Condor

Hope you enjoy this one. Preview: on Monday, a story about onions and how NLP has changed my perspective on life... in very good ways.

I was in my front yard. I saw a huge grey bird in the distance. It's the biggest bird I've ever seen. I ran through the house and into the back yard, to get a closer look.

Very clearly, I saw it was s a condor flying away from me. A baby condor flew to me and hovered overhead. I was looking straight up at the baby condor. The baby condor breathed into me, in one full, complete, giant breath! And I felt full of energy and light!

It wasn't a jarring thing.... it was the same thing I've experienced before, only more. It seemed perfectly real.

It was so real that when I woke up, I was confused. Hadn't I just been in the back yard? It took me a moment to realize it was a dream.

Then, I was worried because I thought a whole day had passed.

But in "real" time, I had been asleep only 20 minutes.

After I reoriented myself, I realized I felt really good. I felt that every cell in my body was full of energy. There was even the sensation of energy coming out of my pores, just because there was so much of it.

Living 1000 Beautiful Lives with the 12 States

Imagine yourself in a place of wondrous beauty, and seeing, hearing, and feeling even more than you usually do. We all have an increased, expanded awareness when we're in such a place. But what if you could measurably, noticeably experience more?

That's what the 12 States of Attention are about. You already use them in some ways. Learning more about the 12 States gives you the chance to use these unconscious processes, at will, whenever you want to "get more" of the scene around you... or within.

Wherever you are, you can take a moment to practice through the 12 states:

visual-external-broad -- notice the big picture in front of you
visual-internal-broad -- close your eyes and remember the big picture you just saw
visual-external-narrow -- look at something specific in front of you
visual-internal-narrow -- close your eyes and remember the specific thing you just saw

auditory-external-broad -- listen for the entire soundtrack that's happening around you
auditory-internal-broad -- close your ears and hear, inside, the soundtrack you just heard
auditory-external-narrow -- listen to one specific sound that's happening around you
auditory-internal narrow -- close your ears and hear, inside, that one specific sound you just heard

kinesthetic-external-broad -- notice what's happening, all over your skin
kinesthetic-internal-broad -- remember what you just felt
kinesthetic-external-narrow -- notice a specific feeling in your body
kinesthetic-internal-narrow -- remember that specific feeling you just felt

(As a side note: There's a lot of wonderful discussion on what, exactly kinesthetic external/ internal is, and how you fit the proprioceptive pieces in, etc. That's a story for another day! I just have outlined one way I'm currently practicing the 12 states.)

Imagine using the 12 States in a cool, black cave with waves at the entrance. Or water rushing down the mountainside in the form of a 50 foot waterfall. Or sitting with friends, staring at the sky. Or watching and listening to a meteor shower.

I feel as if I've lived 1000 beautiful lives. I've had a great time playing with Nelson Zink's 12 States of Attention, especially in Maui, ever since Mary Ann Reynold's presentation at Austin NLP in September. Many thanks to Nelson Zink and Mary Ann Reynolds.

Welcome to the Control Booth of Your Experience

You don't have to be an NLP rockstar to use what you've learned in an NLP class right away. You don't even have to practice hard or read a million books. Indeed, that's the beauty of NLP: we're already using our brains and bodies and emotions all the time, whether we know a slip of NLP or not. And knowing NLP puts you in the control booth of your experience.

This post is about how I learned the power of being able to change representation systems easily.

First, some definitions.

In NLP, a "representation system" is the way a person represents the world. You can represent the world in pictures (visual), in sounds (auditory), in feelings (kinesthetic), in smells (olfactory), and in tastes (gustatory). We use these 5 senses to experience the present, remember the present, and consider the future.

Some people experience senses beyond these 5 senses, but that's a story for another day.

Most people use all 5 of these Representation Systems, with a strong emphasis on visual, auditory, and kinesthetic information. And many people tend to favor one "Rep System" in a given context. In order to represent the past and future and to sort through the present, we must delete some information (otherwise, what's happening on the inside would take exactly as long as what happened on the outside, but we can all remember an event and play it back in our head faster than the event actually occurred). Representation Systems help us do that sorting and deleting.

