Here is a distinction that most people do not know and do not make and because they don’t, it creates tremendous mental and emotional distress in their lives. What’s also interesting about this one is that in many languages, it is not easy to even talk about this distinction. That’s because, for the most part, it does not exist in that language. Here is the distinction short and sweet:
∙ Responsibility For describes what you are able-to-respond-to that belongs to you and for which you can be held accountable.
∙ Responsibility To describes the person or persons you are responsible to, namely, the relationships that you have and the obligations that are inherent in them.

So one refers to personal accountability and the other to relationships—two very different subjective experiences. They are not the same, not at all! What is inside of responsibility for are all of the things that you and only you can do. Most essentially are the four personal powers that enables you to respond— thinking, emoting, speaking, and acting. These are your powers and only you can make these responses. Your mental responses are so much yours, you cannot say that anyone else “makes” you think, imagine, question, doubt, remember, etc. Those are your functions. You are responsible for them. And whatever responses you make mentally, you will experience the consequences of them.

Your emotional responses are also so much yours, that you cannot say that someone else “makes” you feel something. Your emotions are yours. You create them. When you experience an emotion it is the result of your thinking, valuing, believing, etc. that you have learned or experienced. Someone may trigger you with a word, a gesture, an action, but your emotional response is yours no matter how much you wag your finger and try to blame them. So also with all of your linguistic and behavioral responses, they are yours. They may be in response to what someone else said or did, but they come from you and so you are responsible for them.

Think of all of these responses as your “response zone” or your “locus of control.” Imagine standing in a circle and out of that circle comes these four crucial responses. And if every adult lives inside of their circle of responses, then you are not responsible for their powers— what they think, feel, say, or do. They are. But if you have a relationship to them, you may be responsible to them. If so, then the kind and quality of the relationship will then determine what you are responsible to give to and receive from them.

Imagine two circles. The circle you live in and out of which you make your mental, emotional, verbal, and behavioral responses. That is the circle you are responsible for. Then the circles of the people all around you in your life— family, friends, associates, colleagues, acquaintance, the public in general. Each of them, operating from out of their power zone, are responsible for themselves. To some of them you are responsible to give and receive certain things— whatever conditions that the relationship requires. Generally, adult to adult, it will be an equal and mutual exchange so that what we want, we receive, and what the other wants from us, they receive. In that state, we say the relationship is working. If you are giving but not receiving, then eventually your relational “bank account” with that person will go bankrupt and the relationship will explode or die, or possible be reconstituted.

The adult–child relationship is a dependent one, the parent gives and the child receives. As the child grows older, and becomes more and more capable of responding, more is expected in return. So with any other dependent relationship, as boss–employee. The big distinction in responsibility to relationships is that they are conditional. All relationship are conditional. There are conditions to be met in order for the relationship to thrive. That’s why it takes an independent person who has identified and developed her response-powers to be capable of healthy relationships.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.

As you undoubtedly know, The Society of Neuro-Semantics has a strong commitment to offering high quality, professional, and scholarly presentations.  Overall, this means that we do not want and will not publish anything that does not give proper credit to others, that takes snide shots at others, that presents something with arrogance or contempt, etc.  Further, inasmuch as the whole focus is the ongoing development of the NLP and the Neuro-Semantics Models, we primarily want articles that extend thought, research, experience, and discovery in these areas.

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In publishing another’s works, we ask that for any area of controversy you completely own your own opinions, acknowledge them as opinions and leave room for respect to those who might disagree.  We don’t need more little dictators who think that they have some monopoly on “the truth.”  We will edit out  Yes, stand up for your beliefs and argue for them as persuasively as you can, and also do so with integrity, respect, and humility.  dogmatic statements that sound like you have slipped into “the Deity Mode” as they say in General Semantics.

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1) Keep footnotes and endnotes to a minimum.  Aim to write a 5 page article with 5 to 10 references.  Refuse to fall into the habit that many scholars do where they carry on debates with others in the footnotes.  We really don’t want that here.  If you need to contact someone and send them your article please do so.

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7) Clean up your writing.  Proof and proof it again to check for typos and awkward expressions.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Early in the study of NLP you learn to recognize and appreciate the value of what’s described as “going meta.” This term “meta” was derived from Bateson and his associate researchers. It essentially refers to stepping back to take a larger perspective and conceptually moving to a place above and beyond an immediate message or context so that one can think about it more clearly.

