NLP and Meditation… Is there a link?

I was recently asked if there was a link between Neuro-Linguistic Programming & Meditation.

Before I dive into that question it is important to recognize that there is an interesting thing about the word ‘meditation’ itself… 

In the field of Neuro-Linguistic programming we would classify that word as a nominalization. In other words the word ‘meditation’ is a ‘noun’ that does not refer to a physical thing, but is actually a process.

A typical nominalization test is to ask, can you put ‘meditation’ in a backpack like you could an ‘apple’?  Of course not! If not it is actually a process in disguise.

So if we ‘de-nominalize’ the word meditation back to its verb form, ‘to meditate’ we are still left with a problem.  In NLP we would refer to the verb ‘meditate’ as an ‘unspecified verb’. In other words, the verb ‘to meditate’ does not answer the question about ‘how specifically’ one is meditating.  

Are there not many ways to meditate? 

For example you could count your breaths, or repeat a mantra, or progressively relax your body, or meditate upon a question.   

You could meditate by shifting your focus fully inside of yourself, for example by immersing yourself with an internal quest-ion, via sensory deprivation, etc. Or you could mediate by shifting their consciousness ‘outside’ of yourself fully immersed in a flower, the nature around you, etc.  You can meditate by making yourself still, or you could do a walking meditation.

Two people could both ‘meditate’ every day and yet in actuality be ‘practicing’ very different skills.  And is meditation not just a practice of specific mind-body-emotion skills?

So how does this relate to Neuro-Linguistic Programming…

In my humble opinion, I believe that NLP provides us with many precise ‘meditations’ i.e. processes for running our own mind, in order to achieve specific outcomes.  In fact, each ‘pattern’ in NLP is in my opinion a meditation we could use to practice specific mental-emotional skills and achieve specific mind-body-emotion outcomes.

Whereas many people use the word ‘meditation’ to refer to a singular thing, there are in fact a wide range of meditations that can practiced.

There are many amazing meditations that can be modeled by NLP, as well as NLP patterns that can be utilized as ‘meditations’ with the potential for powerful effects.

As always feel free to leave your questions, comments and contributions here.

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