It has been some of the diaries written by Chriscol that inspired my sharing of what I understand of NLP. There is an area in our brain stem called the Reticular Activating System, and though it remains still a bit mysterious we are beginning to understand it and the role it plays in our personal motivation. What I learned in that NLP class about the RAS and the diaries that Chriscol has written about on how to avoid that “stupid” fight with Republicans over their weekly xeroxed talking points lines up very well. I began to revisit my old NLP class from reading those diaries and practicing what was discussed.
I learned in that class to be very careful with my use of the word try because try isn’t an action word that works well in meeting our goals. Try gets us stuck. I didn’t believe it at first until the teacher said, “Fine, then try to stand up Tracy but only TRY TO.” I did and found that completing the task wasn’t the message I sent to my brain and I stood halfway up and sat down. We believe that it is the Reticular Activating System (RAS) that takes words in and processes them into motivation and try isn’t motivating. It is better to say that I can’t or won’t or couldn’t and just handle the flack, it doesn’t seem to strip us of so much personal power.
Another thing that we are pretty sure of is that the RAS doesn’t understand negatives. It only seems to process in one direction. At the time of this class I was having problems with my daughter always spilling her beverages all over the place, everyday….sometimes twice…..it seemed like the more we talked about it the more often it happened and it was driving me crazy. According to the teacher I needed to approach the subject completely differently. I was telling her what I didn’t want her to do and I would say “Don’t spill your milk” and “Don’t take your juice into the living room” and I had spilled milk everywhere and juice all over the living room. Apparently most people visualize internally an action before they undertake it. When I told my daughter, “Don’t take your juice into the living room” her brain visualized taking the juice into the room but the RAS does not have a circle with a slash through it that it throws over the top of the visualization, it doesn’t process negatives very well at all. I was told to reframe and get rid of the words don’t and not since they really confuse the RAS and little kids spill the milk and take the juice into the living room. I started telling her to keep her milk glass upright and keep all glasses in the kitchen on the table and I only had two more spills before all spills stopped.
Being emotionally defensive toward the constant attacks works against us and countering with “I am not” and “I don’t” to their flung around talking points and character assassinations gets stuck in the RAS of the public because they visualize the action we claim to not have done and it just hangs in the air going no place after that. How many people roll on the floor laughing whenever someone mimics Nixon well saying, “I am not a crook!”? We all got a visual of him as a crook. George Bush is a much bigger crook than Tricky Dick ever was but he doesn’t throw around don’t and not very often. Sometimes I swear the guy is as dumb as a sack of hammers but somehow he carefully picks his way around any words that leave any negative impressions personally placed by him in the public RAS.
So defending ourselves often makes us look exactly as wingnuts want us to look. We get defensive and we use don’t and not and we appear lost and weak. It can sometimes be challenging to find different ways to say the same thing we want to say without using don’t and not but I have gotten very good at it these days…….it just works too well to ignore how stressless things can become when big people and little people really hear what I do want instead of what I don’t want. In both cases all they really hear is I want and that’s what I get.
I read something about this years ago in a business writing essay (I don’t work in private business — never have, but I write proposals for my job).
Before reading that essay, I would write memos that tried to answer all the potential arguments about my idea. And I’d have to keep defending them.
After I read that article, I started writing positive memos. What I wanted us to do, why it would work, how it would work. I let other people raise the problems…And I write more positive memos in response. It’s incredible how much more interest people take in ideas that are presented with positive language. For a soft-talker like me, it was a revelation
It’s not that I stopped thinking of the problems and drawbacks — but, the idea is for me to argue on behalf of my ideas, not against them.
Also, speak in absolutes: “This is a good idea” not “I think this is a good idea”
It’s funny how the negative/soft language always creeps in, however. I have to be ruthless when I edit even my email. I’m always slipping up.
There’s no such thing as “try.” Either you do it or you don’t.
Bush is carefully coached in his talking and at the outset he was terrible at it, but as time went on he managed to get better. Maybe it was the box on his back but probably he also has been coached day and night as to what to say and how to respond. And he doesn’t have many press conferences and he will ignore questions he doesn’t like. Occassionly he will even throw a temper fit (which is closer to who he really is than the stepford wife he has become in public.)
I’ve seen clips of him during his debates with Ann Richards for the governorship, and he was very effective in a Texas neo-winger way. He was about 20 times more fluent than he is now, spoke more quickly, without all the “uhs,” and in complete sentences, but stayed on message throughout. In fact, in the debates with Gore in 2000 he was much more coherent than he is now.
I think he’s a natural politician/demagogue–not intelligent, exactly, but clever in his way–who has suffered some sort of mental deterioration in recent years. Could be effects of drinking or drugs, could be early onset of senility, or something else. But he wasn’t born like this.
One of my aunts saw a show on pbs about gwb past as a religious speaker. She said he could speak for an hour or more very eloquently about his relationship with Jesus.
And as you said, without the ums and uhs.
NLP = Natural Language Processing?
I was wondering about that myself. So what is it?
Neuro-Linguistic Programming
Thanks!
Excellent diary Tracy! Now to put it to use on the family. :^)
Though OT, a companion article in communication came out in the NYT magazine by Matt Bai regarding importance of language and words.
NLP and RAS is not mentioned but what you discussed above should be part of everyone’s tool box in understanding why we need to avoid use of words such as ‘not’ and why we need to stay positive.
I just noticed my quote in the sig line. The Einstein comment would be the wrong way to get your message out.
Looks like I’m going to search around for a different sig line…
very good Tracy. I am so very guilty of being that way…God help me to TRY to change…:o) Like I said once this site helps me learn on a daily basis.
The reticular activating system regulates arousal and our responses to stimulation from the environment. Specifically, it monitors how much stimulation we let in–e.g., how much noise or light we can tolerate before the body acts to protect us. Because of this, there is a theory of personality, originated by Hans Eysenck, that argues that the RAS is implicated in whether a person is introverted or extraverted. Introverts can’t handle that much environmental stimulation, while extraverts seek to let in more. So, for example, introverts stay away from crowds and loud parties, while extraverts are drawn to them. There is some experimental evidence for this.
Is there research to show that the RAS is involved in language processing? If so, I’d love to see it. My field is language development, and if there is evidence for this, I’d like to use it in my teaching. Thanks!
My Godfather was visiting from New York and I see him so seldom and love him so much. I will dig up what I have of hand outs and things from the class (I saved everything because it was fascinating and helped me so much with my own personal goals and relationships) and see what I can find out concerning the research done.
This is just fascinating. Thanks for this, I really learned something new for a change. Now I have to go back and hunt up those other diaries of yours.
Great diary. I work with NLP and similar stuff and even after almost 20 years I am still amazed how effective just paying attention to the choice of words can be, and how at times almost magical outcomes can be observed.
Tracy, I rather think this has nothing to do with your topic, but afteer reading yoru diary, I could only remember the play and musical, “The King and I”….:o)…Thanks again for awakening me to this.
in this diary everybody. As I posted further up, my Godfather was visiting. This diary was on the tip of my brain and I wanted to get it up before it got lost in New York bagels and Lox, but I didn’t really proof read it and it shows so thanks for your patience. Sorry that I didn’t also place in the diary that NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. I was celebrating a belated birthday with him and was focused on the flourless chocolate cake recipe and whether or not I needed to make double the chocolate mousse to serve with it and sometimes chocolate distracts me.
Thanks! I’d love to see it.