In-sight. Looking towards a fixed future.

The way the mind works can be very sly.
Early on in my time at law school, my work with self hypnosis was extraordinarily powerful. I had yet to develop the habits and routines (connections, anchors and strategies) and so it was easy to massively revise my approach and personality there from time to time. If you have read a little about my post on ‘anchors’(or strategies), or have knowledge of these sneaky little connections yourself, you understand how it can be more difficult to generate fast and powerful change when they are established.

So lets get a little bit personal. As the harried student of American jurisprudence, there is little leeway for personal time. The people, the classes, they days blend together, and weeks soar by rapidly. Truly a prime environment for quickly developing a habitual routine. Unfortunately not only has the work become routine, but the states associated (not to be confused with associated states). Along the way I’ve been using my varied skillset to release negative emotions that are generated, maintain an (often) enthusiastic or generative state, and on several occasions, deconstruct certain attractions I’ve felt for colleagues of mine. Although it *may* be a fertile field to develop ‘casual’ relationships, its not what I’m looking for, in fact, I’m not looking. Quite frankly, I’m too busy right now, and I’ve been exploring the ways to fully acquiring my footing in this first semester unfettered by such particular connection.

Fortunately I am selective so I am sure-footed enough to not ’fall’ easily. However, if someone demonstrates the qualities I find attractive, it quickly extends past mere physical appreciation of their external assets. To both my pleasure and dismay, one such made their way from the pack, and I found this particular lady both charming, funny, and intriguing. My interest piqued, but determination to move on and suppress it was obviously a poor choice. To negate something, you must experience it, and slowly and surely my emotions went from passing intrigue to something a bit more… intense. I banished them twice, but to apply a DHE metaphor, you can deal with an emotion but if you leave the machine that made it intact, it will just go on creating itself in the same way again. Apt. Same inputs created the same results. It is almost scientific.

Not (any longer) being one to mask these thing, and putting it out in the open is superior (in my opinion) than dragging burdensome feelings in secret, I pulled her aside a few days ago and directly told her that as I’ve gotten to know her better I’ve come to find her very attractive. Also I made it clear that I was not looking for anything presently. Her response was somewhat typical from (my) experiences with the direct approach, shocked, flattered, and substantially positive. If I can take this further when my time frees up after exams, we will see.

One thing out of all this that I have recently realized however was the inertia of my behavior. Outside of class, without thought, behaviors, ideas, jokes, pranks, come to me easily. In class however, that playfulness is substantially dampened, and I’m completely present oriented, but not to my best qualities (in that respect). The why just occurred to me, “You don’t rise to the occasion, you fall to your training.” Old states and strategies had crept in again. In college, most of my dynamism and social savvy stemmed from motion. I was changing venue, outside, and my best interactions came from transitory locales. Parties, coffee shops, outside, etc. Sitting in the same room for hours on end here had me, in part, reverting to substantially less hyper-socialized behaviors, some of which I had not engaged in for years since I learned better. The why? I had never acted in those ways in a classroom setting. As the song goes ‘Its all coming back to me.” In fact, this was so subtle, my recognition of this finally solved the musings I’ve entertained of the why certain changes and efforts have become so difficult. Now I turn my eyes forward to examine the ‘how’ to break the back of this inconvenience and return to representing myself in the best way possible.

Even deeper now...

Famed life coach Anthony Robbins has been known to say that if you’re having a life worth living, it’s a life worth recording. While this strikes me as fairly true, that leads me to think about my relatively sparse updating.

In all honesty these days I work just about all the time. The days fly by, marked only by the changing in topic. Once again, I’m not surprised by the workload and requisite effort to excel, but I am finding myself living in something of a box. I suppose my progress has been stymied by lack of time and energy, although not lack of motivation. Insight still arrives but personal and social development are now trifles as a matter of time.

Even so I exert influence in one direction or another to the current limited options that are available to me. Even so, for the time being, the days of open and honest interest in my unique skillset are, if not behind me, on hiatus.

That is not to say that I will not be posting. I have a few pet projects in mind, and if little else, I can extend some of my insight and learnings into the workings of the mind.

A little wisdom...

After winning several archery contests, the young and rather boastful champion challenged a Zen master who was renowned for his skill as an archer. The young man demonstrated remarkable technical proficiency when he hit a distant bull's eye on his first try, and then split that arrow with his second shot. "There," he said to the old man, "see if you can match that!" Undisturbed, the master did not draw his bow, but rather motioned for the young archer to follow him up the mountain. Curious about the old fellow's intentions, the champion followed him high into the mountain until they reached a deep chasm spanned by a rather flimsy and shaky log. Calmly stepping out onto the middle of the unsteady and certainly perilous bridge, the old master picked a far away tree as a target, drew his bow, and fired a clean, direct hit. "Now it is your turn," he said as he gracefully stepped back onto the safe ground. Staring with terror into the seemingly bottomless and beckoning abyss, the young man could not force himself to step out onto the log, no less shoot at a target. "You have much skill with your bow," the master said, sensing his challenger's predicament, "but you have little skill with the mind that lets loose the shot."

Possibilty’s Mind (Part III): Fancy Title Withheld

As most everyone understands to a greater of lesser extent, people are learning machines. Most of our belief system we originally adopt from our family and in the end take at least some of the values they instill in us. It is not always the case but it is much more often than not. These are not always overt. Even someone rejecting an abusive family may have become abusive in turn.

