Looking in the Mirror With NLPCoaching.com
Once upon a time, I thought I would save the world, or at least wake it up, maybe educate “it” with my work, by my example, by going online and telling it like “it” is. By this, of course I mean I wished to “change the world” but I found that quite often, even to this day, that it is difficult to find an audience other than “the choir.” From one day to the next, ideas flow and enthusiasm waxes and wanes like the phases of the moon. Today, looking back at the past is often considered unproductive, some schools of thought just want us to “let it go.”
Up on the Comstock in Northern Nevada, where once there was such a grand bonanza of gold that was discovered, it changed the course of our nation’s history. There is now more gold being taken from all the places where miners discarded tailings or left the mines for the promise of new discoveries somewhere else. Reflecting upon ideas and plans that failed to take form and thus went nowhere, can be a bit like that.
Relevance?
Is it possible that the pile of yesterday’s thoughts and events and lessons are like the piles of tailings that still hold much wealth? Of course it is, so how do we begin to mine the vast unknown such that we can improve our lives? We can learn all about NLP, hypnosis, Time Line Therapy®, and NLP Coaching.
My early exposure to Hypnosis was from my father, a surgeon who had originally begun his medical career in Psychiatry. He was drafted into the military upon finishing medical school in 1942 and was sent out to the Pacific Theater on a battleship. It was during his service that he decided to change specialties. He often explained to me how he was able to treat many patients without anesthesia by using simple methods that he referred to as “Hypnosis.”
I worked in his office for many years and eventually used the simple methods that I had learned in order to give birth at home to my three children without anesthesia. Indeed my generation was raised to believe that there was no greater pain known to humans than the pain of giving birth. I still remember saying “that wasn’t so bad” as my firstborn was placed in my arms back in 1972.
In 2004, I took a three-day workshop in hypnosis. A few years later I was suffering from a serious gum disorder and my periodontal surgeon allowed me to go without general anesthesia for the surgeries. I do admit that while waiting for the surgery to begin I was rereading the chapters on self-hypnosis in Modern Hypnosis/Theory and Practice by Masud Ansari, Ph.D. Ultimately I was told at my post-operative visits that my recovery and healing was much quicker than what they normally observed in patients undergoing similar procedures with the general anesthesia.
Moving ahead another year, it was 2008 when I attended an NLP Practitioner training in Las Vegas. This was two years after I had moved to Rural Northern Nevada. I remember writing in my list of goals for myself, that I wished to be instrumental in helping to clear the air from pollution that was apparently emanating from a wood preserving facility in the area. No one told me outright that I ought to model the work of Erin Brockovich, but in some ways, that is exactly what happened, and even though there were no lawyers involved or million dollar payoffs, at least the air was cleared. Curiously, at that same NLP event (that I decided to leave after only two days) we were told that during the days ahead we would be leaving our phobias behind, that is, we would be learning how to overcome phobias. I did regret that I would miss this opportunity to overcome a nuisance phobia.
The primary phobia in my life had to do with injections. I was unable to look a hypodermic needle or even think about having a “shot” without wilting, weakening, and shaking. This had been an issue throughout my life. Even seeing an injection portrayed on film or television weakened me. Today this is on my gratitude list, that I came to realize that I no longer suffer this phobia. To this day, each and every time I see an injection occurring, whether on film or in person, I marvel at the mechanism that freed me from this phobia and I am thankful.
Add to the release of the phobia, I used Time Line Therapy® to look at my own life. I was able to pinpoint the precise event that triggered this disabling fear. Knowing that I was able to literally view the string of events surrounding the particular shot involved – it was a dose of penicillin, that turns out, I was allergic to. This gives me confidence that whenever I want, I can enter a similar self-induced trance state and recall details of seemingly long forgotten events. As I write this, I know I will be looking at, why in the world, I failed to follow through and actually become an NLP Practitioner and Coach. I certainly recall how enthusiastic I was as the week long training began.
The biggest lesson of NLP is to listen to our own words while taking the time to look at our own actions. In this way, we will be aware of how we are presenting ourselves to others and better understand the impact our words and actions and definitely our appearance has on the people we encounter from one day to the next. The world will continue to change with or without us, but what a gift we have to share when we are able to set examples that others might wish to emulate. All the better if, as an NLP Coach, we are able to earn a living that sustains us while at the same time improving the lives of our clients, our families, and people we may never meet but who encounter us and thus find themselves on a better path because of our influence.
 | About the Author: Stephanie Wozniak I first learned about NLP and joined in an hypnosis workshop in 2004 before moving from Tahoe to rural Northern Nevada in 2006. Now, I returning to school in order to complete a bachelors degree I find that more than anything else I continually return to NLP, (self) hypnosis, and even basic Huna principles. Meanwhile I am learning to grow Lavender with a healthy experimental patch already delivering fragrant goods. |