And, as a meta-domain itself, NLP is full of processes for “going meta.” From Time-Lines to Beliefs, to Trance language, the most impactful interventions involves a “going meta” process. The meta-function is that important.

It also plays a key role in another uniquely NLP phrase, namely, “running an ecology check.” In NLP Practitioner training, when we learn to “run an ecology check” on our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, communications, etc., we learn to step back from our thinking, feeling, acting, relating, etc., and to check on the experience. We check on ecology in terms of–

• Is it balanced or out-of-balanced?
• Is it healthy or unhealthy?
• Does it enhance life or does it create limitations?
• Does it empower a person or does it create dis-empowerment?
• Does it increase resourcefulness or is it unresourceful?
• Does it bring out our best or sabotage our efforts?

We “run an ecology check” to avoid repeating what does not work. Quoting the famous Einstein’s quip, the originators of the pattern suggest that from a system’s point of view, if we keep doing what doesn’t work all the while hoping for different results, we have just accessed a form of insanity. So in NLP, the ecology check operates as a first step toward sanity. This check also moves us wonderfully toward becoming more effective and more empowered in “running our own brain.”

A Higher Level Self-Referential State

If the ecology check involves thinking about our thoughts and feelings, and questioning our state, then it inherently operates at a meta-level. As a self-referential state, it describes how we reflect back on our thoughts and feelings. And, of course, that describes a metastate.

“Does this thought, belief, value, attitude, emotion, behavior, or way of communicating serve me well?”
“Does it enhance my life?”
“Does it move me forward toward my desired outcomes?”
“Does it limit me in any way?”
“Does it empower or disempower?”
“What effect does it have upon my relations with others?”

These evaluations and questions about our state occur from a higher state, a state of interest, curiosity, mindfulness, observation, etc. We move there (in our mind) in order to check the ecology of a certain piece of consciousness or behavior in relation to our health, career, relationships, family, culture, etc.

Now many do not know that all of this highly corresponds with the first and original “neuro-linguistic training” that Alfred Korzybski conducted in the 1940s. As the first person to coin the term “neuro-linguistic” and “neuro-semantic” he founded the General Semantics movement. That was before the term “meta” had been developed, so he described and labeled these processes in a different way.

For instance, instead of “going meta,” he talked about “abstracting to a higher level.” Instead of “running an ecology check,” he talked about developing “consciousness of abstracting.” Instead of “running your own brain,” he talked about taking control of, and slowing down, your “semantic reactions.” A different language, but referring to the same mind-body dynamics.

From this the Meta-States Model integrates into NLP some new and expansive ideas about states of consciousness using the insights of Korzybski (1933/1994) and Gregory Bateson (1972, 1979) about logical levels. In this way, Meta-States offers a new domain of techniques and skills and specifies how the states-about-states processes work in the mind-body system. This means that Meta-States involves systemic thinking to a much greater degree than what has been characteristic in NLP.

It also allows us to look again at many of the meta-level phenomena and processes that NLP has developed and see them as actually meta-states and meta-state processes. This provides a new way of thinking about NLP process like the ecology check, the V-K dissociation pattern, Time-Lines, etc.

For example, to “run an ecology check” on our thinking, believing, valuing, emoting, behaving, or communicating, we first have to move (conceptually) to a position meta to the thought, belief, etc. and to then evaluate that evaluation. We make the meta-move and then meta-evaluate. And since any thought-and-emotion that we represent vividly, dramatically, and intensely enough effects our neurology, it inevitably induces us into a state. In this case, it evokes a state of evaluation about the way we have made evaluations (beliefs, values, emotions, etc.). This describes not a primary state about something in the world beyond our skin, but a state about another state.

The meta-state of evaluation about evaluation (e.g., the “ecology check” state) moves us to a place where we can develop meta-evaluation skills. Is this important? Korzybski thought so. In fact, he thought of this as the central mechanism of sanity and described it as such in Science and Sanity. Only when can we move to the place where we can question the abstractions that we use as our model of the world and maintain awareness that “the map does not exist as the territory” can we truly stay sane. After all, map and territory exist on two different logical levels.