Recently it has led me to some manner of self-inquiry. I have somewhat of a flexible and malleable belief system. There absolutely are values, even ostensibly good values, which I learned from others instead of developing for myself. What I felt as an obligation to my possible future family, what being a good family person entails, etc are taken from other sources. How do I know? My verbiage is almost identical to that where I borrowed it from. These are good and strong, but are they mine? Having explored and crafted for myself many of the personal values I hold dear (which as far as I can tell are not really replicated by anyone I know personally or from material I have been exposed to), I noted recently how these others ‘values’ were generated not from experiential observation but words I learned as a child. Once by all accounts these values (not enumerated here) are solid and respectable.

Do I want to keep them?
Honestly
I don’t know.

One does not need to do bad things to create a value system not to do so. However, something I choose to explore for myself (which I would encourage anyone to do), is to sift through my own beliefs, or what I claim my beliefs are, and ask myself whether its really something I experience and hold dear, or if its something given to me by someone else. Naturally all our beliefs are generated by some manner of information gathering. An example to clarify my point

I held that I want to provide for my (eventual) family the way so that the same opportunities are available to them that were created for me. My family certainly fought tooth and nail for their current place in our society. The expectation is that I would repay them by doing the same.

But I don’t know if I really want to. Not yet.
But that’s what I claimed I believed. I even do to a certain extent, but the passion is not there.
Yet.

I’m far more interested in self development at this time.
Even elements of my profession, undergraduate studies, etc, were pre-fabricated for me by the expectations and values of my family. I went along with it, not grudgingly but because I thought that I was following what I thought I believed in. While direction is good, it wasn’t until somewhat recently that I gained enough insight to see this in particular for what it really is. I am fortunate that I convinced myself that I really like what I do. However decisions I made operating on someone else’s map of how things should be and what I need to do, will forever mark my life.

These days I choose my values. However, taking a deep look at what you think makes you tick and being honest with yourself can be both illuminative and instructive. When I have some opportunity and inclination, I explore it for myself. The key is that its up to us to decide what it is we truly want. It is our responsibility to ourselves.

What do you really value? You decide.

Possibility's Mind (Part 2) "Different Strokes For Different Folks"

Before I began my professional school career (an interesting choice of words), I had found a great balance in my life. I was achieving or well on the way to achieving almost all of my personal goals.

Then came the Great Interrupt. Law School began. Personal (and social life) fell by the wayside in the pursuit of excellence. What I had developed out of my life was not necessarily the best strategy for dealing with professional school so I’ve had to adapt significantly. Even now I am constantly fine tuning my approach. Hopefully I’ll have more on the experience of walking into school with vastly different personalities over the course of several weeks when I have more time to write. If theres interest, express it, and I will generate the time to elaborate.

The social connections have been exceedingly superficial. Referring to my friend again, there is a “False Camaraderie” in this setting. Somewhat irksome when the only interests my colleagues have been expressing are sleeping and studying. Admittedly the workload is impressively intense, but it is somewhat disconcerting how quickly everyone has abandoned the interests that individualize them. Although things have been going just fine on a superficial social level, I’ll be the first to admit that the lack of connection on a deeper level is somewhat disruptive to my preferred means of communication. I’ve begun exploring alternatives of which you’ll hear details eventually. As a commuter school, we all head in, serve our time, return home and prepare for the next day. We generate a few minor social events, but little to solidify us as anything more than the same faces every day.

If I want more, the burden is on me. I’ve been happily weighing ladening myself like a pack mule with all the personal and professional challenges in my present because I know I can handle them. Whats one more?

Admittedly its exceedingly difficult when other people are not inclined to meet you halfway. As something of a student of communications and behavior however, I know that to get is to give, and the bar has been set much higher than randomly meeting someone new in a train station.

It’s a challenge, and challenges interest me.
The biggest issue however is time management, and by prioritizing everything, it is not very high in the queue. However it is something worth exploring, and learning how to establish highly successful communication and connection in this different environment should be an interesting exploration.

Whats been going on In Possibility's Mind? (Part 1)

There have been a few ideas floating around my mind in my scant quiet moments. I’ll mention them briefly and I encourage YOU to POST YOUR THOUGHTS.

1) The self-improvement and development communities have been expanding rapidly as of late. The most popular undergraduate class in Harvard is ‘Positive Psychology’, which in short is a class about learning to feel good and get a stronger grip on life. ‘Positive Psychology’ is also exploding across different continents. CNN recently described Yoga trips, yoga oriented vacations to enhance spiritual and physical quality and well-being. (Story HERE: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/09/13/yoga.vacations.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch) Anecdotal evidence implies certain therapeutic models and new age ideas are becoming increasingly mainstream.

Why now? My entrance into these communities and belief systems was predicated on a then dissatisfaction that I was not fulfilling my potential. At the time I thought I was an exception. It is readily becoming apparent however, that its far from exceptional.
Is it because the world is perceived as so much more a dangerous place in the last few years? Is the cognizance of loss, pain, and suffering, causing people to relate it to their own lives and determine they want more? They want control?

Is it perhaps a cycle? There were the 60s of course, and sometime over a century ago there was another ‘spiritual’ and self improvement movement. Is it just a natural progression of events, which too will soon find its demise as our expansion in thought meets the inexorable decay of the mundanity of our repetitive existence? I freely admit that it is a concern of mine that I too may eventually fall victim to this subtle oppression, and so I remain ever vigilant.

Is it something else?

If it is a cycle, why so fast? The unbelievable change in our communication, not only in the last two decades but in the last three years with the onset of facebook, youtube, wikipedia, have hyper-accelerated our transfer of ideas. If, lets say, that the specter of conflict in this new millennium is the driving force for our growing trend of happiness/self mastery seeking individuals, then our response has been of unbelievable speed. If the 60s countercultures took a decade to fully form because of the onset of the Cold War (unsubstantiated opinion of one of the big factors), then in half a decade we’ve achieving something in a third of the time. Is it then that we are on some hyper accelerated learning track? Information has never been more accessible and learnings that once were outside the means of all but the few have been packaged and repackaged into easily consumable forms, so much so, that the average person is overwhelmed by its extent. Rather than scarcity, we have an overabundance and it may be far more paralyzing.

