In Neuro-Semantics we firmly believe that -

The Model for this Training:
The 7 Matrices of the Mind - The Matrix Model

The Matrix Model for Creating Blocking & Stuttering:

Chapter 1 - Patterns for Changing "Meaning" -

Associating/Dissociating - These two simple neurological processes determine so much about our state. To understand the difference and to know how to associate "inside" a frame of mind and to be able to "step outside" or dissociate from a frame of mind to another frame of mind is essential to state control.  When we "associate" into a state we are inside that state and we are looking through our eyes. When we "dissociate" from a state we "step outside" that state and we can see ourselves.  But, when we "step outside" a state we are always "inside" another state for we cannot not be inside some state of mind. 

Editing Your Movies - Our brains process at a very primary level from the images we  have inside our head. Our images are composed of pictures, sounds, feelings, smells and taste. It is from these primal experiences that we re-present on the screen of our minds our experiences. What we see, we re-present with pictures. What we hear we re-present with sounds, etc.  Now, inside these pictures, sounds and feelings are smaller qualities. Is the picture you are seeing in color or is it black and white?  Is the picture a movie or is it a still photograph?  Is it panoramic or is it framed like a small picture? Etc. Likewise, are the sounds you are hearing loud sounds or soft sounds?  Is that feeling when you block a heavy feeling or a light feeling?  These smaller qualities of our images exist "inside" the larger pictures, sounds and feelings. We shall review about these qualities. You will learn how to "edit" your own movies.

Well-Formed Outcome for Fluency - Early on the first day of the training, we want you to set up a clearly defined outcome for your five days of training around the subject of fluency.  NLP has provided a most useful tool called The Well-Formed Outcome.  Through a series of cleaver questions, you will be doing critical thinking on your own outcome for fluency.

State Management # 101 - Gaining fluency is all about "state control." You have a certain state of mind when you speak fluently and you have a certain state of mind when you block.  You will be practicing through several exercises about how to switch from one state to another at will.

State Accessing and Anchoring - In NLP we call a trigger an "anchor." How do you know when to block?  That internal or external event that causes you to access a block is a "trigger" or an "anchor."  We will practice accessing and anchoring in a resource state for fluency.

The Basic Meta-Stating Pattern - In this basic Meta-Stating Pattern we will learn "how" to apply one state of mind to another. This is a major key to understanding how to run one's own brain and maintain ones on state.  You will learn how to apply a resource state like "courage" to the negative "fear" state of blocking. What happens when you apply "courage" or "faith" to "fear?"

"Emotions" are Just "Signals" Pattern - De-Commissioning Emotions. This is a pattern for learning how to recognize the signal and message value of our emotions and to use even the “negative” emotions positively without treating our Emotions as Chief Counselor and CEO. Learning how to do this is crucial to overcome stuttering.

Changing Meaning by Reframing - All meaning is a "constructed" reality. By that I mean that all the meanings we give anything, either internal or external, is a construction of our images and of the word meanings we give them. Because all meaning is constructed meaning, we can choose to give different meanings to events. We will learn the two basic ways of changing meaning: content reframing and context reframing.

Changing Meaning with the "Miracle Pattern" - This is a pattern from Brief Therapy for stepping out of the thinking that has created the problems with stuttering and into a whole new way of thinking. It provides a way to welcome some magic into your life.

Meta “Yes” & Meta “No” Pattern - This pattern empowers us to say “Hell No!” to any sick, toxic, or morbid game. And to say a great big glorious “Yes!” to every game that would enrich and empower us towards fluency. This is a simple yet quite profound pattern for changing meaning.

Meta-Stating Semantic Fears - You know what “semantic fears” are, don’t you? They are those ideas or concepts that “get” you like fear and anxiety. Those two villains drive much blocking and stuttering. This pattern will assist you in flushing them out and not to take counsel of them but to take counsel of your “higher mind” where your resources lie.

Changing Meaning by Changing Your Language - We give meaning to our internal images with "words." "Words" are the primary drivers of consciousness. NLP has provided us with a fantastic model that gives the "structure" of how we language ourselves. This model is called The Meta-Model of Language. We will briefly introduce it as we ask ourselves some very critical questions about "how" we are languaging our reality. Does it serve us?  If not, what kind of language will serve us?

