Interview with Judy DeLozier

Xavier: Hello! This is Xavier Lee, I am with Judy Delozier.

Judy: Hi!

Xavier: I am going to actually ask Judy about her experiences with NLP. And she’s had an amazing career. And now she’s becoming involved in what we call the NLP Planet Project as one of the founding members. So we wanted to get some of your thoughts on that.

Judy: Well, I think it’s a great question. This is an opportunity with all the technology that we have in the world right now to bring the NLP skills, techniques, ideas, processes and models to the world because we have a technology through webinars, through conversation to bring NLP to the world in such a way that it makes it available geographically and financially to many places and people in the world where we really wouldn’t probably … who wouldn’t probably have an opportunity to really participate in a seminar or to travel a long distance or invest a lot of money. It really is an opportunity to share ideas, to create a community, to create a web of meaning and connection around the world so that people have an opportunity to share their good ideas. You know, NLP has a great history of technology, a great history of processes and models and applications in so many various areas – in leadership, in business, in education, in health, in creativity. It’s such a great opportunity to start to share that now with the world because we have the vehicle and the technologies to do that.
I just saw an article yesterday, Robert reminded me of… Robert Dilts. Many, many years ago when we started NLP University, actually when we started it back in about 21 years ago, there was an article written on universities of the future. And it was all about the universities we gonna have to transform based on the technology that was available. And so I think that’s really kind of a part of the development overall. And it’s also the opportunity for NLP to be dispersed into the world. There is a lot of levels there. I think one of the levels is that people will learn something they can use in their everyday life that will make a difference to their everyday life, practical life skills. If they want to take that further they can learn advanced skills, create models of, you know, things that work. And apply those models in places where there is need or to continue to develop and expand themselves whether that’s in their business, their professional life, their personal lives. That there is an opportunity that can be for everybody. Thank you for that question, it’s a great question.

Xavier: By the way my questions will be subtitled.

Judy: Ok.

Xavier: I wanna ask you a two part question. 

Judy: Ok.

Xavier: One of the many things that people really admire about you as a trainer you know as somebody who is a leader is your ability to really hold space for everyone, to accept people. Could you tell us about what your strategy or belief around that is and how do you maintain that?

Judy: Thank you! That’s a really lovely question. It’s a great question. I think that probably the first biggest part of the answer would be what allows me to do is that when I am training (I can’t say that I am perfect in every aspect of my life in this way) but when I am training I really, really do hold the NLP presuppositions in my heart, in my spirit. And I go: “The map isn’t the territory”, “People are positively intended”, “They’re doing the best they can”, “ And I am doing the best I can”. And from that place it makes it much, much easier to hold the space. I mean now in the third generation and we talk about holding it’s kind of an idea that’s you know you can actualize your processer and your technique. And the idea is that you know you are holding that space just like you are holding a child that’s acting loud or just like you are holding a friend who is having a difficult time and it’s without judgment. You know it’s without judgment. And that’s what makes it simple. Once I decide I am right and they are wrong or I am wrong and they are right it takes you down to a different path. As a trainer as soon as I think in my own mind “Oh, this is a resistant learner” it takes me down the path, it doesn’t change them at all. But my world shrinks. And so holding those presuppositions is probably the biggest key for me. When I do feel that sense as a trainer strategically, where I feel like I might be hurt then it’s really a simple matter of kind of going to that meta position and that comes through awareness, that strategy is more around awareness. Oh, something just happened in me. I am hurt, or triggered or bumped or however I say it. And now I know I am engaged in a way that I don’t feel is… the quality that I know I have. And that’s more coming through awareness. And then using of the NLP technology just meta position, observer position for a moment. You know sort of “count to ten before you are engaged” something like that. Maybe that’s another way to think about that. I hope that touches.

Xavier: It does! And you’ve actually already started answering the second part of the question and which is what are the beliefs that you have about the participants that keeps you in that state?

Judy: First of all they are adults. You know I don’t think I am the teacher and they are the students. In a sense that has a higher and a lower kind of feeling in me. You know we are all here to do something, we are all here to learn. I am in a certain position with respect to the group but other than that we are all adults here. And I’m gonna treat people like adults. And sometimes when I do that it brings a person out of the place which maybe more childish for example. And we all have that in ourselves. You know, we all find ourselves there. But I think that one thing I just go “Look” and another thing is “they paid a lot of money to be here they deserve the best of me”. They deserve the best of me. They travel long ways, they pay a lot of money. On any given day I might be better or not better but they deserve the best I have at that time.

