"Don't Do That!" The Unconscious Mind Does Not Process Negatives; NLP with Melissa Deally

Welcome back, No Problem Parents. Before we get into today's episode, we've been talking a lot about sleep and the importance of sleep, and I want to introduce you to the app called New Calm. If you and your kiddos are struggling to get a good night's sleep, New Calm is your key to tranquil nights and energized mornings. Utilizing advanced neuroacoustic software, New Calm guides your brainwaves to deeper levels of rest, ensuring a rejuvenating sleep experience for both you and your children. With just a click, New Calm delivers effortless relaxation, setting the stage for a peaceful night's rest for your whole family. Unlock better sleep for you and your kids with New Calm Deep Sleep. Use coupon code NOPROBLEM for 15% off and achieve restorative sleep like never before. Links are in the show notes. Get started with New Calm today. Are you ready to become the confident leader your kids crave you to be? Are you losing your crap on your kids,

yelling, giving in, and exhausted at the end of every day, you can start building confidence in your parenting immediately, whether your child is a toddler or all grown up and still living in your house. Don't make this parenting gig harder than it needs to be. Register to become a No Problem Parent. It comes with an app so you can listen to the tips and tools just like you're listening to this podcast. Click the link in the show notes or go to noproblemparents.com. Become a No Problem parent today. All right, welcome back to Wellness Wednesdays, No Problem Parents. We've got Melissa Dealy back on from your guided health journey. And today we're going to talk all things learning strategies for kids and how we can use neuro-linguistic programming and some tips and tools. Do you have a child that's been diagnosed as ADHD or dyslexic? Maybe they just struggle with math or reading. Did you know that they might just need to have their learning strategies reorganized in their brain and be given some tools and strategies to work with, which will boost their grades, their confidence, and their belief in themselves.

No prescription drugs, no more labels, no more stress, no more feelings of not being smart enough. Melissa's got some really cool tips and tricks that she's going to share with us today. So welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me, Jackie.

I'm thrilled to be here again. Thinking about neuro-linguistic programming, maybe let's start with the definition of it for those who don't know. And then how do we use this with kids and how can parents use some of these techniques with the kiddos right at home? Neurolinguistic programming is really the study of excellence in the simplest form and neuro meaning the brain looking at our neurological pathways.

And we know that we have neuroplasticity, meaning the brain can grow and change and learn throughout our lives and we can reprogram it. And that's what's really cool. linguistic is language so those are the words we use and how the words we use matter and they give us clues and when we understand that we can really connect with our kids with our colleagues our family members our clients etc etc and then there's the programming the programming happens in that zero to seven zero to eight age group i like to use the analogy of us being born as the hardware of a computer and then in that zero to eight age group is when we download all the software download download download as we learn how to live as a member of our family of our school community our society etc and unlike our phones that we tend to upgrade every time we get get an alert that there's an upgrade, we don't upload upgrade that programming much as we go through life, because the unconscious mind has a lot of jobs to do. The most important of which is to keep us alive and preserve our bodily system, despite what we may do to it. And so it likes to take things easy where it can. So if it's developed a program or a strategy that works,

when we're three years old, five years old, it will keep repeating that strategy forevermore. And at some point in our adult years, we might hit a wall where something's not working anymore. And that's where we will use NLP to determine, okay, what program is it that you're getting stuck on that's no longer serving you at 35 because your inner five-year-old can't run your 35-year-old life, right? And so it's incredibly powerful. And even at 35, we can rewire the neurology in order to change something to help someone break through that sticking point and get into, you know, achieving the goal they want to be achieving, living their best life.