Chapter 2 - Patterns for Re-defining your Sense of "Self" -

Perceptual Positions for Developing Flexibility of Consciousness - The realization that we humans operate from five basic ways of looking at experience offers tremendous potential in state control and in the enhancing of our communication. Essential to state control and accessing valuable feedback, these five perceptual positions are invaluable to gaining fluency. These positions are: 1^st Position - position of "self," 2^nd Position - the "other" position, 3^rd Position - position of objectivity, 4^th Position - the position of the system or organization and 5^th Position - the universal or "God" position (the position of fluency for many PWS). You may wish to read the article entitled "Gary's Fluency Strategy" to discover these positions in action.

Meta-Stating Acceptance, Appreciation and Esteem for Self - As one looks at the “Self” Matrix one quickly realizes those who block/stutter can easily form a low opinion of themselves.  Moving from dis-fluency to fluency requires that one stop identifying one’s sense of self with just a particular speech pattern and begin to accept, appreciate and esteem oneself not as a human “doing” but as a human “being.”  This pattern is specifically designed for that purpose and has proven quite effective with hundreds of clients and training participants. It has been field tested all over the world.

The Swish Pattern: Swish to “the Me” for whom a Given Context or Task is No Problem - The Swish Pattern affects a rewiring (as it were) of our old responses and wiring in new responses to the same old triggers. This makes it very powerful since it puts you in charge of your responses. This makes this pattern very generative. It not merely substitutes a new behavior - it creates a new direction.

Re-Imprinting Past Imprints: Creating a New “Self” - Richard Bandler said,  “It is never too late to have a happy childhood.” Those words sums up the thrust of this pattern and indeed many of the NLP/NS patterns. For at the root of many of these patterns is the desire to change the unwanted meanings from old mental imprints to new more useful meanings.

The Drop-Down-Through to Rise Up Pattern - This pattern evokes the those frames of mind that causes the blocking/stuttering. It moves the person on down (or up) to the level where there is no meaning and on out to higher frames of references that provide those resourceful frames for meta-stating away the problems of fear and anxiety. At least this pattern will tame the frames so that they are no longer a problem. This is the single most effective pattern that has proven most effective in leading PWS to fluency. We will spend necessary time on this pattern.

Foregrounding Resources Game - As the Drop Down Through Game went “down” for resources, the Foregrounding Resources Game goes “back” to those resources in the “back of your mind.” They are “back there.” This Game will assist you in discovering them and bringing them to the “foreground” of your mind where you can “see” them. What would happen if you placed stuttering into the background of your mind and fluency into the foreground of your mind?  By learning to foreground the content of what you are saying and backgrounding "how" you say it, you will be well on your way to fluency.

The Mind-to-Muscle Game - The Mind-to-Muscle Pattern is a pattern that will empower you to turn great ideas into muscle memory so that it becomes your way of being in the world. Stuttering is obviously "in the muscles."  The negative concepts of "self" also get "in the muscle." One of our major outcomes will be to teach you how to get that "new self" you desire into your muscles.  (Hopefully we will have time to do this pattern.)

Chapter 3 - Patterns for "Power" and "Resourcefulness -

Meta-Stating Your Power Zone - This pattern gives us the power to form and own our most basic and fundamental powers from which all other forms of human strength arise. You learn to own your two private powers of thinking and feeling and your two public powers of speaking and behaving. Indeed, a common theme of PWS is the "giving away of their power" to other people.

Circle of Excellence - The Circle of Excellence Pattern has been around for many years in NLP. It is quite useful in building a powerful resource state. This is done by "visually" placing resources inside an imaginary circle. By stepping "into" your "Circle of Excellence" you step into all those resources at once.

Meta-Stating Intention  - David Plotkin said, "The most successful people know what they want and why they want it." In my opinion, this pattern is one of the best that Michael Hall has come up with in his basic Meta-Stating training. Obviously, blocking/stuttering does not fulfill you higher intentions for yourself.  Your higher intentions are to speak fluently but you find yourself blocking/stuttering. This pattern is designed to get what you attend to (speaking) in line with what you desire from a higher level intention (fluency).

