Alicia didn’t think her boyfriend was someone with a controlling personality – two years later she is still confused about her boyfriend’s behavior. She tells her friends that Randy controls what she does and how she feels, but they say it’s typical for men to behave that way. She has gone to a counselor. Everyone says to work on her relationship more. Alicia sometimes thinks if she loves Randy more, he will change.

Few people know the signs of a controlling personality. You could even be unaware you’re a controlling person. By the time such behaviors are evident, years of misery pass in the relationship with much verbal or physical abuse. The sooner you can identify the signs of controlling men or women, and how to handle these people (but more importantly yourself) with the advice I’ll give you in this article, the better you’ll protect yourself from a dangerous person who can create an abusive relationship.

How a Controlling Personality Develops

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.Thomas Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

How we perceive and judge information is the secret to understand controlling behavior from a friend or stranger. Psychologist Carl Jung discovered that people have four psychological functions:

1. Sensing (“It smells nice”, “I need to touch it first”, “Let me see it”)
2. Intuiting (“I have a feeling something bad will happen”, “I bet today is going to go wonderfully”, “I sense there’s something special about you”)
3. Thinking (“Lets look at the problem logically”, “It doesn’t match the set criteria”, “That happened before”)
4. Feeling (“I feel pain”, “I love the energy in this room”, “It feels right”)

The sensate and intuit functions gather and perceive information. The thought and feeling functions evaluate and judge the information. You can see the four psychological functions and their relationships represented below.

You might know these functions through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). All four functions serve an important part of the healthy human personality. The MBTI states that we have predominate functions and rely on other functions to a lesser degree. You rely on the sensate function by trusting your five senses (“I love the taste of this new recipe”), but at the same time you still receive messages from your intuition (“Customers are going to enjoy this new recipe”).

While the healthy person is connected to these four functions, the controlling person is unaware of one or more functions and unaware of one’s dictating behavior. Patricia Evans, author of Controlling People, says a controlling personality begins when one of the four functions are blocked, which leads to poor self-understanding and a blindness to one’s behavior. Once a guy loses a connection with himself, which formed his reality, control is pursued in the exterior world.

Men typically control others when their feeling function is blocked. Males have been told: “don’t feel pain”, “real men don’t cry”, “you’re too sensitive”, “men must stay strong”, and “if you get emotional, you lose”. A young boy cuts his knee and cries to which his father responds, “That doesn’t hurt so stop crying.” Gradually the boy disconnects from himself then ignores his feeling function. The boy’s inner reality is negated by others who tell him his feelings are wrong.

Once a guy loses a connection with himself, which formed his reality, control is pursued in the exterior world.

Disconnection is natural, yet ongoing disconnection is dangerous. It is necessary for a soldier to block his feeling function to get through the blood and brutality of war, but if the temporary blockage becomes permanent, he loses awareness of the feeling function. The soldier returns from war unsure how to feel pain and joy and struggles to empathize with someone in distress. Trauma, culture, and parents are the primary reasons people disconnect.

The four functions are necessary for survival. Without attention to bad-tasting food, a vibe that warns you of a dangerous location, obscure rationale, and another’s feelings, safety is jeopardized. A soldier deeply connected to pain in battle struggles to survive.

When a person permanently disconnects, an identity problem arises. The person’s psyche is violated. Once a person cannot believe his own senses, intuition, thoughts, or feelings, what consistency can be established to form the person’s identity? Identity and control must be established in the only other way possible: by controlling people.

Evan’s terms this a “backwards connection”. If people are not self-aware of inner experiences, they form their identity from the outside-in instead of the inside-out. While healthy people construct their identity from experiences via the four functions, soon-to-be controllers construct themselves by a desired self-image or what others think one should be like. Controllers define another person’s reality. Intergenerational behavior leads them to treat their partners or children the same way they were treated.

The Dark Dangerous Secret of a Controller

Healthy, authentic persons realize authenticity in others. Controllers on the other hand, hate authenticity. Their experiences are unknown so they circumvent others from their experiences.

The controller molds his or her partner or child into the desired person then connects to that fake person. A controlling husband can say he loves his wife, but he really loves the perfect wife constructed in his mind. This is one reason women struggle to address a controlling husband. Victims are so blinded by this pretend love, thinking the person who defines and controls him or her is truly in love.

