Razumeti sebe, razumeti druge

„Ne znate kako je, nemate pojma//Kada biste znali uradili biste i vi istu stvar!“ ~ Judas Priest (britanski bend)

Dragi prijatelji,

Da li ste se ikada našli u situaciji da neko donosi nepravedni sud o vama, neko ko nije imao uvid u vašu situaciju i pomislio da nešto radite zato što ste prosto takav tip osobe?

I da li ste ikada bili u situaciji da donosite sud o drugima zbog onoga što su uradili – zaključujući da su to uradili jer su takav tip osobe? Ako ste odgovorili potvrdno na ova pitanja, pripadate kategoriji „normalnih“ :-)! To je ono što većina ljudi radi. I prilično je prirodno.

Kada nešto uradite, vi poklanjate pažnju toj konkretnoj situaciji. To je ono gde dobijate informacije kako da postupite. Niko drugi nema uvid koji vi imate o tim okolnostima, i stoga su skloni da zanemare celu situaciju i da misle o vama kao o „tom tipu osobe“.

A naravno, vi radite isto. Ako je neko drzak prema vama to je sigurno zato što su drski. Ako je neko radostan, znači da je radosna osoba. Je li tako?!

Ako neki glumac igra inteligentan lik, mi ga doživljavamo kao inteligentnog. To može i ne mora da bude slučaj! To da je on inteligentan, naravno :-)!

Bolja opcija bi bila da se radi sasvim suprotno: da razmišljamo o svemu što radimo, kao o nečemu što biramo da radimo. I da razmišljamo o tome šta drugi rade, uzimajući u obzir njihovu situaciju, njihov kontekst.

Uvek imamo izbor! A naši izbori definišu naš karakter i našu sudbinu. Ako mislite da ste proizvod situacije u kojoj ste se našli, zaista bi trebalo da pročitate Sartra malo pažljivije. Egzistencijalizam nije samo tinejdžerska filozofija. To je pravac koji upućuje ka jednostavnoj istini: vi možete da birate. Imali ste izbor i evo vas tu. A ako ste izgubili sposobnost da birate – ako patite od pogrešnog uverenja da okolnosti kontrolišu vaše postupke, onda vam je preko potreban visoko kvalitetan NLP.

Stvar je u sledećem. Zamislite na momenat one koji vas pogrešno procenjuju i koliko bi vas bolje razumeli ako bi proveli samo malo vremena razmatrajući situaciju u kojoj ste.  A ovde leži i caka: koliko biste vi počeli da bolje razumevate druge ljude, njihove situacije i motive, ukoliko biste uzeli njihove okolnosti u obzir.

Imajući ovo u vidu, pozivamo vas da u toku sledeće nedelje razmotrite postupke par ljudi koje sretnete. Poželjno onih ljudi kojima ne biste tako lako rekli sve što mislite. I provedite neko vreme analizirajući okolnosti u kojima funkcionišu. Kladimo se da,  ako ovo budete radili dosledno, samo ovaj deo – provodili neko vreme da  shvatite stvari iz njihove perspektive, da vidite, čujete i osetite ono što i oni u sadašnjem trenutku, to će promeniti vaše razumevanje tih istih ljudi.

Zamislite kako bi bilo kada biste uzeli u obzir njihova prethodna iskustva i način na koji ih doživljavaju. Vaš ceo pogled na svet bi se promenio, i otvorio nove vidike!

Želimo vam divnu nedelju i šaljemo okeane ljubavi,

Vaši razumljivo razumevajući treneri,

Lidija i Thomas

P.S. Koristimo priliku da vas obavestimo da cemo od 14.6 početi sa NLP treninzima, seminarima i radionicama i u Beogradu!!!

Pozivamo vas da pogledate našu Momentum NLP Serbia Facebook grupu i našu Momentum Strategies Coaching Facebook stranicu i pridružite nam se sa komentarima, iskustvima, idejama i svim drugim stvarima vezanim za NLP lični razvoj i ekspanziju!!! Mi smo tu za vas!