Six-Step Reframing  - This pattern works for those behaviors that you don't like and would like to stop and which don't seem to respond to conscious reframing. The Six-Step Reframing pattern provides a way to deal with secondary-gain behaviors in a way that's suitable for you as a whole person. It does that by reframing old unconscious programs. It brings about an integration of conscious and unconscious parts. You can use it for behaviors, habits, emotions and symptoms that you don't appreciate. With this pattern, we will use it as a guide for languaging ourselves. It is doubtful that we will have time to go through and practice the full pattern. The pattern, however, provides a powerful way of languaging oneself and others in finding new and more healthier ways to meet the needs of old problem frames of mind.

Modeling Optimism  - Being optimistic about gaining fluency is obviously crucial to gaining fluency. What makes up the dynamic state that we label “optimism?” Based on Seligman’s “Learned Helplessness,” and “Learned Optimism” research, this pattern teaches us to not "Personalize" things like what we perceive others may think of our blocking/stuttering. It teaches us not to allow this personalization to "Pervade" all areas of our lives and it teaches us to to believe that blocking/stuttering is Permanent. Many PWS have found this pattern quite helpful.

Meta-Stating Courage Pattern - Here our purpose is to design engineer a powerful state of courage. The components of “courage” may vary depending upon how a person has ordered a particular strategy or format of “courage.” This pattern brings out from within you that special "recipe" for courage that you have inside.  And, then we take that recipe, and mix it all up into a resourceful state of courage.

Chapter 4 - Patterns for having a great relationship with "Time" -

Chapter 5 - Patterns for Relating healthy with Others -

Meta-Model Questions for Exploring Meaning - Here we will review some of the key questions of the Meta-Model of Language especially in light of how we language ourselves in relation to others. For instance, when  PWS says, "I am what other people think I am?" we can critically challenge that statement by asking questions from the Meta-Model (which is the foundational model of all NLP) such as, "How do you know?"  "Says who?" "What makes it so?"  "You are more than what others think of you, aren't you?"  "What are you that is more than what others think of you?"

Reviewing the "Power Zone" Pattern - First introduced in Chapter 4, this critical model enables us to own and to take responsibility for our own powers of thinking, feeling, speaking and behaving.  Now, by presupposition, when we own our own powers, we should give other people the right to "own" their own powers without our mind-reading their judgment of how they may or may not think-feel about how we speak. Hence, I have added a step to Michael's original pattern for leading one to not only claim one's four powers of thinking, feeling, speaking and behaving but of also "pushing" out of one's life the allowing of others to control your power zone.

Responsibility To / For - Here we want to develop an understanding of the difference between being responsible "to" someone and being responsible "for" someone.  PWS tend to believe that they are responsible "for" the other person's embarrassment, judgment, etc. that they may or may not make concerning the PWS blocking/stuttering. As decent human beings we are all responsible "to" other people we come in contact with. We are responsible "to" them as to how we behave towards them but we are not responsible for them as they must own their own power zone.

Developing Healthy Boundaries - In relating healthy to others, we must appreciate where our "nose begins and ends" and where the "nose of others begins and ends."  To allow others "rent free space" inside our heads as we give them permission to determine our states of mind is not setting proper boundaries.  We want to learn to say "no" to letting others control our mind-body states. We want to learn to say "no" to giving them permission to define who we are.

The Well-Formed Outcome Model - First introduced in Chapter 1, this model is also useful in determining a well suited desired outcome for ourselves.

Taking an Intentional Stance - In "consciousness" we have both attentions and intentions.  Our "attentions" are what we are paying attention to. Our "intentions" are our higher frames of reference, usually unconscious that drive our every day attentions. By strengthening our highest intentional meanings, we can begin to live more purposefully as we access and use the higher levels of our mind to direct our everyday attentions. The PWS will want to align their intention of speaking fluently with their attention of actually speaking fluently.

Meta-Alignment Pattern - This pattern is designed for ending the incongruence and the internal conflict that  undermines personal power.  This pattern clears up such incongruence by aligning everyday activities and behaviors with ones’ highest values, purposes, and beliefs.  This is a great pattern for the PWS desiring more congruence in the way he or she works, plays, or moves through the world.