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NLP was developed in the mid-70s by John Grinder, a Professor at UC Santa Cruz and Richard Bandler, a graduate student. NLP, as most people use the term today, is a set of models of how communication impacts and is impacted by subjective experience. It's more a collection of tools than any overarching theory.

Much of early NLP was based on the work of Virginia Satir, a family therapist; Fritz Perls, founder of Gestalt therapy; Gregory Bateson, anthropologist; and Milton Erickson, hypnotist.

If anyone would like to follow this story, from beginning to end, it is on the IASH Conference board under Talk about Change/Cerebral Palsy.

MOVING THE MOUNTAIN: by Lara J. Coulson M.P., N.L.P.

As many of you know, K. walked for the first time in her 13 years on Sat. April 24. During our first intervention, a month prior, K. stood unsupported on her own two feet for the first time. K. has had CP since birth. One week prior to K.'s second intervention I informed many of you that she would take her first steps on Sat. April 24. This is often something I do to set a congruent presupposition in my own physiology as an NLP interventionist. Thus forming a congruent direction for my intervention to come.

As we discussed the latest research on the cause of CP, I had discovered that CP is a result of the cerebellum not having a chance to fully develop during the fetal stages. I discovered with K. that the cerebellum was fully developed in all ways except motor control. ie. her ability to coordinate thoughts was Incredibly high for her age group, and her ability to coordinate muscle control and movement was at or below that of a 6-12 month old from the waist down, and on her right side torso and arm. She considered her left hand a helper hand to her right hand, and her left leg was markedly less functional than her right leg. Her right leg when sitting, when asked to move, would flex Approximately 10 to 20 degrees and then get stuck and take about 1 minute to unflex. Her left leg would flex approximately 10 to 20 degrees, and would not function independently,(her right leg would also move when she moved her left leg) and would take about 2 minutes or more to unflex. When startled, both legs and her right arm would delay in reaction time, and took about 5-10 minutes to unflex. K. had been on all fours most of her life.

She could get around if she needed by dragging her self with her hands. She had a corrective surgery approximately 8 months ago to straighten her legs and learn to walk with crutches, and primarily used a wheel chair.She was struggling with this as well. So, to give you a picture of K. when the hour started, she was sitting in her living room chair, with the minimal movement described above, to her lower extremities.

I explained to K. how the nervous system and brain work, and showed her a visual illustration of a foot stepping on an object, and explained how the signal that is sent to the brain is that the foot stepped on something, and the signal is sent back to the foot, telling it to respond by lifting and flexing the muscles then the foot deciphers that it is ok to relax, sends the message to the brain, the brain sends the message to relax back to the foot, and the foot relaxes.From this, we mutually determined that her feet are sending the message to her brain, and her brain is currently unable to send the response back to her feet.

I then showed her a visual illustration of all of the nerves in the legs, and we traced along the illustration a path through these nerves from the hind brain to each foot while saying la la la la la la la  on the illustration so that she could get a Kinesthetic feeling in her fingers as well as a visual  for her eyes, and an auditory map of a possible path that would be taken by a signal from her brain through her legs and to her feet. We then imagined by closing our eyes, and traveling through her own body the same path, paying extra attention to parts objections and parts statements on the way. The first block in the path was an objection by a part located somewhere in the vicinity of her gut(relating to the head/heart/gut) area with the Positive intention of "Safety". It was noted by K. that often at the end of her day, her legs would twitch as if excess energy had built up during the day, and this same part would object by saying "what about safe?" Physiologically, the "Safe?" was most Definitely in the behavioral level of logical levels. The part was approximately 3-4 years old, and exercised the LEARNED behavior of "withdrawing" when it wasn't "safe".

The parts definition of "safe" was defined by what the behavior of school system special education department had demonstrated to K. was "safe" behavior,for a "DISABLED" child; such as, not getting to near to the other kids during activities because she might get injured,not using her crutches in school because she might fall and get injured,not participating with the group etc. etc.(hint to the school systems language pattern management out there!) Thus six step reframing was extremely effective, with an added step of Redefining the word "safe" by allowing K. who is 13 years old to teach the 3 year old part what "safe" meant to her, allowing the part to walk through an experience , as a third person observer,in which K. took on the physiology of "safe". Replacing "withdrawing" with "self trust" and growing up the part to her current age and abilities of self discretion. As well as attending to the ecology of the positive intention of the school systems responsibilities to students safety.

