Free Yourself from Fears (22 page)

Behavior can also be manipulated. Rapport is built on the behavioral level by matching voice tone and body language, and this is something that NLP has studied extensively (see
The NLP Work Book
in the list of resources for details). Matching body language is something we do naturally: we tend to match eye contact and general posture with those to whom we talk. We also tend to match our voice tone—we speak more softly if the other person has a soft voice, and we match the other person’s speed of speech.

There is good research dating from the 1960s by William Condon, who looked at what he called “cultural micro rhythms,” the repeating 171

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patterns in communication behavior. What he found (which has been confirmed by subsequent researchers) was that gestures and voice rhythms tend to harmonize when we talk to another person.

The volume and pitch of the voices equalize and so does the speech rate (the number of speech sounds per second). The latency period also equalizes (the time that elapses between one person stopping talking and the other beginning).

You can get rapport by deliberately matching body language and voice tone. If you do it too much, it becomes mimicking, which is usually very offensive. Since body and voice matching is a learned skill, this can also be manipulated by people who may want rapport with you but with a bad intention. Trust and intuition are the most reliable guides to safety. These are considered in more detail in the next chapter.

Skill for freedom

Danger signals

Forced teaming.

Unnecessary details and explanations.

Creating a false sense of obligation.

Contextual incongruence, when the behavior does not fit the context.

Personal incongruence, when the body language is incongruent.

Your intuition makes you feel uncomfortable.

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Trust and Intuition:

Your Two Guides

TRUST IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT OF SAFETY. If the mountain climber does not trust the rope that supports his weight, he will not feel safe. We also need to trust ourselves and our resources in the event of danger.

The word “trust” comes from the Old Norse word
traustr
, meaning

“strong.” The word “true” comes from the same root. You trust something when you know that it is strong enough to bear your weight, in reality or metaphorically. The feeling of trust is a mixture of confidence, strength, and safety that is based on experience—more than hope and less than certainty.

Level of trust

Your level of trust depends on two things: how much weight you put on the support, and its strength. If you don’t lean hard it does not need to be very strong, but if you are going to trust it with your full weight it needs to be stronger. Some people are trustworthy up to a point but then fail under pressure. You might trust a person with $50, but not with $1,000. You may trust a friend with your credit card, but not with your boyfriend.

Trust is not an all-or-nothing quality—there are degrees. It is not about accounting and adding up the positives and negatives surrounding a person, it depends on context.

FREE YOURSELF FROM FEARS

Skill for freedom

What does trust mean to you?

This exercise gives you a way you can measure trust.

Think of a time when you successfully trusted someone.

What are the qualities of the feeling?

J Whereabouts in your body do you experience it?

J What temperature is it?

J How deep is it?

J What area does it seem to take up?

J Is there anything else important about it?

What picture do you see?

J What are the qualities of the picture, regardless of what or who is in it?

J How big is the picture?

J Are you in the picture, or are you looking at yourself in the picture?

J Whereabouts do you see the picture (front, left, right, up, down, etc.)?

J Is the picture in color or black and white?

J How far away is the picture?

J Is the picture moving or still?

J Are there any other important qualities of the picture?

What sounds do you hear?

J Is there an internal voice?

J What does it say?

J What message is it trying to give you?

J Are there any other important qualities of the sound?

Make a list of these qualities.Write them down.
Save them.

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This is a precise representation of how you experience trust.When you are uncertain whom to trust, think about the person and see how far your images, sounds, and feelings measure up to this benchmark.

Three types of trust

There are three main categories of trust: J Trust in your environment.

J Trust in other people.

J Trust in yourself.

Trust in the environment

Trust in the environment is simple. Ask questions and test as much as you can. You test if a rope is strong enough to support your weight by putting more weight on it that you would ever expect it to carry. If it holds, then you have a good safety margin.

All the information (or at least the important bits) has to match up and point in the same direction before it is completely trustworthy.

Trusting others

Trust in other people is more complex. There are four elements to trusting others:

J Sincerity.

J Congruence.

J Consistency.

J Competence.

You trust someone if they are sincere and truthful. They mean what they say, they deliver what they promise. But do they do this only if they are feeling good? Only if they can get something for themselves?

We judge people’s sincerity by their facial expression, body language, and voice tone. When someone is sincere, they are telling the truth, as they know it. (They may be mistaken, however.) When we 175

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do not think a person is sincere, then we do not trust them. They do not have to be a “good” person for us to trust them—criminals may be very trustworthy in certain circumstances.

The second element is congruence. In practice, we judge a person’s sincerity by how congruent they are. They are congruent when their words and actions match up. Congruence means a strong voice tone, looking you in the eye, symmetrical body language, and the words

“Yes I will!” When we see these, we normally judge that the person is sincere and telling the truth (although they may have mastered the art of congruent lying). We do not think they will trick us.

In practice, few people are completely congruent. They may be uncertain, or they may not be feeling well. If we notice that a person is very incongruent, then we do not usually trust them. Congruence also applies to information.

