Jevon Dängeli’s ambitious title of this book – The User Manual for Your Mind & Your Life clearly states what you will have by reading it and doing the exercises. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP for short) offers not just what you should do to be happier and more effective in life, it provides specific how to’s for accomplishing what it is that you’d like to achieve. It is the kind of book you can keep and refer back to for helpful solutions to your life’s problems as they arise.
Carl Jung, the Swiss Psychiatrist who contributed so much to the field of psychology, once said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Coaching yourself implies that you are indeed examining your life and are taking charge of your life experience. In Jevon’s chapter on Everyday Heaven and Hell, he explains what the “unconscious mind” is all about and how Heaven is living consciously and Hell is living unconsciously. This book will help with that as well.
In my 25 plus years of teaching people Neuro-Linguistic Programming, I have often been asked, “Can you do NLP processes on your own issues by yourself?” This easy to read book will help you do exactly that. Jevon has identified a number of issues that we all face and has compiled explicit NLP methods you can employ to “coach yourself” and resolve them. You will discover how to identify and develop your goals so they are achievable and likely to occur.
You will learn how to deal with challenging issues that are easily found by topical titles in the book. These include how to resolve problem memories that trouble you, fears and phobias that hinder you, making boring or unpleasant things you must do more fun, how to eliminate unhealthy cravings and much, much, more. Some NLP Processes have been scrutinized scientifically with great results. For example, The British Journal of Radiology reports that 38/50 patients who were claustrophobic and unable to enter an MRI machine were able to successfully get an MRI following a brief NLP process.
You won’t need scientific proof to discover how effective the NLP tools described in this book are, however. Practically everything in NLP is testable in your own experience – you will be able to see, feel, and experience the changes that you are after.
NLP is based on a number of presuppositions – assumptions about human behavior and change that support the work. You will learn these as well. They are useful guiding principles for living a good life. I remember a good friend of mine who was looking for a life partner. She was creating her criteria for a relationship and stated her most important criterion: he does not need to know NLP, but would need to understand the NLP Presuppositions and live by them. She found such a person and they have been happily married for eight years now. Spend some time with this chapter. Get to know the NLP Presuppositions. Using them in your life is truly invaluable.
Finally, Jevon has included concepts and ideas from Humanistic NLP, created by John Overdurf and Julie Silverthorn. They helped to advance the field with their HNLP and offer some additional principles and powerful techniques to enhance your personal evolution.
I use the principles ideas and techniques described in this book every day in the NLP training programs that I teach at the NLP and Coaching Institute, my work in modeling highly effective people at the Everyday Genius Institute, and in my one-on- one coaching. They have helped me to be much more effective than I would be without them, both with others and in living my own life. I trust you will have new worlds open to you as you use them to reveal your own best self.
Tim Hallbom MSW
Co-author of Beliefs, Pathways to Health and Well-Being, Innovations in NLP, NLP: The New Technology of Achievement and Coaching in the Workplace.
http://www.nlpca.com
