One of the questions that is frequently asked during my training and coaching programs, is this…

“How do I deal with negative thoughts?”
Before addressing this question, we need to understand, “What do we mean, when we say negative thoughts?”
Negative thoughts are thoughts that create uncomfortable emotions like Fear, Anxiety, Worry, Guilt, Jealousy, and the myriad of other combinations of these emotions… Fear could be triggering worry and jealousy could be triggering guilt and so on and so forth.
We also need to understand some basic things about the brain and mind.
I feel Human Brain is one of the most complex creations in the entire universe!!!
It is mainly programmed for two things.
One is for learning…
The other is looking out for danger…
When you need to cross a busy road with high traffic, your brain wakes up to the possibilities of any danger… And that is a useful thing… right… Being completely positive, without taking into consideration the risks, could be dangerous… right?
Yes, these so-called negative thoughts do serve us, at a very important level…
But at times, we can feel that this “looking for danger” is getting too much frequent, loud and sometimes out of control… And this could create problems for us. We need to have reasonable control over the negative thoughts and for that we need to understand them.
We need to understand, that the more we fight these, the stronger they become… The more we try to resist them we give them power. So, one thing we can do is, ignore them. How do we do that…. By, being ok with them and at some level accepting them as a part of living… I came to know about a formula, which can help us… The formula is called as RAVIJ formula, which is an acronym in this context.
Do not RAVIJ, is the message here: Do not RAVIJ the negative thoughts…
Do not
R – Resist the negative thoughts
A – Analyze the negative thoughts
V – Visualize the negative thoughts
I – Identify with the negative thoughts
J – Judge the negative thoughts
Just like the clouds passing in the sky, let those thoughts come and let them go… Let us choose to focus on the Sky beyond…
Ok… Using RAVIJ , I can deal with negative thoughts, then what you may ask… Yes, you have got it right… we need to go to the next level… We have cleared some space now… we need to fill it up…. with what, you may ask?
Imagine an elephant with his Mahout, walking on a street, with small shops on both sides… The elephant, being curious, stretches its trunk and grabs hold of anything and everything hanging in front of the shops nearby… the shop owners shout out, asking the mahout to do something about it…
The Mahout has a bamboo stick with him. He removes an object which the elephant has picked up from the latest shop and instead gives the bamboo stick to the elephant…
Now the elephant has something to engage with and holds to the bamboo stick, steadfastly and forgets about all the objects hanging in front of the shops…
Similarly, if we can hold on to something that is positive, in the sky space that we have chosen to focus, we can Identify our deep driving goals, and just like the elephant, we can choose to focus and hold onto them, leaving lesser space for those negative thoughts to float by…
And you could ask me, what this Elephant represent? Being mighty and strong, it would represent the Mind I say…
And before you ask another question, I ask myself, what would that Mahout represent… and I answer to myself, “that would be the Awareness “…

Ramasubramanian Ganapathy
NLP Trainer
Life and Business Coach
www.ramsnlp.com

NLP ( Neuro-linguistic Programming ) talks about two important elements in goal setting. One is the Moving towards and the other is the Moving away.

Imagine a 100-meter running race. Let us say an average person can run the 100 meters in say, 25 seconds ( it is just a guess friends ). What can be done to motivate him to run faster…? One way is to keep a pot of gold at the winning line. Now he can run faster, may be cover the distance in 20 seconds.

the second way would be, to make a mad dog ( a drooling mad dog ) chase him… He would run really fast, and may be cover the distance in, say, 15 seconds.
This pot of gold and the mad dog are metaphors for two designing principles in our life. One is the Pleasure principle ( the pot of Gold ) and the other is the Pain principle ( the mad dog ).
There is great value in both these elements. while we work hard and put in effort to get what we don’t want, we also spend more energy and effort in avoiding things that we don’t want. Both are parts of living and life.
But there is an important distinction that we need to make note of. While running towards a pot of gold can help us get that, running away from a mad dog can make us run anywhere, and in the process, we may end up with a Tiger.While the mad dog gives us motivation the pot of gold gives us direction. And the right balance between the mad dog and the pot of gold can make us really effective.
This healthy balance between the moving towards ( pot of gold ) and the moving away ( mad dog ) helps us stay committed to the project and at the same time be unmindful of the any pain associated with the process.

