Ainulindale

People that know me know that I'm into psychology. But everyone, except a certain individual, has welcomed the idea of NLP with extreme skepticism. However, the fact that they are narrow minded did not stop me from exploring this area of psychology. My attentions at this moment are focused on this and I will try to explain it to you the best way I can.
NLP or Neurolinguistic programming is a tool that can be used in everyday life in almost all actions done only by yourself or in interaction with someone else. But it's very complicated and will not work if done inaccurately. NLP consists of rapport, hypnosis and subliminal suggestions. Now, I'm gonna star with rapport, giving that it's simple and it sometimes happens without us knowing.

Rapport is a state in which you are in tune with another person. You could say that you and that person are "on the same wave length". That means that you understand each other, or at least that is what all of you know it means. What you don't know is that this state can be created artificially. This can be accomplished by mirroring. It means that you mirror someone's movements in such a way that that person would almost assume that they are looking in a mirror. I say 'almost' because if a person realizes that you are mirroring him or her it will destroy the rapport and that person could become agitated. Once you've managed to establish a rapport, that person should follow your moves. I, myself, once managed to establish rapport with my brother. We were out in a bar and we were talking. I subtly mirrored him. I guess it's my luck that that day he was holding his cigar in his left hand so I could hold it in my right. Which is actually weird, because he always uses his right hand. Anyway, after a few minutes of mirroring I managed to get him to shake off the ashes from his cigar about five times in a row without him ever taking a smoke (there was no ashes to shake off). Needless to say that he was actually following my lead and that I too have shaken off the ashes about five times. When I stopped shaking he stopped too. This only works on subconscious actions like scratching yourself or blinking, you know...stuff that you would have done anyway without thinking about it. Now, another thing in mirroring is pacing. That means that you should speak as fast as the person you are speaking to. I didn't have to do this, because ma brother and all of my friends speak at the same pace (that's probably because we're in rapport most of the time). The best way of knowing you've established rapport is...when you're talking to someone and you're like all into it and you know what that person is gonna say before he even says it and vice reversa. It is said that people in strong rapport also blink and breathe at the same time. Although blinking is something you cannot simulate, mirroring breathing is doable, but a lot harder than mirroring body movements.

Hypnosis is something you've all heard of, but I'm guessing it was presented to you in a wrong way. I've seen the movies in which the guy says something like "You are very very sleepy" or "Look deep into my eyes". Basically, that is a part of hypnosis, but you were probably thinking that it's magic and that it's only done in the movies. I thought that too. I was wrong. So were you.......hey, that rhymes. Anyway, hypnosis is something you can do. Now you're thinking "Yeah, maybe if I trained it for a year", but that's also wrong. Achieving hypnosis is...I would say even more easier than establishing rapport. However, I will not go into how it's done now, maybe later if you want to, because it's a long process that has many variations which you can change. For now, I'll just say that it's an altered state of consciousness. In hypnosis, you are not sleeping, you are fully wake and in control. Hypnotis cannot make you do anything you don't want to.

Subliminal suggestions are my favorite part of NLP and that's what I'll practice. When you talk to someone their brain listens on different levels. Conscious mind is listening to the context of your sentences and then searches for similar experiences within the person so that it could feel closer to you and so that it could share his or her own experiences with you about the matter that you are talking about. But the subconscious mind...now, that's a tricky one. It listens to everything. It listens to things that you don't even know you're saying. I'll just give you an example and then you'll figure it out. This is an example I watched on youtube. Now, if I told you a sentence like - "The other day I was walking down the street when I saw a car with a scratch on it and for a moment there I thought it was your car but soon I realized it wasn't so I just head on home." After I've told you this you'd probably be thinking about where you were yesterday and where was your car (if you even have a car...or a drivers license). What the subconscious mind would hear, if you'd slightly modify it by stressing out certain words like - "The other day I was walking down the street when I saw a car with a SCRATCH on it and for a moment there I thought it was YOUR car but soon I realized it wasn't so I just HEAD on home." I think you could probably guess what would happen if you would say this sentence to someone and stressed the bolded words, but not too much. If you stress it too much it wont work. Everything in NLP has to be subtle. This has many applications. Sometimes we give away subliminal messages without even realizing it. We are firing of anchors (that's another story, I'll tell you later...if you want), affecting people in so many ways... It's just amazing to me.

I'll give more on this subject later, but only if you'll read it...this is enough for now...