Victims are so blinded by this pretend love, thinking the person who defines and controls him or her is truly in love.

Controlling and abusive relationships are common in marriages because one spouse does not fit “Prince Charming” or “Princess”. It is impossible anyway for these personas to be realized.

In our example, Randy creates a backwards connection by connecting to the fake Alicia. She has senses, intuition, thoughts, and feelings Randy ignores because her experiences fail to match up to the idealized princess. This leaves Alicia feeling confused, invalidated, and ignored.

The ideal image knows what the controller wants, feels, and thinks. Controllers assume “one mind” with their victims. If the controlled person fails to behave congruently with the ideal image by mind-reading the controller, the person is often ignored, abused, argued against, or told what to be, say, and feel in an attempt to negate authenticity and mold into the unattainable image.

Victims like a woman who try to be the perfect wife based on the abuse received from her controlling husband cannot consistently be the idealized image. Moments of genuineness always show – they are who the person really is after all.

Controllers do not see their behavior for what it is, however. Most are completely dumbfounded as to why they control others. If you are a controller, you will not know why you behave hurtfully towards one or two victims of your controlling behavior while most people see you as a beautiful, nice, caring person. Pleas for help can easily go ignored for the behavior is deceptive.

Controllers assume ‘one mind’ with their victims.

Blame blinds controllers. Rapists, murderers, and others convicted of assault say it was the victim’s fault because the victims showed authenticity that stirred the perpetrator to eliminate. Controllers never take responsibility for their behavior and instead accuse their victims who “deserved it”. Battered wives are blamed, beaten-down, and belittled by abusive husbands who believe their spouses are responsible for their rage. Criminals can sit in their prison cell and still blindly conclude their victims are the reason one is imprisoned.

2 Major Signs of Controlling People

The best sign to identify a controlling man or woman is to see if the person assumes one mind. I would assume one mind with you if I became angry over you not knowing what I wanted.

One-mindedness is a warning sign of a controlling person because the ideal image knows what the controlling person wants, thinks, and feels. The moment this perfect understanding is brought back to reality with a question, rage can form. If Alicia asks Randy, “When will you be back?” “Why do you treat me like this?” and “Why can’t I satisfy you?”, he could show controlling behavior like avoiding, arguing, or abusing her.

A second major warning sign of a controlling person is they define you. I would define you by telling you what you think and feel.

A controlling person defines victims based on the ideal image. Authenticity is neglected. What a victim really feels and thinks is replaced by the controlling person’s definition. The definition forms a fantasy, trying to pull the victim back into the perfect persona. You can see this in the following situations in which Alicia is defined by Randy:

• Alicia says, “I want to order chicken teriyaki.” Randy replies, “Don’t get it because you won’t like chicken teriyaki.”
• Alicia says, “I’m trying.” Randy replies, “You’re not trying!”
• Alicia says, “Please don’t treat me that way.” Randy replies, “You always try to blame me for what happens to you! It’s your own bloody fault you get treated that way!”
• Alicia says, “I’m feeling sad.” Randy replies, “Stop trying to manipulate me.”
• Alicia says, “I want to work again.” Randy replies, “You don’t know what you want.”

Randy defines Alicia. He destroys her authenticity by molding her into his idealized image.

Most of the responses defining Alicia are paradoxical. Controllers create the exact opposite of what they try to achieve:

1. They try to get close by barking orders, but their controlling behavior creates distance
2. They try to show power by belittling others, but their controlling behavior shows inferiority
3. They try to show wisdom and intelligence by disproving a victim’s point of view, but their controlling behavior shows incomprehension and shallowness
4. They think their perception is clear, but it is unclear

Intimacy is a paradoxical outcome avoided. The controller attempts to fulfill a need of closeness with the victim, yet true closeness is never achieved when the connection is with an inauthentic person. You cannot be intimate with a controller. Intimacy requires two persons to understand their feelings and connect with each for who they really are. Controllers cannot get intimate because they lack one or more of the four operational functions.

If you control someone, seeing theses signs is usually enough to make you see firsthand the false reality you live in and what you need to bring yourself back into an authentic world. Some recovering controllers see the severity of their behavior and cannot kill it so they respect their victims by ending a relationship to seek healing.

