In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), there is a notion called “rapport.” Rapport is the feeling a gazelle has with another gazelle, and does not feel with a lion. It’s when we know that we are with someone who shares a basic stance towards life. It’s often called “being of like kind.”
Rapport is what a client needs to feel with a practitioner in order to be able to do the often-scary job of reaching for change. Without it, there is too much danger to navigate (real or imagined) to make change possible.
Bessel van der Kolk, the trauma theorist, talks about how, when we have chronic childhood trauma, or grow up in a family that has unhealed trauma from previous generations, we often develop a strong sense that there is something wrong with us. There are many ways this can be expressed, but the end result is an ongoing sense that, since there’s something wrong with us, we are not safe for ourselves — that is, that we are not “of like kind” to ourselves. That is inner conflict. This can lead to self-sabotaging, the inability to take care of ourselves, sudden rage, persistent loneliness, and lots of other painful behaviors or patterns of life.
One of the biggest interventions we can make in our own lives is to recover our self-rapport — that we are “of like kind” to ourselves, that we are not a perpetator or predator to ourselves. Even when we are doing things that we regret or prefer not to do, self-rapport is more likely to lead to behavior change than cruel self-accusation.
Obviously, we need appropriate self-accountability and the capacity to acknowledge our wrongs. But imagine how it would be to have that capacity without the self-cruelty that can come from having to condemn our inner self-predator? Indeed, such an approach leads to deeper accountability, based in a deep friendliness with ourselves.
What is your experience of being in or out of rapport with yourself? Please share on my blog, below.
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