These tools are powerful with kids as well. And what I really love about this greater understanding of our unconscious mind, all of this is new since the 1980s, for starters, right? As we started to understand more about our brain and the fact that our unconscious mind makes up 90% of our mind, and the conscious mind is only 10%. And yet through our school system, we're taught to be in our conscious mind all the time. And that's because it takes time for the science to catch up and then be taught in the schools, right? And when we can teach kids and adults to access the other 90%, 90%, it allows for so much ease and flow in our life and access to greater resources because the 90% are unconscious mind. That's our mind that helps us achieve our goals. We set the goal in the conscious mind and then the unconscious mind goes out and gets the resources to help us achieve that goal. And it's got that 90% access. So do you want to work on just 10% of your mind or do you want to have access to the other 90%. And that's why I get so excited about this is teaching the tools of the unconscious mind. And in between the two is something we call a critical faculty.

And that critical faculty is like a gateway between the two minds. And ideally, we want it to be like lace, so that there's ease and communication through the lace. However, as with anything, when we don't use it, we tend to lose it. And as a result, that critical faculty can become more like a cement block if we haven't been accessing our unconscious mind and using the tools. Again, the great thing about our human body is that it will heal, it will improve when we start to learn all of this. So as we start to learn this, even as an adult, honestly, I didn't know this until about five years ago, my critical faculty felt like a cement block. But as we start to use the tools of the unconscious mind and learn how to do this, then it can work its way back to being laced so that we have easy flow between the two minds. Now what's really fascinating is that critical faculty doesn't develop until the ages of seven to nine years old when we start to develop logical thinking. Prior to that, our kids are entirely in their unconscious mind, which is where imagination is housed. It's where all of our feelings are housed, right? The conscious mind is our problem-solving thinking mind. It's the mental side of our body. And so our young children,

when they're imagining and they're playing and they're pirates and they're unicorns and they're dragons and they're princesses, they truly believe that is their reality. Whereas an adult might get dressed up for Halloween and get into the role play, etc, etc, but their conscious mind is still alert enough to know I'm just pretending. But to a child, they're not just pretending. They are a princess. They are a dragon in that moment. And that's what's really cool to understand about our children when they are that age. And you're asking them to, you know, come to dinner now and stop playing. And it's just pretend they don't know the difference. Yeah. Isn't that so cool to have the science behind it, to realize that, that kids don't just snap out of it.

It's so real to them. And something else that is really fascinating about the unconscious mind is that it's prime directives, it's responsibilities. There's a number of them. But one of them that is really important for parents to understand is the unconscious mind does not process negatives.

Now, what does that mean? That means if you tell a child, don't do that, even if you tell an adult, actually, if you tell a child, don't do that, all the unconscious mind hears is do that. how many times have we said don't do that to a child yeah and then they don't do it and we think they're being difficult we think they're deliberately doing what we've just asked them not to do and they're not their little unconscious mind isn't processing the negative they haven't even heard it so when you understand this you can reword how you speak to your child and you won't feel like they're being belligerent and you know deliberately going against what you're saying. I think back to my own childhood when I remember sitting right next to my mom cooking in the kitchen and I was all of four or five years old and she turned on the element and I was sitting right next to it and she said to me, don't touch that. What did I do? I touched it.

I immediately touched it and burnt my hand, not badly because again, the unconscious mind is there to protect you, right? And it's much faster than the conscious mind. So even before I knew what was happening my hand was off the element because it was hot my mother's looking at me like what did you do that for I just told you not to do that yeah but my little unconscious mind had heard touch the element so I did right isn't that so fascinating so it's another testament to parents say no to something by saying yes to something else the I don't do this that or the other causes your kid to think about well I wasn't even if they weren't going to do it I wasn't planning on doing it. But now that you said that, I think I'm going to do it. And like you're saying in unconscious,

so it's not even that they're thinking they're going to, they just heard it and that it's almost automatic. Exactly. So we need to think about the language that we use, which again, coming back to linguistics, right? Of neuro-linguistic programming is really important. It would have been better if my mother had simply said, the element is hot. Then even at four or five years old, I would have been like, okay, I'll be careful. Yeah. As opposed to don't touch that. Or she could have said, if you touch that, you might burn your hand. My unconscious mind could have processed that.

