NLP Rep Systems – Putting the pieces together
Beautiful blue eyes
So far we have talked about representational systems and eye accessing cues. Now it's time to talk about how to apply this in normal, everyday life?
As you begin to be able to understand the ways that other people are representing the world, you can recognize it and do nothing, recognize it and utilize it, or recognize it and influence it.
Let's start with an example that is quite simple to understand, although depending on your life circumstances may or may not have immediate application.
NLP Spelling Strategy
In the early days of NLP, it was observed that people who were excellent spellers almost all did a couple of common things. They visualized the word they wanted to spell (eye access up and to the left for a normally organized person) and then they do a kinesthetic check (eyes down to the right) after spelling it to see if what they said or wrote, felt right. If you ask a good speller how they know if the word is spelled correctly they will say something like "It feels like its right" or "It looks right". When they see a mis-spelled word on a page, a good speller may literally feel uncomfortable. (In NLP, when two senses are linked together like this it is called a synesthesia.)
If we want to help someone learn to spell better we want to teach them this strategy by building this synesthesia. It is worth noting that poor spellers use all kinds of strategies, none of which happen to do this. Some will try to sound the word out using a phonetic strategy which is ironic since if you try to spell phonics that way you should end up with "fonnix".
So how to teach the strategy.
(1) Take a written word and position it at or above eye level slightly to the left.
(2) Think of a feeling that is confident, comfortable or relaxing.
(3) If you positioned the word straight ahead, look up and to the left and picture the correct spelling in your mind. Try spelling the word backwards. This is a great test that you are truly seeing the word.
This process when repeated will form a pattern of remembering words visually and generating a feeling when you are seeing the word correctly. This is the strategy of great spellers.
If you are teaching this strategy to someone else you will use language and gestures to guide them in accessing this correctly. You will direct them to look at the word while gesturing up towards their left (assuming they are normally organized).
If you want to prove this out, test it out by finding some great spellers and watch what they do. (NOTE: I have only experimented with this in English, but it likely applies more broadly, although some languages, like Spanish, are easier to spell in phonetically).
Are they lying?
Another potentially interesting use of eye accessing cues is to help tell if someone is telling the truth. There are many cues you can use to determine lying and we won't go into them all here, but eye accessing is one way to help detect truth or lying.
So if you have asked someone some questions and you know how they access construct memories and recalled memories then you have the basis for determining when they are telling the truth (recall) and when they are making up an answer.
Imagine that you ask your friend, "Did you go to that party over at Harry's this weekend?" Assuming you know that your friend is normally organized and they access Visual Construct and they say, "Why yes I did. It was great." They may be making up what it would have been like to be at that party. If they access recall then they might be remembering the party.
Now when you do this in the real world you begin to realize that people don't just make one access and answer. They might first access recall of what they actually did on the weekend and then construct something that they can tell you that they did.
Sometimes you'll ask someone a question and they will access auditory first, which might mean they are repeating the question to themselves, then they access recall or construct as part of their answer. Unfortunately it's not cut and dried, so you need to pay attention, ask questions, and learn. The key is to understand that you can notice what people are doing and influence it.
Now some of this can be faked, and they may answer untruthfully by remembering something that has actually happened (perhaps not at that time and place or even not to them). It is an interesting indicator that you should experiment with.
A great source on this subject is Dr. Paul Ekman.
Play with these strategies and see what you can learn. You might surprise yourself.
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