Structurally, meta-states differ from primary states because they take into account meta-levels of abstracting. This is what makes them more complex, layered, and complicated. It makes them less driven by the sensory modalities and more by the higher modalities. Why is this so? Because meta-states need the meta-representational system of language to move us to a higher logical level to abstract about the previous level. This also explains the awesome power of both NLP’s Meta-Model of language that allows us to de-construct (or unglue) non-productive meta-states (language abstractions that falsely, erroneously, inaccurately, or unenhancingly construct “realities”), and the Milton Model of hypnotic language for constructing (gluing together) empowering meta-states.

This means that when we engage in strategy analysis work with states that involve meta-levels (modeling using meta-levels), we need to incorporate not only the horizontal and linear structural analysis of traditional NLP strategies, but also the meta-state structures when the brain goes to meta-levels to access states-about-states.

What’s the bottom line in all of this? To the extent that you have learned and used “the ecology check” in working with your states of mind-body, in tracking down strategies as you have modeled excellence, and in running the various NLP technologies– you have already been meta-stating yourself into the sanity-check state itself (evaluation-of-evaluation).

As you now think about this meta-state, let me use it as a prototype of meta-states. Because as you sit there reading this, you can notice your state, can you not? Now… as you do, you also consider what label you would put upon your current state. What would you call it? Would you call it a learning state? Perhaps a state of curiosity? Interest? Boredom? And as you observe your state, you can notice how your current thoughts about your state can swish your brain in such ways that it may alter or transform or affect your state. Now evaluate your state. Useful/ unuseful? Limiting/ Enhancing? Productive/ unproductive? Intense/ weak?

If you followed along through that experiential accessing of a state-about-a-state, then simply notice what emotions you experience when you created that meta-state for yourself? Where in your body did you experience any kinesthetic awareness of that meta-state? What visual, auditory, olfactory or other sensory modalities occurred while in that state?

I would venture to guess that while you were “checking the ecology” of your state, you probably experienced very little of the sensory-based representations. I would further venture to guess that you primarily experienced words– language, statements, “ideas,” conceptual understandings, beliefs, etc.

And doesn’t that make sense? We use the primary sensory-based modalities when we access and intensify a primary state and we use meta-representational modalities (words, slogans, poems, statements, questions, belief statements, symbols of art and math, etc.) when we think about our thinking-and-emoting.

It follows that if the sensory modalities do not primarily drive meta-states (although they can and do when the meta-state coalesces into the primary state), how then can we anchor meta-states? How can we condition these higher states so that we “go there” and use those higher levels of mind in response to a stimulus trigger?

We anchor these higher states primarily by connecting and linking them to words. Did you not first access the meta-state of evaluation-of-evaluation by using the words, “run an ecology check”?

This doesn’t mean “running an ecology check” cannot become a kinesthetic feeling. It can. We can take this concept and use the Mind-to-Muscle Pattern and get it into our very neurology. When we do that, then we’ll have muscle memory for it. And, of course, that really installs the concept!

When we build and access a primary state repeatedly, it becomes so habituated that eventually we can “fly” into that state. Most of us can do this with lots of skill with anger, fear, disgust, and other negative emotions. We can “fly into a state of rage.” You can do that, can’t you? How about flying into a state of calm? (See Instant Relaxation, 1998). Or how about flying into a state of joy?

Well, we can develop the same skills and fly into meta-levels. We can eventually “fly” into the meta-states because they have become so much a part of our thinking-emoting that our neurology creates a fast track to those higher levels. Then we can jump logical levels at a single bound! In the Meta-States model, we talk about this as developing a canopy of consciousness to indicate that the thinking-emoting of this neurological state now uses the constructs as perceptual filters. This gives us immediate and constant access to the meta-state. More recently we have begun describing this as the Matrix of our Frames that creates the fabric of our subjective reality.

What does that accomplish? Much!

Since meta-states describes the structure of our subjective experience and as one of the central ways that we actually see, perceive, and relate to reality, articulating this structure gives us more control over it. It enables us to understand that our meta-frames of reference, which we have incorporated at the meta-levels as our model of the world has arisen from our own meta-stating processes. We created it. And, of course, if it’s all constructed, then it can all be refined, updated, deconstructed, etc. We live out of our meta-states unconsciously because we just assume them as real. With the ecology check, we can now run a Quality Control process on our mind, on the higher levels of our mind. Now we can check out our meta-state constructions to make sure that they truly operate as empowering resources for us.