So, now able to continue along the path, we discovered at least one more Undeterminable block in the path of the nervous system to her feet. To determine what it was we decided to use creative thinking and metaphors by creating an animal which could travel as fast as a nerve signal. We also determined that a pulse signal is faster than a current because it would jump and bound from synapse to synapse, thereby reaching its destination quicker. I then paused in the intervention before choosing an animal because I noticed K. was "trying" to choose the right animal, rather than "choosing" the right animal for herself.

This is something I often encounter with children her age, and I love to bring in one of the lessons of Milton Erickson here. The lesson of how the unconscious interprets the word "TRY" as implying "FAIL".So, I pulled out the old Pencil! Put the pencil on the floor, and proceeded to ask K. to "TRY AND PICK UP THE PENCIL." K. reached down and picked up the pencil. I again put the pencil on the floor, and said "NO, TRY AND PICK UP THE PENCIL." Again, K. picked up the pencil. And once again I took the pencil, and placed it on the floor. I then demonstrated to her in my comical idiosyncric way how to "TRY AND PICK UP THE PENCIL" doing everything I could to Exaggerate, and almost pick up the pencil, but not actually pick it up, because I wasn't picking up the pencil, I was "TRYING TO PICK UP THE PENCIL." I then had K. again "TRY TO PICK UP THE PENCIL," which she enjoyed very much taking on the comical role of the "TRYER." I then told K. "NOW, PICK UP THE PENCIL." She grasped the pencil ever so quickly and was greatly pleased at the results of it being so much easier to achieve. I was amazed at how quickly she chose her animal Immediately following this exercise. K. chose a Cheetah to represent a nerve pulse to her feet.

I then had K. step first person to the Cheetah, and make her starting place her cerebellum. We asked ourselves, "what would be something compelling to get the cheetah to run super fast to get to it?" K. decided that the "smell of raw meat" would do the trick!

We decided to work with her right leg first.(My reasoning for this was that there was a slight co-Dependency so to speak of the left leg to the right leg. If you recall, the left leg would not move without the right leg moving as well. If I was able to get the message to the right leg first, the left leg would follow more easily) So we had her right leg flex and decide it wanted to move,and imagined the foot sending the signal to her brain then, when it was received by the brain, we allowed the brain to decide in what way wanted to communicate to the foot how to move, because K.'s brain already knew how to walk, she had spent 13 years observing other people walk, and had dreamed of herself walking,we decided that the only thing stopping K. was the legs were not receiving the information that was stored in her brain.Once her brain had decided which information was appropriate to send to her right leg, we passed the info on to the cheetah, and opened the gate to the path.

The cheetah smelled the raw meat, and took off in a bounding sprint along the path. Somewhere around the thigh just above the knee, The cheetah ran into a tree trunk, fairly large in size. We then paused, and stepped back into our own shoes for a moment. K. being very creative, needed to figure out what were some of the possible ways the cheetah could get around the tree trunk. There were several possibilities. The Cheetah could not see the meat around the tree, but it could smell it. The tree had no sound to it, but it felt massive. The first option was to knock over the tree. Nope, too big for that. Second option: use it's claws and climb up the tree and find a narrower portion of the tree and climb around it to get to the meat. Nope, still to big, and cheetah had to climb too high. Ok. Third option: Cheetah was pissed, and decided he wanted the meat so bad, he would just claw half of the tree out of the way so he could get to the meat. This one worked great, the cheetah was now chowing down on a dead zebra. The cheetah looked behind itself, and the entire tree was now gone.

Now the question was, how do we get the cheetah to want to get to the foot....hmmm K. thought. "What is more compelling to a cheetah than raw meat?" K. decided that at the bottom of her feet she would place a meadow in which there were female cheetahs in heat, with big eyelashes and lipstick, wagging their tails appealingly, and saying "common big boy!" with kind of a May West attitude.(pretty creative kid huh!) The second the cheetah saw those hotty girl cheetahs down there, it zoomed to K.'s feet as fast as it could and held tails with the girl cheetah saying "Oooohhh baby" all the way there. Now that the path was clearly marked, I asked K. who by the way was giggling her brains out, to kick her foot out as fast and as hard as she liked. K. was able to kick her foot hard as if kicking a ball, fully extending her right leg and then cock it back quickly and kick again and again with quick movement and reflexes smoothly and effectively.(while sitting).