Lidija Markovic Rosati, NLP Trener, Holistic NLP Trener, Hipnoterapeut, Master Neurostrateg, TimeLine terapeut. Osnivač Holistic NLP centra u Nišu. Živi i radi na relaciji Velika Britanija – Srbija. www.momentum-strategies.com

Thomas Björge – NLP Trener, NLP Coach (Klasični i Novi Kod). Živi i radi na relaciji Svedska, Norveška i Velika Britanija .

© Momentum Strategies 2013

Understanding You, Understanding Others

"You don't know what it's like, you don't have a clue
If you did you'd find yourselves doing the same thing too!”
~Judas Priest (British Band)

Dear Friends,

Have you ever found yourself being judged unfairly by others who lacked insight into your situation and thought you did what you did because that's the sort of person you are?

And have you ever found yourself judging someone else because of what they did - and concluding that they did what they did because they are that sort of person? If you answered ‘yes’ to these questions, you belong to the ‘normal’ :-) category! This is what most people do. And it is pretty natural.

When you do something, you are paying attention to that particular situation. That is where you get the information about how to act. No one else has the insight you have about that situation, and hence they tend to disregard it and think of you as this or that sort of person.

And of course you do the same. If someone treats you rudely it surely is because they are rude. If someone is happy, it means they are a happy person. Right?!

If an actor plays an intelligent character, we perceive him as intelligent. That may or may not be the case! Him being intelligent that is:-)!

A more rewarding option would be to do the exact opposite: to think of everything we ourselves do, as something we choose to do.  And to think of what others do, in terms of their situation, their context.

We always have a choice! And the choices we make define our character and our destiny. If you think you are the product of the situations you have found yourself in, you really should read Sartre more carefully. Existentialism isn't just teenage philosophy. It is a finger pointing directly toward the simple fact: you can choose. You had a choice and here you are. And if you have lost your ability to choose - if you suffer under the bad faith that circumstances control your actions, then you are in dire need of some high quality NLP.  

Here is the thing. Imagine for a moment those who misjudge you, how much better would their understanding of you be if they spent just a tiny fraction of time considering the situation you are in. And here is the clinch: how much better will you start to understand other people, their situations and motives when you take their situation into consideration.

With this in mind may we invite you to, during the forthcoming week, consider the actions of one or two people you meet. Preferably people of whom you would not be hard pressed to utter descriptive phrase or two. And spend some time analyzing the situation they are operating from. Our bet is that if you do this consistently, just this part, just spending some time attending to what other people see, hear and feel in the present it will alter your understanding of them.

Imagine what it would be like if you took into consideration their previous experiences and the way they filter them. Your whole worldview would change, and will open up new horizons!  

Wishing you wonderful week and sending you oceans of love,

Your understandably understood trainers,

Lidija & Thomas

Lidija Markovic Rosati– NLP Trainer (Classic & New Code), NLP Coach

Thomas Björge– NLP Trainer (Classic & New Code), NLP Coach

© Momentum Strategies 2013

„Ne želim da budem u milosti svojih emocija. Želim da ih koristim, da u njima uživam i da nad njima dominiram“ – Oscar Wilde

Dragi prijatelji,

Da li ste se ikada našli u situaciji u kojoj doživljavate emociju koju ste puno puta pre osetili? Naravno da jeste. A ako niste, čestitamo; pretpostavljamo da ste sada prosvetljeni Zen majstor. To je odlično. Molimo vas da nam pošaljete e-mail i podelite svoja iskustva :-)!

Suštinski, većina ljudi ima emocionalnu adresu. Nameštaj u njihovoj emotivnoj kući  se sastoji od istih komada nameštaja i svakodnevno je posećuju. Oni provode svoje živote živeći u malom skupu emocija.

E sada, jedno veoma bitno pitanje koje treba postaviti sebi je: Da li me emocije u kojima regularno provodim vreme služe? Da li mi moj emotivni dom pomaže da dostignem svoje dugoročne planove i snove?

Jer, vaša emotivna adresa nije samo mesto u kome živite ovog momenta. To je i pravac kojim putujete. To je broj autoputa  kojim vozite, pa gde on vodi? Prema istinskom Severu, ili Jugu?

Uopšteno govoreći, većina ljudi misli iste misli iz dana u dan, i ove iste misli rezultiraju istim emocijama, a ove iste emocije rezultiraju istim delima.