References:

Hall, Michael L. (1995/ 2000 2nd ed.). Meta-states: Reflexivity in human states of consciousness. Grand Junction, CO: Empowerment Technologies.

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.

For the past thirteen years I have poured my life into learning Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and applying it in the therapeutic, teaching and writing world.  For the past seven years, I have worked with L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. in developing the model Neuro-Semaintics which is an advancement of the NLP model.

Over these years I have had the honor of working with approximately 750 therapy clients involving approximately 3000 hours of therapy. I have also had the unique privilege of teaching NLP at Gaston College for the past eleven years. In addition I have taught numerous Practitioner Certification Courses and Master Practitioner Courses. The numbers of one-session seminars I have led are too numerous to count.

Needless to say, the past thirteen years have been quite eventful. What a joy and privilege life has afforded me with all the above experiences.  Well, so what?  That is a question I have been asking myself. So what?  If I were to take all the above and summarize it down to its essence (according to Bob of course), how would I summarize what I have learned into one article?

Now, since the major thrust of the work I do involves assisting therapy clients and class participants toward positive change, I will direct the following remarks to what I believe is the essence of personal change from the structural viewpoint of NLP and Meta-States as developed my L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. We call the merged fields of NLP and Meta States, Neuro-Semantics. What were the key elements in the lives of those countless hundreds whom it has been my privilege to work with that brought about positive changes in their lives?

Eight Key Structural Elements Involved in Personal Change:

In this article I will provide the groundwork by defining some basic beliefs we have in Neuro-Semantics about just “how” your brain works.  Note the word “how.”  That word is important. In Neuro-Semantics we place prime importance on the mental processes that determine behavior.  What do you do inside your head in order to have a problem and what do you have to do inside your head in order to “fix” your problem?  What kind of pictures, feelings, sounds and word meanings do you need inside your head in order to do the problem?  What kind of pictures, feelings, sounds and word meanings do you need to activate in your head in order to not to have the problem?  By the way, we believe that brains aren’t broken; they just run sick thought patterns really well. Indeed, the brain doesn’t care whether or not you think yourself sick or whether you think yourself well. Your brain just does what you tell it to do. This is what this article is about. Those who change their thinking understand and accept these beliefs:

1. The brain primarily processes information from the outside world through the five senses. You experience your world through what you see, hear, feel, smell and taste. Now, importantly to Neuro-Semantics, we believe that when you re-present your world on the screen of your consciousness, you utilize the same programs involved in the event of recall. When you recall something you have seen before, you will recall it with a picture (Visual). When you recall something you have heard before, you will recall it with remembered sounds (Auditory). The same is true for feelings (Kinesthetic), smells (Olfactory) and tastes (Gustatory). We call these the Representational Systems or VAK for short and they are the first component of the movies of our mind.

Figure 1

Your brain not only does this with remembered experiences, it does the same with constructed experiences. I can ask you to imagine seeing yourself where you want to be one year from now.  Your brain knows how to construct a picture of the desired you one year from now.

Now, these experiences we re-present on the screen of our minds (images) often contain more than just one system.  We can recall a picture and also have sounds with it as well as feelings.  Furthermore, these images have finer qualities.  Usually images that we hold as very important to us will be very close to our eyes visually.  They will often be very bright and colorful to let us know this image is important.

Exercise: Step back and take notice of the movie that you have created inside your head that depicts your problem state. Note the picture of your problem. Is it a still picture or a movie picture?  Is it in color or is it black and white?  Is the picture up and close or is it far off?  What about any sounds associated with your problem?  Are they loud or soft?  What directions do the sounds come to you from?  What about feelings? What kind of feelings do you have in your body about the problem?  Where these feelings are located in your body? Are the feelings heavy or light? Experiment with your movie by moving the picture further away. Change the tone and location of the sounds. Move the feelings from inside your body to outside your body.  Etc.

2. The brain gives meaning to these images with words. So, I have pictures, feelings, sounds, smells and tastes in my mind, so what?  Your brain doesn’t stop there, as a thinking class of life; the human brain has the marvelous ability of giving meaning to these images with words. These words are “about” the images composed of pictures, sounds, feelings, smells and/or taste.

