NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming.  It is the key so self-mastery.  It is leading yourself to expand your personality, to make a difference and to realize your true potential.

With NLP, you can become aware of the patterns of your thinking and behaviour and actions that make your experience what it is.  You can learn the patterns which work for you and which patterns you have learned over time that sabotage your success and which are outside of your conscious awareness.

NLP provides you with a chance to stand back and take stock of your work, and your life and decide if you like what you are getting.  If so, you can develop choices to have more of the same or even build on what you already have.

Alternatively, it can give you the awareness to recognize the unproductive patterns and do something about them.  This process of uncovering patterns both conscious but especially unconscious, is the heart of NLP.

You are working at a computer. There are programs running. Let’s assume that you prefer to work with Microsoft or MS Word.

There are plenty of books in bookshops that, if we buy them, we could, theoretically understand 100% of how MS Word actually works.

It would take a bit of time, but well, it is possible. But what do we do, usually?  We have our initial program, and sometimes, when asked, we download an update from the Internet.

Despite all of that we mostly use MS Word and the computer, in the same fashion as we use a typewriter.  We look at the screen and type.  Hardly ever do we understand all the nitty-gritty behind the software.  Sometimes, when the program hangs, we ask friends to help us, or restart the computer.

This is similar to our brains. The fact is however, we don’t get a user manual to the brain when we were born.

We develop our brain while we are growing up.  And, just like a computer, we start installing programs in us (or other people installing programs in us) – these are beliefs, habits, values etc, into something that we call the subconscious or unconscious mind (both are actually the expressions for the same “thing”).

In fact, while we are small, our environment “takes care of the installation.” Parents, relatives, friends, school, TV, and the Internet and more do this for us.  They all are taking care of “forming” our belief system, who we are and how we feel about ourselves.

Just remember the time, when your parents asked you to “finish the food because it is so sad to throw the food away on the plate (I am not saying that this is good!)” or “don’t play outside when it rains, because you will get sick.”

These are belief statements and some are good and some are not so good. But they keep running on and on and on. Sometimes, just like MS Word, or the computer, they hang – and this is when things get worse, because, it is not necessarily easy to stop such a program.

There are many phobias around, but it doesn’t matter. Something happened a longer time ago, may be you suddenly were alone in the elevator, the door closed too early.  You got scared.  You screamed but there was no one to help you. The elevator moved and you were alone, the whole long ride.  At least, it felt long to you, when you were so very young.  An incredible fear was build up inside of you. Now, to protect you, the mind or better, the subconscious mind, which does not see that you are okay now, still runs a program that wants to protect you from ever be exposed to the same situation again. The moment you see an elevator, this irrational fear comes back. What a great and instant learning, but of course, not very good, considering that you might need to go in an elevator every now and then.

Here, NLPlers identify your individual strategy, how you get so fearful, inside of you. How do you represent the picture of an elevator inside of you, the feeling of an elevator, what do you hear, what do you say to yourself.