What is Kinesiology?
Kinesiology is a holistic system, using muscle testing to access the bodies’ bio-computer. This innate healing system knows exactly what needs to be done in order for healing, balance & harmony to occur, using muscle testing allows us to locate where imbalances are within the systems of the body & the priority technique to use to balance them. Our aim is to establish an equal triangle between the structural/physical, nutritional/chemical & emotional/mental aspects of life.
A problem that is showing symptoms relating to one side of the triangle may have its origin or cause from a different aspect. e.g. emotional stress at work may manifest as physical pain in the muscles of the neck & shoulders, or a nutritional or chemical imbalance may cause emotional mood swings. Once one side of the triangle is out of balance the other sides will potentially be affected. We do not treat specific diseases or the symptoms, we work to find the cause of the problem & eliminate it there, which of course means that the symptoms disappear. The more equal our triangle of health is, the more life energy we have to live our lives and deal with any problems that come up. So with kinesiology we are working with the bodies’ innate healing system to create an equal triangle & high levels of life energy. By removing any blocks or sabotage programs that a person has running, this allows the natural healing process to take place.
What is NLP?
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is studying the language of the mind, how it is currently programmed, how you communicate with yourself & with others, how you produce the results or behaviours you are currently producing & if you are not producing the results you want, how to restructure the programming so that you achieve success in all areas of your life. When we have a thought a set of neurons travel down a synaptic pathway, when this happens repeatedly down the same pathway in response to a stimulus we create a neurological and behavioural pattern or habit. The more the thought patterns travel down the same neural pathway, the deeper the groove that is created, it is generally easier for the neurons to travel down established pathways which may create a behaviour that is difficult to break.1 NLP looks at the way the nervous system establishes it’s reality through the five senses: visual (sight), auditory (sound), kinesthetic (touch), olfactory (smell) and gustatory (taste). It looks at the way we communicate using pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, smells & internal dialogue and how our language can guide the mind towards change2. Different people have different blocks or obstacles stopping them from getting where they want to be, so a NLP practitioner has many tools in their tool belt to deal with these different problems. By working out what these blocks or obstacles are the practitioner can then help the client to eliminate them & introduce strategies that will propel them to achieve their desired result. The NLP practitioner is like a computer technician for the mind, working out which software programmes are no longer working to achieve the desired result, whether there is a virus that can be deleted, which programmes just need a slight adjustment & which ones need to be upgraded with more relevant & updated information. Most of us have learned a lot since we were children but sometimes we forget or don’t know how to update our software & are still running programmes that we installed when we were young. According to Dr Morris Massey (Sociologist) most of our strategies are put in place between the ages of 0-7 (the imprint period). By dealing with the problems at their cause, they are eliminated & symptoms disappear. Dealing with the source of what is going on at the Unconscious level means that the effects are powerful, immediate & long lasting.
History of NLP:
NLP was developed in the late 1960’s & early 1970’s when John Grinder (Linguist) & Richard Bandler (Computer Scientist) studied 3 therapists who were the best in their field & achieving excellent results. The therapists studied were: Family Therapist, Virginia Satir; Gestalt Therapist, Fritz Pearls and Hypnotherapist, Milton Erickson. They established a method of breaking down exactly what was going on in the minds and bodies of the patients and the therapists when change in their clients occurred so that the procedures could be replicated & taught to others to achieve the same results – even faster & more efficiently than the original therapists. The techniques developed through the process of modelling these therapists are extremely effective and allow people to make behavioural changes that used to take years of therapy in hours or even minutes. By gaining control of their minds, people are therefore in control of their results3.
The Conscious and Unconscious Mind
The Conscious Mind is the part of you that is consciously aware of what is going on around you at any given moment, the Unconscious Mind is the part that is beating your heart, blinking your eyes, making you breathe in & out, organising your digestion & basically keeping your body functioning. We like to describe the relationship between the Conscious and Unconscious Mind with the analogy of a ship at sea. If there is a ship at sea, who is running the ship – the captain or the crew? We look at it from the perspective that the captain is in charge & the crew run the ship. The captain makes decisions & gives the orders & the crew do the work necessary to make that happen. If the captain & the crew are all happy with the decision it is carried out easily. If, however, the crew do not agree with the captain or are scared about what might happen if they follow the captains orders there may be mutiny aboard the ship. This makes it much more difficult for the orders to be carried out & there may be a struggle to make it happen or it may not happen at all. The job of your NLP Practitioner is to establish a good relationship between your captain & crew and help alleviate any problems the crew may have, work out where their fears come from and how to help them realise that there are safe ways to achieve the desired result. Once you have congruency between the captain & the crew, the orders will be carried out easily.
Gestalt
All things we learn start off with Conscious thought, when we truly learn them they become Unconscious behaviours. For example when you first learned to drive a car or ride a bike you had to concentrate really hard & there were lots of things to remember. Once you learn how to drive or ride you can get in your car or on your bike & you don’t have to think consciously about what you’re doing, you just do it automatically. As I’ve already said, according to Robert Massey, we have most of our strategies in place between the ages of 0-7. When we experience something for the first time we create a neural pathway of events in our mind (like the groove on a record). The next time we experience something similar our mind puts it into the same category & adds it to the same pathway so that our strategy is the same. We keep repeating the same pattern of behaviour because of the neural pathways that have been set. NLP helps you to create new pathways, new options of behaviour so that you don’t automatically go down the old road, you choose a road that leads to your desired result.
With NLP we work with the very first event, which when we disconnect the problem there means that all the other events connected to it are changed too. It’s like a string of beads & when you disconnect the first one all of the others fall off the string. You can keep all the positive lessons & eliminate any negative meanings and emotions that were connected to the events.
References:
- Christopher Howard Results Certification Training Manual pg 1.7 2005
- Christopher Howard Results Certification Training Manual pg 1.8 2005
- Christopher Howard Results Certification Training Manual pg 1.9 2005