CONGRUENCE

"Are the bones of your sins sharp enough

to cut through your own excuses?"

- J. O'Barr, The Crow.

Alignment, as occurs when your parts are aligned, brings much value to NLP,

because it empowers our resources. The most basic alignment occurs when our

sense modalities are in harmony. If there is a mismatch, then we have internal

contradiction.

On a larger scale, we become congruent when our parts harmonize. As you'll

recall, parts act like little personalities within us, or clusters of motivations that

work together. And ecology refers to parts or other systems supporting each other.

So you could say that in congruence, your parts play well together.

On an even grander level, coherence happens when our alignment points in a

constructive direction that matches our self interest. The highest order of congruence

takes place when we align all the way up to and including our higher values and

aspirations. This extreme alignment brings perhaps the greatest satisfaction a human

being can experience.

When you meet someone who is not congruent, or we could say who is

INcongruent, they tend to say things that don't quite match up, or their behavior

doesn't match what they say, or their outcomes don't match what they are trying to

do. If you explore this with someone who is incongruent, they will reveal deeper

and more obvious incongruities; deeper mis-matches.

• They may show ambivalence about the results they say that they want.

• They may get a lot of benefits from the status quo that they say they want

to change.

• They may reveal insecurities about what they are trying to do.

• They may somehow dislike the kind of person they say they are trying to

meet, like maybe feeling angry with all members of the opposite sex.

They may have mental health or neurological problems that they have not

fully accepted or learned to cope with.

• They might deny their serious problems with alcohol or other drugs.

The list goes on. Many things can cause incongruence.

If you are consulting or coaching someone who has some kind of incongruity,

you will want to use NLP strategies that help this person resolve these mismatches.

We call this ability to get parts to mesh well "reintegration." Alignment provides

the foundation of NLP. Alignment makes personal excellence and healing possible.