I like helping people. That’s why I do what I do. And I can’t help people that don’t want to be helped no matter how frustrating it is for me to see someone else struggle.
Take my husband. We’re in a car in Malaysia and he’s having problems finding his way back to the highway. “AWAS” signs blocked his normal route and he was not familiar with any other way. I won’t even bother with the men & directions joke. The point is, I was trying to help.
“Are we meant to be by the big condo complex?” There was no reply.
“If we go right, we’ll be back to the main road, right?” Silence.
I didn’t learn quickly enough and my next question results in a snap back, “Just let me do this myself!”
“I’m trying to help”, I said to myself. And then the NLP kicks in.
Who exactly am I trying to help?
“The meaning of communication is the response you get.” That is a presupposition of NLP. It basically means if someone is snapping at you, something went wrong in the communication.
I received two responses from my husband. Both were silence. It is a response. And I ignored the meaning of the response and kept pushing my ‘helper’ agenda. The last response I received was much clearer. “Leave me alone!”
I could have gotten upset at my husband for snapping back at me and yet, thanks to a little NLP Presupposition, I learned something about my own behavior and how I sometimes don’t help.
How about you? Who have you been trying to help lately? What response are you getting that you may not have ‘heard’ completely? What is the meaning behind the response you’re getting – not your meaning – theirs!
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