How to Deal with a Controlling Person

Now you can recognize and understand a controlling person – maybe you even identified some characteristics in yourself – I’ll share with you the secrets to manage a person who tries to control you.

The first step to deal with a controlling person is to believe no one knows exactly how you feel and think. Victims of abuse can have their self-esteem pummeled heavily into the ground that they believe abusers more than themselves. Someone cannot define you – not even a psychologist. It is vital you acknowledge and believe your self-understanding over what a boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, father or mother, manager or employee tells you.

The second step to deal with a controller uses the one-mindedness warning sign. Identify when the person trespasses your “psychic boundary”. Similar to the first step, detect trespasses by seeing what someone does when they attempt to define you. While the first step is an acknowledgment and belief before controlling behavior surfaces, this second step reinforces the first step the moment someone controls you.

Though you are a victim of someone’s hurtful behavior, you are responsible for your response.

The third step is to speak up to controlling people. You cannot shatter the idealized image placed on you until you speak up to face the problem. Though you are a victim of someone’s hurtful behavior, you are responsible for your response. (Tweet this quote.)

The fourth step uses the “What?” technique taught by Evans who says victims fall into the false reality controllers create by arguing with them. Most people respond to controllers by trying to contradict the nonsense such as: “I do love chicken teriyaki!” “Far out, I try so hard!” “I am sad… You don’t know how I feel!” Here is a sample dialog between Randy and Alicia who sticks to her habits by arguing with Randy, which is ineffective:

“I want to work again,” says Alicia.
“You don’t know what you want,” replies Randy.
“I do want to work again. I have a desire to pursue my photography career.”
“You don’t really like photography! Keep doing what you’re doing now.”
“No! I’ve been looking at some photography magazines and I really want to do it!”
“Where are those magazines? GIVE THEM TO ME SO I CAN TEAR THE DAMN THINGS UP YOU F***** B****!”

Do not argue with a person who defines you. Evans recommends you do not even validate what they say through argument. You instead ask, “What?” or variations of it repeatedly. Other responses Alicia and you can use that do not validate a controller’s remarks are, “Cut it out”, “Quit that”, and “What are you doing?” Here is a sample dialog between Randy and Alicia who uses variations recommended by Evans:

“I want to work again,” says Alicia.
“You don’t know what you want,” replies Randy.
“What?”
“You don’t know what you want.”
“What?”
(For the first time Randy realizes something is going on.) “Cut it out. You heard me. You don’t want to work again.”
“Nonsense.”

A word of warning using this fourth step: do not use it on a dangerous person. It is too threatening to use on someone who can potentially go into rage. Protect yourself, protect your children. Be careful when you deal with a controller because they fight to keep their reality alive. A cut to their reality is perceived as death.

No controlling person is going to change their behavior through one conversation. The above dialog between Alicia and Randy is the start of healing. Controllers need to see for themselves the backward connections they have created with others.

Leaving a Controlling Relationship

Humility means accepting reality with no attempt to outsmart it.David Richo, The Five Things We Cannot Change

If you decide to leave a controller, their fake reality weakens. They may not change, but many do realize what their behavior did to themselves and the lives of their victims.

Be careful when you deal with a controller because they fight to keep their reality alive.

There are shelters that help sufferers of abuse should you leave a controlling spouse. Other options you can consider is to stay with family and friends and contact the police. Do something about the problem for the safety and happiness of yourself and your children.

Children in controlling relationships need help otherwise they are at risk of dictating others later in life. The moment a child’s fundamental needs remain unfilled, the child escapes to a fake world where those needs are met.

Psychotherapists say a common object in which a child obtains these needs is from a toy like a teddy bear. The bear is spoken to as an idealized person, always listening, always knowing, always understanding the child. The teddy is defined by the child and is one mind with the child. Later in the life the toy is projected onto others who get controlled by the person.

The intergenerational transmission of control cycles again unless it is stopped. Now is the time to deal with controlling people to take control of what is controlling you.

If you suspect someone is in a controlling relationship, possibly the greatest gift you can give them right now is an understanding and freedom from controllers by telling the person about this article. Share this article by email, post it on Facebook, or tweet it.