Figure 2

3. The brain doesn’t stop at just the first level of word meaning you gave to the image. Your brain keeps having thoughts (primarily with words) about thoughts (See Figure 1:2). The brain does not stop at one thought, it continues having thoughts about thoughts and there is where the “magic” lies. In Neuro-Semantics we realize that as important as Representation is, there is yet something more powerful and more magical¾  reference.  That’s how the brain works. It starts with a referent experience, the event.  Something happens.  Then we re-present it on the screen of our mind with the Representational System (VAKOG). But by reflexive awareness, we develop a thought and a feeling ABOUT it, now we have our first frame of reference.

4. Repeating thoughts will create unconscious frames-of-mind that will direct our consciousness to the five to nine items we can focus on. These frames of mind operate inside our head totally outside of consciousness. Our brains do not stop at just one thought. It will keep on thinking thoughts about thoughts. These thoughts about thoughts when habituated (drop into the unconscious) become our Frames of Mind – our perceptual filters through which we view our world. These frames become like eyeglasses through which we view and experience our world.  And that doesn’t end it.  We develop frames-within-frames, each frame embedded in another frame.

These higher frames determine our neuro-semantic states that governs the way we think, feel, our health, skills, everything. All the while we are having thoughts about thoughts, these thoughts are interaction with our physiology through our central nervous system and out of that interaction comes what we call “states” of being.  And, out of our “states” of being comes our behavior. Thus, “as a man thinketh, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7).

These “repeated” unconscious frames of mind become our blessing or our curse. In problem framing, we can have frames of mind that say, “I am worthless.” “I can’t ever do anything right.”  “In order for me to have personal worth, I have to do for other people; I am not an OK person in myself.”  Etc.  Such frames inevitably come from our earlier years and for that reason become quite unconscious and difficult to change on our own. However, they are changeable and they do change for they are just thoughts no matter how much they operate outside of consciousness.  In “fixing” ourselves, metaphorically we delete those old frames of mind and install new frames of mind that serve us.  This is what Neuro-Semantics is all about.

The individuals who make personal changes accept that they have constructed these frames themselves with their internal representations and with the numerous layering of meanings. This layering of meaning is done mostly with words.  In therapy, I constantly discover old memories of the person hearing dad or mom tell them that they are worthless or that dad or mom was absent in their lives and from that they developed a word meaning frame that “I must be worthless because dad and/or mom was not here for me.” Etc.  Important to personal change is to accept the reality that these frames are constructed and therefore can be de-constructed.

Exercise: What meanings have you given the image inside your head that made that experience a problem for you?  What does the problem mean to you?  What kind of beliefs have you developed about it?  How is it now a problem for you? How would you like to change these meanings? What kind of meanings could you give that situation that would now serve you?  What have you learned from it that will assist you in letting that problem state go?

5. People that change believe and are aware that “The Map Is Not The Territory” or “The Menu Is Not The Meal” and they believe it is their map and their map alone that they operate out of. This is another way of saying that our perception is not reality. It is only our perception of it. However, because it is our perception (our Internal Representation and conceptual meanings) it is what we operate from.

Figure 3

It doesn’t matter how accurately it maps (perceive) our present reality. We will operate from our perceptions as governed by our higher-level frames of mind. This means:

a. Those that change recognize the value of creating a map (perception) that accurately, as far as symbolically possible, maps the present moment. We are a “symbolic class of life.” We do that with the VAKOG and Word meanings acting as “symbols” from our experience of our world through our five senses. But, these are just symbols about our world. They are not the world. We get into trouble when we confuse the two and label our “symbols” as being “real” in the sense that they accurately map out our world. When we consciously or unconsciously operate from frames of mind that we learned in childhood, we certainly are not operating from a map that even comes close to accurately mapping out the adult world we now live in. This is the root of most problems if not all of them.

b. Those that change their thinking by recognizing that their map is not the territory will eliminate the problem of cause-effect in their lives. What do I mean?  I mean that the individual who understands and accepts that our internal map/ perception is not and cannot be the territory (the external world) will stop the foolishness of believing other people control his or her mind without his or her permission.  No one can make you believe or feel anything you choose not to believe or feel.

