Our State, Emotions, and the Role They Play - NLP Matters, Episode #040

We are now well on our way into our investigation into what NLP has to say about the totally fascinating workings of the human mind, and why this is important to how we think, behave and go about constructing our reality and our relationships with others. 

In this episode, we’ll look at the role of our ‘states’ or emotions. 

Over the past few episodes, we've been talking about the ways in which our senses and our mind combine to construct our version of reality. So where do our internal feelings or emotions fit into this NLP Model of Communication, and why does it matter?

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Here are some key takeaways from this episode:

• It is the constant interaction between our physiology, psychology, and emotional states that alter our experiences as well as the information we filter in.
• When we are filtering information that reinforces limitations, problems, or other unpleasant things, it impacts our physiology, psychology and emotional state. In other words, we get what we focus on.
• Believing that the external reality determines our emotional state is a commonly held belief that applies to both darker, heavier emotions as well as the brighter, lighter emotions we experience.
• Our misconception that our emotional states are passive responses to an objective reality results in the false logical assumption that we have little or no control over our emotional states.
• When we don't acknowledge that we are actually responding to our own internal representation or map of reality, we become victims of external circumstances that we perceive as being beyond our control.
• Our thoughts precede our state. Contaminated thinking arises from the mistaken belief that our feelings are letting us know about something other than our moment-to-moment thinking.
• Most of our thought process happens at an unconscious level. It’s not usually enough to merely try and mask these thoughts with conscious positive interpretations or ignore them, and hope they'll go away. The more effective way to respond is to be really curious. Ask ourselves some reflective questions.
• What am I focused on right now?
• How am I interpreting events around me?
• What do I do or not do when I have these feelings? 
• How is this working for me really?
• Changing what we are focused on has a profound effect on our emotional state as well as our physiology.
• We all have a choice. Changing our thinking changes our experience of reality.
• Our experience of reality is a product of our internal representation. If you want to change your emotional state, you need to change what you tell yourself and what you focus on.
• In order to make lasting changes in our lives, we need to focus on the changes within us — the changes we make unconsciously are more meaningful than those that we make consciously.

Our state plays a vital role in our experience of reality. Remembering that our emotions are driven by what we focus on, the thoughts and meanings we give to the small sample of reality that we filter in through our sensors means we're able to make choices about whether to keep or change our emotional states. And if it is a change we want then bring on that deep curiosity and wonder – what if I notice this instead?

In our next episode, looking at the seven unconscious filters that are active in choosing what gets filtered – what is distorted, generalized, or deleted? 

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