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Hi everybody, and welcome to "NLP: The Secret Science of Self- Empowerment." This Ezine is designed to bring to you techniques, theories and exercises from the fascinating field of Neurolinguistic Programming.

NLP offers fascinating concepts that can help you to develop better relationships with others and yourself - and focuses on bringing forth the unlimited powers of genius that lie withing each one of us.

About This Issue
As human beings we experience objective reality in a very subjective way, which is to say we each create our own version of reality. How is it possible that different people experience one and the same situation very differently?

To get an answer to this kind of question, we need to take a closer look at how people compute and store information, i.e. make representations of reality. This leads us to the realm of representational systems - the five senses through which we experience the world around us.



This Issues Article:

Representational Systems

Most people are familiar with the idea that humans experience the world through the five senses of seeing (visual), hearing (audio), feeling (kinesthetic), tasting (gustatory) and smelling (olfactory). This concept was first formulated by Aristotle, 2500 years ago and today is the basis for the NLP concept of "representational systems."

Studying the secrets behind human genius, NLP soon stumbled upon the importance of the five senses. They are at the root of the human experience. Every memory a human being forms is encoded in the "programming languages" of the five senses. For example, when we think of our childhood, we will internally draw up a large number of images and movies of faces and places, voices of friends and sounds of environments, feelings and sensations of touch and temperature, the taste of foods and the various smells of nature, pets, foods, etc. (taste and smell are usually a bit harder to access).

We experience the "world out there" by making sense representations of it, inwardly. And we all do it in our own individual way. Just as 10 painters will paint the Eiffel Tower differently, so 10 people standing on it will make different sense representations internally, when looking down at Paris. Some will mainly experience the beautiful views (visual), while others focus more on listening to the sounds of the city below (audio) or mainly pay attention to the wind blowing over their skin and the warmth of the sun (kinesthetic). Others again might be having a cup of coffee as they enjoy the panorama and be locked up in sensations of taste and smell.

Why is any of this important for becoming a more congruent, empowered human being (which is what NLP is all about)? Well, for starters, representational systems are the basis of communication. As we speak with others, we encounter people with various rep system preferences, i.e. they prefer to think in one or two of the representational systems most of the time. Knowing their preference, we can adjust our communication to increase rapport and thereby facilitate the exchange of information.

There are many ways to tell a persons preferred rep system. All you need to do is pay attention to their verbal (words) and non-verbal cues (body language). For example, when you talk with someone who's preferred rep system is visual, you will notice that that person is talking quite rapidly, uses a fair amount of hand gestures, and looks up to the left and right or straight ahead into a distance with defocused eyes most of the time.

Auditory people talk with melodic and often rhythmic voices, sometimes touching their mouth as they speak, holding their head on an angle and looking sideways when accessing thoughts. Those who are predominantly kinesthetic talk and gesture more slowly in comparison. They breathe from the abdomen (rather than from the chest like visual people, who need to breathe faster to keep up with their fast visual thinking processes). Kinesthetic people often look downward as they speak.

Of course, our rep system preference also shows in our language. As you can see I used the word "shows" in the last sentence. That is visual language. If I had said our preferred reps system "rings" or can be "felt" in our language, I would have been using auditory and kinesthetic words. There is a very long list of words connected to each of the five sense categories.

    Here are some examples:
  • Visual: "Do you see my point?"
  • Auditory: "I hear what you are saying!"
  • Kinesthetic: "Keep in touch!"
  • Gustatory: "Hmm, this looks delicious!"
  • Olfactory: "This idea stinks!"

These are just a few simple examples. You should be able to find 20 words for each category without having to think too hard (include verbs and adjectives).

So, how do rep systems matter again? Well, they matter for communication in that they allow you to change your verbal and non-verbal communication to suite the preferred style of the person you are talking with. If you know your boss is highly visual, you will make sure to print out a visual presentation of the information you might otherwise just have told her about in words. If you know that you are visual and your partner is kinesthetic, you will make sure to slow down and use kinesthetic language when you are having an important discussion.

When people ignore each other's rep systems communication can get very ineffective. Asking a visual person, if they hear what you are saying usually ends in them being confused, because they actually don't hear what you are saying. They see it. "How does this look to you?" or "What is the right perspective, here?" are much better suited to communicate with a visual person.

Learning more about your own rep system preference can allow you to increase your experience of the word. You might have never used your sense of hearing much. Why not develop it more fully? Why not learn how to hear a Mozart symphony with more discrimination. Or see the faces of loved ones right before your closed eyes at will? There are NLP exercises that help you to develop your representational systems. And there are countless NLP exercises dealing with belief change, healing traumas from the past, etc. that use rep systems as basis.

Here is one exercise as an example:

  1. Think of a bad memory (maybe not the worst you have, but an unpleasant one).

  2. Close your eyes and experience that memory internally. Pay attention to what you see, hear, feel, taste and smell. (Don't worry if that memory is not consciously represented in all five senses. Most memories aren't.)

  3. Think of some kind of music that is humorous in nature and completely mismatches the negative vibration of your bad memory (Personally, I like to use cartoon music).

  4. Once again, remember your bad memory, but this time play the music along to it. This should weaken that memory's negative impact on your mood, and maybe even make you laugh.

As you might have noticed, I don't talk much about taste and smell. That is because their role is more limited (often there are no smells and tastes) than visual, auditory and kinesthetic (we always see, hear and feel something). Of course, people love good smells and tastes, and they can be very powerful in our memories, catapulting us back 20 years in an instant. For the most part, however, we focus on VAK (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) when we talk about and use representational systems.

References:

The Structure of Magic, Vol. I + II, Grinder, J. and Bandler, R., 1975, 1976.

All the best,

Christoph Schertler
NLP Trainer/Coach - Founder PEC, LLC


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About the Author

Christoph Schertler is a certified NLP Trainer and NLP Coach with a passion for helping others to empower themselves and bring forth their power and genius from within. He has trained with some of the biggest names in the field and is a firm believer in the transformational powers of NLP.


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DISCLAIMER
The contents herein are solely the opinions of the editors, and should not be considered as a form of therapy nor advice. There is no guarantee of validity or accuracy. Personal Empowerment Coaching, LLC assumes no responsibility for injury and specifically disclaims any warranty, express or implied for any products or services mentioned. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, services of a competent professional should be sought. Copyright (C) 2006 by Personal Empwerment Coaching, LLC. Permission is granted to reproduce or distribute this newsletter only in its entirety and provided copyright is acknowledged.