Every once in a while, especially when I play Coach in the Patterns of Excellence(POE) Workshop, I get requests to model my strategy to deal with difficult people and stressful situations.
Some people are surprised how easy it is.
To spare you the technicalities of an actual NLP modeling session, the core of my strategy is a personal mantra:
“You don’t have the PERMISSION to make me to CHOOSE to feel bad!!”
Permission denotes that we have to empower or submit to the authority or eventuality of someone or something.
In NLP, we say that ‘People make the best choices available to them’. In coaching, we often address the issue of how we can make the best light of any situation by the process of Reframing. We also say that ‘Every behaviour has a positive intention.’ When we are able to see the highest positive intention of people and the highest positive meaning of a situation, more options (choices) are opened to us.
We all know that we are more efficient and things are more enjoyable when we FEEL GOOD. Some people will argue that not feeling bad doesn’t mean that we’ll feel good, that doesn’t make much pragmatic sense in this context. OK, for argument’s sake, bad denotes all form of negativity. If you are the kind very much into semantics and say we can still feel worse or worst or like shit or a loser…. I’m sorry: you don’t have the permission to make me choose to feel bad. 
One of the central themes of Patterns of Excellence is:
Event + Response = Outcome
When something happens (event), what we do/feel/say/think/imagine (response) will give meaning to it (outcome). Working on our response, we can choose our desired outcome to any event.
My personal mantra empowers me in 2 ways: I do not give away (permission) to others how I decide to respond to a set of event and just in case I do feel bad, I know I have a choice to reframe and see things in a better light, thereby feeling good!!
Stay tuned for how I use my personal mantra to drown out and eliminate negative self-talk in my coaching sessions. Watch out for next by Pete: Negativity Interruptus
October 24th, 2005 at 12:59 am
Question is whether this powerful “personal mantra” can be conditioned into the subconscious such that the person is able to sustain this form of “positive self-talk” when overcome with a “negative event”
October 25th, 2005 at 1:24 pm
Maybe the first question isn’t ‘how to condition your mantra’ yet, maybe it’s finding out ‘what is your current conscious or unconscious mantra?’
Interesting.
November 1st, 2005 at 6:10 am
WOW! how do i find out what my current concious/unconcious mantra is?? Damn, u guys are good!
November 2nd, 2005 at 3:51 am
Hey Radiah
Consider this, what is the first thing you say to yourself or hear inside your head when you are in any significant event? You just need to become more aware of yourself.
Start to build an offline awareness first, what did you say to similar situation or event in the past?
Then your online awareness will kick in when the same things happen again. What am I saying to this now?
Find an absolutely empowering mantra.
Use it often, use it everytime you feel the need to draw strength from it.
Happy Exploring!! Share your mantra with us ok?