Filtering and projecting!

The NLP Communication Model has been one of the simplest and yet impactful models of communication. It’s potency for building awareness and granting us a wider range of choices over our own narrative is phenomena

The beliefs we hold, the slice of reality we perceive to be true, and the response in the form of behaviour and communication are all, in essence based on patterns we are enslaved into. All patterns work on muscle memory. We don’t mind the ones that enable life. But the patterns that don’t do that continue to persist as “bad habits”, “fears”, “concerns” and other similar forms of behaviour we consider undesirable, unproductive or dysfunctional.

Neuro Linguistic Programming, through the Communication Model, allows for us to decipher two key processes in how we take in external events, code them and use them repeatedly in response to future events.

Primarily, we filter and project.

We filter, by taking in only that which we consider important to us in the moment. Based on that we create a partial and incomplete version or representation of reality, and we reference this impoverished representation out of context while responding in other situations as well. Sometimes it works, many times it doesn’t. This way of responding is called projecting.

Oh, one important thing. All of this happens in nano seconds and outside our awareness. So, if something doesn’t work, we notice that only after it has occurred. Too late too little then!

But that’s where the NLP Communication Model serves as an extremely powerful lens. What we “unknowingly” project on to the world, is how the world responds back. We project fear, and the world responds to us as a fearful person. We project confidence and we are perceived as a confident individual.

We project victimhood. And we start getting treated as one.

We project helplessness. And we receive pity.

We project self-doubt. And we are seen as unsure.

We project weakness. And we are perceived as afraid.

We project confusion. And we are perceived as needing more explanation.

We project, based on how a chain of events has encoded a recurring movie that’s running inside our head, that dictates we must act according to it.

And we do. But we forget that we need not be condemned to being the lead actor in this movie. Because we are its producer, director, script and dialogue writer, it’s director of cinematography as well as the music director.

If one has to choose what movie to act out of for the rest of our lives, would we choose fear, helplessness, weakness, confusion, self-doubt?

Or would you choose something worthwhile, enjoyable, and more importantly something that serves you?

The NLP Communication Model allows us to recognise the bad movie scripts we are acting out and projecting on to our lives. But more importantly it enables us, eases us into the director’s chair of our life.

There are wider implications of the manner in which we tend to operate, particularly in organizations. This approach has several benefits in that, it can enable collaboration, build empathy amongst a group of individuals, recognize and acknowledge diverse perspectives, but more importantly, it enables individuals in different walks of life to constantly challenge the notions they hold to be true, and can be updated or refreshed by seeking new input or perspectives.