Random Thoughts on Mindfulness Awareness and NLP's Position Switching

 

The Different Types of Awareness

I've been thinking lately about how mindfulness courses keep talking about "awareness" - you know, being aware of your body, thoughts, and feelings. Success coaching and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) also push this whole thing about noticing your beliefs, values, rules, personality traits, and habits. All this awareness stuff is basically about knowing yourself better.

But there's this other kind of awareness too - the outward kind. It's when you're with other people and you notice their body language, thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and values. It's like tuning into others instead of just yourself.

The Balance Problem

I think we can get a bit unbalanced sometimes. Like when we're too focused on self-awareness, we might not really understand or care about others enough. But if we're always focused on others, we can totally lose touch with our own hearts and minds without even realizing it!

Someone who's completely into self-awareness might say: "I'm so happy being me!" While someone who's all about external awareness might say something like: "All beings have Buddha-nature." But someone who's got a good balance would probably say, "I'm good, you're good, the world's good."

Self-Worth Perspectives

This reminds me of those personality types - the arrogant person who says "I'm number one," the person with low self-esteem who says "You're number one," and the person with healthy self-respect who says, "You might be first, but so am I. You're not better or worse than me. I'll respect you, and I deserve your respect too."

NLP's Position Switching Technique

This is where I think NLP's position switching technique (also called perceptual positions) is pretty helpful. It lets us kind of step into different roles when dealing with ourselves and others.

Position switching basically involves moving between three positions:

• "Me" - standing in my own shoes, being aware of everything about myself
• "Other" - standing in the other person's shoes, seeing things from their perspective (that's empathy, right?)
• "Observer" - imagining a person who stands outside both me and the other person, able to see everything about our interaction

Practical Applications

When we're alone, I guess we should practice self-awareness. When we're communicating with others, maybe we need to keep both inner and outer awareness going at the same time. And when our thoughts and emotions get stuck in a rut, that's probably a good time to use the observer perspective - like zooming out on the camera of life, standing a bit higher, and looking back at ourselves and everything around us. This seems to give us a kind of detached wisdom.

The Hidden Wisdom in NLP Basics

I've noticed some friends who study NLP keep learning all kinds of different theories and techniques. They get this sense of accomplishment from "having" more knowledge. But actually, I feel like a lot of wisdom is already reflected in NLP, often in the simplest, most basic techniques. We don't really need to chase after some garden on the horizon when there's already a rose garden right next to us.

NLP's dozen or so basic techniques and twenty-something presuppositions create this huge, comprehensive system. I'm lucky to have learned about NLP - grateful both to whatever higher power put it in my path and to myself for not giving up on learning it.