(To discover more on one-mindedness, checkout chapter three of my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program, which reveals this communication barrier many people use. You can learn more about the program that can help you better communicate in your relationships here. If you want to become whole again and connect with suppressed parts of yourself so you can easily connect with people, my other program Big Talk: Effortlessly Talk to Win Friends with the Real You is a breakthrough solution you can discover here.)

Principles do not change. Water is two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom – this will not change. The North poles of two magnets repel – this will not change. Gravity rips you down to Earth – this will not change. The unchanging laws of science are parallel to the unchanging principles and laws of communication to deal with difficult people.

If you have a difficult person in your life, you may think he or she is impossible to deal with, yet the person is not an impenetrable rock. It’s human! And humans follow laws of psychology and behavior you can benefit from. This article will provide you with judo-like principles to convert seemingly impossible forces of a difficult person into tips to effectively deal with them.

The world is filled with stubborn people. The difficult and not so difficult people even think you can be difficult. Learn the following tips (taken from my Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program) to deal with difficult people in your everyday life:

4 Common Methods that Do Not Work

Sending solutions. Common phrases that indicate solving include: “What if you…” “Stop doing… and start…” and “Why don’t you…” Telling people what to do does not work. Solutions are the problem. The more you push solutions on people, the more they pull away from you and your suggestion. Real solutions, commitment, and desire for change come from participation.

Moralizing. Common phrases that indicate moralizing include: “You should….” “It would be good for you to…” and “Stop doing wrong…” Chapter eight of my program defines moralizing words as “using what is right and wrong, good and bad, black and white to further your logic.” Manipulation from guilt and other emotions that arise from moral words do not change difficult people yet alone anyone.

Complaints. “I wish Bill wasn’t so damn annoying.” Bickering is mental masturbation. Creation comes from being proactive. If you complain, you’re the difficult person. You become no better than the person you try to change.

Criticism. People criticize to build change. “I’m results-focused. I criticize people to get things done.” Similar lines of thinking drive the 12 communication barriers (criticism, labeling, diagnosing, praise, orders, threats, questions, moralizing, advice, reason, reassurance, and deflecting). Avoid criticism because it is not charismatic persuasion. Criticism intensifies conflict. Criticized individuals feel diminished, unworthy, and less important.

10 Principles and Tips to Deal with a Difficult Person

The following principles and tips are not short-term tricks to transform an annoying person. Endless articles shared on the Internet provide frivolous advice on this topic. When the core problem is addressed, however, colds get skipped and the cancer is cut out. Advice shared here gets to the core of what really matters when dealing with a difficult person.

1. You see the world as you are. Stephanie Rosenbloom for The New York Times hit the heart of difficult people; or rather the people who think someone is difficult. Rosenbloom says the issue “is not the difficult people themselves. It is you.”

Problems transmute from your perception, then your reaction.

Most articles that provide tips to deal with difficult people focus on difficult individuals (“They’re the problem”); hence they miss the real problem (“You’re part of the problem”). You play a role in a difficult person’s behavior. Problems transmute from your perception, then your reaction. Carl Jung said we repress our hated characteristics, which manifest in discomfort around people we repulse. Jungian psychoanalyst Edward Whitmont writes:

Ask someone to give a description of the personality type which he finds most despicable, most unbearable and hateful, and most impossible to get along with, and he will produce a description of his own repressed characteristics – a self-description which is utterly unconscious and which therefore always and everywhere tortures him as he receives its effect from the other person. These very qualities are so unacceptable to him precisely because they represent his own repressed side; only that which he cannot accept without ourselves do we find impossible to live with in others.

What characteristics in people do you hate most? What do these characteristics say about you? Who does not find the person difficult? What can you learn from the person who does not find the person hard to face?

A chronically difficult person is rare. Your self-image makes people difficult. I strongly encourage you to notice as often as possible what you deny in yourself because this could be a repressed image, a shadow you see in others, that you have ignored in the past. “In the end,” says Rosenbloom, “the specialists say, we cannot control other people, only our response to them.” (The first chapter of my Big Talk training course taps into this deep, dark psychological theory that stops us from enjoyable conversation. When you connect with your full self, it becomes easy to connect with people and make friends. This is cutting-edge material you can discover more about here.)

2. Lose the need to be right. When you enter a conversation with the intent to fix someone, you become difficult. Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People says you must open yourself to be influenced to influence. Quit thinking you are right because this drives your resistance to be changed and change people.

