Asking people the right questions leads to answers. It leads to better understanding and more open lines of communication.https://cms.hypnosis-toronto.webnode.com/blog/

I have a friend, Ameila, who is very good as asking questions. One day when we met she asked me "How are you doing?"

"Oh fine!" I responded.

She retorted with "Now how are you really doing?"

Needless to say I told her exactly what was going on with me in my life at that time. She asked the right question to get me to open up more about what was really going on in my life.

With just a little bit of effort, practice and fun at the beginning, asking questions can begin to bring amazing results to your relationships. There is only really two criteria. Remembering to ask questions and taking the time to make sure they are empowering questions.

If you are at work, imagine asking your co-workers "what could we do to increase our productivity while making it fun?"

Imagine asking yourself questions such as "I wonder what I could do to make my work out routine more enjoyable?"

What if you asked your mate or partner "What aspects of our relationship can we work on to make our bond stronger?

Practice asking questions in your daily conversations and watch in amazement as your communication skills improve greatly!

NLP uses a model called representational systems, or sensory modalities. Information is processed through the 5 senses.

Visual- Sight, mental imagery, spacial awareness

Auditory- Sound, speech, dialog

Kinesthetic-feeling in the body, temperature, emotion

Olfactory (smell)

Gustatory (taste)

Everyone usually has a main modality. Perhaps they are mostly auditory or visual.

Everyone also has a secondary modality. An example of this would be someone who is mostly visual but has a secondary or submodality of being auditory.

Here is were this comes in handy when becoming a more effective communicator. Through listening to how people talk, you can get an understanding of what their modalities are!

A person who is more visual would say "I SEE what you mean".

A person who is more auditory would say "I HEAR what you are saying".

A person who is more kinesthetic would say "I know how you FEEL".

People drop hints to what their modalities are. If you listen to the types of words they use you can get a good idea if they are visual, auditory or kinesthetic.

Visual people use words like see, clear, focused, picture and imagine

Auditory people use words like hear, sound, listen, silence and tell

Kinesthetic people use words like sense, experience, perceive, understand and consider

Now, here is where you can become a more effective communicator. Listen and hear the types of words someone uses. You will get a good idea through really listening to them if they are more visual, auditory or kinesthetic.

Then, you start feeding back words based on their modality.

If someone uses more visual words, you too would use visual words. If someone says "Do you see what I am saying?" You might say "I can see what your saying and picture where you are coming from."

When we tune into the people around us and their modalities it can enable us to communicate better with them.

So, are you more visual, auditory or kinesthetic? An easy method to find out is to close your eyes for a moment and remember back to your last holiday. Do you remember visual images, maybe blue ocean waters or colours? Do you remember the sounds of where you were? Maybe you remembered how good it felt!

Practice listening to those around you today and see if you can pick up on their modalities and start feeding them back words based on their modality!

Last week I gave you a peek inside the toolbox of hypnosis. This was only scraping the surface of the hypnosis toolset. I hope you found it informative and interesting.

NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming or Neuro Linguistic Psychology. A name that encompasses the three most influential components involved in producing human experience: neurology, language and programming.

Our neurological system regulates how our bodies function, language determines how we interact and communicate with other people and our programming deterimines the kinds of models of the world we create.

While NLP can be used as a form of therapy, it also has applications that can help you connect with and understand people more rapidly and easily. Starting tomorrow, from Monday to Friday of this week, I am going to share with you some easy NLP skills to help you become a more effective communicator with the people in your life.

In July of this year, I went to Canada's Wonderland with a few friends. The Behemoth is one of the new attractions and being the tallest and fastest rollercoaster I wanted to ride it first. As we waited in line the anticipation grew as I watched car after car on the rollercoaster track drop straight down from a height of 230ft. Yes, it is tall. You don't realize how tall it is until you are careening towards the earth at break neck speeds with only a bar across you lap holding you in. When it was our go, my friend suggested we sit in the front. I was all for it. We began ascending the 230ft climb and it wasn't until we reached the top that i realized how scary it was. I was white knuckling it all the way through.

