Tips and Talk   September 2006

The ‘Health and Well-being’ day was a great success. Feedback from current Practitioners emphasised how valuable they found the experience of working with new people, some Masters, and some with little NLP experience. “It stretched me, took me outside my comfort zone”, was one comment. As usual, John’s lunch proved popular; the weather was balmy; and the peaceful atmosphere of Bosham House helped to facilitate the rapport!

There were many interesting points of discussion during the day, one of which concerned the field of Epigenetics. Epigenetics proposes that inheritance is not down to DNA alone: there is in addition a control system of ‘switches’ that turn genes on or off. It suggests that specific experiences, such as famine or extreme stress, can control the switches and cause inherited effects that cascade through succeeding generations. Marcus Pembrey, a Professor of Clinical Genetics at the Institute of Child Health in London, talks of “Environmental exposure triggering transgenerational response”: in other words significant events in our lives could affect our grandchildren.

His work, with Swedish doctor Lars Olov Bygren, based on the study of a remote community in northern Sweden, found evidence of just such an environmental effect being passed down the generations. They showed that episodes of famine at critical times during the lives of grandparents, (tying in with the formation of eggs and sperm), can affect the life expectancy and incidence of diabetes of the grandchildren.

This in itself is fascinating, but subsequent work carried out post 9/11, raises even more interesting questions.
Psychologist Rachel Yehuda studied the effects of stress on pregnant women who were in or near the World Trade Centre. She found that, for those who were in the third stage of pregnancy, there was significant evidence of stress in their children.

She had previously worked with holocaust survivors and their families, and had put the evidence of stress in the second generation, down to the constant retelling of their horrific stories by the survivors themselves. Now it seemed there might be another explanation. The 9/11 babies were only a year old when tested, too young to have been affected by repeated storytelling.

If the ‘switch’ for post traumatic stress can be turned on and then inherited, could the same be true for phobias and other types of traumatic events? And if this is the case, could processing the event successfully stop this happening? I haven’t found any supporting evidence so far, but at the least it underlines the importance of us, as parents, dealing with our own issues, so that our children, and possibly grandchildren, may not suffer the effects.  Epigenetics surely takes the concept of ‘personal responsibility’ to new levels!

If you are interested in finding out more, type: Horizon The Ghost in Your Genes into Google then scroll down until you see Google Video. Click on this and you can watch the BBC programme….. prepare to be fascinated

NLP Tales …..Stories from ‘everyday NLP folk’

This month’s ‘tale’ comes from Bob Higgs

Before retirement I was International Training Director for a large Pharmaceutical company. In the early days I didn't have much knowledge of NLP, but later certainly found it useful in dealing with the many different nationalities and cultures involved in my work.

One of my first trainings was with a group in Singapore. There were Singaporeans, Hong Kong Chinese and Koreans. I ran various sessions on medical and product knowledge and business skills. I would ask the participants, after explaining a particular business or selling strategy, "So how do you think that will fit in your country?" The Singaporeans were always the first to answer and would enthusiastically adapt the idea to the situations they faced in Singapore. The Hong Kong Chinese were next - a little bit more reticent but asking more questions and responding. The Koreans – nothing: they would look down at their notes and remain totally quiet, despite my coaxing and long pauses waiting for a reply.

However during coffee, tea and lunch breaks, they would come up to me and enthusiastically question as well as add new ideas as to how a particular point could be useful in their dealings with doctors in Korea. I was puzzled and confused. Perhaps I should have just asked, "So why do you ask a lot of questions now and not when were are together in the group?", but I felt that this directness might have embarrassed them.

A few months later on a plane, I sat next to the Japanese ambassador to the US, nice friendly guy who bemoaned the fact that his 20-year old daughters were too emancipated and had adopted American ways! I thought I would ask him about the situation I had experienced in Singapore with the Koreans. I explained the situation and told him how confusing I had found it. "Oh" he said, "They did not want you to lose face". I still didn't understand so he explained that by asking me questions in front of the group, questions that I may not have been able to answer, I risked ‘losing face’ and they didn't want me to look foolish in front of other people. Individually asking questions was less threatening and there was less risk of ‘losing face’.
"So what do I do?" I asked.
"You give them permission to ask questions and say that in your culture there is no loss of face when you don't know the answer." I thanked him for this insight.

A few months later I had a training session in Korea involving only Koreans. I related my story at the start and explained that, in my culture, to ask questions is a sign of intelligence and if I don't know the answer it causes me no loss of face - I can find out. It was like turning on a light; I was inundated with questions - no embarrassing silences and lots of fun and laughter, especially when I didn't know the answer! It was like setting them free from a cultural restraint that held them back in their society - they could be more direct and not have to worry about offending people's "face"

Since then, whenever I'm faced with behaviour that doesn't seem "normal" to me I now question whether my "map of the world" is the same as the person I'm talking too - usually not! I think it was Confucius who said, "First seek to understand!"

Tip of the Month

According to the law of aerodynamics, bumblebees can’t fly. Their bodies are too big for their wings. But nobody ever told them, so they just fly any way.

Why is it that we don’t achieve the same seemingly miraculous results as the humble bumblebee? Simple really …..  We’ve got very big mouths! The gift of speech is unarguably a wonderful thing -in principle: the problem is that we have developed extremely bad habits. There is an ancient saying.

‘You become the story of who you tell yourself you are.’

If this is true, then we need to take care to use the very best words. Unfortunately there is another insect, not inspirational like the bumblebee, but rather a pesky little beast that lurks menacingly on the edge of conscious awareness, ready to march in and sabotage success. The ANT, or automatic negative thought, comes in many varieties; what they all have in common is that they cause us to limit ourselves in some way.

ANTs are the food of self-fulfilling prophecy: they constitute the type of thinking and behaviour designed to get you the very result you feared! For example, you tell yourself that you are boring, that no one will want to talk to you, you have nothing interesting to say. This leads you to withdraw in social situations, and consequently no one talks to you. At this point your ANTs congratulate you for your perspicacity and help you wallow in your misery!

You need to meet ANTs head-on, not let them breed until they have started a colony. The first step is to bring them into conscious awareness. They may have proliferated out of control; you may feel helpless in face of the sheer number of the blighters. You need to take back the initiative.

Experiment

1. Make yourself an ‘ANT Control’ filing box; a plastic index box works well. Take time to sort, write
    out, and file away all of your current concerns, including on-going projects.

2. Decide which concern ( remember, only deal with one at a time ) you will deal with first; ask
    yourself:

1. How much time will it take to deal with 100% of this?
2. What percentage is it realistic to expect to deal with today?
3. How long will that take? Is that really realistic? If not, what would be realistic?
4. What is the first step?

3. As you deal with each concern/worry discard it: resolved issues are not worries, they are
   achievements.

4. Set aside time to regularly update your filing system.

Have fun!

Jenny and John