Find people and events in your life constantly making you irritable? Life coach Larah Davis tells you how to get out of your grump
Maybe your boyfriend or husband starts the morning by moaning, a grumpy commuter is deliberately rude, or a heel on your fabulous new pair of “high-cost-per-wear” shoes breaks as you're running for the tube? How do you react? Do you feel annoyed, upset or frustrated – maybe even angry or (especially at ‘that’ time of the month) reduced to tears? Does this new mood affect you temporarily? Or does it stay with you all day?
The Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) technique teaches the only behaviour we can control is our own – which means we are actually responsible for how we are feeling. We are the only one who controls what we think – which drives how we feel.
This means that it cannot, really, be the other person’s fault if they put us in a bad mood – in fact they can’t put us in anything unless we want them to. So how come we want them to? Well, isn’t it easier to surrender to their storms of sadness, frustration or tension than to take ownership over our self and dare to do something, be someone different?
Try out this fantastic technique for managing situations that challenge your happy mood.
1. Draw an imaginary circle around you
2. Draw an imaginary circle around the “other” person (boyfriend/husband/colleague – heel-of-shoe!)
3. Draw an imaginary third circle – apart from the others – this is the Objective Observer “third person”.
4. Step quickly into the third circle and notice what you are noticing about the rest of the situation.
5. Notice whether you are feeling distanced from the feelings and emotions you had been experiencing in circle No 1. What are you learning about the other person? How much more clearly can you see the best way for the you in circle No 1 to be so that you can act – rather than react – successfully? What else are you learning from being here? Do you have more control over the outcome of the situation? How much better are you feeling knowing that you can exercise this control over yourself whenever you want to?
This is part of a NLP technique called perceptual positions, which enables you to perceive a situation from three different sides. Powerful at work, at home and at play, it is great for mediating in relationships for enabling a greater understanding of each persons’ position and yes, I do indeed use it all the time with my boyfriend! It keeps us smiling and under the same roof! So play away and practise – give each circle a different colour – and notice what else happens…
Email your feedback and any questions so that I can assist you with fine-tuning your technique.
More top tips next week.
Larah Davis is a Certified Life Coach and NLP Master Practitioner. Email Larah at larah@delamaxlifemanagement.co.uk
