Outside Inside Out

While I was taking a walk one morning kicking the brown leaves as I went, I realised that it was recycling day and that all of the houses on the road I was strolling down had 2 or 3 boxes outside containing different materials.

There was a box for papers, a box for glass, one for cans and another for plastics and although each house had similar boxes, each one was filled in a different way with different types of things.

Being the kind of person I am who likes to have fun and play games I decided to make up a little game for myself that would not only be fun but also might develop something in me that could come in useful.

The Game

The game was really simple. All I had to do was continue walking down the road looking at the recycling that had been put out and as I walked past each house the game was to allow an image to pop into my head of what the people who live in this house might be like. Now the only information I had to go off was what was in the recycling boxes.

The Rules

The only rule I set myself was that I wasn’t allowed to get in my own way. What ever it was that came to mind was what it was and instead of looking down and seeing a plastic Muller light yogurt pot and saying to myself “oh, this person must like healthy eating”, I had to simply see whatever it was that came up in my mind and consider it for a moment or two, then move onto the next house.

As I began to continue walking down the road and noticing the items outside of the houses and creating ideas about what might be on the inside of the house, I started to wonder how accurate my “intuitions” were and I noticed myself spotting other clues also about what the people living in the house might be like. What the front of the house was like, what kind of curtains they had, the car in the drive and the garden they tended (or didn’t). These other clues seemed to line up with the ideas I’d already come up with and luckily for me, a few times the people living in the house were just leaving which again gave me the opportunity to notice how accurate my intuitions were becoming.

As time has gone by and I’ve done various different training courses with various different people, and as I’ve worked with more and more people to help them get to where they want to be, and the more I’ve found people who are amazing at what they do, the more I’ve begun to realise the benefits of being truly aware.

When I used to think about sensory acuity back in the earlier days of my training I used to think that it was about scrutinising everything people did and focusing really hard in order that I didn’t miss anything important. I remember sitting with a friend one day trying to figure out what was going on in his head as he told me about an experience he’d had, what I thought was being aware was really me sitting there talking to myself saying “ok he blinked when he said that, what does that mean? What might it mean? errr….I think a muscle under his eye just moved then, I wonder what that…oh…err..Did I just miss something else there, I wonder what it was…ah shit I stopped watching…OK, back to observing…OK his breathing has changed…right…what just happened? Why did he stop talking?…Oh…it’s my turn to speak now”.

To me, this was just too much hard work and was in fact the complete opposite of what I wanted to be able to do.

As I began to learn about different ways of being able to notice and to stay “outside” of my own head whilst at the same time being “inside” my own head enough to process what was going on, I soon learned that sensory acuity is less about scrutiny and for me, more about getting out of my own way.

There are often people who, especially in an NLP type environment, will say that if you figure out what’s going on inside someone’s head without asking them that you’re “mind reading”. They say this as if it’s a bad thing but in my experience, this is exactly the direction you want your mind to be aiming in because when you train your brain to be able to see what it is that’s being exhibited on the outside and how it represents what’s going on the inside, the easier you’ll find what you do and the more benefit it’ll be to the people you work with.

So how do you make sure you’re training your brain in the right way and not just fooling yourself?

I’ll give the same answer here as I usually give to most people about most things. Simply and easily in the most fun way possible for you.

What I mean by this is that in order to do anything in the most beneficial way, I’ve found, that it usually helps to do it in a way that’s fun and keeps you wanting to know more.

When I first learned Sub-Modality Eye Accessing Cues from Eric Robbie, I wanted to know whether what I was seeing was right. The more I asked people I was with: “Is this how you’re representing it”, the more I began to fine tune my unconscious intuition. When you ask someone what they do inside their heads and your own intuitions are not the same, you begin to build a new set of experiences that teach your unconscious what really IS going on.

So lets play

Here’s the game: Go and talk to at least 3 people and ask them to think about either a holiday they’ve had, a trip to work they’ve had or the best sex they ever had (You can pick any 3 experiences as long as they contrast in some way).

Have them think about the thought without speaking or telling you which one they chose and then notice what you notice.

Then have a guess. Which of the experiences do you think they were thinking about? Tell the other person which one you thought they chose and find out if you’re right. If you didn’t get it this time, keep going until you start to unconsciously spot patterns that let you know what’s going on inside their head.

Once you get it right, notice what pictures you make inside your head about the thing they thought about. Ask them whether the pictures you’re making are similar to the ones they made inside their own head.

You’ll be surprised at how much information is available about what and how people think, simply by going quiet inside your own head and allowing the information to flow.

As always I’d love to read your feedback and experiences.

Love, Jamie