Hello Quent,

Let me offer a passionate word or two, or three...

I've been sort of viewing this thread with a bit of a grin on my face. Not necessarily because of what people have to say about embedding communication, but more because of what they don't say that they see, hear, feel.

Before breaking down this idea of embedding communication -- let me say. You can not not embed communication! Everybody, no matter the native tongue, embeds large portions of information while communicating. The emphasis here ought not be on learning how to embed communication, but rather on how to develop more competent unconscious choices in what is being embedded in the first place.

What comes to mind is good friend of mine who works as a practicing surgeon in cardiology. A couple years back we used to spend a good portion of time together. Being a bit of technology buff, I would enjoy going down to the cardiology unit just to play with the really neat equipment. However, this one time I was visiting I had decided to sit in with my friend with a follow-up appointment with one of his patients.

So I go down to one of the examination rooms with one of my friend. And right as we go in he begins asking this patient questions in the form of congruent commands. He had never switched his state from the one he used for interfacing with technological equipment. Here was this human being, but in the state my friend was in there was only technology.

Now, no matter how advanced technology has become or how interactive the engineers say it is, it really isn't. So far, all technology is dumb technology. Even what they call artificial intelligence, is just that, artificial. Perhaps to the untrained eye many of our technological advancements appear to be intelligent units of operational thought. But I assure you they are not.

Human beings, on the other hand, are very complex and intelligent creatures. Thinking that a couple of embedded words here and there are going to make much of a difference is ludicrous. That mindset will work when dealing with computers. But with human beings communication is a symphony. One where the actual words used play the smallest role.

Many NLP trainers teach people how to embed language. I don't! I figure it to be a natural part of communication right from the start. They are already doing it. Yet, if I teach them how to think differently on a presuppositional level. Changing the largest chunks first, like attitude and belief, what they will be embedding in other people will also change.

It doesn't take the smartest person in the world to figure this out. Communicating with another human being is a seemingly simple, yet extremely complex activity. Thinking about embedded commands as singular isolated methodology may do wonders for the ego. But in process, embedded communication is a very tiny piece of a very large puzzle. Anybody who is interested in becoming a highly effective communicator needs assemble fully the entire puzzle.

So when I stop and look at you and say, "Pay attention." I may also tilt my head a bit to the right while stopping to listen, therefore letting you know which representational system I want you to use while you pay attention. Or maybe I will want to induce a slight trance state in you by saying, "Listen." And as I say it I will stop and go visual looking up and to the right in a more exaggerated way. Or maybe I will say, "Understand this," while at the same time motioning down and to your left.

You see, there is a great deal more to being an effective communicator than will ever meet the ear. Or for that matter the conscious mind. As most of all communication is carried out at an other than conscious level. People can fool themselves into thinking that a word or two will do the trick. Or they can move toward mastery. Taking the time to integrate all the pieces of the puzzle that make up NeuroLinguistic Programming. Then after they have done so, in so far, they can forget what they have learned consciously. The same way they did after learning how to walk, to talk, to eat, to drive a car. Because it is only after the patterns have become integrated in our own unconscious behavior can we begin to have a clue as to the usefulness of what we have learned how to do. Because when it comes to knowing what the limits might be, there can be no halfway, no in-between. Only mastery.

Be well

Carmine Baffa