We don’t mind standing in the queue for a long time, for getting the ticket to a cricket match in which our favorite team is playing or for the first day first show experience of favorite hero’s movie.
When we move towards something, the decision making also becomes easy. Because if you don’t know, where to go, which bus will you board?
So one question that we can choose to ask ourselves is : while I want to move away from certain things in my life, am I clear about what is that I really want…
If we don’t know what we want, we might get stuck with what we don’t want…

For learning more about NLP

click the “ Learn More “ link…
https://nlptrainerram-22e93.gr8.com/

Being grateful can be a powerful way to deal with stress. When stressed we may not be aware of all the great things that happened and continued to happen in our lives. Being consciously grateful, shifts our focus to the very many positive things that had happened / happening in our lives.

It also helps us to neutralize the “ Why Me ? “ question, that we may ask sometimes in our lives.

The first and last few minutes of our day, if filled with gratitude can make a big difference in our feelings for the day.

I was trying with various processes for being grateful and gradually felt a process which is working for me… I would like to share it with you…

Sit comfortably, close your eyes and put yourself in a relaxed state. Visualize your timeline and get associated with the time of your birth. You need not get specific here… Just start with whatever it means to you with a level of comfort.

Gently move forward in the timeline and as you do that, become aware of all the people you can be grateful for. If you are a believer in God, you can start with your version of God, for giving you this opportunity of Life and living. (If not you can start with your parents.)

You can include your parents and other family members who provided for you and protected you. As you move forward in your timeline allow your unconscious to unfold and reveal other people like your teachers, relatives, friends and other well wishers who have given you great gifts. As you move through your timeline through various stages in your life, feel grateful for all the people, places, occurrences, events and even objects that have a pleasurable meaning for you.

Come to your present moment in your life and if you are a believer, pray for continued Protection, Provision and Progress with a Purpose in Life. If not you can look forward to many more such grateful moments in your life. End the process with the feeling of gratitude saturating you.

Let this process naturally unfold every day and be spontaneous. You can have a few of these grateful points regular, like your version of God, parents, teachers, friends and let other grateful points unfold spontaneously, bringing in more variety every day.

Do ensure that the process does not become a disconnected ritual. If you can associate strongly with the  grateful moments, that could make the process very effective.If you can find a balance between regular and a variety of grateful moments, that can also help. Be aware of the time it takes, and tune the process to an optimum level of time. For me it takes about less than 5 minutes max. Use the empowered states you get out of this process, for reaching your intended outcomes in life.

You can choose to do it twice a day ,once as early as possible and once before you go to bed.

Let this process evolve over time, to get your unique process of being grateful with a timeline. This process is evolving for me and I would fondly like to call it “ Gratitude Timeline Process “.

Do try it out and check it’s utility value for yourself…

Best wishes…

Ramasubramanian Ganapathy

NLP Trainer and Coach

One of the biggest challenges for a man is to train and control the mind, which can be breakable by NLP Course. The mind is a powerful force that can make or break a person.

There has so many principles, practices, and techniques for training the mind.

Ranging from philosophical and religious to personal development and growth, the fields and objectives of mind training vary.

NLP or Neuro-Linguistic Programming as it is famously called is a powerful tool and is known for mind training.

NLP considers the Mind as a Metaphor for the functioning of the brain. As per NLP the Mind state or emotion is the result of the three elements.

• Physiology ( How a person arranges his body )
• Focus (Where the attention of the person goes )
• Internal dialogue ( the words the person speaks within himself or herself )

The following diagram can help in understanding this.

the above diagram is used in NLP course to illustrate the concept of emotions or Mind states. this diagram can give us deep insights about training the mind using NLP.

The top corner of the triangle is the Physiology. Physiology is how the person holds his body. Elements like standing straight or slouching, open or closed-chest, whether the facing is looking forward or up or down, the breathing is shallow ( just at the top of the lungs ) or deep ( belly breathing ) constitute the physiology of the person.