3. Clear your heart, open your mind. Too often our experiences with people hurt our current conversations with them. It takes time for someone in your negative light to shift under a positive spotlight even when the person hasn’t been difficult for a while.

Forgive to clean your heart then keep an open mind as to why someone is difficult. Stop hopping to conclusions by portraying the problem as the person’s difficulty. You blockade truth with judgments and fear of self-analysis.

Perhaps you are the problem, their father was diagnosed with cancer, or they are in financial trouble. Acknowledge that you do not – and will never – know all reasons why someone is difficult. An open mind that welcomes a person’s point of view to enter possible explanations for their behavior creates a cushion to soften harsh judgments.

Listen to the difficult person and let them express their point of view. It will help you see why they are difficult. This tip alone can be enough to deal with the person as you see the reason for their behavior. Listen honestly and actively with empathy.

4. Want difficult people. It’s scary, but wanting a bothersome person helps you. Difficult people create conflict – and this creates change. An organism with no challenge has no reason to evolve. Difficulties challenge you, compelling you to evolve into a superior being.

Does this mean you can be difficult? No. There is people who find you difficult enough. The diversity of human nature brings with it differences that catapult humanity through difficulties.

5. Be proactive, not reactive. Reactive persons blame circumstances for their reality. They reciprocate bad behavior. They reason other people need to change.

The diversity of human nature brings with it differences that catapult humanity through difficulties.

Proactive persons create what they want regardless of constricting circumstances. Create a value in yourself to be proactive and treat people with respect. Once you stop reciprocating bad behavior, you feel proud, empowered, and in control of your life regardless of whether you successfully handle the situation. Make the fundamental decision to commit to the advice given in this article.

6. Be responsible, not a victim. Don’t blame people for how they make you feel. The degree you’re a victim of someone’s behavior controls the impact it has on you.

Take responsibility for how you feel. Prevent people from entering and exiting your emotional state at will. Eliminate blame to free yourself from a person’s difficult behavior.

You don’t have to be burdened by people’s problems. You will work towards a solution faster and be less emotionally exasperated when you lose the victim mentality and stop thinking people are villains. My friend Gary Harper has a good article on this where he also discusses similar principles to this article.

7. Be problem-oriented, not person-oriented. Difficult people have a difficult problem and are trying to fulfill a need the only way they know possible. It seems elusive, but even they want to live in harmony.

People are not the problem. Focus on the problem and not the person. A helpful tip for this is to disassociate the problem from the person. Their behavior, even you, or something else is the problem.

8. Find the unmet need. Difficult people have an unmet need. Whether somebody is angry, unhappy, depressed, loud, or anxious, they try to fulfill a need – though it is often done poorly. Notice a hidden need beneath someone’s difficult behavior, and you will see another human being. This will allow you to compassionately communicate. The Nonviolent Communication Process is a model that gets you focused on, and fulfilling, other people’s needs and your own.

9. Be interdependent. Dependency is unhealthy. To overcome this, self-help experts teach independence. According to most people, independence is health, freedom, and power. By itself, nothing could be further from the truth.

According to Robert Greene, author of 48 Laws of Power, a powerful individual living in isolation destroys his power. John O’Neil in The Paradox of Success confirms Greene’s remarks. O’Neil says leaders and other individuals in powerful positions destroy their success and happiness with overt independence. Such persons do it all, have chronic obsessions with work and difficulties getting their mind off work, and easily become irritated by others who disagree with their decision-making.

A powerful communicator knows how to distribute decision-making for freedom. He or she knows how to seek help because the person is not afraid to admit failure and learn. This is the interdependent standpoint you need beyond solitude. “When we try to pick out anything by itself,” said famed conservationist John Muir, “we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”

Use other people to help solves problems. It sounds simple because it is. Talk to a parent, manager, or human resource department. People bring knowledge, skills, and persuasive power to handle a difficult person. Be beware of risks associated with making a private problem public. It’s your responsibility to respect a person’s privacy concerns and at the same time request another’s help when necessary.

10. Be detached from an outcome.

If the above tips and principles fail you, it’s not because they don’t work – it’s because you disobeyed them. The principles and tips given to you cannot fail because they are the foundations for good communication.

When you attach to an outcome, your rigidity causes resistance.