We rode many roller coasters that day and then we rode the Behemoth again for a second time at night. The second time around, it seemed like nothing. It had no where near the impact it did the first time. This is a perfect example of desensitization. The more you do something, the easier and more comfortable it seems.

When someone is experiencing a fear or a phobia we use a process called systematic desensitization. The subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between real and imagined. If someone that is afraid of spiders sees a spider on tv, they react with the same fear as if they had seen a real spider. We take people through their fear, while in hypnosis, by having them visualize or imagine themselves in the situations that make them respond with fear. They always have a safe place to return to, should they wish, so they are always safe and in control. Taking them through 10 steps of fear, from the least fear provoking to the most fear provoking desensitizes them to the fear. When they can think of the scenarios in their mind and feel comfortable, we know it has worked. I have seen people remove most of a fear in just 1 hour using this technique.

Metaphors are a wonderful way to impact and change subconscious patterns of behaviour.

A metaphor can be a story.

Almost all cultures, religions and traditions include storytelling as a teaching component. Parables from the bible, Sufi stories, fairy tales, Native American storytelling, Norse sagas, Indian Puranas (stories of wisdom), children's fables -you name 'em, they have stories.

These aren't just random stories. They're often used to teach folks valuable moral principles and life lessons. And they're stories designed to have a specific effect on the listener.

Why do they work so well? They work because they engage both the conscious mind (the linear, sequential mind) and the unconscious mind (the emotional, symbolic mind). A story has both a linear,
logical sequence and emotional and symbolic content. Engaging the mind at both the levels can be ultra-powerful.

Definition 2: A metaphor is a way of talking about something without talking about it

"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig."

If you wanted to get the message across to someone that they were going to a lot of effort that would only result in trouble, you might use the pig quote. For one, it's a softer way of
introducing and idea. It's much gentler than saying "You're wasting your time. Stop it." It's softer because you're talking about something without talking about it directly.

Why is Metaphor so Powerful?

In order to explain why metaphor works so well, let's get into the roles of the different parts of the mind.

Part of the role of the conscious mind is to analyze incoming information to determine whether or not the incoming information agrees with current beliefs, behavior patterns and attitudes.

 When we use a metaphor the analytical, reasoning, evaluating, judging part of the mind is relaxed, allowing new information and ideas to more easily enter the subconscious/unconscious mind, with less emphasis on previously held beliefs. When the critical factor is inactive, new ideas are accepted more easily.

When the critical factor is relaxed and the mind of the listener is fully engaged by a story, this enables the true meaning of the metaphor to be absorbed by the mind.

In short, a good compelling metaphor puts a person in a trance
state, keeps the critical factor out of the way and gets them concentrating powerfully on an idea. The unconscious mind recognizes the parallels between the story and the listener's life and applies the lessons of the metaphor.

When using metaphors with clients, there is limitless possiblities of how one might construct one to help the client change.

Can you imagine yourself in the future, living the life that you want and desire? Can you imagine yourself being exactly as you wish to be? What would that look like, sound like and feel like? Congradulations! You've just experienced the first step in future pacing!

Future pacing is a hypnosis technique that allows you to go out into the future and experience what it would be like to be the change that you want to make. In hypnosis the mind makes this very real to the person experiencing it. There is no difference between thinking you can do something and actually going and doing it. If you think you can, you can. Future pacing allows someone to experience this so that it impacts the subconscious mind, allowing it to learn very rapidly. When someone is in hypnosis and experiencing this state of success, we also set up a trigger or anchor for them. A signal that they can give themself to bring back this wonderful imagery.

"Part of me wants to lose weight but part of me just wants to stay home and not go to the gym and eat ice cream."