Or not. Feedback is welcomed.

Expect Long Delays

Life is busy. I was speaking to a man whose opinion I highly respect who referred to professional school as ‘Intellectual Bootcamp’. His observation was uncannily apt. Quickly and insidiously, it wormed its way into my heart and mind and displaced nearly everything about my life but my attitude. I’m facing other significant challenges as well. My time is at a premium and so this blog has descended down the exalted ranks of my priorities. Fear not, gentle reader, I have not abandoned you.

What the hey!? Thoughts on Confusion

Fair warning, I wrote this up after Torts and I wasn't firing on all cylinders if you take my meaning. Its up to you, gentle reader, to find meanig on this one. It may even be incomplete but frankly I have neither time nor stamina to return to this one.

Having now sampled the wonders of the Socratic Method as a teaching device, applied in several different fashions by several brilliant law professors in the tender opening days of my law school career, my map has been expanded to add fresh new thoughts on confusion as an instructional device.

But first, what is confusion? Several times I’ve heard how a confusion induction ‘works’ by bombarding the conscious mind with suggestions or stimuli, until the critical factor is dropped. Why then the highly draining hyperempiric responses undergone during our ‘orientation’ process. While making the transition from disoriented to oriented, the principle of ‘strategy’ (from NLP) as defined here as the method through which we navigate reality. As such, confusion, is the state in which our reality strategy has collapsed or been interrupted, of which there may be several responses. Some withdraw to reconstruct their reality, others deny, and for others allow change.

All of this must be confusing. Good.

Are we absolutely unable to respond to a host of stimuli at incredible speeds? Probably with the conscious mind still engaged, however if it happens to be stimuli from a certain source, we become ‘trained’ to it so we can engage conscious thought while reacting at high speeds simultaneously. Video games (fighters or shooters) for example nowadays are extremely fast paced involving near instantaneous reactions as well as planning. When someone begins and is new, they don’t have those reactions but with time and unconscious competence, they’re handling more information than one typically needs for many confusion hypnotic inductions. They begin without the proper ‘strategy’ to navigate the game, something they develop over time.
Orientation- Students are constantly subjected to places, people, and experiences of which they are unfamiliar with. Noticeably, everyone is completely exhausted by the day’s end. It is not that the work is necessarily more complicated or strenuous than an average day’s effort, however they exist in a new environment without having developed the day to day strategy that will be had in a few weeks time. We are hyper alert in such experiences, as the mind is both providing your conscious mind with so much information (hyperempiria- heightened awareness) to aid you in protecting yourself, and utilizing a great deal of energy to process it in a way that will make the situation familiar. For lack of a different strategy, herding instincts kick in and people quickly form little associations that will eventually become cliques. Learning is also accelerated as rumors and hearsay quickly become gospel.

Socratic Questioning- If the new environment isn’t enough to cause some flexibility in the students’ state of mind, we then have the no holds barred questioning from professors from the very first day, challenging, overturning, and undermining all assumptions and pretenses of understanding that the students may have. This seemed to me as an overall strategy of mind elasticity, before we can learn things wrongly, we constantly are forced into questioning our thought processes as a means of casting doubt on our classroom and reading strategies. The final intent then is (I imagine) for us to develop similar questioning processes ourselves, redefining and remapping our very method of thinking, our thinking and perception strategies. In effect, the first years of law school seem to be a giant modeling program, as we have a fixed curriculum, and are railroaded into thinking along the lines the professors want us to. The constant undermining of our current reality sets the stage for easy formatting as we’re already placed in a highly receptive state. By learning to doubt our own intuitions, not only are we suppressing our current strategies, but the constant reinforcement prevents them from resurfacing, while making us all the more pliant.

The Return of The King

Possibility is back in action and incredibly busy. I'll be posting again soon.

Okay, here's where I REALLY am going.

Away. I'll be out of the country for a month with no internet access. I'll have more to write about when I'm back in August. Have a good one.

Where am I going?

In the last year I’ve made incredible changes in my life. I found my ambition, motivation, confidence, directness, and considerably more strength of character. That is, not to say that I am finished. I still have my foibles. I can readily be accused of inaction sometimes. There are times when I surrender to lesser instincts and drift a bit from my purpose. To err is human, and its okay, as long as I continue pursuing my path with vigor. There are times when its not so easy, and that’s critical. I believe in being tempered by the forge. Its how I was raised, to my then discontent. All things considered, I’ve made tremendous strides in this year, and the next will be even better. As forges go, the inferno is coming. But as I’ve been preparing myself mentally I’ll be in good form for my next challenges. Physically these past months have been tremendous step backwards, my illnesses, my surgery, the ensuing recoveries, has erased years of effort. That’s okay. The past has passed, and I gave it my best. Now, I once again begin the slow process of rebuilding. I can honestly say I look forward to it.

But where to go with the mind? I’ve been perceiving mine a lot more philosophically and spiritually than clinically as of late. Reading the Tao Te Ching and immersing myself in Zen wisdom finally has true meaning for me. I have not surrendered my religious beliefs, but find great work to complement my personal development in these eastern teachings.

So once again I look at the mind with new eyes. My world changed when I began to perceive the world in through the eyes of a hypnotist. Patterns, states, trances, knowledge, emotion all became readily available.

