7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence is my favorite book on NLP so far. Given the dozens of books I have read on the topic, I consider this to be a real accomplishment!

What I like most about this book is that it is not simply a rehash of NLP techniques learned in the standard NLP Practitioner courses offered worldwide. While Merlebvede, Bridoux and Vandamme cover all of the basic principles and techniques of NLP in depth, they take a step further and apply them to developing Emotional Intelligence.

It did not take me long to realize that the authors of 7 Steps are not only well qualified as teachers and practitioners of NLP, but as helping professionals as well. Each has a background in therapy and cognitive science, which explains the depth of explanation of the concepts included in the book.

Despite the depth of knowledge each of these professionals has, they still manage to keep the writing simple and non-technical, relating the concepts of NLP and Emotional Intelligence in a way that the average reader can easily understand.

This is not only a book that I will reference again and again as a hypnotherapist and trainee therapist; it is also a book that I intend to make required reading for the core curriculum of my upcoming LifeSkills training series.

I cannot recommend 7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence highly enough. Get it today and read it cover to cover over the next couple of weeks. You will be glad you did.!

If you have been reading my blog for any time you will already know that I believe our thoughts create our reality. In other words the way we think and the thoughts we have tend to color the way we see and react to the world around us. If we have typically depressing thoughts, we will most likely be depressed. If we have happy thoughts, we will most likely be happy. If we are constantly thinking about threats, then we will see most things as a threat. You can see how these ways of thinking can change the way we view our world.

It follows from this logic that we can change our reality by changing the way that we think, or by changing our thought patterns. Here are 5 effective ways to do just that.

1. Keep a thought record. Keep a pocket notebook handy and when you notice that you are having a negative thought about something, write it down. Sometimes when we see our thoughts in writing we become aware of how irrational they are. Or, even if after you see your negative thought in writing you still think it is valid, you may find it easier to find be objective about the situation. Such objectivity is important to reduce emotional responses to negative thoughts, which makes problem solving easier. Most importantly, keeping a thought record will allow you to identify and work with your typical thought patterns.

2. Learn how to identify and change “cognitive distortions.” A cognitive distortion is a thinking pattern that distorts our view of a situation or event. I have already discussed the most cognitive distortions and how to overcome them in my post “How to overcome negative thinking,” so I won’t go over them again in this post. But, I want to emphasize how important it is to learn about these cognitive distortions, and learn how to overcome them. Using your thought record can really help you do this. As you keep track of your negative thoughts over a week or two, you will most likely start to notice some of these distortions in your thinking.

3. Become aware of your emotions. Cognitive distortions are often automatic thoughts. In other words, they sometimes occur without you ever being aware of them. Sometimes the first sign that we are having a negative thought is when we start getting angry, stressed, or upset in some way. When we start feeling these kinds of negative emotions we know, without a doubt, that we are having negative thoughts. That is because our thoughts control our emotions, which are actually chemical responses to the way we perceive the world around us. By learning to be aware of our emotional states we can learn to change or control them by changing the thoughts that are responsible for them.

4. Live a healthy lifestyle. Science, medicine and psychology all agree that what affects our body affects our mind. By eating healthy foods, exercising regularly, getting enough sleep and taking other steps to reduce stress in our lives, we change the way we view the world around us. As we live healthy lifestyles our thoughts become more healthy and optimistic. We are less prone to emotional thinking and better able to self reflect and manage negative thoughts and influences.

5. Live in the moment. Negative thoughts tend to hang around for a long time once they come into our mind. As negative thoughts hang around they also tend to cascade and grow into more negative thoughts. This is what is known as “catastrophizing,” or “making a mountain out of a mole hill.” All of the sudden a minor thing that may not really be that important becomes a disaster that threatens your whole life. It happens to all of us, sometimes. One way to prevent this cascade is to learn to live in the moment. This means that we must learn to deal with what is in front of us, right now, and not obsess with the past, or the future.

Changing the way we think can have a tremendous impact on how we view our world, and how we live our lives. Our thoughts are so powerful, in fact, that one of the most recognized and researched treatments for severe depression and anxiety is based on managing the automatic thoughts, or cognitive distortions, discussed above.

