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April/May 2009 newsletter Hello... ...and Happy Spring to everyone! Along with the colors of spring, comes the extra work (for some, anyway) of getting out in the yard and pulling weeds, cutting back the dead and overgrown foliage, mowing the too-fast growing grass and planting — some of the basic components to maintaining a yard. Spring is the foundation for how your garden will flourish for the year. I actually love this time of year, though it can be intimidating if I think about trying to do everything on the “garden to-do list” at once. Instead, I’ve learned to focus on doing one piece at a time, a little bit at a time. That attitude is akin to building new skills. If you look at learning one piece at a time, it becomes more do-able. In this month’s article, “Getting in Sync,” we’ll look at one of the foundational skills of NLP — rapport. Consciously using rapport is one gift we can all give each other. In the Five Element Face Reading Corner, we’ll look at the Wood element. That archetypal energy correlates to Spring and all manner of burgeoning life - from new shoots of green bursting through the ground to the loftier realm of ideas and ideals. All Good Wishes to You and Happy Planting, Getting in Sync Have you ever had the experience of feeling immediately “comfortable” when meeting someone new? Chances are, the person either has natural rapport skills, or has learned them somewhere along the way. Rapport is one of the first skills NLP students learn, and it’s one of my favorites. Being in rapport with someone does not mean that they will automatically like you, but can mean you have a better chance of being heard and of hearing what they are saying. How does rapport do this? We human beings are amazingly complex systems of energy housed in equally complex physical bodies. The amygdala (or “critter brain” as we lovingly call it in NLP), is in charge of letting us know if the person we are with is “safe” or not. It’s the part of the brain in charge of the freeze, flight or fight response. With each interaction, countless neurons fire off looking for the answers to these questions: “Are you like me?” “Will you eat me?” “Can I eat you?” “Can I reproduce with you?” Rapport is one of the skills that settles the critter brain down enough so that these questions are not clamoring in the forefront so loudly. When the critter brain is calmed, an opportunity for deeper communication opens up. Simple Ways to Establish Rapport
Sometimes it’s important to know how to break rapport. I remember after one of my first NLP training weekends, I was in a hotel lobby restaurant with a friend. We struck up a conversation with someone, thinking it would be a great opportunity to practice our rapport skills. It became obvious fairly quickly that the rapport had worked, but neither of us really knew how to break rapport when we needed to. We eventually were able to pull ourselves away, but it was uncomfortable. I reported this to our NLP study group the next week, and we all had a good laugh. Some of their suggestions were: 1) Do the opposite of their body mirroring Where can you practice rapport skills? Everywhere! In the grocery checkout line, at work, in your relationships. Try some of these skills out and notice what shifts in your experiences with others. Five Element Face Reading Corner Five Elements Abbreviated: Wood Eyebrows can tell a lot about a person’s self confidence and self assurance, among other things. Someone with thick, long eyebrows might naturally feel self confident, and the reverse may be true for someone with shorter or less thick eyebrows. One person I had a consult with who had naturally sparse, light eyebrows would not leave the house before putting eyebrow pencil on first. They intuitively knew that darker eyebrows would increase their personal confidence. If you have sparse or very light eyebrows, here’s an experiment you can try: use some eyebrow pencil and see what you notice in the area of self confidence! Five Element Wood archetypal energy is also about ideals and vision. We look to the jaw to determine how strongly someone might hold their own opinions and how easily, or not, they are likely to take in other’s opinions. The jaw is thought of as the root of the tree, meaning, someone with a very well defined, square jaw is likely to have pretty strong opinions about things and may perhaps require more nudging to incorporate other’s opinions. If someone’s jaw is not so well defined, it is likely that they have an easier time incorporating someone else’s opinions into their viewpoints. These are general principles only. We all have a story to share with the world about who we are, but it isn’t told with just one or two of our features. Chinese face reading follows the holistic Eastern traditions of looking at the whole person. It’s another way to peel back the layers of emotional and mental “gunk” that we all find ourselves wrapped in sometimes, and is a way to remember who we came here to be. Classes at Life Re-Solutions! Comments Disclaimer Please feel free to reproduce, copy or distribute this newsletter with people you know who would be interested in the content. When doing so, please forward it in its entirety, including my contact and copyright information. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Kara Pomeroy is required. Thank you for spreading the word. Copyright © 2009. Kara Pomeroy NLP. All rights reserved. Welcome | About NLP | About Family Systems | About Family Constellations | About Me Serving the Seattle area Registered Counselor #RC00052079
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