And so I love sharing this with parents because it just allows them to rethink how they speak to their children and stop take, stop including the negatives. And even as an adult that's listening to this right now, if you just close your eyes for a second, as long as you're not driving, just close your eyes. And I'm going to say, don't think of a blue tree. Where does your mind go? Yeah, there's the blue tree. Exactly. Right. Great example. And then if we move into learning strategies for kids, this is where it gets really fascinating. So within our mind, we store information in different places. Where we go to recall information is also different to where we go to construct something. So if I were to ask you a question such as, you know, do you remember what your favorite teacher's voice sounds like? You're going to access that information from a different place in your mind than if I were to ask you,

what would my voice sound like if I sounded like Donald Duck? You've never heard me talk like Donald Duck, therefore you don't know. So you can't go to a place of recall, you have to go to a place of construct, right? Or if I ask you to remember your favorite restaurant that you went to on the last trip you took.

you're remembering that restaurant. You're going to be able to see inside the restaurant. You're going to see the tables. You're going to see the decor.

You're going to see the table that you sat at, maybe the meal in front of you. That's all recall. However, if I ask you to think about a restaurant that you might go to if you visited the moon, you've never been there. Therefore, you have to construct what that could look like, which you're also very capable of doing.

but you're going to a different place in your mind to do that yeah my eyes just went up into the left like hmm gotta think about that exactly and then where we go to remember feelings is different again and where we go to remember data is different again and when we understand this we can then use that information to assess where a child is going to access their reading As they're learning to read, as they're constructing words, as they're remembering words they've learned how to read, cat, dog, mouse, those first few words, right?

And we can see where they're going to access this information. If they're going down into their data or their feelings, they're going to have a hard time with reading. if with math they're trying to go into their auditory access or their visual access where they would go for reading they're not going to be able to do the math problems because for math we need to be in our data and when we understand this we can shift it for kids because like i said due to neuroplasticity, we can rewire the brain and we can literally move it for them. So they're going to the right place in their mind to access the information to be able to process the math problem or to be able to read. This is really powerful stuff. And then of course, it's not, I wish I could say it was instantaneous. The move is instantaneous, but then we do need to give them some tasking and some practice because when we rewire the brain, initially, it's just a little bunny trail, right? Because that's what we're creating. And we need to make it into a eight lane highway. And the way we do that is through practice, right? The practice is what gets anybody to proficiency. So we don't just rewire the brain and all of a sudden they're proficient.

We rewire the brain so they can start doing the practice, but accessing the information from the right place. Yeah, so good. And practice, I like to say the muscle memory of the brain, it's like flexing that muscle. So when you're strengthening, you know, after a knee surgery, and you've got to rebuild your, you know, flexibility and all that in your knee, it's the same kind of thing that repetition will get them there. Exactly. So I don't have tips that people can do at home to start this process, because you do need to work with a trained NLP practitioner to do the assessment.

most people are what we call normally organized but then like with righties and lefties some people are reverse organized right so we need to do an assessment to determine is the child normally organized or reverse organized and once we know that then we know where they should be going for their visual recall their audio recall and their data versus where they go to for their visual construct, their audio construct, and their feelings. And then we do the assessment of where they're actually going, and if there's a misalignment, then we will move it.

From that point, then the parents can get involved helping to support the children in doing their tasking and their practice in order to build it from the little bunny trail to the eight-lane highway as they build that neurology and watch their grades boost, you know, increase and their confidence be boosted. Describe for the listener, because this can be done virtually. So it's accessible to you right in your home. Parents, if you're struggling with a kiddo who's doing poorly in math or reading or science, or, you know, having trouble sitting still, you know, learning the lessons at school and such, this assessment is worth really worth your while to determine how to help them access the information. Yeah. How to help them learn how to take in the information that's being taught to them and kind of calm their brain in certain ways. Right. And one, you know, maybe one part of the brain is overactive and the other is underactive.

