Different Mind Levels

The mind relates to the world around it on different levels, according to NLP author and consultant Robert Dilts. If you want to operate effectively in a certain role, all the levels have to be in alignment.

For example, you want to assume the role of a yoga teacher. Being a yoga teacher will mean you will have to work in a certain environment, a studio or maybe a gym for example. Also you will have to behave like a yoga teacher: the appropriate body language, voice and clothes. Not everyone can become a yoga teacher, though. You need to have certain abilities, for example the capability of gaining yoga teaching qualifications and to be able to explain and demonstrate the poses. To decide to become a yoga teacher in the first place, you’ll possess certain values and beliefs. You’ll believe that imparting your knowledge is important and you’ll value your profession. You’ll also identify yourself as a yoga teacher and others will do so as well. At a deeper level you’ll see teaching and practising yoga as part of your life’s mission.

So the six neurological levels can be summed up as:

1. Environment  — Where: your surroundings and the people you engage with.
2. Behaviour — What: external behaviours, what other people notice
3. Capability & Skills — How: physical, mental and emotional abilities
4. Beliefs & Values — Why: believing whether something is impossible/possible, motivation, and also what is important to you.
5. Identity —Who: where you get your self-esteem from and what you identify with.
6. Spiritual — What for/Who else: your vision for your life and how you relate to the larger system (family, community, global systems).

Getting In Sync

When all the levels are in sync, it’s called ‘nominal level adaptation’. Analysing how you are operating on each of the levels is useful way of identifying any areas you may be lacking. For example, you probably wouldn’t be an effective yoga teacher if you didn’t have the right skills or motivation or if you wanted to identify yourself with another profession.

Everything Is Related

Robert Dilts, who has been involved with NLP since its creation in 1975 by John Grinder and Robert Bandler, first set out his theory in Neurological Levels (1990). He was inspired by the work of Gregory Bateson, particularly his Logical Levels of Learning Construct (1972). Bateson, in turn, was influenced by the philosopher Betrand Russell’s Theory of Typing. In my understanding, both theories emphasize interconnectedness, which is present in Dilts’ theory. Change in the upper levels neurological levels affects the lower ones, but not usually vice versa. For example, if you decide that your spiritual mission is to stay for a year at an ashram in India, this would certainly lead to a change in environment and behaviour as you adjust to local customs. However, you could easily change your environment (e.g. move to a different town in the UK) without it affecting the other levels.

The Mind/Body Connection

Neurological Levels gets its name from Dilts’ belief that the levels relate to different areas of the brain. Skills & Knowledge are processed in the cerebral cortex where mental maps are formed from sensory impressions. Values & Beliefs occur there too, but are also associated with the limbic system, which also regulates the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS controls bodily functions such as digestion, respiration, heart rate and sexual arousal. Therefore, changes in the Values & Beliefs can affect the body, plus the ANS reacts to certain sensory information quicker than the cerebral cortex can process and evaluate. So when a person’s Values & Beliefs are attacked, or any of the levels above them, they react very quickly, and often physically, before they’ve had time to think about what has been said.

What You Do Isn’t Who You Are

This difference in how we mentally process events fits in with the NLP belief that a person’s Behaviour is not their Identity. For example, many people will practise yoga on a purely Behaviour level, just doing the asanas. They don’t want to engage with other aspects of yoga, such as the philosophy, as this would interfere with their Values & Beliefs which come from a different Identity (they could be a Christian or a Muslim). Changing their Values & Beliefs or Identity would have a more profound and perhaps disturbing effect on them than adjusting their Behaviour.

I was once at a talk given by the Dalai Lama where he advised Western people not to become Buddhists because it could disrupt their mental equilibrium. It’s an interesting point to take into consideration when practising yoga. Mentally, it’s easy to do asanas, but how far should you adopt the philosophy, and could it cause you mental anxiety and instability if it conflicts with Values and Beliefs from your already established Identity?