You are made up of different parts. When all parts of you are working together, things flow smoothly in life. When there is conflict between parts of yourself, you experience an internal battle. People who are trying to lose weight experience this. They go to the freezer and find themselves taking out the ice cream. A part of them says "you shouldn't be doing this if you want to lose weight" but another part of them says "come on, it tastes good. You know you want it. You deserve it. You can go to the gym tomorrow." It is like the cartoons you used to watch as a child. The character had an angel with a halo on one shoulder and a devil with a pitchfork on the other.

Parts therapy enables you to work directly with a habit, behaviour, emotion or thought process. It allows greater understanding of what is happening. All behaviour has benefit.

An example would be someone who wants to lose weight. In hypnosis when working with the part of them that wants to go to the gym and lose weight the client might discover that this part wants them to feel good, look good and be healthy. They also might discover that part of them that wants to eat ice cream also wants to feel good or comforted. Both parts actually have benefit and want the person to feel good! However, both parts are going about feeling good in very different ways. Once we uncover the underlying motivations of each part, we can begin to come up with new alternatives using the creative mind. An example would be that the part that goes to the gym does so from Monday to Friday and on the weekend a bowl of ice cream can be had as a treat.

This allows greater integration of the parts within oneself. When parts of you are in alignment you don't feel like you are being denied anything. With this comes greater balance within the inner ecology.

Not everyone had happy a childhood and teenage years. If someone was neglected, criticized or abused during these developmental times it can lead to a lack in confidence in interpersonal relationships, inability to believe they deserve good things in life, negative emotions, fear of rejection and countless other issues.

Re-parenting allows the hypnotherapist to guide the client in healing the younger self or inner child. It allows one to become a parent to themselves.

By connecting to the inner child that resides within, the person can experience giving themselves the nurturing, affection and recognition they needed but didn't receive as a child. It also allows the adult self to give the younger self the guidance, direction and self-disipline needed to gain self-control. It  releases the pain of the past by creating a strong bond between the adult and child self to give a new sense of security, self-confidence and self worth.

It can be a profoundly moving experience and it results in a more whole, more complete person who has ownership of all parts of themselves.

Yesterday I discussed age regression and how hypnosis can be used to uncover the initial memory and cause of the issue. But once you are aware of the memory, what do you do to heal it?

There are many techniques that can be used to help heal a memory. One of those is re-framing.

My office is located next to a picture framing store. I see people going in with old framed pictures everyday. When they emerge they have a new updated frame and as a result, the entire picture looks different.

Much like a new frame can change the look of a picture or painting, changing our frame of a memory can change the way that it looks to us.

Re-framing is the process of looking at a memory under a different light. When you experience something at 10 years old, the memory is stored from the perspective of a 10 year old. Re-framing allows you to look at a memory and bring all of the knowledge and wisdom that you currently have available back to the memory. Much like a multifaceted jewel can be turned and looked at from many angles, so can memories.

When a new, higher perspective is established, the memory is no longer viewed in the same way. The person who may have believed that they are responsible for their parents fighting all the time when they were young might realize that as a child they did nothing wrong and there was most likely other issues taking place between their parents. The person who was bullied may realize that the other people needed to do so to feel good about themselves or that they were hurting in their own way. The person who's mother used to yell and scream may realize that her mother was treated the same way by her mother and was only acting as she was taught and actually did the best that she could being a single mother.

Once re-framing of a memory takes place, people feel lighter and free. It can be a profound way of taking back control.

All issues and problems have a beginning. When people come in for hypnosis one of the tools that can be used is age regression. It allows the hypnotherapist to guide the client back through the memories of their lifetime to uncover or discover the source or origin of the issue.

Many times people return to early childhood, some the teenage years and others events as adults. Wherever the persons mind takes them is usually a memory that requires healing. When using age regression with clients I am very careful with the questioning that I use. Questions are very open ended and do not lead the client in anyway.

Age regression is only one tool of hypnosis. It allows the client to develop a greater understanding of where the issue came from and then we can proceed with different techniques that can be done to heal the memory.