The bottom left point is the focus. Where the person is paying attention to. It could be in the past, or in the future, and in the here and now. These different states like the past, present, and future have big scope in the training of the mind using NLP. So far now, we need to understand that focus is the attention given to any incident, people, place, or object that has been experienced in the past, or being experienced in the present or imagined in the future.

The bottom right point is the Internal dialogue. It is nothing but the “ Thinking “ a man does. Thinking is the nature of mind and actually training the mind could mean training the thinking process.

Thinking is about language. We think by using language. ( of course, it is said that few people can think visually, but most of us are thinking using language. it is a conversation which we have with ourselves.

This element is very powerfully used in NLP for mind training. Our words define our experience. The word and experience are strongly associated. You can try this for yourself. Think of an experience and identify the word that you normally use for describing that.

Now consciously choose and use another word that is similar to the word that you normally use. For example, if you were using the word “ great “ to describe a vacation ( It was a great vacation ), try changing that word great into “ nice “. ( It was a nice vacation ) . You can feel the shift in the emotion as you replace one word for another. When you use the word “ Spectacular “ ( It was a Spectacular vacation ), you can feel that the excitement increasing many times.

So these three elements ( Physiology, Focus, Words as in internal dialogue )are the corner points of the emotional triangle. So, it can be inferred that if we change any one corner of the triangle the shape of the triangle changes which means that the emotion changes.

This understanding that if we can shift or change not necessarily all three, but even one element, can change our emotion, is a very important tool for training the mind using NLP course.

Let us take an example of a failed businessman, to fit in this emotional triangle.. His last ventures have failed. Let us imagine him sitting in a chair and brooding deeply.

Let us observe his physiology. Body slumped, Shoulders collapsed, breathing shallow and eyes looking down, would display the classic disappointed or depressed mental state.

Now let us think about his focus. Where is his attention on? It is on the past, on the last three ventures which failed. he is continuously thinking about them, although he knows that the more he thinks about them, the more saddened he becomes. However, he is not able to divert his attention. His mind seems to be engaging in those failures in a very powerful way.

Now let us investigate what is he thinking in his mind.

Here we need to understand that thinking is nothing but the use of language to oneself. If you can observe it deeply you can observe that it is in the form of a question and answer. This businessman, maybe keeps saying to himself “ that was a bad choice, I should not have done that “ again and again. The words like a bad choice, shouldn’t have done, keep on replaying again and again and hence cause a particular emotion or a mental state in alignment with the other two elements of physiology and focus.

Now, how can he change this emotion? For if he continues to be in this same mental state, he may slip into a deeper depression, and it wouldn’t be useful to him.

So how can he shift his mental state and start feeling better?

One may be he can stand up, stretch, open his arms wide and look above, maybe for some seconds. This new physiology is not conducive to negative emotion. You can try this for yourself. Stand up stretch your body, open your chest, spread your arms and look above. After doing this, try feeling sad in this same position. You would find that it is difficult to feel sad, because this position, communicates a feeling of happiness to your brain. ( have you seen the laughing buddha statue, with the same physiology?

This is one way to train the mind using our NLP Course, by using physiology change.

The second thing he can do is, shift his focus to another memory, in which he was able to meet a challenge head-on and solved it successfully. Simply remembering a past success. he can himself in that experience as though it is happening now, for a few moments and feel how good it was, at that time, and choose to experience that good feeling right now.

This is another way where one can train the mind using the NLP course.

The third thing that he can do is, choose a positive affirmation and start repeating it to himself with positive emotion and optimism. “ I have solved similar problems earlier, and I can do so now “. “ I am a learner and I can quickly learn to solve this situation “

A simple but powerful affirmation by Emily Coe is “ Every day in every way I am becoming better and better “ is used by millions of people the world over. Although it looks simple, the principle is powerful. The words that we use, define our experience.

This is the third way, to train the mind using NLP.

So dear reader, I would encourage you to use these principles in training your mind, using the NLP course, for personal and professional development.