But now I have begun to look at my mind more philosophically. Am I seeking release? To continue to throw off the chains of the judgment of others? Am I seeking release from my own urges? Looking at the mind from another standpoint, as a tool, would naturally seem clinically unsound. Everything we are is up there (soul not included) after all. But now I am beginning to perceive it as less a container of the personality, at least for me, but to perceive it as a highly sophisticated tool that has a habit of intervening in ways that may not necessarily be what I deeply value the most.

Now all this is easily understood from many different perspectives. However I’m looking at it detached. We have higher levels (logical levels, meta – frames, superconscious, however you want to look at it and chunk it), where we often can see and critique our actions, desires, and wants. We also have a mind that can provide chatter in the forms of words, feelings, pictures, however, that can undermine or aid you. But perceiving the mind as a tool, and all of these feelings that lead you astray as externalities, then what do you have underneath? That’s what I am interested in finding out. I’ve used hypnosis and other techniques to find the basis of many of my major problems, and heal them. But what about the little things that build up? Because deep down I just know these are things applied to sway me from this pure self, this pure state free from all those fabricated things. I wonder what it would be like to have found that place, that freedom from all the negatives holding me back, to fully pursue all things I desire with freedom and clarity? Am I seeking that which some call enlightenment? No, I don’t think so, but I am looking for freedom. Freedom! From the parts of this tool that imposes all limitations on me. Is that where I’m going now? With this new perception, all I know is I’ve taken my first steps. The path is obscured, shrouded in darkness, but at the end there is the beacon, the light that makes it all worth it, and that is where I choose to go. Will I ever reach my destination? I don’t know. How valuable is freedom from your limitations to you?

Yours truly is out of comission...

which is why there hasn't been a post in a while. Recovering from surgery and the drugs knock me out. When I have a life rolling again I'll once again provide discourse.

The point of PU: A Pointless Diatribe

As a fair warning to any of my readers, I’m presently loaded up on pleasant post-op drugs having been wheeled out the door a couple hours ago.

For the moment I’m fairly immobile and took the time to catch up on Be1Man’s blog (noted under my Simply Awesome links.) I would recommend any reader to find themselves making their way there as it has some fascinating social commentary in one of the expanding spheres of internet community, that of the ‘secret society’ of pickup artists. He finds fault with many of the adherents of this society, as out to impress men more than women, leading to false, stretched, or untrue, accounts by self proclaimed ‘pickup artists’ while lamenting that many don’t seem to get the point of the pursuit. While every person has their own reason for entering, they forget that its in fact a self improvement movement to enhance and enrich their social scene and develop the social skills and confidence that would serve them throughout every aspect of their lives.

These people often surrender themselves to ‘gurus’ of the seduction scene, slavishly following limited methods in an attempt to artificially represent themselves as something other than they are. Perhaps it works. I would suspect that more often than not the lack of congruency shines through. Once again, it is not about recited lines, but finding your own strength and self validation, and conveying it in the best possible way.

Contrary to the majority of the content of this blog to this point, I do not claim to be anything other than a student of NLP. I am also a student of hypnosis. I am a student of other therapies, ideas, and methodologies that serve to enhance my life and those around me, to fulfill my purpose in life. I consider myself something of a novice reality technician. Why? Because as your learn more, you discover the more there is to learn. Its been said that creativitiy is taking your knowledge of one subject and bringing that information into another, using a framework from something that may be completely different in order to get results. As one learns about any and all of these therapies; skills, insight, and knowledge can be obtained. Something I personally found enlightening was that even examining some of the models of human interaction through the lens of ‘pickup’ also granted considerable perspective. One should always expand their map of reality because then their experiences can come in so many different flavors.

In The Structure Of Magic, an early work of NLP founders Bandler and Grinder presenting what would become the Meta Model of NLP, they describe an aboriginal tribe that had only three words to describe the entirety of the visible color spectrum. As such relating to the experience of any of these peoples would require considerable amount of personal perspective added in because of the deletions inherent in their communication. Just what does that mean? Well lets put it in a way that I’m sure everyone is intimately familiar with. As little children, there are bad words that most we are not generally taught by our parents. One may remember how frustrating it could often be as an angry little kid who didn’t have the words necessary to adequately express the depths of that emotion. By the time we moved into middle school we had become exceptionally more adept and were fearless in expressing those words early and often. As we got older we eventually knew enough to become more creative. In the evolution from little children to adults, we moved from a small map of reality (or expression in this case) which as it developed allowed us to more specifically and accurately express our perceptions to others, and in turn receive information to experience. As we grew even more, then not only have we been using pre-existing descriptors but creating our own, mixing and matching from pre-existing models to create and share new experiences.
Which leads me back to what apparently is often the character of this ‘pickup community’

“ NLP is an attitude and methodology that leaves behind a trail of techniques.”- Richard Bandler

Bandler’s saying extends all too well to the concept of 'pickup'. The art of attraction is an attitude and methodology, to develop and express your own confidence and value in the best terms possible. This is what is consistent with all models, be it TMM, VAH, CA, SS, etc. They all leave behind a trail of techniques which will not work for every person every time. What is important is learning the attitude and developing your character, and then you’ll find that these models are not so mutually exclusive as advertised, and just about all of it can work for you if it is aligned with your character. You hear of people bandying around terms, I am an MMer, an SSer, etc. They LIMIT themselves to that one model, excluding themselves from other perspectives and what is really important, not the style but what it has done for your development as a person. In the end, its not about tricks and deceit, but actualizing yourself and finding your own personal contentment to bring others too. Then again I’m the guy who was accused of ‘getting my flirt on’ with the nurses the moment I was roused from slumber after my operation, what do I know?

Anchors, not just your typical dead weight.

This ain’t no anchor from your rich uncle’s yacht.

