of something that can be more important than actually addressing all those causes of one’s depression — it’s the people who enable those unhealthy habits! In fact, it’s often the people closest to a depression sufferer who shackle them with expectations of negative thought patterns and perceptions.

Ironically, those are the same people who usually judge the person for their pessimistic attitude toward life. Their constant belittling of and accusations about the person’s ongoing lethargic behavior and melancholy comments can be that one extra weight on their already fragile psyche that simply pushes them into thoughts of suicide!

So, I’ve decided I need to do something about that issue! Yes! I’m letting people know that as of January/February (during my ‘winter blues’ period) I have started writing a new book focused on explaining depression to those people who just can’t seem to understand. Anyone who has lived with depression knows exactly what I’m talking about — those people who have at least told them once to just;

• … suck it up and quit whining! Everybody has problems.
• … cheer up — you’re such a downer all the time!
• … let it go — it’s not that big of a deal.
• … stop worrying so much.

– and, no matter how you’ve tried to explain it to them, they just can’t quite wrap their mind around the concept that it’s simply not quite that easy (even with proper help/training/medication). More or less the book will be about what a goes on in the mind of a person with depression and what they must deal with on a daily basis.

Here’s a depressing fact to think about:

As I’ve calculated from my own personal past experience (and have had a handful of my own coaching clients have agreed with) … it’s likely that, on average, when a person who has suffered with depression for a long time is in an up-beat and happy mood they will only have the thought, *I wish I were dead.* about 170 times per day.

In comparison, during a time when that same person is entrenched deep within a terrible bout of depression — i.e. in bed with the covers pulled over their head — the thought, *I wish I were dead.* can potentially run through their mind up to as much as 5 times every minute … which is about 300 times per hour … meaning that, if they lay in bed all day, it’s likely a person with sever depression could wish they were dead well over 2000 times in one day! (OMFG! Talk about a Law of Attraction Epic Fail!)

If you’d like to get a better idea of what the basic premise of the book will be about you can check out the post I did on www.drdansays.com ‘Why did daddy kill himself?’

As many of my readers know, one key difference with NLP is the acceptance that every person has his or her own Mental Map or Model of the World — we all have our own way of thinking how the world works. This is what makes NLPers so much more flexible when it comes to working with and communicating with other people — even if we don’t always agree with someone’s perspective we can acknowledge that it exists and work within that person’s beliefs and values.

One of the best stories I came across last year was about a German nursing home for seniors that had figured out a way to actually utilized a patient’s alzheimer’s in ensuring their own safety … to basically keep them from wandering too far off. Here’s the full story:

Fake Bus Stop Keeps Alzheimer’s Patients From Wandering Off

German nursing homes are using a novel strategy to stop Alzheimer’s patients from wandering off: phantom bus stops.

Written by Harry de Quetteville in Berlin, and Published Jun 3, 2008.
(CLICK HERE to go to the original news story)

The idea was first tried at Benrath Senior Centre in Düsseldorf, which pitched an exact replica of a standard stop outside, with one small difference: buses do not use it.

The centre had been forced to rely on police to retrieve patients who wanted to return to their often non-existent homes and families.

Then Benrath teamed up with a local care association called the “Old Lions”. They went to the Rheinbahn transport network which supplied the bus stop.

“It sounds funny but it helps,” said Franz-Josef Goebel, the chairman of the “Old Lions” association.

“Our members are 84 years old on average. Their short-term memory hardly works, but the long-term memory is still active.

“They know the green and yellow bus sign and remember that waiting there means they will go home.”

The result is that errant patients now wait for their trip home at the bus stop, before quickly forgetting why they were there in the first place.

“We will approach them and say that the bus is coming later and invite them in for a coffee,” said Richard Neureither, Benrath’s director. “Five minutes later they have completely forgotten they wanted to leave.”

The idea has proved so successful that it has now been adopted by several other homes across Germany.

Personally … I think it’s damn brilliant of an idea! It totally makes sense from an NLP stand point and it’s proven to work — what more can you ask for? I only hope that my nursing home is that smart when I get to be that age … although, some people say that dementia is just parent’s vengeance for all the trouble you cause during your teenage years.

My girlfriend has a a little box of cards that teach Latin and I occasionally take a card and read it just to see what old Latin sayings used to be like. Today I was reading one and had a small revelation!

The greatest disconnection is the one between your conscious mind and unconscious mind.

My mentor, Judy Wright, originally taught us in our NLP prac course that, although NLP is a tool for interpersonal communication, the greatest gift NLP gives a person who learns it is the ability to more clearly and effectively pass knowledge, wisdom and experience between one’s own conscious and unconscious mind with minimal filtering.