For example, when I write, I like to use auditory information (the way the words sound in my head) and visual information (how the words scan on the page). This kind of deletion is a great gift when things are going well. And when it's time for change, trying a different Representation System can be one way to get more information.

Now, onto the story of how I learned about the power of representation system changes.

Just after I completed my NLP Practitioner training, one of my friends complained of feeling overwhelmed whenever she went into busy restaurants. "There's so much going on in a place like that -- everyone is talking and laughing so loud, silverware is clanging on plates, there's just too much input." I could see her eyes move left to right, the classic pattern for accessing auditory information.

I remembered my teacher Tom Best doing a demo with a woman who had a similar dislike of noisy places. He had her remember a noisy experience and then, just as it was starting to become uncomfortable, turn down the volume. Once the volume was almost inaudible, he asked her to turn up the amount of visual information coming in: soft lighting, smiling faces, beautiful food.

It worked beautifully in Tom's demo, so I thought I would try it.

Sure enough, my friend visibly tensed when she started to remember the last time she was in a noisy restaurant. And when she turned down the volume, her face relaxed. By the time she finished turning up the visuals, she was glowing!

After going through the sequence a few more times, and practicing for the future, she was relaxed and curious about trying her new strategy. A week later, she called, excited that "it worked!" when she tried the strategy out at a restaurant.

When I asked her about how her restaurant strategy was working, she had actually forgotten that it was an issue.

The Path of Love and the Path of Power

Recently, I saw the movie The Kite Runner.

It was beautiful and horrible. One horrible part is that a veiled woman is stoned to death in front of a stadium full of spectators. The story takes place in Kabul, Afghanistan, from the end of the Afghanistan monarchy to the Soviet invasion to the rise of the Taliban.

The beautiful part was the relationship between two boys who fly kites together.

One boy is on the path of power, exploring all the things he needs to do to make his life happy and to live in the complicated world around him. Power is about setting boundaries and making "good" decisions, often in the face of great fear.

The other boy is on the path of love, exploring all the things he needs to not do to make his life happy and to live in the complicated world around him. Love is a state within oneself, and exists regardless of the events happening externally. It's about adding more energy or love to one's own life, often in the face of great fear.

Sometimes, it's difficult for people on such different paths to even talk! But when they collaborate together, beautiful things can happen.

The boy on the path of power recounts a story he's written: there's a man with a magic cup, which will turn tears into gold. The story ends with the man having killed his wife, weeping, sitting on a pile of gold.

The boy on the path of love asks to respectfully ask a question about the story: why wouldn't the man just cut an onion?

Authentic Speaking

Here's an exercise that Keith Fail developed for a group of Toastmasters, to help them practice speaking with more presence and from the values that are important to each of them personally.

After teaching the prerequisite pieces (see below), he had the group do the exercise. Once they put all the pieces together, they didn't want to stop talking!

This post assumes you know the Circle of Excellence and can use the meta-outcome questions to come up with a core value.

Before Doing the Exercise
Before beginning, gather this information for yourself and a partner:

• What is one important value of yours? Use meta-outcome questions to get a really good one.
  
• Create a Circle of Excellence for that value (each partner does so for his or her own value).
• Practice "being present" with your partner, looking into each others' eyes, without talking, for 30 seconds, and then a minute.

The Exercise
Standing up, position yourself about 5 feet from your partner, facing each other.

1. Each person imagines his or her own Circle of Excellence one step in front of them... and then steps in.
2. After fully stepping into the Circle of Excellence, each person adds "being present" to that circle, looking into their partners' eyes.
3. Each person takes a turn speaking a few sentences, only as quickly as he or she can hold both the original Circle of Excellence value and "being present" with the other person.
   

Modifications
You can modify this exercise to be used with increasingly larger groups of people, one person standing at the front as a speaker, with the rest of the group as an audience.

You could also modify this exercise to use it with a couple. The Circle of Excellence could be individual states, as outlined above, or a shared resource state.

Nick Goodness, Storyteller and Haleakala Park Ranger

As we made our way down Haleakala that day that the Hawaiian chanted up the sunset, we stopped at the main visitor's center.