An ‘anchor’ is basically any kind of stimuli that triggers a response, whether on the conscious or other than conscious level (or subconscious if you will) level. The smell of fresh baked bread may cause you to return to the time when grandma was baking, a perfume reminding you of a love since passed, a tone of voice that instantly irritates you, a touch that reminds you of pleasant times, the sight of something that returns you to arguments passed, (a kick to the groin to elicit pain perhaps?), these are all examples of states or emotions anchored to something we can perceive through any one of our sensory modalities (sight, touch, smell, taste, and sound for the layman).

What people don’t realize is that we are constantly surrounded by a tremendous amount of stacking anchors that have the effect of maintaining your patterns of living. Cant get any work done in a certain chair? A certain room where you just spend a lot of wasted time? When we speak to old friends after several years intervening, we often feel as though we pick up where we leave off. We are following patterns of behavior. Just as that may be well and merry the more insidious ones are the ones that surround you, the rooms you live in, the furniture, perhaps even the keyboard you type on, we constantly and easily make associations. Its all frighteningly easy. It becomes even more-so with my experiences with hypnotism. Just telling a person only once to re-enter a trance instantly with the snap of the fingers and later doing so innocuously while they are midword and they drop back down almost as if turned off was, to me early in my hypnotic career, startlingly powerful. Even that aside, a couple days ago while I was opening a package of plastic knives I entered into a short, unpleasant exchange with someone else. The next time I returned to that package the next day, all the unpleasant sensations returned instantly without me even consciously considering the source. It happened again later before I decided to evaporate the anchor.

The point once again is, we create these associations, naturally, unconsciously, and powerfully. We do not have to be aware of them, to experience the impact.

All of which was powerfully reminded to me this morning.

The past few days I have ‘rediscovered’ chess, once again playing and enjoying it. The last time I did so was around the end of high school, in the same room, on the same computer I’m typing with now. Just as then, I would play to the point of distraction and neglect other responsibilities. I recognize now that I should have taken it for the warning sign it was. This morning I received my usual stern reprimand from my dad that there was something he wanted that I didn’t accomplish, and he tagged on ‘You said you’ve been changing but…’. This never fails to irritate me severely and so I retorted with a generic peevish rejoinder. For all my skills, there is no more powerful influence to undermine and ruin my morning than my dad, he’s almost supernatural gifted. Then again he was right. A habit I’ve been developing has been to step outside my own perspective to truly gain an understanding of another, and then to move outside of that to focus as dispassionately as I can on the perspectives. Having become a habit, I do this mostly reflexively, and to my displeasure, recounting the past few days I noticed straying from the path of purpose. This morning I re-aligned myself, gave up chess once more (which felt oddly liberating), and forged ahead with my day pushing past the sloth, eroding confidence etc. Once more I cannot overstate the strength that one can draw from aligning their actions with what they want to do. By fulfilling goals, you are positively reinforcing yourself, and by taking time to enjoy the rewards of the present, you find satisfaction. When you find happiness from your accomplishments, it feeds into itself, causing you to be more effective, productive, and clear-minded. By the middle of the day I felt intensely stronger, more content, and more powerful than I have in weeks, because I discovered my wrong behavior and am taking steps to correct it.

5 days until I meet Alyssa Milano and 7 days until my surgery. I’ve got a great week ahead.
The Rapport Series will continue as time permits.

Rapport Series: Volume 1

Previously I’ve mentioned how on a deep and primal level, we look for similarities with others when I was expounding upon my insight of that reaching so deep as to influence the modern day usage of the word ‘like’. I’ve since been contacted by parties interested in learning a bit more about rapport building strategies, and, since I’ve been busy and am suffering a profound lack of any recent earth shattering insights, I’ll indulge my nascent fans by running through a bit of an abridged crash course on general rapport techniques. They’ll come out when they’re out, for more advanced discourse on the topic there are any number of persuasion schools and programs, as well as sales training, NLP, or even ‘seduction sciences’. I encourage the interested reader to continue advancing their knowledge through whichever medium they find most compelling.

I know, gentle reader, you're thinking rapport techniques are FASCINATING, that building rapport is interesting, and you consider it useful to develop, and this means you can find yourself easily integrating the rapport techniques you’re about to learn into your behavior so that in a couple month when you look back at this day you’ll marvel at how you’ve adopted these skills so easily and quickly as your own natural skillset. (Congratulations, you’ve just been NLPed! You can try to resist absorbing what I’m about to show you deep inside your mind but you’ll find the more you read, the deeper you’ll learn and understand the techniques before you. While your conscious mind can read the words from the page, your unconscious mind finds a deeper understanding and you may notice yourself adopting these behaviors in the days and weeks ahead or notice or perhaps longer but always at a rate and speed best for you, as supplied for you by your protective unconscious mind. )

Now that your grey matter has been poked and prodded, let’s get to the good stuff.

‘You’re my kind of person.’ Briefly retreading an old path, once again, people tend to be attracted to people with similarities. No, not the JUMP YOUR BONE kind of attraction, but more like the communication between friends (although it can be used as a lead in for such, but not the scope of this post). We innately like similarity, and we learn from differences.

The overall umbrella where rapport techniques fall under is the concept of matching and mirroring. This first article will discuss how its done physically. Later ones get into tonality, representation systems, pacing and leading, and testing for rapport.

Mirroring is like becoming a mirror image of another person. Be astounded as I represent it with my incredible internet artistic abilities.