For most people in the field of NLP it might seem obvious but for anyone considering taking training in it, remember that it’s both a gift and a curse … because once you become fully self aware it can’t be undone (and sometimes ignorance is bliss — especially when it comes to one’s own short comings).

So there ya go — buyer beware … or, in this case, learner beware! 

As many of my friends know, I read web comics daily — they are what make up a solid 5 minutes of pleasure in my day (no matter what kind of day I’m having) — and one of them is the online comic Sinfest by Tatsuya Ishida. Over the last 3 weeks he’s done a plot line that I believe really explains the process of depressing and I’ve decided to share … (please feel encouraged to click on any of the images to go directly to the actual web comic!)

WARNING!!! This post contains language & humor of an adult nature –
NSFW — reader discretion is advised!!!

To begin, the process of depressing starts with trying to stop caring … whether it’s because you’re too overwhelmed with life or you’ve just gotten sick and tired of constantly failing at things, everything starts with giving up on living (and not giving up on “giving up” as I explained in my post Abandon Hope All Ye Who Are Depressed) — depressors use depression as a way to protect themselves from being hurt by loss and failure, but the problem is it’s like emo kids who dress all goth in order to be different than everyone else — they all look the same! People with depression are just Buddhist posers — they give up trying but still feel bad for failing … the true goal is to give up feeling good or bad for success or failure and just keep doing.

… giving up in an unhealthy way, however, only leads to an ongoing downward spiral …

… into …

… which is where the depressing mind constantly tortures itself with memories of experiences filled with shame, guilt, anger, fear, hurt, sadness, loss, etc. …

… and the worst is that usually a person will face these inner demons alone — never telling their friends about what’s going on … the negative thoughts and feelings … never sharing the pain for fear of causing suffering for others — that’s why so many people with depression will sabotage relationships and push the people they love away … to protect those they love from the suffering which they believe they must face (and solve) on their own …

… and so, the ongoing despair will eventually take hold and become a way of life — always seeing the bad and never taking pleasure in anything positive …

… but! … there is occasionally that one person whom a depressed person hasn’t pushed away far enough … one person (or pet) who knows the kind of person they truly can be — filled with joy and love for life …

… that one person (or pet) who cares enough to search for them … to look beyond the fake smiles and lies about “just being a little tired” (all the time!) …

… however! … that one person (or pet) needs others that they can rely on … friends whom they can turn to for support … to give them the energy to keep fighting to help their friend and loved one who suffers in silence …

… and when they confront that dark and gloomy person it may not be pretty … and it may not be an easy fight …

… trying to remind them of all the things worth living for … to find that one true thing that matters enough to give them the will to keep trying …

… and it may not be just one thing either … it may be necessary for them to remember ALL those things in combination … wrapped up into one existence … although, sometimes it can be just one thing … something as simple as human contact … like a hug … a small gesture to show them that they matter to someone …

… even then, the fight isn’t over … in that stage of depression the person usually isn’t strong enough to stand alone yet … they may need someone with hope to guide them … to take their hand and lead them … tell them what to do … to get up … to eat … small steps … to keep fighting … to keep working toward their dreams … to give them a direction …

… only then will they be able to begin to see a light at the end of the tunnel … to start believing in hope once again … to start walking on their own in life … (at least until the next time they stumble).

It may not exactly like that for everyone who suffers from depression, but I think that’s a pretty good generalization to give you an idea of what the cycle looks like … with some really cute visual representations too. 

Sadly my friends … it is time once again for a Dan Rant — recently, a friend of mine brought to my attention an article published in a local newspaper a few days ago that simply left me shaking my head in disbelief …

The article (Eye movements mirror thought) was about how *Science* is suddenly discovered there is a connection between eye movements and thought patterns … and, in fact, you can use eye patterns to predict what people are thinking! Wow, eh? The fact that this has been a major component of NLP training since the 1970′s is only coincidental — and why is that? … because NLP hasn’t been *Scientifically* proven.

Yep, it’s true. NLP is still today considered nothing more than mumbo-jumbo-witch-doctory-new-age-wish-wash … a scam … a placebo, at best. The only reason is because the way NLP works is to utilize each individual’s personal way of thinking … and that means if I find a way that works to help one person the exact same steps may not work for anyone else! The most effective NLP techniques are constantly in flux based on immediate feedback received from the client — and that means it’s damn near impossible to create a universal set of steps that some scientist in a lab anywhere in the world can replicate! … but … medication can be replicated and proven to work in more than 50% of the cases and that’s good enough for psychologists and psychiatrists to get behind — because it can be *proven* using current scientific methods.