I encourage you to track your negative thoughts for a week and see how many times you have these kinds of cognitive distortions, and how they affect your life. When you review your thought record after you are out of the situation that caused the negative thinking, you may find that things were not really as bad as your negative thinking made them out to be. Learning to control negative thinking can truly have a big positive influence on our lives.

The question you have to ask yourself, if you have beliefs such as these – and you almost certainly do – is whether or not they are limiting or edifying beliefs.

What do I mean? Well, what purpose do these beliefs serve? Are they helpful, or are they a hindrance? Do they tend to distort your reality, making it difficult to form relationships for function in other areas of your life, or do they foster relationships and make success more readily available to you?

In many cases, it’s sad to say, beliefs that become so inflexible that they cannot tolerate contradicting are limiting, not constructive or edifying. This has to do with behavioral flexibility. The more flexible you are in your behavior, or the better you are able to adapt to a given situation, the more likely you are to succeed in that situation. Your perceptions of any given situation are largely governed by your belief systems. So if your inflexible beliefs taint your view of a particular situation, you will be limited in how you can respond to that situation, and more prone to failure.

Scientific basis for belief and change (WARNING!!! psychobabble ahead!!!)

There is a scientific basis for this process. Without going into too much mind-numbing detail, neuropsychologists have developed models for general cognition, or how we think. One widely accepted model is the Interacting Cognitive Subsystems model, or ICS. Within this model there are 9 different subsystems that account for all of our cognitions – conscious and unconscious. Two of these subsystems control how we assign meaning to events around us, which I contend is how we create our reality. These two systems are called the Propositional subsystem [PROP], and the Implicational [IMP] subsystem.

The [PROP] subsystem is basically responsible for acknowledging and categorizing new information taken from the senses. So if you try and climb a tree as a kid and fall out of it and break your arm, the [PROP] subsystem catalogues the event in your memory.

The [IMP] subsystem assigns judgment or value to the events that are registered by [PROP]. In the example of tree climbing, the [IMP] subsystem labels the event of breaking one’s arm while climbing a tree as “bad,” or “traumatic.”

In the case of really painful or traumatic events, the [PROP] and [IMP] subsystems may create very powerful beliefs, like “I climbed the tree, and fell and broke my arm, therefore climbing trees is bad,” or “… if I climb a tree I will break my arm…” These same beliefs may be created if a less traumatic event happens frequently.

The problem is, that the beliefs that are created by [PROP] and [IMP] are not always logical or true. Nevertheless, once they are embedded, they become your perceptual reality, which some would argue is the only reality that matters. These beliefs can also be incredibly difficult to break or overcome.

That AHA!!! moment…finally…

There are a number of ways to overcome even the most inflexible of beliefs. Hypnotherapy has been shown in clinical studies to be a very effective tool for belief and behavioral change, as have some forms of psychotherapy. These methods work to “reprogram” the [PROP] and [IMP] processes to introduce alternative meanings to events – a process often referred to as “reframing.”

However, there are ways you can reprogram your beliefs without a therapist. One is to use self-hypnosis, or meditation, to fully explore your beliefs. By learning to reflect deeply you can, with time, also learn to detach the meaning from traumatic or repetitive events and change beliefs and habits.

Sometimes we experience a traumatic event that forces us to rethink our beliefs. This type of a change works on the principle of “cognitive dissonance,” where the evidence that contradicts a belief is so strong that it cannot be ignored. In essence, it overrides the [PROP]  [IMP] process and forces new meaning on the past events that formed the belief itself.

So how do I start changing potentially limiting beliefs?

1. Deep reflection. Develop the skill of introspection, or being able to deeply reflect, without judgment, on your inner thoughts, attitudes, beliefs. This is a skill that may take some practice, or even guidance from someone who is already skilled in this area. But developing this skill is absolutely necessary for the steps that follow… and for general personal growth. Specific practices that are often used for deep introspection are meditation, self-hypnosis or other deep relaxation techniques.