Just because we may have grown up in a dysfunctional family does not mean that we are or have to remain a dysfunctional person even if we learned some poor ways to think and behave. We can “own” our own brain, take control of it and learn new ways of thinking. Brains are very flexible.  As an example, think of something unpleasant. Now think of something pleasant. Note how rapidly you can change your thinking.  Old unwanted patterns of thinking are just habituated thought patterns that “seem real” because they have become unconscious and “feel” real. But, guess what?  They can change.

Now, many have an “invested” interest in getting you to believe that these thought patterns are “real” and that you can do nothing about them. Don’t buy that limiting frame. You can change these thought patterns. You can “renew your mind.” You can think on things that are pure, just, right, lovely, etc. Indeed, you can think on anything you choose to think on. Just give yourself permission.

c. They recognize that the words and images inside our heads are not “real” in the sense that they are set in concrete – they are changeable. They are just “symbols” of the external world.  We have instruments that will detect the nerve cells and the neuro-transmitters that allow one nerve cell to communicate with another nerve cell. However, can neuro-scientist go inside the brain and find/ measure a picture, a sound, a feeling or a word?  No, they are “abstractions” of the mind hence our conceptual states that are generated at the moment of thought and then they disappear until we think the thought again.  Because the images and word meanings inside our head are not “real” in the sense that they are set in concrete, they only have the reality we give them.

Consider this; think of a mildly unpleasant memory and note what pops into your mind and how you feel. Now, think of a pleasant memory and notice what pops into your mind and how you feel.  Which type thinking best serves you? Why would you want to “create” an image and a thought inside your head that makes you feel bad?  Have you ever thought about just not doing that anymore?  After all, these thoughts aren’t real unless you generate them.

How can we use this knowledge?  Simple. Since the thoughts including the decisions inside our heads are just thoughts, we can change them as we will. In other words, if you don’t like a decision you have made, say “no” to it. Apply “no” to the unwanted decision. When you do this you are meta-stating (applying one thought to another. (See #7 below.) the unwanted decision with a higher level “no.”  What happens when you say “no” to that unwanted decision?  Now, create a decision that will serve you and say “yes” to it. Again, you are meta-stating your desired decision with a “yes.”

Have you ever thought of this¾  the only difference between a thought and a belief is that a belief is a thought to which you have said, “yes.” A belief is a thought that you have affirmed by saying, “I believe this. This thought is for me.” Now, utilize the same processes of the mind in changing original thoughts by thinking other thoughts about them by saying “no” to the decision/thought you don’t want and “yes” to the decision or thought you do want.

How many times do I need to do this? Good question. The brain learns through repetition. Remember how you learned to ride a bicycle or to drive a car?  You rehearsed until the knowledge dropped into your unconscious and it became habitual. Do the same thing with saying “no” to what you don’t want and “yes” to what you do want. Every time the decision/thought pops up you don’t want, say “no” to it and then immediately say, “yes” to the one you do want.  By doing this you are “breaking” the old unwanted habitual pattern and installing a new direction for your mind to go towards¾ a direction that will best serve you. After all, they are just thoughts so think thoughts that serve you.

6. The awesome power of knowing the difference between associating and dissociating. Before I explain this difference, consider this simple exercise.  Imagine yourself walking up to your refrigerator. You open the refrigerator door. Once inside the refrigerator you open the vegetable drawer. Inside the vegetable drawer you see a lemon. You take out the lemon, close the vegetable drawer and then the refrigerator door. Lemon in hand, you walk over to your kitchen cabinet; take out a cutting board and a knife. You proceed to slice the lemon in half then you take one of the halves and slice the half in half and you have two-quarter slices of lemon. You then pick up one of the quarter slices of lemon and put it in your mouth and squeeze the lemon as you feel the lemon juice pouring into your mouth. Is your mouth watering “as if” you actually had a slice of lemon in your mouth?  Most people’s mouth will water.  This little exercise illustrates that the brain doesn’t know the difference between what you imagine and what you are actually experiencing in the present.

Similarly, suppose we consciously or unconsciously imagine ourselves as a little boy or little girl back in our dysfunctional family. Suppose we recall hearing and seeing a parent screaming at us. We hear them telling us how stupid they believe we are. How do you think you would feel even though you are now a grown adult and not a child?  You would feel bad, wouldn’t you? That is what I mean by associating.  Almost universally, I discover clients are having problems in adulthood due to their imagining themselves still children. They continue using their childhood experiences as their present frame of reference.

