I was talking to my buddy Mark the other day, and he said something really interesting. Something that I had never thought of, until he said it. He said, “If I can’t grasp that, then I can’t make any sense of it.” Hmmm. “If I can’t grasp it then I can’t make any sense of it.”
My NLP background made me wonder if that is what he really does inside his head. I mean, we teach this in our FasTrak™ NLP Practitioner Training, so I had to think.
I wondered if his words were a description of what he did inside his head, and that made me curious if everything we do inside our heads will be indicated by how we use our language? Now, Mark is a little more loosely wrapped than most people. When it comes to thinking outside the box, Mark is almost never inside the box. That also makes him a great problem solver. So if we could understand what Mark was doing, we could probably learn how to be a great problem solver too. By the way, most of his solutions came from left field, too, so we knew he always had a new idea when we needed it.
But my NLP training reminded me that Mark wasn’t doing anything more in his head than anyone else. In fact, there are only six things Mark or anyone else for that matter can do inside their heads. Those six things are to make pictures, hear sounds, have feelings, think of tastes and/or smells, and finally talk to yourself. Those are the only things you can do inside your head. But what made him so creative?
In NLP jargon (yes, we have a lot of jargon in NLP!) what Mark was doing was making a Synesthesia. A Synesthesia is a Strategy (that means an internal process or a series of steps that you do in your head). This type of Strategy usually has two steps, and one of them is often unconscious, outside of your conscious awareness. SO, when Mark said, “If I can’t grasp that then I can’t make any sense of it,” that was a description of what he was doing inside his head. Looking at the sentence from the NLP point of view we would know that he was feeling for, or grasping (Kinesthetic) and then making sense of it by talking to himself until he understood it.
As an aside, in NLP we feel that the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your Synesthesia’s, but more about that later.
So, What Do You Actually Do?
Some people when they go shopping look for a good looking jacket (for example) have to see how it feels by touching it or trying it on. Others may talk to the sales clerk until the purchase they see, sounds right to them. Still others may need to make sense out of what they see. So we have talked enough, now let’s see what we’ve got.
We have 6 Representational Systems in NLP Terminology:
- Visual – Picturing or seeing something outside
- Auditory – Hearing Sounds or remembering songs or voices
- Kinesthetic – Having feelings, emotions, or remembering sensations
- Olfactory – Remembering smells
- Gustatory – Remembering tastes
- Auditory Digital – Talking to yourself
Now what did Mark do that made him so creative?
He combined these 6 different Representational Systems in different ways to come up with very creative solutions. But Mark is not the only person in the world that can do this. We are certain, and this is not just an NLP belief, that everyone alive can and does make Synesthesias inside their head all the time.
It is easy to become a great problem solver, just learn to think outside the box. Ask any of our graduates from our NLPCoaching Practitioner Training.