We did this repeatedly, and had the left leg observe. Next, we created another male cheetah for the left leg. Again, allowing the leg to decide that it wanted to kick, imagining sending the signal to the brain, and allowing the brain to decide which info was appropriate to send back to the leg and foot.(note:the left leg was still not Operating Independently, the right leg would still move when the left leg did.) We opened the gate and released the cheetah who smelled raw meat. The cheetah again ran into a tree around the thigh area. This tree was skinny and frail. The cheetah could squeeze it's face through a small gap next to the tree and see the dead zebra waiting to be eaten on the other side.This cheetah decided right away that given it's size and speed, using newton's laws, it could easily just knock down the tree by ramming it. So, the cheetah backed up, and ran at 60mph into the tree, Demolishing it, and began to eat the zebra, looking up for a second, when he heard "common big boy" and saw the hotty girl cheetah in heat wagging her tail and  seductively blinking her long eyelashes, and zoomed to the meadow at K.'s feet saying "OOOOOOHHHH baby" all the way there.

Giggling again, K. by her own instruction this time, decided to kick with her left foot. She was able to kick a hard fully extended kick with her left leg and foot, Independent of the right leg, and again cock back and kick again and again, with strength, quick reflexes and smoothness. I then had her kick both legs at the same time. Then one leg at a time. Then kick both legs Repeatedly and quickly while alternating from right to left. She Immediately imagined herself running, and said her legs just want to RUN! It was Instantaneous,and it was awesome!!!

We decided we would walk on her crutches outside and find just the right spot to walk without them. Our Criteria was grass and trees, and semi flat, As one of K.'s outcomes was to run in the park and climb a tree. When we found just the right spot, we asked her legs if this is where they would like to walk for the first time, the response was an excited YES! So, standing next to K. I placed my arm around her waist, and had her hand me her crutches. Allowing her to support her wait on me. I had her mom stand at a decided distance of arms length from K. to assist her with her balance when needed.Knowing that K.'s most looked up to person was the Character Dana Scully from X-Files, I asked K. "Now, how would Dana Scully stand right now?" She Immediately adjusted her posture from a slump to the proud stance of a woman with power and confidence like Dana Scully. I then realized that she was still holding her weight in her torso, and gave her feedback on this. She adjusted by imagining how a skier holds their weight, and bounced flexibly with her weight on her thigh muscles as if she were going over a mogel.

We then imagined we were kind of like Forest Gump, when he ran for the first time, and his braces just fell off, and flung her crutches one at a time with added sound effects and exaggerated motions. I said, "are you ready?" She excitedly and congruently said"Yup". So I said "ok, lets do it!" and guided her in her first steps, after two steps, I gradually released my arm from her waist, and let her go. And let me tell you, SHE WENT! She took two steps on her own, and started to lose her balance. Guided safely by moms arms in front of her. She was BEAMING! She said "MOM, I did it! I've never done this in my life, and I DID IT." By now she was so ecstatic, she wanted to do more. We again helped her achieve her balance, and let her go. She took three steps! And then four! And for the next 15 minutes did nothing but excitedly walk in circles!! It was like she couldn't keep up with her feet! She was right, they wanted to run! It was like 13 years of energy bursting through all at once! She fell only one time, and her mom worriedly asked her,"is it still safe?" I'll never forget her response. She said "MOM! IT'S JUST GRASS!" She was so excited the only thing she wanted was for mom to pick her up so she could walk again!

I remember when I first began working with K., I asked her what she might look like when she walked? She couldn't imagine herself walking. She had set her goal at the end of our first intervention for walking by December 31, 1999, so that she could walk into the new Millennium. When we came in the house and sat back down for a moment, I asked K. ,"so, what do you think about walking now?" She said, "It's done,did it,100%. I can't wait to go hiking with my Dad!"

I have to tell you, as a human being, this Definitely fits into the category of the top experiences of my life. I can only imagine how Christ must have felt the first time he gave a blind man sight in an instant. In my life, and my work, when I am presented with challenging interventions like that of K. I am often reminded of something I learned in Sunday school as a little child, and many of you who know me, know that I live every day of my life with the strength of this simple parable that Jesus said, "With the faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains."Lara J. Coulson M.P,N.L.P

Copyright © 1999, Lara J. Coulson. Permission Granted to reproduce this article to the Health Attractor only at this time, and for personal uses related to helping others to heal. For any other uses please contact me, okey dokey pokey. Lara risingwinds@uswest.net

P.S. We Wuv Woooo

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