Xavier: Do you believe that’s also applicable to online where you are teaching NLP in a community?

Judy: Well, I think those beliefs would hold true certainly the context is different when you don’t have the face to face connection. But I certainly feel that I would still hold those beliefs that I am engaging with people in the world who have resources, who want to make a contribution who are interested in learning, who generally want to acquire something that they actually increase the quality of their life with. Something that will make it different. I think you know maybe some slightly different sensibilities there. I mean I’ve thought about this a lot because having done distance learning tools for example I always had a question mark going “will their students be the same kind of students interacting with the computer than the students who are interacting in the community of their peers?” What would be the difference? And kind of stipulation that Robert and I kind of came up with respect to was that you know people can do the distance learning but they have to spend some amount of time in the community. Now, you know, it’s got two sides of it. One is that there is a sense of freedom online. People don’t have to if they have issues with each other they don’t have to see each other face to face and at a lot of times that could be a really healing possibility for people. That they can do it that way. And I think you know that just like in face to face it goes up, you know the possibility of issues can actually go up I think on the other side so. I think it’s a different animal. I still see it as a very profound vehicle for sharing knowledge with the world that can make a difference, and to get to more people. You know and as we were saying earlier with the Planet Project to have the opportunity for people to see high level trainers perhaps from all over the world, people who have made very unique contributions that… I don’t know everybody. I know there are people out there doing really cool stuff. I don’t know what they are doing. For people to have access to that, to have access to the next generation who are coming, who are gonna have their own different questions , the models that are relevant for them and their focuses of attention that are so different than maybe my generation, although they are all wonderful , they are different. So I think there’s going to be great benefits and it will have its own kind of challenges. I am sure. You know just like face to face training. It’s got great benefits but it’s also has its special kind of challenges.

Xavier: So if you could sort of summarize one or two main purposes or goals that you would like to achieve through giving online webinars, through places like NLP Planet Project? What will those goals be for you?

Judy: For me personally? Well, I think for me personally it kind of fits into my life right now because I am sixty five in a few weeks. Don’t tell anybody! And you know I am kind of moving in a different moment in my life, in a different rhythm in my life, in a different timing. And I see it for me personally as a great vehicle for me to share, you know, my experience, my knowledge and my journey of the last thirty eight years you know of NLP, first of all. I see it as definitely an opportunity to connect to my mission which … I’ve always been a missionary in NLP and one of the big missionaries. Originally I would go to a lot of places for the first time for the least amount of money because I just believed that everybody had a right to have an opportunity to learn you know and so I think that also for me. I think the timing is great and that’s definitely is still part of my mission.

Xavier: Thank you Judy.

Judy: You are welcome.

Xavier: So one maybe bonus question.

Judy: Bonus question! Do I get extra credit? 

Xavier: You get extra credit.

Judy: Ok. Great!

Xavier: You don’t even need to answer. So in your very mission-filled life and this long career of being a missionary in NLP could you maybe touch upon some of the major shifts or transitions that you might have experienced personally for you? On the NLP field in general?

Judy: Well I mean it is certainly for myself. The activation of the presuppositions again, you know, allows a person to be present. Presence allows the person to hold. You know to hold the space better. So certainly coming from my background which was in my academic life was comparative religion and anthropology I could always feel the more… I don’t want to use necessarily the word spiritual but the more mission connected part of NLP was definitely more in whole in me than technology. Technology was probably not my strong point. For me it was like the difference between, you know, taking and SA test where they ask you a question and you write it or feel in the blanks in the mathematics. That was just crazy for me because my brain didn’t necessarily think that way. One the greatest contributions for me personally has been to find that balance between the cognitive and conscious or the cognitive and the metaphoric, between the cognitive and the metaphoric which is also the somatic and the rest of the world. I think that for me has been my journey. And at the same time it was more the description than the knowledge because I knew that in my heart to be right for me. Right in the sense of correct for me. And that also came through my background in comparative religion. Not because I was a believer but because I saw humanity in general has a quest to understand and describe that which we cannot describe. And that would always be part of humanity. And I have a deep love for that.

Xavier: I wanna say thank you so much. You’ve been an amazing guiding line for so many. We love you.

Judy: I love you too.

Xavier: So thank you so much for being involved in this project.

Judy: It’s an exciting project. I really look forward to October, to getting together and making the presentation.

 

 

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