And in neuro-linguistic programming, we don't believe there is such a thing as learning disabilities. Here's the thing is our human body and mind is so powerful. Our unconscious mind and our higher self have the perfect blueprint for our health and the perfect blueprint for how we live our life. And it's not that kids have learning disabilities. It's just that each of us are individuals and we learn differently. And in some cases, the reason that a child might be going to the wrong place to access the information is because as little tiny babies, when we're download, download, download, we're mimicking eye movements from our parents. And our parents might be a different, you know, whether they're normally organized or reverse organized,

that might be different to us. And we end up in the wrong place. And that's where we can come in and help these kids rewire how it needs to be for their unconscious mind. And then when we do that, that changes everything for them. So our brains can all learn. I think there are more and more kids who are, even when they're diagnosed with dyslexia, the programming that they're getting isn't accurate. They're doing things like making the schoolwork easier for the child. That's not what they want. They don't need it easier. They don't need less work or whatever. They're not stupid. They need to learn it in a different way. Sometimes they need to be where there's not so much noise and stimulation. However, with NLP training, even those kinds of external barriers become less and less of a problem. Exactly. And that's what I love about this work is that it is so powerful and when kids understand that it's not them it's not their fault they're not to blame we all learn to different degrees and when they just understand that they're learning differently to the way the teacher is teaching because the classroom sizes are big the teacher is teaching to the way the average person and or the standards that are set out there exactly and there's not enough individuality built into that system. And so then you get these diagnoses, etc, etc. And this is a huge step in helping kids understand where they're at, and create that little bunny

trail and build that into an into a highway for them. Once we determine, are they accessing the information from the wrong place, which very often is the case. It's not always, but very often it is the case. Right. So for parents just to be aware that there are different ways to learning, and perhaps for their child, they're accessing the information from the wrong place and doing an assessment. For parents to also understand how the words they use when talking to their child matter and start to think about the words that they use before they just blurt them out of their mouth. And that comes with practice, right? You're not going to get it right immediately every time, but the more awareness you have, the better. And look for an NLP practitioner near you. If you want to have in-person sessions, I do this virtually over Zoom. And have an assessment done for your child to support their learning. And know that we can rewire their little brain and that there's nothing wrong with your child. So if someone wanted it in person, they would have to find an NLP practitioner near them locally. But otherwise, you do offer this assessment virtually.

And how does that process look? They could just email me at melissatyourguidedhealthjourney.com. Let me know that they're interested in that. I always offer a complimentary 30-minute call in the first place just to really understand what they're seeing in their child and what they're looking for help with to make sure that this assessment is what they're needing. And then from there, we move into that process. And if they're looking for an in-person NLP practitioner, they should go to the American Board of Hypnotherapy website. And at the top, there's a drop down where you can find hypnosis practitioners as well as NLP practitioners. And then they can put in their state or their country and find an NLP practitioner near them. And, you know, call and interview a few and chat with them to determine which one you think your child's going to connect way. That's really important too. Like we don't need to go just to the first person that we find or are recommended, you know, that is recommended to us. We're the customer, right? And so we want to make sure that the person that we're hiring is a good fit for us. And we're feeling very confident. And then our kiddo feels confident in that person as well. I love that you even bring that up. Okay, Melissa. So we're going to have links in the show notes for all of this information.

Stay tuned parents, make sure you're clicking the plus button on that podcast app that you're listening to or following the show because Melissa is going to be on next week and we're going to talk about gut health, including water intake and mindful eating and all the things. So stay tuned. Melissa will be back next week. Thanks so much for being here today. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. All right. That's it for today's episode of the No Problem Parenting Podcast.

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Until next time, remember your confidence comes from embracing both successes and setbacks. So take a deep breath, embrace the chaos, and remember you got this. you