We call this “associating.” You know if you are associating into a memory if when you recall it you do not see yourself in the picture.  Let’s experiment.  Recall a mildly painful memory.  Get a picture of it.  Now, in the picture note whether or not you see yourself or you just see the other people and environment in that picture.  If you do not see yourself, mentally, you have associated back into that memory and you will tend to experience the same negative feelings you had when you experienced it.

Now, because the brain does not know the difference between what you represent by imagination or by current input (unless you inform it), when you mentally place yourself back into some painful memory, you will have negative feelings very similar to what you experienced during that event.  If you see yourself in that picture as the younger you, we call that dissociating. When people say something like, “That doesn’t bother me anymore; I have distanced myself from it.” They have in fact dissociated from the memory by seeing themselves in the picture and by pushing the picture away from their eyes so it is at a distance. This diminishes the feelings whereas associating into a memory tends to increase the feelings (for most people).

When we consciously or unconsciously associate back into our past hurtful memories and operate from the mental frames (conceptual meanings) that we gave them, we are confusing the map with the territory. When we do this we are living our adult lives inside the painful experiences of childhood.  The thinking we developed then served us then but it doesn’t serve us in adulthood. If you find yourself:

• (Jumping to Conclusions) generalization
• (Being Narrow Minded) centration
• (Playing the “blame game”) transductive reasoning
• (Personalizing) egocentrism
• (Making mountains out of molehills.) inductive logic or castraphizing
• (Black and white thinking) thinking in absolutes and
• (Blocking out past positive examples.) irreversability

…then you are operating from childhood frames. John Burton, Ed.D. has an article on the Neuro-Semantics’ web site that defines the thinking styles of children. The title of the article is “Hypnotic Language: Solutions in a Word.”

If I were to list one common element of the problems that I have confronted during these thirteen years as a therapist, I would list associating into past painful memories.  The problem of unconsciously associating into childhood problem states and bringing that forward into the adult world lies at the root of many problems that I see therapeutically.

Note:  You may have tried through years of reading and/ or attending trainings to “fix” your thinking without it working.  Experience has taught me that often times a person will need assistance in activating these associated frames in order to bring them to conscious level. From there it becomes fairly easy to meta-state (apply a resource state to the problem state) and reframe them. But know this, you can change your thinking no matter how unconscious the problem state.  If you do not know whether or not you are associating into some past memory, you can bet you are doing just that unconsciously if you are having problems with unwanted behaviors and thoughts.

Exercise: For many people to dissociate (pop out of that memory and see themselves in the event) can make a profound change. So, recall the event that triggered your problem state. Recall the event by getting a picture of it. Now, as you look at the picture, do you see yourself in the picture or do you just see the other person(s) and the surrounding people if others were there take note of the physical place where you were at that time.

If you do not see yourself that means that you are recalling the painful memory associated. This means that your brain is telling your body that you are still there experiencing that painful experience now in the present. So, pop out of that painful memory and see yourself in the memory.

you pop out and see yourself there, note that you are viewing it from another perspective. You are viewing it from the “now” which means that you can bring the resources of your present life with all the subsequent learnings to bear on that event. And, by bringing the resources of the present to bear on that event you can place new and more useful meanings to it. And, as you have now popped out of that experience you can just notice how that picture just moves further and further away as you distance yourself from it. And, as you do that you can preserve and keep all the learnings both good and bad from that experience. And, once you have preserved those learnings you no longer need to hold on to that old pain, do you?

If by chance you were not associated into that old memory, you can still bring the learnings and resources you now have onto that old memory. All the while distancing yourself from it.

7. People who change know how to apply higher meta-level states to lower level problems. As we have learned, our brains do not stop at just one thought. It will keep on thinking thoughts about thoughts.

When we have a “thought about a thought” the second thought will change the first thought and that is where the magic lies. In thinking and behaving the ability of the brain to have thoughts about thoughts is crucial.  Here is the secret. When you have one thought (thoughts are composed of images and conceptual meanings) and then entertain another thought “about” the original thought the original thought will change (See Figure 4).

