Do Words Lie & Body Doesn’t?

The 101 lie detector test in Kinesiology works like this. You hold one arm stiff.
The tester asks you if you are your ’real name’ and pushes your arm down. It
does nit go down. The tester then asks if you are, let us say, ‘Marilyn Monroe’
and pushes your arm down. The arm buckles down.

David Hawkins and many others popularized this and added multiple
expanded theories. Many of these tests have failed under scientific rigor, with
no difference being seen between a lie and truth under controlled conditions.

Somatic practices is another field that encompasses everything from Yoga,

Alexander, Feldenkrais, Pilates, Chiropractic and several other practices,
which raises scientific hackles when the believers sing their praises. Truth lies
somewhere in between.

For several years, NLP practitioners lived by differentiating truth and lie based
on how eye movements are interpreted. NLP masters have moved away from
this as unreliable. Even professional lie testers suing sophisticated equipment
can fail.

In a coaching conversation, we accept that there is no ‘one’ truth. Truth is our

perception, mind map. The Vedas say that there are multiple pathways to the
ultimate truth, none better the other, and that the ultimate truth is formless,
intangible and can only be experienced not expressed or verified.

A coach’s need is for the clients to understand the truth of what they perceive,
and when negative help reframe that perspective positively, that’s all. There
need be no effort to establish truth pr lie in what clients say. It is important to
connect the dots, brig out discrepancies, if observed, non-judgmentally and
inquire curiously if all what is said adds together.

When clients express themselves in words, cognitively, analytically and

rationally, they come from the conscious mind. Following the NLP meta-
model, they generalize, delete and distort, simply because the conscious mind
holds a mere fraction of what we sense, and the conscious fraction is filtered
through the conditioned memories of our ego.

Body sensations on the other hand, and deep emotions as well, arise from the
unconscious. More often than not they are not filtered. A coach has a much
better chance of helping the client realize what ‘really’ happened in a situation
by questioning what sensations arise in the body and create what sensations.
Further questions of what they think may be more in line with ‘reality’ than the
superficial judgmental impressions of reality. This, however, is an art, not a
science and therefore would need to be verified through multiple modes of
inquiry.

However, if the objective is help the client reframe and the reframed
perspective allow the client to grow and move forward to a desired objective,
the coaching conversation would have met its objective. There may be some
who may question the ethics, the right and wrong, of what I say from their
super ego perspective, and that is their issue to resolve.

A more pertinent query has been raised by senior corporate leaders when
they I trained them as coaches. ‘Companies don’t care about emotional
issues. Their concern is the bottom line. Why should I bother about
sensations and emotions when I am coaching an executive to manage time
better or delegate better?’

Great question. My answer has been ‘an executive may be constrained as a

care giver to a partner, parents or children, in excelling time management. I
am sure how you would cut that executive into work and life halves without
destroying that person, and with no contribution to the organization. Inquiry
into the emotional mind state of the client may help in creating a solution.’ Or
‘a leader hesitant to delegate may have limiting beliefs that may arise from
insecurity and invalidation, amongst other factors. These beliefs are not
rational; they are emotional. They need to be inquired into for the client to
understand, accept and reframe these beliefs before past habit of not
delegating changes.’

I still recall this case. A single woman, a professional, was referred by a

physician friend to me to talk to her about a pain she had, which the physician
determined has no physiological origin. The client said she had no issues at
all and was happy. Something she said at some point triggered in me a sense
of self-invalidation. I offered her a piece of paper and a pen and asked her if
she was ok to write down ‘I love….” with her name. Without hesitation she
took the paper and pen, and bent down to write. Her finger was poised over
the paper for the next fifteen minutes frozen. I brought in a glass of water, and
looked at her inquiringly. She burst out crying saying, ‘I just can’t.’

Unfortunately I cannot claim any success in this case of helping the client
resolve. All I could say was that when she is able to write and say to herself
that she loved herself, she would be pain free. I am jot sure if that was true. It
seemed the right unconditionally positive, empathetic, generative thing to day
congruently at that time. All I know also is that a year later she still had that
pain.

What I do know is that the body does not lie when it is disturbed; mind and
words can. A coach needs to make efforts to explore sensations and
emotions to establish congruence in thoughts and behavior.