The Voilet That Was Waiting

Welcome to Episode #164 of NLP Around You

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Outwardly Successful. Inwardly Stuck.

For the high performer who has the title, the income, and the résumé… and still feels something is missing.

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Welcome to Episode #165 of NLP Around You.

🧠 Thoughtful Thought

“You are not lacking a resource. You are probably using it on the wrong field.” — Dr Mehernosh J Randeria

For your daily dose of Thoughtful Thoughts, get your Thoughtful Calendar here.

💬 NLP Quote Corner

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” — Carl Jung

⏳ One Minute NLP – The Presupposition of Resources

Most of us have been quietly trained to believe that the missing piece lives outside us.

A better job. A bigger title. One more certification. The right mentor. The right city. The right partner. The right book.

NLP starts from a different premise.

One of its core presuppositions is this. Every person already has all the resources they need to make the change they want. The resources are not absent. They are sitting in a different room.

Calm is in there. Courage is in there. Patience is in there. Discipline is in there. You have been all of these things at some point in your life. Maybe at work, but not at home. Maybe with a parent, but not with your child. Maybe at thirty, but not at fifty.

The work of change is not installation. It is redirection.

Explore this. Pick one thing you say you do not have. “I do not have the patience for this.” Now ask yourself, where in my life do I already have this in abundance? Who do I treat with that patience? In what setting does it show up effortlessly? That is the room it is sitting in. Your job is not to manufacture it. Your job is to bring it across the corridor.

You are not empty. You are misallocated.

Installation is exhausting.

Redirection is elegant.

If you want to learn how to do this redirection at a structural level, the next cohort of NLP Practitioner is the place to begin.

🔮 Meta Magic – The Violet Lady of Milwaukee

The Violet That Was Waiting

Somewhere in the late 1950s, in Milwaukee, a young doctor received an unusual request. His name was Milton Erickson.

The request came from a worried nephew. “My aunt is deeply depressed,” he said.

She lived alone in a large house. Rarely stepped out. Rarely met people. Rarely attended church anymore, though she had been a deeply devout member of the congregation.

The house, in many ways, had become her world.

And perhaps, her world had become the house.

So the nephew asked Erickson if he would visit her.

Erickson agreed.

When he entered the house, he saw what most of us might have seen.

Dim rooms.
Heavy curtains.
A piano whose lid had not been opened in a long time.
A Bible on the side table, clearly used, but perhaps now more as memory than practice.

It was the kind of house where silence does not merely exist.

It sits with you.

It occupies the chair opposite you.

It becomes the third person in the room.

And then, while walking through the house, Erickson turned a corner.

And there it was.

Sunlight.

A glass conservatory at the back of the house.

Filled with African violets.

Rows and rows of them.

Purple. White. Lavender. Pink.

Each one carefully grown.
Each one lovingly tended.
Each one carrying the quiet fingerprints of a woman who still knew how to care.

Now, pause here for a moment.

Most people would have focused on the depression.

Erickson noticed the violets.

Most people would have asked, “What is wrong with you?”

Erickson silently seemed to ask, “What is still alive in you?”

He did not make her sit for a long therapeutic conversation.

He did not analyse her sadness.

He did not interpret the curtains.

He did not ask why the piano was closed.

He simply asked her one question.

“Do you have a list of every birth, illness, wedding, and funeral in your congregation?”

She did.

Of course she did.

She was connected to the church, even if she had disconnected from the people.

Then Erickson gave her one simple instruction.

From now on, whenever there is a birth, send an African violet.
Whenever someone is ill, send an African violet.
Whenever there is a wedding, send an African violet.
Whenever there is a funeral, send an African violet.

Not a lecture.
Not a long prayer.
Not a motivational quote.

A violet.

Grown by her.
Wrapped by her.
Sent in her name.

That was it.

That was the intervention.

No grand technique.
No complicated framework.
No dramatic breakthrough moment.

Just a gentle redirection of something she was already growing.

Years later, when she passed away at a ripe old age, the local newspaper carried a headline that stayed with people.

Milwaukee mourns the Violet Lady. Beloved by thousands.

Think about that.

She was not lacking love.
She was not lacking purpose.
She was not lacking community.

She was growing all three.

Quietly.

In pots.

In a sunlit glass room at the back of a silent house.

Waiting for someone to notice.

Waiting for someone to redirect it.

That, to me, is the beauty of Erickson’s work.

He did not give her a new life.

He helped her see the life that was still blooming inside her old one.

And perhaps that is where so many of us miss the point.

We keep looking for what needs to be fixed. What needs to be added. What needs to be installed. What new habit, new belief, new routine, new affirmation, new system, new identity must be brought in from outside.

As if we are empty rooms waiting to be furnished.

But often, transformation does not begin by adding something new.

Sometimes, it begins by noticing what is already alive.

NLP, at its best, does this.

It does not treat a person as broken.

It looks for the resource.

The pattern.
The strength.
The memory.
The value.
The forgotten ability.
The quiet violet growing somewhere in the background.

And then it asks a different question.

Not, “What is missing?”

But, “Where can this be used?”

Because sometimes your gift has not disappeared. It has only become inward-facing.

Sometimes your love has not died. It has only lost direction.

Sometimes your purpose is not absent. It is simply sitting in a glass room, waiting to be sent into the world.

So let me ask you this.

What is your violet?

What is that one thing you have been quietly growing, perhaps for years, without realising its value?

And who, somewhere in the world, is waiting to receive it?

📖 Hook from the Book

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.” — Mary Oliver, Upstream

🎬 Movie Motivation

“Tumhare paas talent hai, par tum usse waste kar rahe ho.”

Translated: “You have the talent, you are just wasting it.”

This line from Wake Up Sid reminds us that the problem is rarely absence. The problem is usually the angle at which we are aiming what we already have.

🏆 Popular Post of the Week

The Psychology of Persuasion – in numbers

📢 Announcement of the Week

If something in this episode sat down inside you and refused to leave, that is the signal.

Join me live for the free webinar Outwardly Successful, Inwardly Stuck. It is built for the high performer who has built the outer life beautifully and is now ready to name the inner thing nobody at work asks about.

👉 Save your seat here

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