The third element of trust is consistency. Most people need to know another person for some time before trusting them. Others need to see that they keep their promises on a number of occasions, regardless of time. Usually if someone is trustworthy on three occasions, this is good evidence that they are generally trustworthy.

Someone who keeps their promise one day and breaks it the next is not trustworthy; next time there is a 50% chance that they will break their promise again.

A person may be sincere, and congruent, and consistent, but can they do what they say they will do? You would not trust a six-year-old child to operate an electric saw without supervision, however sincerely they pleaded that they wanted to help you.

Competence is much more important than confidence.

Confidence is the feeling that your resources are as great or greater than the challenge you are confronted with. Confidence needs to be grounded in information, trust, and competence. Misplaced confidence leads to trouble. (Would you rather be operated on by a confident or a competent brain surgeon?)

Many people will sincerely offer to help you, but not know how, or may not have the skill. When someone can help you and lets you down, this is worse than when someone sincerely tries to help but is 176

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unable to because they do not have the resources. They are incapable rather than untrustworthy. The specific situation is very important. A trustworthy person must be consistently sincere, congruent, and competent in the same context.

Thresholds of trust

People have different thresholds of trust. Some people never trust others. They are always suspicious and reluctant to trust anyone else in finances, relationships, or business. These people may lose a lot of opportunities and fun in life. Other people trust too readily: they treat people as generally trustworthy without gathering much evidence. They may just like someone and trust them immediately without checking further. This can be dangerous and such a person may experience a lot of disappointment. They might flip after a few bad experiences, and decide that no one is trustworthy and refuse to trust anyone.

Always trusting people and never trusting people come from the same source—not paying attention to people. We need to pay attention to the other person’s congruence, sincerity, and competence over time before deciding to trust them.

Trusting another person is a wonderful feeling and having that trust returned is the basis of the happiest relationships. The exercise on what trust means to you (page 174) gives you a benchmark to measure the trust you have for different people. Or try the skill below.

Skill for freedom

Exploring trust

How do you decide whom to trust?

How do you decide when to trust?

What rules do you have about whom you trust?

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What do you look for and listen to in a person in order to trust them?

What evidence do you need to trust someone?

Trusting yourself

Trusting yourself follows the same logic as trusting others.

J How sincere are you?

J How good are you at following up your promises?

J How consistent are you?

J Would you trust yourself to help if you were someone else?

J What resources do you have to deal with the situation?

J Can you trust in your skill to handle the situation?

J What similar situations have you been able to deal with in the past?

It is much easier to trust yourself when you have consistently shown the skills you need, or you believe that you can demonstrate them.

Trust in yourself comes from belief in your own resources, from experiences in the past where you showed these resources. These are your
reference experiences
. To be solid, these need to be grounded both on your own judgment and on feedback from others. Some people are internally referenced: they judge themselves according to their own values. They pay attention to their own subjective experience. It does not matter to them if people do not think they are good enough.

Extremely internally referenced people do not pay attention to what other people think, and will not trust anything they have not personally tested.

Other people are more externally referenced: they need people to tell them that they are good, and then they will believe it.

Use both internal and external references. You need both to believe that you have the resources and to have feedback from others agreeing with you.

I would feel terrified if I were to drive around a racing circuit at over 100 miles an hour—it is dangerous. I have no experience in driv-178

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ing racing cars, but a racing car driver feels safe if they have successful experience of driving in similar situations. They know they have the skill, they have done it before. They trust in the mechanics who build and look after the car. They know what to do if they get into trouble on the track. They may feel the excitement of adrenaline, but very rarely do they feel fear.

Trust is the greatest resource against fear
J In the environment.

J In others.

J In yourself.

To trust another person, you need to see: J Sincerity.

J Consistency.

J Congruence.

J Competence.

To trust completely you need to test the person to the limit.You want to see more strength than is needed in that particular situation.

Reference experiences

Reference experiences are past experiences that we pay attention to when we decide whom or what to trust. Of all the possible experiences that we could select, which ones count and which do not? Are all reference experiences the same?

NLP can provide answers with the “convincer” metaprogram pattern.

Some people will assume that they have the resources and skill they need with no reference experience, and go ahead anyway. This is an approach based on
faith
. The same people are likely to trust another person without any further check.

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Other people need only to have been shown the skill on one prior occasion and that is enough for them. This is the
automatic
pattern.

They feel that if they can do something once, then they can do it again, they don’t need to keep proving it to themselves or other people.

Most people have a pattern that depends on the number of
examples
. They need several reference experiences before they trust in their own abilities. The number varies from two to ten. When I started as a trainer, I needed four successful trainings before I felt confident in my own ability to stand up in front of hundreds of people and talk about NLP. Some experiences count more than others. A training opportunity that started badly but where I triumphed in the end counted more for me than a training occasion that went well from beginning to end, because I needed more resources and flexibility than usual to turn it around. Flexibility is a higher-level resource, because when you are flexible you can change direction and get other resources, not just the ones you thought you needed when you started.

Some people have a
period of time
pattern. They need their reference experiences spread out over a certain time to convince them that they have the resources required. It could be days, weeks, or months, depending on the resource.