If you lose the need to be right while remaining proactive, for example, you deal with the difficult person. Stop thinking the only way to deal with a difficult person is to change them, such desire only makes you difficult.

When you attach to an outcome by seeking a specific result from an interaction at all costs, your rigidity causes resistance. The most common outcome people attach to when they converse with a difficult person is their need to be right and change the person (principle #2). Going into a conversation with the righteous intent to change a person guarantees failure. You must detach from an outcome.

If the principles and tips do not bring you the result you’re after, prepare to walk away. Give the people involved space to think the problems through. By doing this, you clear your heart and open your mind, remain proactive, and keep problem-oriented. A tough issue can be solved at a later time. Another day can bring different possibilities. Emotions, thoughts, and attitudes change.

Unsuccessful conflict resolution with a difficult person can escalate the problem, but adhere to these principles and tips to deal with a difficult person to make the difficult more manageable. “Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen,” said Friedrich Nietzsche, “few in pursuit of the goal.”

(If you are reading this and found the above principles and tips to deal with difficult people helpful, you will enjoy my “Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program” where the principles for this article were extracted. Click here to learn more about the program and how you can develop your communication skills to charismatically have cold-hearted persons wanting to change. Also discover more about Big Talk, my training course that lets two persons openly and freely talk with one another, by clicking here.)

NLP practitioners have a set of rules known as “NLP presuppositions” that form the foundations for the technology. They are beliefs that govern NLP. The presuppositions give you the foundation to understand how you perceive the world and presents you with the opportunity to change your reality. It is not that the presuppositions have been proven, but rather they give us opportunities and freedom to produce for effective living and better communication.

While few people agree on exact NLP presuppositions, the following presuppositions are ones I frequently stumble upon. They appear to be widely accepted. Though the presuppositions are simple, and hence can appear idealistic, think of how they can be applied to your life to change your reality:

1. The map is not the territory

This could be the most important presupposition to understand. “The map is not the territory” means we are separate from reality. The menu is not the food. The road map is not the city. The map of the world we have in our minds is not the real world.

We short-change ourselves of our full potential when we believe our mental map of the world is the territory we deal with everyday. If you take your assumptions of people’s behaviors, your position in the world, how people perceive you, or anything as reality – when it is merely your mental map painted from abstract understandings – you cheat yourself from what you can become.

Instead of interacting with the world, you interact with your map. How you treat people and yourself is dependent on the map you hold. Your map can be more quickly and easily changed than the world it attempts to describe.

2. Every behavior has its appropriate context

You may get angry in sporadic outbursts because it gives you the space you need from people. You may be a passive person because of its benefits such as the praise you receive from parents. You may be scared of snakes because when you were little a snake-bite hospitalized you for two days.

Unfortunately, the behaviors, phobias, and ways to communicate you learned from experience that served you well then limit your potential now. You let the past dictate your future. Instead of using old ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving that served their purpose in old contexts, you need to adapt new thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are most beneficial for the present moment and aligned with who you want to become.

3. People already have their needed resources

If you take your assumptions of people, yourself, or anything as reality – when it is merely your mental map painted from abstract understandings – you cheat yourself out of what you can become.

This is the weakest of the presuppositions. It is has been reinterpreted and misused from its original intention given by Milton Erikson when he said patients in therapy have the resources to handle their present problems, not all problems.

Unfortunately, and fortunately, you are human. While you may have the resources to solve personal problems, it does not mean you are capable of solving them right now. You need to know the resources you have and how to use them. You need to learn the skills, go through the experiences, discover a book, or whatever it may be, to awaken these resources within you.

You already have the ability to visualize, feel, hear sounds, communicate, and experience other sensations. These innate human abilities are the framework for personal change. In this article, and anything I share with you, I hope to give you the ability to use your resources better to create the reality you want in your everyday awakening life by showing you how to put your frameworks to more effective use.

4. Experience has a structure

Sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell create an experience for you. These five senses hold the potential to change your identity and reality. Each habit or skill is birthed from the five senses.

Pleasant-filled and pain-ridden experiences each have a structure that use the five senses. Recurrent painful memories typically are large, bright, and up close. Painless memories of previously painful moments are typically seen in black-and-white, a single frame, and at an objective distance like in a photo – or even possibly combined with humorous music. Knowing the experience you want and understanding the structures that gives the experience, helps you establish an empowering pattern.