However, now we have these so-called *new* studies that have been discovering wonderous things about the way the human mind works … and lo-and-behold — ye old NLP flim-flam just happens to have been saying the same thing for decades … (*grumble, grumble, grumble!*) …

What the hell does freewill mean and does it really exist??

That’s a great question which NLP has endeavored to answer for a long time … and the debate of conscious versus unconscious level of control rages on even today.

TV and movies would have us believe that the unconscious mind is the master, while our institutional rights and freedoms dictate that everything is a conscious choice which we are all ultimately accountable for.

Myself … I still sit happily on the fence … living in that soothing gray area that says it’s a little bit of both. Zefrank talked about it once and I found the video quite enlightening and insightful …

Okay – I found this short documentary on synesthesia done by a student by the name of Mark from the University of Colorado at Boulder. I thought it was so excellent that I had to get a copy from him so I could show my NLP students during the Practitioner Certification Training Courses I teach.

If you’re a student of NLP then you need to check this out:

(Special thanks to McrawfishMAC at YouTube for letting me get a copy! You totally ROCK dude!)

Okay y’all — this is another one of those raves I think is really important for people to check out!

I had never heard of the problem until I met her — Annie Hopper! She is a Brain Retraining Specialist who has been in the Health and Wellness Industry for 20 years, and you need to read her story! There are so many things in this world we hope never happen to the ones we love … cancer, alzheimer’s, MS … the list goes on. Well, this one is a major one and it’s something people need to know we are doing to ourselves! It’s called Multiple Chemical Sensitivities and it’s where we’re all headed in the next decade … so perhaps you should check out Annie’s website(s) and know what it’s all about. (Plus, you might want to let others know because the people who have it, right now they have no where in this world to turn … except for those very rare people like my friend and colleague Ms. Hopper!)

You can find her websites here:

Some people know that I’ve received my research doctorate in Metaphysical Science and occasionally people will ask what that means and how does it relate to NLP. Well, that’s an interesting question…and after trying desperately to find a solid way to explain myself I finally settled on this;

Metaphysics is considered as a type of theological philosophy but I describe it as the study of how humans structure their perceptions of reality. Now, NLP is all about modeling human behavior so I describe as the science of how people structure behaviors in their mind. Hmmm…so, how do they relate? Well, as an NLP Metaphysician my passion is discovering how human beings structure their beliefs and values in their own mind in order to create their perception of reality – how do people structure THEIR “Model of the World”…

The danger…is for the people around me. You see, I’m always trying to get inside people’s perceptions and then philosophize the possibilities…which usually challenges the person’s way of “doing life”. As a personal counselor/coach it’s great for generating transformational change in people – to get them out of a stuck state. For my other relationships…like my girlfriend…it can be tough to put up with some days.

In an email I received from Helen Oakwater (a wonderous NLP “Goddess” and dear friend), of www.helenoakwater.co.uk, she commented that her dictionary has three definitions for “miracle”;

1. an extraordinary and welcome event that manifests or is attributed to divine intervention in human affairs
2. an astonishing and wonderful event, thing or accomplishment
3. somebody or something that is a remarkable example or instance of the specified thing

This holiday season I received the greatest news anyone could wish for at Christmas time and I want to share it with you; my tale is about Trish, a phenomenally amazing NLP Trainer and Consultant colleague from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan who is and forever will remain incredibly entrenched deep within my heart and soul. She was once described as a blessing gifted to this world by the Universe – and now after hearing about her experience I say that is even truer today.

Trish was diagnosed with kidney failure a few months ago and I know without a doubt that she (after coming to terms with it) “sucked it up” like a true princess and steeled herself for battle…and well, if I could place bets on a prize fight between Trish and the Universe, I’d bet on Trish every time.

Although I don’t know all the details I’m certain that she utilized all her training in NLP, combined with a multitude of other healing arts she knows, to fight like a Gladiator Champion. Along with faith, love and the support of her entire NLP community she carved her way through the jungle of fears, uncertainty and limiting beliefs within Saskatchewan’s medical community to create her own unique path (like she did during the entire time I knew her) until eventually she reached her goal of complete health and wellness.

Finally, in the most recent email update I got last night, her kidneys have started working again and she has been taken off dialysis. Now, for anyone who still does not believe that Neuro Linguistic Programming is effective for helping heal physical illness, not just mental and emotional hurts, then you can consider this a “Miracle”. For the rest of us, we just consider it “Trish” – that’s simply the way she is…stubborn and free. ;-p