2. Recognition. First, you must recognize which beliefs may need modification. You can start to do this by looking at a particular goal or habit you have, then examining your attitudes and thoughts about it. When you see thoughts and attitudes that are limiting; i.e. – thoughts that have negative words or meaning such as “can’t”, “always”, “never”, etc. – that should raise alarm bells and you should examine how they contribute to or hinder your progress.

3. Reframe. After you have identified thoughts, attitudes, or beliefs your would like to change, learn to reframe them, or put them in a different context. For instance, if you have developed a phobia of climbing trees because you broke your arm while doing so as a young child, begin to change the thoughts you associate with climbing trees. If you immediately think “Ill break my arm” when you think of climbing a tree, learn to actively replace that thought with something like “Climbing that tree didn’t cause me to break my arm. Being distracted by the squirrel that was in the tree cause me to slip and fall. Climbing trees is perfectly safe as long as I pay attention to what Im doing.” Now, when you first attempt this there may be some skepticism. But if you keep at it your beliefs will eventually change as new information is introduced to the [PROP]  [IMP] process.

As I said above, sometimes our beliefs may be so ingrained that we need help in breaking them. If you have such beliefs, and they are having a negative impact on your life, there is absolutely no shame in asking for help. The only thing you have to lose is limitation.

The past does not really “exist” because it is in the past. The future cannot “exist” because it has not yet formed. So the only thing, the only reality, we are left with is in the now.

But how do we actually deal with the moment? Most of us are constantly looking to the past, or to the future, to define our realities. The results are often anxiety, depression, stress, or other negative emotional states. Often times we are so focused on either the past or the future, that we become totally unaware of the moment. We are simply not Present.

What does it mean to be Present?

In Zen, satori is a moment of Presence, a moment of simply Being… of totally living in the present moment in time, without the clutter of the mind, the anxiety about the future, depression about the past. It is a moment of understanding and of complete Awareness, without judgment or emotion. Being Present is about acceptance and release.

When we are Present in the moment we are able to relate to ourselves, our environment and to others around us on a much deeper level than when we are preoccupied with what has happened in the past, or what may happen in the future.

As an example, think of a special moment when you and another have been totally immersed in a conversation, event, or other activity. When all of your thoughts and energy were totally dedicated to that person, event, or other activity at a particular moment in time. Really relive that experience in your mind, and think about the connection you had at that moment.

Now contrast that with a time when you approached another person about an important issue, and the person spoke to you about it, but while he or she was discussing the topic with you they were also reading emails, checking their Blackberry, or otherwise pre-occupied. How deep was the connection, the understanding? How did you feel about the situation? What was your internal reaction? How much was actually accomplished?

In the first example you are approaching what it means to be Present. These experiences are often described as magical, intense, fulfilling… In the second example you are far removed from Presence in the activity, and it is likely that you felt several negative feelings, and probably very little was accomplished.

Another example of Presence is what is often referred to as “being in the zone.” Its that moment when all of your focus, all of your energy, all of your attention are given to that single moment in time. There is no past, or future. Only the moment. There is no judging, no labeling… just what is. This intense relationship with the moment is the very reason we are much more effective when we are “in the zone.”

The importance of Presence

When we are not living in the Present we are rarely, if ever, accepting the world around us. The result is unhappiness and distorted perception in some form or other. When we do not accept the world around us, we build up emotional baggage that forces us to view the present and the future through tainted eyes. Thus our map of reality is tainted and inaccurate, limiting our ability to respond appropriately to our environment and succeed in the world. In extreme cases this can lead to severe emotional or psychological illness, or even manifest in stress related physical illness.

To be Present does not mean to give up on planning for the future, or learning from the past. The objective is to not become obsessed with the past or future, and to realize that the past is only a conglomeration of moments in time, as the future will also be when it comes. If you never live in the Present, you can never really learn from the past or fulfill future plans. As Eckhart Tolle puts it: “If your relationship with the Now is dysfunctional, that dysfunction will be reflected in every relationship and situation you encounter.”