I heard a 2-hour lecture about how all human behaviour may be explained as acts of 'state management'. Our life is all about getting from non-preferred states (defined as a link between what we think and how we feel) to preferred ones.
The speaker (an engineer turned neuro-linguistic programming expert) told a joke about Deepak Chopra asking a guy what would make him feel good about himself. The guy said a brand new Merc would be just about great. Chopra asked the guy to describe/imagine himself driving this car. The guy says well it'd be great to be sitting inside the shiny new car, enjoying the plush seats, stylish steering wheel, great reputation of being known as someone who owned a Merc, and so on. Chopra then asked him how he felt as he was imagining this. The guy said it feels great. Chopra then said, "Well, you don't need the Merc anymore, do you?"
It a good story with no small grain of truth. We quite literally are what we think sometimes. The speaker shared about how someone expressing skepticism about this whole imagine-yourself-into-a-better-state thing, saying, "Isn't this all in the mind?" The speaker said that he replied, "Well, what isn't?"
Speaking of states, I just took a bus-ride up from the state of Selangor to Penang (during which I caught Samara: The Ring II on the bus - less mysterious and story-driven, therefore not as good as the first movie). Gave a 1.5-hour presentation on, of all things, Change Management. The reception was, on the whole, good. Some in the audience, however, said they felt the part on the CM process itself was too 'abstract'. I guess six opening slides on trends in management, work habits and educational trajectories weren't enough.
Posted at 07:45 pm by alwynlau
 | Posted by Derek L. @ 05/03/2005 12:31 PM PDT | |
| I was reading stuff about how humans react psychologically to triggers and stimulation, and NLP is basically just that - triggering psychological states using words. Absolutely fascinating stuff! |
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| Posted by Alwyn @ 04/28/2005 04:42 PM PDT | |
In fact I *did* find much of the stuff very insightful and, best of all, USEFUL (smile), esp. in the context of learning.
how did you start reading on this issue? (for me it's all a fluke - if the speaker didn't happen to be on my school's Board of Governors we wouldn't have gotten neck-deep in NLP, period!) |
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| Posted by Derek L. @ 04/27/2005 05:45 PM PDT | |
Funny you should mention NLP. It's one of the hot topics in psychology today, and it's something I've been reading up on lately.
The idea behind NLP and similar "state altering mechanisms" isn't to change reality. Reality is reality. Rather, the idea is to modify your interpretation of your reality and hence achieve a satisfactory "result", which could be a mental/attitude adjustment or even a physical reaction.
In your prisoner analogy, your prisoner's states could be acceptance (ok, i'm stuck here) or defiance (i gotta get out) or delusion (this isn't happening to me) etc, and how he percieves his time in jail is very dependent on the mental state he chooses to be in.
Or, you know how you get all excited and sometimes even start salivating when you think about having a good meal? That's a simple everyday example of the power of state management. You imagine yourself eating that yummy sharksfin soup, and your body reacts accordingly, as if you were actually eating it.
This is very powerful stuff, I kid you not! |
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