This is Kirby <(^_^)>
_________________

Mirroring Kirbified
<(^_^)> <(^_^<) (^_^) (^_^)>

<( x )> <( x ) ( x ) ( x )>

You become like the mirror of someone else. Now don’t do this exactly with every movement that they do or it becomes painfully obvious and disconcerting (like little kids being irritating by mimicking each other). You want to give it some time (use common sense) but generally make it within 10-20 seconds or so, and slowly, unless the person your mirroring is frenetic.

Matching is along the lines of doing the same movement, or adopting the same position but instead of analogues with mirroring, if the person you’re building rapport with is moving their right hand back, you move your right hand back. Generally same rules apply and its easy enough to practice in casual interactions with your friends. Why? Because you do a lot of it already! My previous post on ‘like’ has a few common examples.

Physiological matching and mirroring includes postures, blinking, movements (gestures), breathing, and expressions. Chasing gestures while the person you’re building rapport with is speaking to you can be stupid (imagine someone speaking and waving their hands and how ridiculous it is if there you are silently following suit, common sense people). Remember, overdoing the matching/mirroring is bad. You don’t have to chase down every single motion, spasm, twitch, or what have you. Calibrate for the situation, and its easy enough to practice. Matching breathing is powerful. We do this all the time in conversations, eventually the pace of the old inhale/exhale melds together for two people in rapport. You can boost this artificially for taking stock and observing the natural rise and fall of the chest (especially enjoyable if it’s the chest of a particularly well endowed member of the fairer sex), and shift yourself into that pattern. The real key is to be attentive, which is also a skill worth developing, and the rest comes easily and naturally. Matching and Mirroring when you perform it is called pacing, and more will be gotten into that later.

Thats soooo like...

Just last night I was having a conversation with a friend who unfortunately has left our home state for good a couple hours ago. While we were reviewing the ‘good old days’ of highschool and our shared experiences, something struck me out of what he was saying and deeper meaning began revealing itself to me, and the ramifications of how deep seated some things are can be stunning.

Not too long ago a debate began (somewhere) about whether human beings were built as predators. Quite a number of people chimed in that yes, indeed, we’re predators. My opinion differed, the average singular human is not at all imposing against so many of nature’s finely honed killing machines. We’re soft, slow, and injure all too easily. In fact we’re a herd animal. Humans couldn’t take on most predators one on one, but we built pointy sticks and would gather together in units, taking out our natural enemies by shear numbers and superior cunning. Our ancestors banded together because there was no other choice. Many iterations of human generations later, we still are predominantly a herd creature and it shows.

As any Neurolinguistic Programmer will tell you, rapport is key to most all forms of positive manipulations (changework as it is often called). The subconscious mind looks for similarities with others to make them feel the same. Simple one-on-one techniques like matching and mirroring, pacing and leading, are outgrowths of this idea. A person who deliberately mismatches with another person will seem uninterested, irritating, or perhaps even hostile. Watch people in deep rapport however and you’ll notice them breathing at the same rate, finishing each others sentences, etc. If one takes a drink and the other has an empty glass, the other may start fingering or playing with the glass as they subconsciously look to maintain that similarity, that likeness. When meeting people with a similar field or region, we may ask each other if we know people in common, or areas, etc. A person can be completely different from another person but they’re driven to find some manner in which they can find a likeness and so subconsciously find safety that the stranger is not so different. It goes on to our herd behavior. We form communities, associations. All sorts of clubs of people who share the same interest, cliques regions etc. These are all outgrowths of the mind looking to herd.

This is so deep-seated it flows even into our language, which finally brings us to ‘like’. Ever ‘liked’ someone? Or something? But lets look at the word ‘like’ for a second. It literally is a comparison. Something is ‘like’ something else. There are characteristics in common. Look at the etymology of the word. “The basic meaning seems to be "to be like" (see like (adj.)), thus, "to be suitable." (OED). Eventually it grew to be a predilection for something, a preference. That preference, once again, stems from our herd mentality. Without even being consciously aware, we gravitate towards similarities, we herd. That is very powerful knowledge.

For those who are unaware, we tend to move through our lives following certain patterns. By interrupting the patterns of others there is a powerful opportunity to influence others one way or another. Afterwards, using the basic rapport building skills that we unconsciously recognize is a powerful tool for manipulation, for good or ill. I’ll admit to using it to my advantage, these are natural processes after all. In fact this sort of thing happens all the time.

Still it is one thing to understand and even recognize why things are going on the way they are in the world around you, and another to continually delve even deeper, see ‘the matrix’ for what it is. These processes penetrate us to the very core of our language. Something as simple as saying ‘like’, a word whose meaning has grown and changed into the expression of preference of today, is also a result of countless generations of our species natural mentality.

Reflections on Purpose

Recently it’s become a habit of mine to strike up conversations with strangers as the mood strikes me. Everyone has a story, opinions of interest, a fresh perspective, or at least something…different from what I have going on in my head. From a 30 minute conversation about gardening with a bank teller to the asthmatic troubles of a neighborhood woman’s little daughter, these slices of life add reality and interest to a world that tends to be inwardly focused.

Inspiration can be found anywhere and everywhere. Something as innocent as a casual factoid mentioned by a doctor from the opposite side of the continent in a chatroom can have a butterfly effect, leading to intense conversation and intense… something else. Inspiration tonight came in the form of the DVD of Rocky Balboa.

“All of boxing is looking for a warrior who thrills us with his passion.”- Rocky Balboa Opening lines.

Rocky did what he had to do.

That brings me back to a conversation I had yesterday with the owner of a new, almost pretentious little coffee and sandwich shop I frequent infrequently.

