Some years ago, I presented a workshop introducing the new field of Reality Management Strategies to a group of folks I’d got to know online. It’s a discipline you’re probably not familiar with, since one of the most dangerous things that can happen when people encounter this powerful personal development technology is that they start to believe in it. Which is exactly the problem most have with NLP. Despite it being known as “the study of subjective experience”, people are mighty keen to ascribe objective reality to its methods, turn its attitudes into dogmas, and generally forget that the purpose of NLP is in large part to keep you mentally nimble, and avoid ascribing too much significance to what you believe you can perceive.
One of the things I did on the RMS workshop was to draw parallels between Buddha and Homer Simpson. Consider. Both are tubby gents who have ways to remind themselves that the world they imagine is not the way things actually are. Homer’s mantra d’oh! expresses the nuclear plant worker’s realisation that what he thought is not what is, and many of his adventures are teaching tales to help us realise that we are all in a similar plight.
I introduced some of these concepts with a rambling shaggy dog tale about wandering through London and encountering a group of people in a street festival holding aloft a bulbous golden figure, an inflatable for a parade — I can’t believe it’s not Buddha, but it is in fact Homer Simpson. And that led into an exercise, as follows:
Kneel down, with your back straight, head up, and hands out loose and palm-up. Relax your breathing. Close your eyes, and visualise a glowing presence above you. In its centre, place an image of…Homer Simpson. Look up in your mind’s eye at Homer, and feel what happens when the glow reaches you, connecting with a point in the centre of your forehead and sparkling as it runs down your spine, connects with your groin and spirals into your hands. Enjoy it, and stay with it for a minute or two before bringing that sensation to a point about an inch below your navel, and let it come to rest. Then have a glass of water. If you don’t notice any kind of difference in your state, take a break and do it again. Hush your internal chatter — you really don’t need a running commentary to 1) tell you how weird you are for doing this; b) panic about someone coming in while you receive Homer’s blessing; or iii) provide whatever other kind of voiceover was getting between you and a new experience. If you feel a need to analyse, wait until you’ve done the meditation, rather than telling yourself what kind of experience it is at the time you’re having it, and which will in any case miss out the really interesting aspects.
Thing being, the meditation is one inspired by the work Michael Breen did in modelling how prayer and ritual works across different cultures. You’ll see variation on that format where the subject of contemplation is a Buddhist entity with a seven syllable name, or the Virgin Mary, or some other prescribed godform. Typically, it wouldn’t be done with Homer Simpson. But that’s the beauty of what Michael did — he uncovered the structure of the meditation and found that it can work with any symbol in the place of one recommended by your local spiritual experience facilitator.
I advise doing the ritual with Homer precisely because of the inherent ridiculousness of the concept. Something cool happens (do it, and you’ll see!) and because it’s associated with a cartoon character you can’t take it too seriously. The apparent paradox is precisely the point. It’s a lesson in educating your neurology without taking limiting beliefs on board.
Shame then, that people get hung up about the alleged reality of some of what NLP suggests. Neurological levels are a classic example. They’re unquestionably useful, but amount to not much more than a way of experiencing particular perspectives associated with nominated spaces. You could do something structurally similar by getting people to explore the John, Paul, George and Ringo aspects of a situation. It would work just as well. But hopefully because you’re doing it with mopheads, you won’t get stuck into the idea that what you’re doing is real.
Something similar happens for perceptual positions. Maybe it wouldn’t if Grinder called them ‘my perceptual positions’ rather than labelling them in such a way as to presuppose universality. Remember: everything you experience is through your own filters. What else have you got? It’s all very well telling me what things are like from someone else’s viewpoint, but remember that it’s your version of someone else’s viewpoint and not actually theirs. Basic, I know, but far too many people I meet ascribe greater significance to what goes through their head when they’re pretending to be someone else than is actually warranted. It doesn’t help when people talk about such positions being clean, the implication being one of laboratories, scrupulous hygiene measures, and objectivity.
All of this, by the way, is why I’ve kept a very close lid on Reality Management Strategies. I don’t want this valuable material to be let out into the world and mistaken for anything real. It’s not. Which means that the investors I’m looking for to take on this lucrative franchise opportunity need to be a rare breed. If you’re one of them, you know where to find me. Start by not getting in touch.