One thing I love about the visitor's center is that they work hard to keep a bed of volcanic rock blooming with silverswords. This is an important part of preserving the more remote places that these endemic, fragile plants grow. It gives visitors a place to view the blooming plants, without tromping and destroying wilder silversword habitat.

Silversword in bloom, in front of the Haleakala National Park Visitor's Center.
Silverswords only grow in the Haleakala crater and have been endangered
due to pigs, goats, and humans.

Inside, we met a park ranger who made our day!

One of our group members started asking him questions about Pele. He spent quite a bit of time telling us, in vivid detail, the story of Pele, the story of Maui, and all sorts of wonderful things about polynesian navigation. But those are stories for a different day...

A trickle of tourists came in and out of the shop, but he kept talking to us.

I was moved by the generosity he showed -- with his time, and energy, and sharing his knowledge of Hawaiian culture. I gave him one of the globes -- one where the land was represented in red, like the glowing molten lava of Pele.

We asked his name on way way out. "Nick Goodness!" We like that name!

The next morning, he happened to be the park ranger at the summit gift shop, when we returned for sunrise. When he saw us, he pulled the little globe out of his pocket and held it up to the sun, and smiled.

Mahalo nui loa, Nick Goodness, for sharing so much with us!

Stand Up and Breathe Deeply

That's how an old boss of mine used to start meetings: "Everybody stand up and breathe deeply. Good! Breathe again."

He had been in the military, so he knew how to issue an order that people would follow, even if it was a little unusual in business settings.

Breath is also one important part of rapport.

In NLP, we use rapport, such as matching another person's breathing rate and depth, as a starting place in helping someone get what they really want. Without rapport, it's difficult to help much.

The Hawaiian culture, where I just spent an extended vacation, knows a lot about breathing. The word "ha" means breath and is also the number 4. Ha is in the word for family (ohana) and thank you (mahalo). The word aloha is used to say "I love you," "goodbye," and "hello." On the islands, the word aloha is often pronounced, "ah-low-hhhhaaaaaa," to emphasize the breath at the end.

After spending a month in the land of deep breathing and easy rapport, I ended up back at a typical work meeting on a Monday, on the mainland.

Fifteen people were sitting around a table.... not breathing! Their chests were not moving. When they talked, they were gasping for air between sentences. After about 20 minutes, people began yawning huge, gaping yawns. How did I never notice this before?

Technically, you could say that these folks were in rapport, right? They were not breathing in very similar ways to each other.

But looking around at their faces, they weren't enjoying themselves or engaged, even though we were discussing a project that could save everyone at the table a lot of time and hassle.

And it became instantly obvious why this group often complains about stress and boredom. Spending an hour with your colleagues and holding your breath -- regardless of what decisions were made -- would be incredibly stressful to the body. And not breathing much would certainly prevent you from engaging with the discussion much. It was as if the group was hunkering down for the meeting, hoping it would end as soon as possible.

If you literally couldn't breathe during a meeting, wouldn't you want it to end as soon as possible?

I decided to try a small experiment.

I started to breathe deeply and quietly.

I certainly felt more relaxed, but now I was out of sync with the group. The guy next to me, for whatever reason, started breathing deeply with me immediately.

Most of the conversation was happening between 3 people (unfortunately typical for a 15 person meeting!). If I could unconsciously encourage one or two of them to breathe a little more, maybe the room would follow. Then, I could get some feedback on my guess that breathing would help this meeting become more engaged, so that decisions could be made and the meeting could end.

I knew one of the talkers really well, so I thought I could start with him.

I slowed my breath to match his. Then, I noticed that he was indeed breathing, just very shallowly. I matched his breath for a minute. When there was a pause in the conversation, I took a big breath. He followed me with a big breath. The other two people in the conversation took a big breath shortly after.

A guy down the table yawned.

Somebody paused to tell a joke! I certainly didn't expect that.

The conversation returned to the meeting topic. At the next pause, I took a big breath. This time, I returned my breath to a deeper breathing pattern that matched the speed, but not the shallowness, of the colleague I knew well. Sure enough, he followed me.

The other people in the conversation followed shortly after.

And somebody else told another joke!

After we all finished laughing, I returned my breath to an even deeper breath. Those in the main conversation followed.