Ovo ne mora da bude loša stvar. Ako zaista uživate svirajući gitaru, radite to svaki dan – slušajući sopstveni napredak, vi ćete, u dogledno vreme, postići fini nivo majstorstva na svom instrumentu.

Ali isto tako, to može biti opasna zamka. Možete živeti život koji nije vaš pravi život. Neki ljudi prožive čitav svoj život na ovaj način. Razmišljajući o jednim te istim stvarima danima (a NE postoji uslov da ove misli imaju ikakve veze sa onim što doživljavaju tokom određenog dana!), posećujući par istih emotivnih stanja iz dana u dan, bazirajući svoje odluke i aktivnosti na ovim stanjima... i završavajući sa kreiranjem malo ili nimalo razlike ili avanture u svojim životima.

Sada, verovatno nije bio Albert Ajnštajn koji  je prvi rekao: „Definicija ludila je raditi jednu te istu stvar iznova i očekivati drugačiji rezultat.“ Ali ko god da je ta osoba bila, bila je na tragu nečega. Ako neko bazira sve svoje odluke na veoma ograničenom broju emocija, rezultati će biti skoro isti.

Imajući ovo u vidu, pozivamo vas da započnete nedelju prateći u koja emocionalna stanja  ulazite iz navike. Iz sata u sat postavite sebi pitanje: „Gde sam emotivno, u ovom trenutku?“ Kada odgovorite na ovo pitanje puno puta, možda počnete da prepoznajete svoju emocionalnu adresu. Tada je vreme da se zapitate: „Da li mi ove emocije pomažu da krenem u pravcu u kome želim da idem? Da li mi ova osećanja pomažu da kreiram i živim život kakav želim da imam i živim?“

Ako je vaš odgovor manje nego zadovoljavajući, onda je možda trenutak da se zapitate kojim osećanjima biste voleli da opremite svoj emotivni dom. I, šta biste mogli da učinite da bi ih načinili svojom novom emotivnom adresom?

Zelimo vam divnu nedelju i šaljemo ocean ljubavi,

Vaši treneri i lokalna služba za selidbu,

Thomas i Lidija

Lidija Marković – NLP Trener (Klasični i Novi Kod)

Thomas Björge – NLP Trener, NLP Coach (Klasični i Novi Kod)

P.S. Pozivamo vas da pogledate našu Momentum NLP Serbia Facebook grupu i našu Momentum Strategies Coaching Facebook stranicu i pridružite nam se sa komentarima, iskustvima, idejama i svim drugim stvarima vezanim za NLP lični razvoj i ekspanziju!!! Mi smo tu za vas!

© Momentum Strategies 2013

Where Is Your Emotional Address?

“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.” ~ Oscar Wilde

Dear Friends,

Have you ever found yourself experiencing an emotion, which you have experienced many times before? Of course you have. And if you have not, congratulations; we suppose you are now an enlightened Zen Master. That is good. Please send us an email and share your experiences:-)!

The thing is, most people have an emotional address. The furniture in their emotional house consists of the same pieces of furniture, which they visit daily. They spend their lives living in a small set of emotions.

Now one very relevant question to ask yourself is: do the emotions I regularly spend time in serve me? Is my house of emotions helping me achieve my long-term goals and dreams?

Because your emotional address is not just a place where you live at the moment. It is also the direction in which you are travelling. It is the number of the highway you are driving on, so where is it headed? Towards true North, or South?

Generally speaking most people think the same thoughts again and again, and these same thoughts result in the same emotions, and these same emotions result in the same actions.

This does not have to be a bad thing. If you truly enjoy playing the guitar, do so every day, and while listening for the progress you make, you will, in due time, achieve a fine level of mastery with your instrument.

But it can also be a dangerous trap. You can live a life, which is not your real life. Some people live their entire lives like that. Thinking about the same things again and again during the day (and there is NO requirement that the thoughts have anything to do with what they experience during the particular day!), visiting the same couple of emotional states again and again, basing their decisions and actions in these states … and then ending up with creating little or no difference or adventure in their lives.

Now, it probably wasn’t Albert Einstein who first said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” But whomever it was, was on to something. If someone bases all their decisions and actions on a very limited set of emotions the results are going to be pretty much the same.

