NLPhilia Blog

It’s been a while since anything at Lifehack.org caught the attention of the NLPer in me. Don’t get me wrong — it’s always good — but this one is truly excellent:

Success, however it’s defined, takes action, and taking good and appropriate action takes skills. Some of these skills (not enough, though) are taught in school (not well enough, either), others are taught on the job, and still others we learn from general life experience.

Dustin goes on to elaborate on the following ten skills:

1. Public Speaking
2. Writing
3. Self-Management
4. Networking
5. Critical Thinking
6. Decision-Making
7. Math
8. Research
9. Relaxation
10. Basic Accounting

Now, those are all modelable and learnable skills. And each of us probably knows someone who can do each of them well!

Go read the full article at 10 Skills You Need to Succeed at Almost Anything.

If you aren’t a member of NLP Connections, you’re missing a great thread on forgiveness.

I’m just sayin’.

The July 6, 2008 issue of New York Times Magazine has an incredibly powerful article on suicidal ideation:

…in 2005, approximately 32,000 Americans committed suicide, or nearly twice the number of those killed by homicide.

I’ve heard that 98-99% of people have contemplated it in their lifetimes. If you do client work, or even if you don’t but you like helping people, the article is worth reading. I especially appreciated this rather NLPish angle:

The bigger problem with this mental-illness rubric is that it puts emphasis on the less-knowable aspect of the act, the psychological “why,” and tends to obscure any examination of the more pedestrian “how,” the basic mechanics involved. But if we want to unravel posthumously the thought processes of the lost with an eye to saving lives in the future, the “how” may be the best place to look.

I found the part about the “British coal-gas story” enlightening. This story, and others like it, show that a key aspect of suicide prevention is simply this: “put more time between the person and his ability to act”.

I may have quoted too much for “fair use” already. I hope the NYT won’t mind, as the message is a massively important one. If you ever find yourself between a person ans his suicide attempt, I’ll ask you to remember this, one more quote from the article:

“I’ll tell you what I can’t get out of my head,” [Kevin Hines] told me in his San Francisco living room. “It’s watching my hands come off that railing and thinking to myself, My God, what have I just done? Because I know that almost everyone else who’s gone off that bridge, they had that exact same thought at that moment. All of a sudden, they didn’t want to die, but it was too late…”

Here’s a link to the printer-friendly version of the article and here’s a link to the regular page.

If you are, do you look good? If you aren’t, would you look good if you were?

I rarely watch TV, and when I do you can be damn sure it isn’t Lifetime TV. But I was flipping through the channel guide at my S/O’s house the other day when the name of a show caught my eye: How to Look Good Naked. Being male — er, curious — I checked it out, and I must say I was impressed.

This is not your typical makeover show. Yes, the ladies get new clothes, makeup, and hairstyle, but think about it: none of that makes them look good naked.

No diets, no exercise, no plastic surgery. No changes in their bodies at all. And by the end of the show, these self-loathing ladies are confidently posing nude for a photographer and strutting — in front of an audience — down a catwalk in their underwear. And loving it. Loving it.

How do they do it? You’ll have to watch the show:

• How To Look Good Naked in the USA with Carson Kressley
• How To Look Good Naked in the UK with Gok Wan

…but, apparently, not always. Not when we limit our own choices. From the Freakonomics Blog:

Standard economic theory implies that we maximize our happiness if we have more choices. Yet we limit our choices — impose self-control mechanisms — voluntarily in order to improve our well-being.

Read the rest of Manipulating Yourself for Your Own Good.

From a wonderful site, Forwarded Funnies, comes the following story:

One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that was going on inside himself.

He said,”My son, it is between 2 wolves.”

One is evil: Anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego..”

The other is good: “Joy, Peace, Love, Hope, Serenity, Humility, Kindness, Benevolence, Empathy, Generosity, Truth, Compassion and Faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one I feed.”

The Freakonomics Blog points to a recent article (Net Gains for Mental Health) in the London Times:

Type “online counsellor” into any internet search engine and hundreds of thousands of results will appear: with a click of the mouse, and a glance at a screen, you, too, can be cured of your depression, phobias and eating disorders, go the claims. Unbelieveable? Perhaps not. A growing body of research has found that when – and this is crucial – it is carried out responsibly, and kept specific, online therapy is one of the most effective ways of dealing with the rising levels of mental ill-health.

Some of us have been doing this sort of thing for a while. I’ve coached people via e-mail, Instant Messaging, and phone. I’m always careful to test — even more often than while face-to-face — and I’m far more likely to be explicit and overt. I can’t say I like doing it as much as face-to-face, but it can work.

I wouldn’t want an inexperienced or poorly-trained person doing it, though.

What do you think?

By way of Lifehacker I found a really cool article on how to exercise your mind:

You can find strong powers of concentration in yourself. When you are decisive and sincerely want to excel in your studies, pass an important exam, or playing one of your favorite games; the power of concentration becomes available to you. This kind of concentration is raised because of some need, or desire. Increasing it in a systematic way, brings it under your control, and grants you the ability to use it easily, with no exertion whenever you need it. Real and good concentration is developed slowly, through daily work, and with special exercises. It has to be approached in a reasonable and practical way.

Read more at the EgoDevelopment blog, and see also my recent reference to a great DVD on the subject.

Andy Smith’s Practical EQ blog points to an interesting article in The Guardian:

Focusing on depression in a purely clinical way is preventing us understanding our susceptibility to it and ignores the good it can bring, argues psychiatrist Paul Keedwell

This goes pretty well with one of my own beliefs about pain.

So often I find people who claim they “have depression”. I ask them a few questions and find they don’t “have depression”; they are perfectly normal and well-adjusted and they are having some bad stuff happening to them.

When did it become a bad thing to feel sad when, say, Mom dies, or “rightsizing” strikes, or the bank forecloses? What dipstick came up with the idea that we should be happy all the time and that we’re somehow broken if we respond appropriately to difficult times?

I find the whole thing depressing. Maybe I should take a pill. Wait, what?

Over at Violent Acres I found an interesting article on depression. The author’s grandmother is the star of this article, and I’d have loved to have met her:

I learned that I wasn’t sad because there was something wrong with my brain. I learned that I was sad because my life sucked.

Go read the rest of the article at Most People Are Depressed For a Very Good Reason.

Anyway… it might be my Buddhist leanings, but I see pain as a part of life. It’s our unconscious’ way of letting us know there’s something injured. The reason a person with leprosy finds their body parts rotting away and falling off is that leprosy destroys their ability to feel pain, so they injure themselves and never notice it.

I remember a good friend a few years ago telling me that she stopped taking antidepressants because she’d “rather feel bad than feel nothing at all”. I worked with her a bit but haven’t seen her since, so I don’t know how she’s doing. Smart lady, though.

I’m not so quick to take a person’s pain away. It might be just what they need to keep.

Update: Powells Books hosts a New Replublic review of The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow Into Depressive Disorder by Allan V. Horwitz. (Thanks to Adrian Reynolds’ recent post on NLP Connections.)