The group made the decision it had been dancing around for the entire meeting, and the meeting ended 5 minutes later. Was it really as easy as adding some breath into the meeting?

I asked around for some feedback about the difference between the beginning and the ending of the meeting.

One person told me that the meeting had ended when the colleague I knew well had finally taken control of the meeting.

Another person told me that they were relieved when the 3 main decision makers finally got around to the topic at hand.

Someone else said that he thought the jokes brought a "breath of fresh air" and helped refocus everyone so we could get down to business.

Chanting Up the Sun on Haleakala

For our trip to Maui, we knew we'd be meeting a group of friends there. So, we took a gift for each person.

We found 15 little marbles with the map of the world on them. All different colors and textures, each one was unique.

I took them to 3 sacred places in Austin:

Mount Bonnell at sunset.

The cottonwood tree by my house at sunrise.

And Home Slice Pizza.

(If you've ever met Shauna and had the number 6 at Home Slice, you know what I'm talking about.)

When we arrived on Maui, I realized I could take them to 3 sacred places on Maui before we met all our friends. On Maui, I took them to:

Haleakala at sunrise. The summit is 2 miles high and the sun rises up through the clouds.

The Black Sand Beach and Birthing Canal Cave at sunrise.

And the porch at Joe's Place, watching the full moon rise with the owner of Joe's, Ed.

I took them to a lot of other wonderful places on Maui, too, like Koki Beach at Sunset, and Alelele waterfall.

When I opened up my little bundle of globes at the Haleakala sunset, something wonderful happened.

Katie at Haleakala sunrise. Notice my left pocket -
it's full of little globes. Photo by Virginia Brodie.

Haleakala is very cold and windy. People gather at sunrise (and sometimes sunset) because of the beauty of the sun coming up through the clouds. Tourists are often unprepared for the cold weather, having only packed for tropical breezes. Sometimes, people are wrapped up in beach towels or bedspreads from their hotel rooms.

This particular morning, a Hawaiian guy in shorts and flip flops walked over to my bundle of globes and proceeded to chant the sun up. His chant was so loud that Keith and Mary Ann could hear him from on top of the nearby hill they had climbed. Keith said the man did a version of the Ha Prayer, a Hawaiian prayer for refining a goal or dream, committing your energy to the goal, and then letting go of the goal.

Each time the man sang the refrain of "Ekahi" (pronounced ee-kah-hee) the sun became visibly brighter.

Then, the Hawaiian man left. As I packed up my globes, I looked around to thank him. He was nowhere to be found.

What Have You Done With My Life?

Heartbeat Cave. Click for larger version. Photo by Virginia Brodie

Dedicated to all the teachers I met on Maui.

What have you done with my life?

You've taken it, and given me this:
crashing waves;
the rustle of the hala tree;
a bird flies over head;
I see the stars.

I stay up too late and leave the laundry too long.

After running naked along the shore all night, and praising, I'm looking for my clothes.
The wind blows.
The clouds move on.
The stars are out again.

I'll never forgive you.

The Little Flower

Once upon a time, there was a little flower.

Every day, it woke up early to watch the sun rise. The color of the sky changed from deep navy to a lighter blue. Filament by filament, the sky changed from light blue to a bouquet of pinks and oranges. After some time, the shining, red orb of the sun rose above the horizon.

Every day, the little flower watched this wonder of nature.

Then one day, a blue bird came by. The blue bird had stories of sunrises from far away places. In some places, the clouds were below onlookers. In other places, the sun rose over a beautiful pool of water. And sometimes, when the sun rose, it shined its light just perfectly on a waterfall and its spray, and a rainbow appeared.

The flower listened intently, and wanted to see these sunsets, too.

So, it backed its bags and started on its way.

Sure enough, the little flower saw some sunrises in breath taking places. On the coast of an island, where the stream meets the ocean. On the mountains of Bali, at the top of the Alps, in the Cave of All Knowing. All over the world, the little flower traveled, sunrise to sunrise.

Then one day, the little flower came upon a strange sight: a beautiful, white flower. This flower never bloomed or came out of its bud.

This confused the little flower, so it asked the Wise Old Wwl: “Why is this flower so different?”

