Lie to Me, Please

During the 1980’s I participated in several years of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) training and, among other useful skills, learned how to tell when people were lying. Tapping into the powers of observation, I am able to discern, with great accuracy, whether the check is in the mail or not.

This season there is a new television show called Lie to Me. You only need to tune into another show, won’t name any names here, to discover how content-oriented, line-driven and superficial they are, to appreciate that Lie to Me has a lot more to offer. In Lie to Me, the lead character uses his highly trained observation skills to help solve crimes, ferret out useful information and reveal what people are attempting to hide. For him this is a double edged sword. While he is able to discover where kidnappers have hidden the young girl he is also able to tell when his daughter or partner has attempted to mislead him. He seems to be without emotion, which can be one of the consequences of intense external observation without an equal dose of self knowledge.

You may want to take in an episode of Lie to Me. It will likely be entertaining whether or not you are willing to admit you may have much greater perceptual abilities than you currently access. You can watch past Lie to Me episodes for free on www.hulu.com; just search for Lie to Me.

While learning NLP we developed cutting edge visual and auditory perceptual acuity, but the real trick to tapping into our depth of perception was opening to the streams of data available from kinesthetic awareness. Tapping into physical sensations isn’t complicated, and it can be quite a bit of fun to practice. While the source of your attention may seem to be your mind it can also be other places. Moving your center of attention from your mind into your heart, opens you to emotion; migrating further south by movivg the center of your attention all the way to your belly, opens you to vast undefined spaces.

Parts of you always know the truth. However, the limited perspective available to your thinking always knows something, but seldom knows the truth. You can practice your observation skills while playing poker, low stakes until you learn how to read your opponent please. During workshops we have people learn to observe whether their partner has a great poker hand or a lousy poker hand. I remember a participant, a corporate trainer, who discovered that when she was looking for cues from her partner to determine the quality of his hand, she was accurate about fifty percent of the time. But if she closed her eyes, dropping into her kinesthetic knowing, she was right one hundred percent of the time.

Another way to enhance your sensory acuity is to begin walking with your eyes closed. Have someone assist you in this if you are around cliffs or fast moving buses. With your eyes closed you will rely on senses other than your external visual. Your external auditory and your kinesthetic senses will get a workout. Several years ago on my way to lead a course in Houston, I closed my eyes when I left my home and opened them after I arrived in Houston. I, of course, did not drive myself to the airport, nor did I fly the plane. But I did discover that without all the normal visual input I had no jet lag at all and arrived in Houston relaxed and ready to go.

If, like most people, you depend primarily on your sense of hearing, auditory, you can carry earplugs around and wear them from time to time to enhance your ability to see. Watch TV with the sound off and you will perceive all kinds of things that you wouldn’t when you are tangled in the content of what the characters are saying. As your observation skills improve you will be able to tell a lousy actor from a good one, in that the good actor is far more congruent (their behaviors matching their content), while lousy actors (friends) will often provide such mixed messages that you can’t tell what they are saying anymore than they can.

Tap into Lie to Me at hulu.com and let me know what you think. Bridge the gap between watching the show and learning these observation skills. I will be delighted to assist you in the process.

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Comments

4 Responses to “Lie to Me, Please”

Peter jones on May 11th, 2009 9:57 am

Jerry,
I’ve been using focused kinesthetic feedback (as described in Applied Kinesiology/muscle testing /occipital drop experiences) in my practice. The growth or expansion of this awareness into a whole-body knowingness would seem to be implied the more I use these bofeedback tools. Is this (one of the reasons) why you emphasize Qi Gong exercises? Is the presence of a teacher vital, or are the exercises learned from video the teaching in themselves/or the door to the self-teaching?

Thanks,
Peter
Anna on May 23rd, 2009 11:07 pm

Tapped into Lie To Me – by chance – the first night it was on. Loved it! Thanks for the clues on kinesthetic awareness… your words helped crystalize something I had been vaguely aware of … and now, can’t wait to do it deliberately. Time to play. Cheers!
Ken on July 28th, 2009 11:22 pm

Jerry , I have just been listening to your “Seven simple steps towards enlightenment” , track 1 and 2 of cd 1.

First impressions … “hmmm … not sure”

Enlighten me if you can Jerry , you said on the cd that Light travels at approx 186,000 miles per second , and sound travels approximately 1000 feet per second …

Now this is included in your lead up to asking a question “do you want to trust the pictures in your head , or do you want to trust the conversations in your head or what you hear”?

I am confused by this .. because “inside your head” there is only neurological activity , which is composed of signals patterning their way through neurology.

And they all happen at the same speed , the speed of whatever rate that neurological signals move.

And its these signals that give rise to consciousness , in that for something to be in consciousness there must be active neurological signals that “construct the elements of the details of the perceptions of that which we can “shine our consciousness” on.

So .. for me “light and sound happening inside my head” … is meaningless because my reality is constructed at the speed of the neurological signals being processed through neurology , and the result is the pictures and conversations inside my head.

And given that the constructing medium is the same speed for both pictures and sound , I immediately “rejected” the conclusions of your opening tracks.

A personal dilemma , that obviously reveals “where my perceptions are focused”.

I had this immediate thought and decided to share them.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Regards
Alice on August 23rd, 2009 4:27 pm

Have watched the show and am hopeful it will last long enough to smooth out some of the patchy stuff, because I like the premise. What rushes through me reading this post, though, is, “How do I lie to myself about I experience my experience, can I find my own ‘tells’, and how can my body help?”

I’m not particularly advanced in these considerations, but I already have the cue that any time I feel Very Certain, I am almost certainly Very Wrong in some fundamental way. I’m grateful for my own obviousness in this particular consciousness tic. Though I’m still not able to anticipate what the wrongness will be, I’ve learned enough to accept Certainty as a signal that I need to pay attention differently because there’s something else to see/feel/know.

It’s tricky because some part of my personality likes to think it Understands, takes comfort from that, as though a snapshot of a moment isn’t instantly history rather than present. Tries to get “it” Right, with no real consideration of why I care about that “it” so much in the first place. Just a perfunctory drive toward Doing A Good Job.

Thanks Jerry, I can always count on you to leave me feeling less Certain and more Open!