With this in mind, may we invite you to start a week where you keep track of which emotional states you enter habitually. Every hour on the hour ask yourself a question: where am I at, emotionally, at this point in time? When you have answered the question a number of times you may start to recognize your emotional address. Then it is time to ask yourself: do these emotions help me move in the direction I want to go? Do these emotions help me create and live the life I want to have and experience?

If your answer is less than satisfactory, then it may be time to ask yourself what emotions you would like to furnish your emotional home with. And what you can do to make them your new emotional address.

Wishing you a wonderful week and sending you oceans of love!
Your local movers and trainers

Thomas and Lidija

Lidija Markovic Rosati– NLP Trainer (Classic & New Code), NLP Coach

Thomas Björge– NLP Trainer (Classic & New Code), NLP Coach

© Momentum Strategies 2013

Guilty Living vs. Free Living

“I was always fraught with guilt, and it's such a waste of an emotion. It keeps you out of the moment of being where you are.” - Kyra Sedgwick

Dear Friends,

Have you ever felt guilt? What a silly question! Of course you have! We all have, (except the Ted Bundies amongst us!)! It is a natural human response.

But hold on, what does it even mean? To feel guilt … what exactly is that guilt someone feels? It is certainly not a thing, it’s not something you can weigh or inspect under a magnifying glass or listen to. Yet you are fully capable of feeling “it”. You, as a human being, are capable of feeling guilty. It is more like a verb or an adverb than a noun. It is something you do, an activity you engage in. So let us explore this activity a bit further.

Think about it this way. There is a good natural response. Two children, a boy and a girl, are playing. The boy hits the girl. She starts crying. Empathy kicks in. The boy feels the girl’s feelings. Is sorry that he hurt her. Wants to comfort her. Perhaps wants to regain her trust and fellowship. This sort of guilt, born out of empathy and emanating from the person himself, is a good and healthy, a natural and self-correcting response. Motivating people to unwrong the wrongs, to avoid them in the future, to mend relationships. This is good guilt; this is something you want to be able to feel even though it may not always be pleasant. This is something that is extremely valuable for a human being.

But then there is the perverted guilt. Often induced by people who like to control people. People peddling the idea that if you don’t sacrifice yourself for something other than yourself, then you are evil, bad, egoistic. People who cannot deal with their own feelings of guilt, so they make someone else feel them. People who are unhappy with their situation and want to manipulate you into submission and servitude. And they are masters of guilting, they have often spent years and decades perfecting their skills. The right words, the right tone of voice, the right glare of disapproval. And sometimes it doesn’t even help that you realise what they are doing - you still react by producing feelings of guilt.

“Oh, just go out and enjoy yourself, don’t worry about me, laying here, sick and alone with noone to take care of me.”

And this is perhaps one of the most important things to realise about guilt. The popular definition of the word claims that guilt is an emotion you get when you have violated a moral standard you subscribe to. But indeed: the standard may be a standard someone else subscribes to.
To separate your own feelings from those of others is dealt with more in depth in NLP, but if you lack such a background a very good start is to simply ask a question: “are these my feelings for this situation, or did someone else “give” them to me?”

And moreover - “violated a moral standard you subscribe to” - makes it sound as if feelings were a rational process. Sort of: “Oh yes, according to the standards which I subscribe to, today I made three transgressions. Now it is time for me to feel guilt guilt with intensity five for ten minutes” Of course it is not like that.

If you doubt this, just start answering the question truthfully: which standards have you violated recently without feeling a single microgram of guilt. :-)

Now the danger with guilt is that it becomes an unproductive festering feeling poisoning your life and draining your vitality. On a smaller or a larger scale. Then what do you do?
You spend some time catching up with yourself. You sit down and do nothing else, but invite the feelings into your presence. Chances are this is exactly what you have been avoiding doing. Instead of welcoming these messages from your soul you have pushed them away, perhaps tried to intellectualise about them. And this is not so strange. Important messages are not necessarily pleasant, especially if you don’t want to listen to them. But now you do. Now you listen to your feelings.