The Wise Old Owl had an answer: “Stay up until after the day ends, and you’ll find out.”

The little flower stayed up all day that day, and waited for the day to end. The sky put on a show of pinks and oranges and reds as the sun neared the horizon. Just as the sun dropped out of sight, the little flower saw a burst of green where the red sun had been. It had never seen anything like that before! And the sky settled into lighter and lighter colors, loosing color completely to the deep blue of the night sky.

The little flower watched the white flower. Nothing happened, so it decided to stay up a little longer.

As the night sky darkened, the little flower saw the stars come out, one by one. There was no way the little flower could sleep at such a magnificent moment as this!

Still, no change from the white flower.

The little flower noticed a change in the sky. It was beginning to get brighter. Was the sunrise coming again?

Sure enough, the sky brightened, but there were no pinks and oranges. This time, everything glowed with a white light. The stars got dimmer.

Just as the moon reached the horizon, the white flower, ever so slowly, began to open.

Petal by petal, the luminescent white flower opened. It saw the little flower, watching it in wonder, and smiled.

Together, they sat silently, watching the orb of the full moon rise above the horizon. They basked in the moonlight.

The little flower was filled with joy! Seeing a sunset, and the stars, and the moon, and a night-blooming flower – these were a lot of new experiences for a little flower to have in one day! What a wonderful, lucky life it had!

The little flower thought it might burst with gratitude.

Sure enough, the sky began to change, much like it had every day of the little flower’s life. Deep navy turned to lighter blue, then to oranges and pinks. The luminescent white flower wordlessly closed its bud and went back to sleep.

It didn’t quite know why, but the little flower knew it was time to go.

Before departing, the little flower left a small stone next to the white flower: a red, red stone – the color of the sun at dawn.

And the little flower packed its bags and started on its way.

Maui Photos

View of the island of Lanai from the
Lahaina restaurant Cheeseburgers in Paradise.

For those who want to see 'em, here are our Maui photos.
http://picasaweb.google.com/katieraver

The only explanation I'll add (beyond the captions) is that:

Week 1: we took photos like normal people

Week 2: our brains melted. We took NO photos!

Week 3: all our photos are of leaves and flowers and rocks!

So, I think that means we had a good time.

If you really want to see photos of "week 2," when we were there with friends, click on the links to Mary Ann and Mikki's photos. The link is in the picasa sidebar.

Aloha!

Hosmer's Grove on Maui

For the first part of our Maui trip, Keith, our friend Mary Ann, and I stayed at Hosmer's Grove.

It's a campground located at 6500 feet, on the slopes of the big crater mountain on Maui, Haleakala. More about Haleakala later.

Hosmer's Grove is in a cloud forest. There are tall trees all around the campsite. Every morning and afternoon, you can watch the clouds come down the slopes of Haleakala. As the clouds reach the campground, it starts to rain. And the grove is much cooler than what most folks think of Maui; it's in the 70's during the day and down to 35 or colder at night.

Around 1900, Ralph Hosmer decided to conduct an experiment in growing lumber trees on Maui. He planted many species, including the pine, cedar, and eucalyptus trees that have survived all this time. The trees are quite beautiful, and the air smells fine. There's a soft carpet of pine needles underfoot. But the trees don't grow quite right -- the soil isn't perfect for them, and they would need a deeper soil line to really thrive. But they survive.

With a very Hawaiian attitude, this area has been turned into part of a National Park. Although folks go to great lengths to eradicate invasive, harmful species (there's a fence at the park to keep goats and pigs out -- they eat eggs of defenseless endemic birds and disrupt plant life), they leave newer species that are not harmful. Indeed, they use such a place as a way to educate.

There's a short trail through the area around Hosmer's Grove. It takes you on a tour of the different types of trees that Hosmer planted.


Photo: From the native shrubland, you can see a cloud moving over Hosmer's Grove.



Then, the trail winds through native shrubland, where 'ohia, native sandwood, and koa grow. These plants are important to limiting erosion and support endemic honeycreeper birds, found nowhere else in the world. There's an outcropping of rock, reminding you that the Hawaiian islands were formed by volcanoes. Everything in this area looks healthy and robust, in balance

I like to stand on the seam between the tall trees and the native shrubland.