Mirroring Breathing for Profound NLP Rapport - NLP Article

    One of the things we study in NLP is how to get deeper rapport with people, which helps you more effectively click with absolutely anybody. NLP is probably the source of most great rapport training available.

    This includes methods for establishing or getting rapport initially, building or enhancing or deepening rapport, maintaining rapport over time, and then, when the time comes, elegantly reducing rapport so as to disconnect from a situation, but still maintaining the relationship.

    Now, this may seem counter intuitive, if you still think "But there are just some people I click with, and some I don't." NLP trained people don't have that problem. We can click with anyone, if we so choose. And here's one of the most profound ways of doing so:

Mirroring and Matching others' breathing rates can produce amazing results.

    One of the things we noticed when studying people who were naturally in extremely deep rapport, is that their breathing tends to synchronize. So if you synchronize your breathing, you can rapidly CAUSE the same feelings in another person that they would feel if they were already likely to gain rapport with you.

    In fact, if you synchronize your breathing and speaking rates with other people's breathing rates, you're going to have a blast watching and enjoying as people find ways to deepen their connection with you in response!

    However, often when just getting started, some people have experienced some difficulty with mirroring some other people. To do this well requires really good peripheral vision. This is one of the hallmarks of great NLP training, is if the trainer spends time improving their students' peripheral awareness skills (I do. Always.).

Train Your Peripheral Vision Awareness

    If you can learn to pay attention to the big picture by using more of your peripheral vision, and slow down your perceptions -- since you're not looking for rapid changes usually -- you can begin to notice the slow rise and fall of her arms... and maybe the outward and inward expansion of her rib cage ... or her arms resting against her rib cage or stomach... sometimes the shoulders will adjust a little or rise with each breath... maybe then you can even... learn to see changes in the wrinkles of clothing, or in the muscles in her cheeks or neck....

    And as you get better and better at learning and then using these skills, you'll probably find that mirroring breathing exactly can sometimes be noticed by really perceptive people, so you'll want to become more subtle as you learn to cross mirror (like tapping your finger on your thigh or chest or tapping your feet to the rhythm of her breathing, or the blinking of her eyes...

    It reminds me of how, whenever people meet out somewhere socially, and... well, have you ever seen how couples react to one another and pay attention, really pay attention to how other people move? It's almost as though they can really begin to do similar things without thinking about it, in natural, comfortable ways! Sometimes they're in sync, sometimes they're out of sync... and the conversations always flow more naturally, more comfortably, when they are in sync!

    What's more, in a way, many people who are out of sync can get into sync by doing similar things, and if they're really really tuned in to the person they're hearing from and talking with, they or the other person can go off in one direction verbally, or nonverbally, and the other might just follow along... now, as you think about all these things, and find a way to see how you can utilize everything this email has to offer, instantly, for wonderful purposes, and all for having fun and living a great life, how surprised would you be when, if you actually did get caught, and then you laughed about it, they might be so in tune with you, that they'd laugh along with you?

    OK, Now you might want to wake up and go out & try it all out with your eyes open!!! So, you can see for yourself how! Totally incredible? It is!

    In terms of going beyond this... consider integrating all these skills deeply, learning how important the process of influence truly is, and most importantly, IMHO, how using these new skills responsibly becomes all the more important, as you increase the effectiveness of your own skills!

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