As with many of the things we find ourselves discussing either here on NLP Connections or in the NLP community at large, new scientist has today posted an article about our ability to put-stuff-in-sets inside our heads.


This isn't exactly a new discovery and in maths, set theory is a concept that was formalised some time in the 1870s however I'm also pretty sure it existed some time before that too.

The way I see it is that these things are all part of most of the things we do as humans. When we hear something new we often say "oh, that's like this" and when we talk about our thoughts and feelings we sometimes say "It's like ....". To me, one of the things this tells us that people put stuff in places in their mind that contain information that allows those things to stay where they are.

My friend came to me the other day and he said "Jamie, I fucking hate the ride to work. Every day some fucking ass hole steps on my foot or pushes into me or knocks my newspaper while i'm reading". So I said "oh" and I raised my eyesbrows.
"Yeah" he said. "Why is it that it's always these ass holes who get on my train".

I looked him in the eye and I said "Listen, I know what you mean. I get that same train too and it's got a load of ass holes on it, but there's something else too. Some of those people are wives and husbands, lovers, friends and old collegues from times gone by. Some of those people even have their own lives and their own thoughts.

He went somewhere for a brief moment and when he got back and I was still standing there raising my eyesbrows again, something in him shifted. His face relaxed, blood flowed into his cheeks and he looked at me with big eyes and said "yeaaah, I should be nicer to those people huh?"

You see when you stop and think about how it is you convince yourself of things and you make pictures in your head and say things to yourself, you know you can go in there any make chages. You can change the pictures, move them, make them bigger, smaller, brighter and change the voices making them more pleasant and calmer, moving them around to see what kinds of difference it makes. Now what happens when you're talking to someone else and you want them to do things inside that create really powerful changes? What if you want them to try your idea in the "this is a really cool thing" place of their mind but you dont really want to have to talk them through the submodality shifts like this?

What happens when you take note of how you present and re-present things and you start to notice the kinds of sets you put things in?

You proberbly have inside your mind a set called "stuff that's fun" and if you didn't, you do now !
Inside that set there are gonna be things that you like to do that you consider fun. Ask yourself, If i wanted to make the things i'm doing more fun, what would have to be true for them to be in that category. What kinds of things determine what is already in that category and how can I do the same thing with this thing that I want to be fun.

When you're putting new ideas forward and you're helping someone make a change, what has to be there for what your doing to be plausible, to be accepted, to be tried-on and to be played with.

Something to play with:

Have a think about some of the things you really love doing and ask yourself, if this was part of some sets of things, what would those sets be.
For example, I love to play the drums. When I think about the kinds of sets I put that experience in I can come up with the following: Stuff i like doing, things that make me tingle, stuff i know can make other people tingle, loud things, rhythmic stuff, and so on.

Then begin to play with the idea that if you take the things you want to have more fun doing, what happens when you start to put it in some of those sets. Sometimes something just doesn't fit in a certain category but then who's to say what the rules are.

When I think about getting on the train to work in the morning and I put that inside the set of stuff-thats-rhythmic, at first it doesn't seem like it fits. But then i start to hear the train and the rhythm of the wheels on the track, i put a beat against it in my head and it becomes a peice of music. Does the overlap between stuff-thats-rhythmic and things-I-love-doing have an effect on how I experience getting on the train?

Give it a go and if you feel like telling us about your experiences I'd love ot hear them.

When my friend got back to me the next day he told me that instead of getting on the train with a bunch of ass holes this morning, he got on the train with peoples brothers and sisters. He even had a wonderful conversation with a young woman and came into work beaming.

If you're interested in the new scientist article I mentioned above you can find it here.

I look forward to your replies and to more questions that'll come from this.

Love, Jamie