Woman enjoying the sunlight with her eyes closed in a serene, natural setting.

Reach Your Authentic Potential: NeuroLinguistic Programming

Posted on: July 30, 2010by Dr Kim Dr Hil

Sensory Experience

NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP) is known as the study of human excellence. It asserts that we can't know the world directly but rather we can only experience it through the representations we build from our sensory experience. This includes what we see, hear, feel/touch, taste and smell. Consequently, NLP strategies work directly with the way in which our sensory experiences produce the building blocks of our experiences. This results in our patterns of belief, emotion and action. In other words NLP explains why we do what we do and offers methods to change it.

Transform Your Sensory Experience for Healthy Lifestyle Habits

When you voluntarily rearrange the combination of your sensory experience regarding any issue or aspect of your life, you then change the way in which your brain stores and recalls that issue. As a result, you naturally change your future beliefs, emotions and actions. Consider the implications of this approach in helping you transform your relationship with food, exercise or past hurts. NLP is a powerful change agent for developing healthy lifestyle habits, decreasing stress and reaching your authentic potential. Let's demonstrate this.

Visual Sensory Experience Exercise: Your Minds Eye

Think of a pleasant experience. In your minds eye bring the image closer, make it richer, make it more colorful, clarify the details and turn up the brightness. Notice how you feel?

Now take that same experience and send it get farther away in your minds eye. Make the image smaller, less clear, dim and black and white. Notice how you feel again?

Now put the experience back where it was originally.

You probably had stronger feelings when it was closer to you and weaker feelings when it was farther away.

Achieve Your Goals

If you want to increase your happiness and achieve your goals then move these experiences close to you in your minds eye with clarity and bright colors.

If you want to transform challenging experiences, move them farther away and visualize them in black and white.

Coaching and Counseling

Hilary Stokes Ph.D. and Kim Ward Ph.D. have been a team for 20 years, specializing in mind, body, spirit psychology. They are the authors of the bestselling books The Happy Map: Your roadmap to the habit of happiness and Manifesting Mindset: The 6-step formula for attracting your goals and dreams and founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to health and happiness. If you are interested in learning the answers to the most frequently asked questions on how to decrease stress and increase happiness sign up for their free video series.

About the Authors

Hilary Stokes Phd

HIlary Stokes, Ph.D., LCSW is a licensed psychotherapist in California with more than 25 years of clinical experience, specializing in trauma therapy, PTSD treatment, anxiety, depression, and nervous system healing. She holds Master's degrees in Clinical Social Work and Kinesiology and Sports Psychology and a Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology with a specialization in Tibetan Buddhist Psychology. Dr. Stokes is extensively trained and certified in brainspotting, EMDR, somatic therapy and other mind body approaches. Her integrative work bridges neuroscience, mindfulness, and holistic psychology to help clients process unresolved trauma, rewire stress patterns, and build emotional resilience.

Item
Dr. Stokes’ clinical approach is informed by advanced professional training and her own healing journey from complex trauma, which shaped her commitment to therapies that go beyond traditional talk therapy. She has worked in psychiatric hospitals, addiction and PTSD treatment centers, universities, integrative medical facilities, and private practice. As co-developer of the psychology and wellness programming at Sanoviv Medical Institute, she witnessed firsthand the power of integrating mind and body for lasting transformation. Today she helps individuals heal trauma, strengthen emotional regulation and reclaim purpose through brainspotting, EMDR, somatic therapy and mindfulness interventions.

Kim Ward Phd

Kim Ward, Ph.D. holds both a masters and a doctorate in Transpersonal Psychology with a specialization in Tibetan Buddhist Psychology. She brings more than 25 years of experience in trauma recovery, Brainspotting and mind-body transformation. She is extensively trained and certified in Brainspotting, somatic therapy, and trauma-informed approaches. Dr. Ward integrates neuroscience, nervous system regulation and consciousness-based psychology to help individuals process unresolved trauma, shift limiting beliefs, and access greater emotional resilience. Her work focuses on healing at the root, beyond symptom management, through brain-body therapies that create lasting change.

Item
As co-developer of the psychology and wellness programs at Sanoviv Medical Institute, Dr. Ward brings a uniquely holistic perspective to trauma therapy and personal growth. Her path from corporate leadership into psychology shaped her commitment to helping clients move beyond external success toward embodied fulfillment and emotional freedom. Dr. Ward's expertise combines Brainspotting, emotional intelligence, contemplative psychology and purpose-driven coaching. Drawing from both advanced academic training and lived experience navigating complex family mental health dynamics, she supports clients in transforming stress patterns, reclaiming vitality, and aligning with authentic purpose.