Perhaps they will urge you to take action, perhaps they will nudge you to ask forgiveness, perhaps they just want to express themselves through you, perhaps they want you to let the feeling of repentance flow. Whatever they want, and whatever they are, welcome them and do your best to understand yourself, to understand your soul, your heart, your conscience. And also: explain to your conscience, the consequences of the guilt. Sometimes parts of our souls get so wrapped up in doing their thing that they loose track of the larger picture.

This is of course not a 3-step process with a guaranteed outcome. No one can predict the outcome of honest dialogue, even with oneself. And a process like redemption is not predictable. But too often we treat ourselves harshly, just brushing ourselves aside. But actually taking the time to listen to your soul’s intentions, to feel the concerns of your heart, and to explain to yourself the consequences of your reactions, is the reestablishment of that deeper and healing connection with yourself.

With this in mind, may we invite you to start a week with just observing and gauging the situations you find yourself in during the week, where you would normally feel guilty, and see how you can re-frame them, and use/see them differently, by doing the following: allow the sensation of guilt to happen, and when it does, acknowledge it and breathe into it, whilst listening to the real message beyond the labelled sensation.

Wishing you a wonderful week and sending you oceans of love,

Your walking on the edge trainers,

Thomas and Lidija

Lidija Markovic– NLP Trainer (Classic & New Code), NLP Coach
Thomas Björge– NLP Trainer (Classic & New Code), NLP Coach

© Momentum Strategies 2013

Diagnosis Kafka

“Once you label me you negate me.” ~ Sören Kierkegaard

Dear Friends,

Have you ever noticed how people, and maybe even yourself, need to label stuff?

And did you also notice a huge relief when you got the label, diagnosis, opinion, a second opinion even...? That feeling of elation, albeit for a short time, when the label is given... It is a curious thing our need to label stuff, and I couldn’t help but wonder why the need to label? Why do we crave it so much, and what need or needs do we satisfy by labeling stuff, by giving it a diagnosis if you like?!

And isn’t it a great feeling when you chat with someone and you both arrive at the same labeling. A feeling of connection - that common labeling can only happen when you share a worldview.

This need to label, very likely satisfies several needs. A deep bound need to categorize reality in order to effectively handle it. Evolution is about survival. Survival is about predicting and understanding what is going on. Understanding is about labeling.

Once you have labeled a phenomena you know how to deal with it. A label presupposes that you recognize the phenomena, it is the same as some other phenomena.

Yet, there is a huge drawback. Once you have labeled phenomena, you already think you know what you are dealing with. You essentially sacrifice your ability to discover new things about what you have labeled. Perception isn’t so much a matter of taking things in, as it is about projecting things out. The brain projects its expectations onto the world around it, and matches these expectations with the incoming stimuli.

And this is one of the dangers of which labeling is just the symptom. Some people get stuck so far inside the label making factories of the brain that no incoming stimuli ever reach them. At least nothing which would cause them to update their understanding of reality. Political, religious, and ideological fanatics, with readymade interpretations of whatever happens, come to mind.

Even more interesting are labels when applied to people. Because if you apply a label to yourself, you will not only interpret yourself in the terms of the label, but your actions may also be affected by it. And worse: this may even happen if you don’t agree with the label.

This may be the reason why Tao Te Ching starts with drawing up the distinction between what is spoken about and what is said. The things that can be said are not the things themselves. The road that can be described is not the road travelled. Our description of the world is not the world.

The same sentiment was repeated much later by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. The thing-in-itself is not the same as the thing-for-me. And later still in the tenets of NLP: the map is not the territory.

And the map may even limit one’s exploration of the territory. If Christopher Columbus had believed the world was flat, he would have avoided sailing towards the edge!

So with this in mind, may we invite you to start this week by exploring what certain labels, names, mean to you? How appropriate are they for your personal experience? Are they adding fragrance and richness to your life, or are they being given and accepted by default? Do they help you sail to the edge and beyond, or do they keep you running round in circles? Do they give you extra wind in your wings?

It would be interesting to hear what you experience in your label exploration journey :-)!

And remember, we are here for you!

Wishing you a wonderful week and sending you oceans of love,

Your label-free and free-flowing trainers,

Thomas and Lidija

Lidija Markovic– NLP Trainer (Classic & New Code)

Thomas Björge– NLP Trainer (Classic & New Code), NLP Coach

© Momentum Strategies 2013