Shifts Work

Spot the frames when someone else is speaking or writing

Take ten minutes to get better at noticing the structure which is setting you up to interpret a communication in a particular way. Structure is inevitable: it's how language works. When a structure is embedded into a communication, it is as hard to notice as the bone structure of a human being. You might not think about it consciously, but you notice the shape it gives your thinking and you use it to interpret the details.

This is a simple (but not easy) three step method for getting better at spotting frames in communication that you hear or read. Following this process will make you quicker to see the implications or consequences of buying into what someone is saying and it will give you more choices about how to interpret the information being shaped by the frames.

Photo credit: Les Chatfield, https://www.flickr.com/photos/elsie/

Relief for physical pain

Pain is experienced in your body, but it is created in your brain. When you appreciate that pain is a message designed to help you stay safe and heal, you can release your attention from the pain. At first, you notice the pain, and then you notice the parts of your body that are not experiencing pain. It becomes wonderful and interesting to explore what normal means and what normal allows you to do and to be. The episode takes you through an appreciation of your body's experience and your brain's experience and finally to your commitment to do what your brain and body need so that you can live with more engagement and more satisfaction.

If you're not in pain, listen for the strategy of gently disentangling the attention from being in pain (and therefore surrounded by it), to finding the self that exists around the pain (so that the pain is smaller than you are), to the goal of making choices with your attention and actions so that you are safe and you can be more satisfied.

Restore your focus in less than 10 minutes

This episode is an exercise that will take about 8 minutes to lead you from your current mindset of frustration, confusion or distraction into a clear and useful mindset of focus. We begin by assembling the components of a state that supports focus. In the second step, we open up a focus on the thing you want - your outcome, desired future, goal or task. Finally, we use a familiar NLP pattern to practice moving your focus back to what you want, no matter what distracts you.