5. If one person can do something, anyone can learn to do it

This presupposition is modeling, doing what someone else does. It forms the foundation of NLP where individuals observe successful persons then mimic what makes them successful. Someone who wants similar success to a person they admire are to learn and do what makes the person successful, which leads to their own success. Successful individuals for centuries have modeled successful predecessors.

6. Change what is not working

The old saying, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got” is so true. This presupposition encourages people to stop doing what is ineffective. If you want something new, start doing something new.

It is sick to see parents use unhealthy ways of disciplining their children. Every action by the child gets a consequence placed around it. To the parent’s disbelief, the child continues to push those consequences. The parent thinks it’s the child’s problem, but the parent is too ignorant and stuck in habitual behavior to realize that what he or she does is not working.

7. A positive intention exists beneath every behavior

You might yell to be heard. Fight to establish justice. Smoke to feel relaxation. Retreat to feel comfortable. Remain in bed to avoid the pain that awaits you. These are all positive intentions.

A positive intention does not mean the behavior is correct, healthy, or the best option. Rather, knowing a positive intention or fundamental human need exists behind behaviors and communication enables you to resourcefully act. When you see positive intentions, you are more able to separate the problem from the person and update your map.

8. You cannot not communicate

I have come across many people who think it is possible to not communicate. The idea that you cannot communicate is one of the top communication myths.

You always communicate and will always continue to communicate. Your nonverbal communication illustrates the thoughts and feelings inside of you. While your thoughts remain hidden, a snicker in your smile, a wink in your eye, or a sigh of relief communicates a message without you needing to verbalize a message.

9. The meaning of communication is the elicited response

You just gave a brilliant presentation to a board of directors about a new project. Or so you thought. They rejected your idea. Why? There could be many reasons, but the underlying concept I’m painting here is the message received differs to the message sent.

A person’s response shows you their meaning of your communication. When you understand the difference between sending communication and receiving communication, you open yourself to intimately understand people. You become aware that people need to verify their understanding of your message, which allows you to adjust future communication with them.

This presupposition encapsulates another NLP presupposition: failure does not exist, only feedback exists. Every piece of feedback you receive is treated as an achievement because it takes you one step closer to what you want. If something does not get you the results you want, it only means you need to correct what you are doing. You eventually create the reality you want by having the flexibility to change.

10. The more choices, the better

The better your map, the more choices you give yourself to create your desired reality.

The fewer options an individual has, the unhealthier the person. Individuals limited in behavior feel victimized by circumstances that “give no options”. You may consider yourself to be absent of any psychosomatic illness, but there will be unhealthy areas in your life where you feel limited and powerless.

People stuck in negotiations are limited by their constraining choice(s) because choice correlates to power, influence, and change. The more choices you have personally, socially, and professionally, the more control you have over your reality. The better your map, the more choices you give yourself to create your desired reality.

11. The mind and body are inseparable

It was previously believed the mind and body are separate entities. Today, researchers, medical experts, and philosophers discover evidence each day about the mind and body influencing one another. Your thoughts and emotions affect your body and vice-a-versa.

Do not underestimate the influence your mind has on your body and the influence your body has on your mind. There is endless amounts of research that proves the strength of the two-way communication between the mind and body. Fields of study now heavily integrate the two entities that once seemed separate.

Body psychotherapy deals with the subconscious mind and body. Your experiences show in parts of your body. One particular example is bottled emotions manifest themselves in pains throughout the body. Emotional pains arise in predictable places over the body. A sore left knee signifies a fear to move forward in life.

Last night, I purged my thoughts and emotions, which remained inside of me for years, to my parents. I woke up the following morning with my worst ever headache. 18 hours later as I write this, I still have a headache – something that has never lasted more than 30 minutes for me. Such a long-lasting headache means I still have stuff to work through.

12. Action develops understanding

Regardless of the number of books you read, people you talk to, or universities you attend, you will not understand what you seek to learn until you “do”. It is only when you “do” can you fully comprehend what you intellectualize.

There you have 12 neuro-linguistic programming presuppositions. These presuppositions are given to you as frameworks. They are rules to change your reality. Live by them and soon you will be in a reality that once seemed a dream.