Among other things, this young guy in what I guess is his very early 30s comes, from an old-school immigrant family. I can relate. His came from Italy (Pastafarian?) and my parents were smuggled out of a communist country in Eastern Europe. Naturally upon this discovery we began speaking about our oft-similar upbringing, and particular, how we both were…strongly encouraged… to make something of ourselves. Our families must have met in the same church because both worshipped at the altar of self-reliance. As it so happened this was intimately related to a pet peeve of his, opening up several kinds of Can O’ Worms, as he took severe personal offense at the aimlessness of so many other first generation kids who lived the good life off the sweat and toil of their immigrant parents, all with little concern for the herculean efforts of their bearers. Growing up without the proverbial silver, gold, platinum, or any other precious or semiprecious metal, spoon, my gratitude for my current comfortable situation in the middle class is boundless. That gratitude has been a driving force in my life, compelling me to push myself to excel. I may never be able to repay my parents but I’ll do all I damned well can to provide for my yet to be sired progeny as my family has done for me through all these years.

That is MY PURPOSE, something that is unfortunately not found in abundance in my immediate region that I’ve finally returned to after graduation.
A purpose is an important thing, almost magical thing. It crystallizes your ambition, sharpens your focus, allows you to be confident and commanding in when things need to be accomplished. Purpose is not necessarily easy to define. If you don’t feel a drive for it, then its not really a Purpose, not yet. It takes time to find it.

Some people seem to almost be born with it. My father knew since he was 15 that he wanted to leave the country he was born in. For more than a decade he would push himself to excellence and do everything possible until he realized that goal. It was a long, arduous, and sometimes even dangerous process but that strength of will and clarity of desire is something even I can’t imagine, to leave everything and everyone behind to start with less than nothing. He could have easily had a comfortable life in Romania but instead of bowing to the easy road, he seized his dream with both hands. When he came to the United States, he quickly found a new purpose, to make enough money to feed himself and his wife. When some of that was saved up, he sought career advancement. He always looked for the next challenge. He quit jobs left and right, that seemed comfortable and secure with promises of advancement because he had the killer instinct to look for the best real opportunities to excel in. From every angle he was told he was crazy, by his wife, his mother, the in-law to be quitting a steady paycheck because he knew he wanted better. Even more crazy is that it worked out. God helps those who help themselves.

This is where true confidence springs from, people. He knew he deserved better, could achieve better, and was not dissuaded by others, or by the trappings of security and comfort. Even now for minor things arguing with him is akin to smashing your head against a brick wall, an experience that I’ve unfortunately had the displeasure of having on a few occasions. He may be the most stubborn individual I’ve ever known and quite often I’m at odds with him, but he’s made unbelievable accomplishments in the past 25 years here. One thing that can never be attributed to him is a lack of self assurance.

It took me 22 years to realize that this is what I want in life, what I’ve been developing in myself to have, which has given me tremendous strength and comfort in the last year. Purpose. It needed to finally realize what I didn’t have a firm grasp on myself to recognize it in others. Not only will I provide my future family, which has ever been the goal, but along the way I am changing into the person I want to be. Having become so much more in-line with my purpose over the past year, it was like suddenly tapping into a wellspring of power, of confidence, of assurance. Instead of blowing from side to side by the influence of others, I move more and more towards my goals, my ideals. I’m discovering an intensity I never knew I had in me. Even with tasks as simple as doing yardwork, trying to push my father to delay something that needs doing, to do it half-assedly, or any such shirking of responsibility is an impossible chore. The owner of the café had an idea, a vision, and he spent a tremendous amount of time and effort bringing his dream to fruition, working there alone day in and day out but the results of his effort his drive, his PURPOSE can be seen in the immaculate yet cozy establishment that he keeps together so well. Something I’ve come to see in most every person with confidence is a sense that they have a place to go, commitments to themselves and their goals, to their purpose, and it is that drive, that is often just so attractive. Purpose is not just a commitment to a goal, it’s a commitment to yourself to achieve what you desire. So many others don’t have that, and it shows. Like moths to a flame they invariably become increasingly more drawn to those with that direction to fill that lack of their own. Packs have leaders and humans are a herd animal. It can be seen in every aspect of our cultural developments from the communities we create, to the leadership that people place above themselves. It is what delineates the ‘alpha male’ from the ‘beta’. Of course it needs to go hand in hand with commitment but I'll let that sit for another time.

In Media Res

I suppose that this part of my life truly is ‘in the middle of things’. Less than a year ago I reached the inescapable conclusion that I wanted to change. I certainly wasn’t a bad or dysfunctional person by any means. In fact I almost had it all, a large number of friends, popularity and even some notoriety, and respect. In fact the one thing that stuck in the way was my apparent inability to attract women. This, along with baseless self doubt, and a lack of confidence that I’ve recently been told didn’t show. I felt unable to maintain happiness and the less than positive emotions could stick with me all too tenaciously.

As a little kid I was a cocky leader of boys in the schoolyard, I moved to a town notorious for its assholes and my little boy feelings started getting hurt. Daddy didn’t know how to deal with kids so neglected to make a man of me while mommy dearest (an angel really) turned me into a sissy-boy nerd. From rambunctious bully to quiet bookworm, I had my first epiphany in early highschool that being the perfect little boy was doing me jack shit. I was miserable because I’d always reserve judgment and would constantly suppress emotional responses.

My first transformation happened, I cut my hair down, dropped the thick nerd glasses, spiked it up, and started working out. I decided to fake being super awesome and hey, it was impressive. I started getting a lot of popularity and the younger classmen worshipped me. Little had I known that I was finally stepping foot on the right track. However the main problems remained, I was for the most part girlfriendless, couldn’t keep them if I did. I set girls up on a mighty high pedestal although I didn’t go out of my way to treat them as such. Still beliefs tend to shine through. I’d always look back and curse the mistakes of the past. My life was improving but my eyes were firmly fixed facing backwards.

College was a good lesson. You quickly learn not to pretend to be something you’re not, because it gets very hard, very quickly, to keep that going 24/7. The frenetic pace and general insanity that literally occurred DAILY through my first year kept me too busy to spend time aggravating over past mistakes. As a result I became IMMENSELY more in the moment, but still was a slave to my emotions of anxiety or nervousness, preventing me to be upfront and fully natural. I developed a ‘oneitis’ right from the get-go (after a case of mistaken identity) that I still haven’t fully freed myself from 4 years later (which has actually been for the best because it ironically freed me to be more natural in the end). My short term memory atrophied from lack of use, since something crazy always seemed to happen every few minutes. We bonded as a floor to a high degree, but that was doomed not to last. For the next two years that would be a regret of mine.

After the first year the craziness lessened but it kept going. I pledged a fraternity which turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life, while dealing with actual catastrophe’s back home. I developed useful trade skills and worked hard to pay my bills. My interests were far flung and diverse, and with my slightly obsessive tendencies, I would delve into them to minutiae. My social network rapidly expanded and by my senior year I was at the point where this story began.

It began innocuously enough, I was looking for something. I was never quite sure what. Perhaps a fulfilling relationship since I’ve never seen any except on television. TV is poison, it made me want what I still don’t know if I can have. I had the good fortune to encounter like-minded people and I finally began setting foot on the path that would a year later have made me so much more the person I wanted to be, having conquered many fears, emotions, and mental handicaps that kept me from realizing the truth of my situation.
You see, I like people. I also like people to be happy and I like to make them happy. However, that desire didn’t come from a healthy place in my mind but some form of insecurity. I made my enjoyment contingent upon others. For my entire life I had surrendered that power because I didn’t really understand what loving yourself truly meant. I was hard evidence kind of guy, I thought psychology was bullshit and the past was dead but can be learned from. I’m still a hard evidence guy, but it has been expanded in ways far beyond anything that the average naysayer would even begin to comprehend. As I began developing certain aspects of my personality, to develop my confidence, I finally saw where the problem had been. I surrendered power over my own happiness to the mercurial moods and attitudes of others. I was adrift without a strong purpose and was influenced to one side or another. I found my own purpose, became the star of the show of my life, and reclaimed that inner power and inner value. My life has never been better and I freed myself from the need for validation… for the most part (more on that eventually). I’m not enlightened. I haven’t reached my goal. It’s a journey, not a destination, and so at this point of great flux, I can take the time to once more look back, but this time with amazement at all the things I’ve accomplished and when I turn my eyes forward, its with anticipation as I cant even imagine where I’ll be a year from now.

‘Oh hullo thar!’- Mentally Challenged Roomate

I sit outside, writing this. It’s a brilliantly warm day, with large, puffy clouds, floating overhead, taking turns dimming out the sun for a scant few minutes before receding from its blazing crown of glory. Having been encouraged on several fronts to once more metaphorically put quill to paper, I’m considering once again recording my thoughts, impressions, or whatever I damned well feel like in a public space, open to all eyes that care look this way. I assure you gentle reader that I truly am attempting to make this sound other than the ridiculous prose so encouraged and devoured by the multitude of insipid professors I’ve left behind, but four rigorous years of training to write pure bullshit is consequently not a skill easily dismissed. Bare with me, or don’t, but I’ll be overcoming this handicap as I’ve conquered so many others over the past year.

Now I’m left with little to say, at least immediately so. The point had been made before that we have decades of personal experiences, stories, interests, and skills developed. How is it then that we can run out of things to say? An interesting point I agree, there is always something to add, but it can be difficult to maintain a verbal presence in a topical conversation. Alas the perennial choices available to us is as ever , religion, politics, and sex. Although the initial has been of great interest to me, the appeal has since waned as I’ve developed something of a more personal religion. In effect, it can be boiled down to the slogan “God helps those who help themselves.” Now a nudge is appreciated here and there but problems generally don’t disappear unless you just happen to outlive them, not something always an option. Hell, as I’m writing this sprinkler company people have arrived to investigate our damaged pipes. I’ll spare you the details, just another mundanity in a long road of such things that comprise the many little details of everyday life.

Politics, although formerly my concentration of study, has also waned as a prevailing interest. There are countless political blogs out there that cover in much greater depth than I care to provide the myriad catastrophe’s crises and personal mishaps of your political region of choice. I’m more than capable to hold an intellectual discourse on any of a variety of topics of international concern, but in this instance, the flesh is capable but the spirit is unwilling.
That brings us to everyone’s favorite, sex. Now naturally this is certainly a topic of interest to me, it’s a biological imperative. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying, but you don’t need me to tell you that, do you? In some ways its been the catalyst that began me down the path of my personal enlightenment, beginning to give me that purpose I always thought I had but lacked. Sex too however isn’t what we’ll be speaking about… today anyway.
In the end I reserve the right to be as kind, slanderous, or otherwise and speak about any subject of interest to me at any given moment. If you’ve come here for a racy blog about my exploits, or the thrill of living vicariously through me, leave now, this isn’t for you. Although such things may end up on here eventually, you’ll be sifting through a lot of dross for that particular gold. This is something of a public journal, most simply because I don’t care whether anyone reads this or not, but perhaps they may find something here to benefit themselves, or even to give back to me. I endeavor to entertain…NOT.

For the time being at least, I’m outclassed. You’ll find lots of better conjecture and perhaps less streams of consciousness at other blogs, like ‘Be A Man’. Perhaps this little blog will find a purpose… perhaps not. Who can tell? Now enough with my little pre-amble to myself and the intraweb.