Figure 4

What in the world does that mean?  It is simple.  If you have an experience that scares you and from that experience you become afraid of your fear, what will happen? In this case the fear will intensify. Indeed, applying fear to fear leads to paranoia.   What if instead of becoming fearful of your fear, you welcomed your fear?  You applied the thought that this fear has value to me and I will welcome it?  What will happen to the fear? It will modulate the fear where you can step outside of it and learn from it. Then, once you learn what you need to learn from the fear, you apply the thought of faith/ courage to your fear, what would happen?  What happens to fear when faith and courage are applied to it?  Fear disappears in the face of strong faith and courage (See Figure 5).

Figure 5

Play with your brain. Get a thought of anger. Now, apply to your anger the thought of forgiveness.  Take the same anger and apply the thought of love.  What about taking your anger and applying the thought of calmness to it, what happens?  Would you have ever guessed how easy you could change your states of mind by applying one thought to another thought?

Every time we take a thought and apply another thought to it, the original thought will modulate or change in some way.  We call this Meta-Stating¾ applying one thought to another thought. And, herein lies the magic.  Herein lies your ability to re-format and re-program your thinking.  Those whom I have seen who have changed their thinking, inevitably have meta-stated their problem state with higher-level resource states.  Instead of meta-stating themselves sick, they learned to meta-state themselves well. They left re-building a new set of higher-level mental frames that served them.

Exercise: So, how does one bring to bear or apply a resource state to a problem state?  Follow these three simple steps:

1.  Get the problem thought in your mind that you would like to change. Note the movie of the problem and the meanings (thought-feelings) that you have given this problem.

2.  Now, access a resource state – a thought-feeling that once you apply to the problem state will change and maybe even eliminate it. In our example above we applied faith and courage to fear. What thought-feeling state of mind can you access now that once it is applied to the problem state, will positively change and maybe even eliminate the problem thought-state?

3.  Step into the resource state (#2). Be totally in it experiencing it. Then, apply the resource state to the problem state.

How to do it –

What happens when you bring the resource state to bear or apply it to the problem state?  Having trouble?  If so, think of your problem state. Hold it in mind. Now, put that thought aside. Access a resource state and step into it and experiencing it by having the movie of it and the word meanings activated. Once you do that, apply the resource state to the problem state.

Some people apply one thought to another with just the words. They just apply the resource thought to the problem thought with their “sense” of both as they process primarily with just language. Some take a visual image of both and do it visually by moving the resource image of resource state to the image of the problem state. Others do it with feelings as they move the resource state from where it is located in their body to the location of the problem state wherever it is in their body. All these work great and will be dependent upon how the person primarily operates: with pictures, with sounds, with feelings or with the language of words.

When I apply “faith” to “fear” I have a picture of the word “fear,” and from there I access “faith” by getting a picture of the word “faith” and above the word “faith” I have a picture of Jesus. I am a Christian and that picture of Him represents a powerful state for me. So, Jesus empowers the word “faith” and as I visually move the word “faith” on top of the word “fear” the word “fear” shatters into many pieces and disappears. Fear cannot operate in the presence of an empowered faith for me because my belief system will not let it. So, Jesus empowers faith and when I apply that to “fear,” fear disappears.

Note: In NLP we do not judge people’s resources, we use them. You access your own resources for we believe that they are adequate for your own healing.

Others do it kinesthetically as they will move the feeling of resource state into the location of the problem state. For example, when courage and fear are applied to fear you will end up with “courageous” fear or “faithful” fear.  How does that change the fear?  (See Figure 5).

8.  People Who Change Know How to Take On Different Perspectives to the Problem. By being able to take on different perspective, they have much more flexibility in dealing with the painful experience. The more flexible is the person, the more resourceful is that person. The realization that we humans operate from five basic ways of looking at experience offers tremendous potential in state control and in the enhancing of our communication. NLP first offered three positions. We have expanded them to five positions. We refer to these ways as being the first, second, third, fourth and fifth perceptual positions and explain them in The User’s Manual for the Brain.

First Position

When you associate into your own body, you live in first position. This permits you to look at the world from your own viewpoint. In the first position, you do not take into account anyone else’s position. You simply think, “How does this conversation or communication affect me?”

First position is the normal and healthy position of seeing, hearing, and feeling from out of self. It is the position needed in order to speak with authenticity, to present yourself, your thoughts, feelings, and responses congruently, to disclose, listen, inquire, and be present with another. When you visually recall a memory and do not see yourself in the picture, you are associated into that memory – you are “inside” that memory looking through your eyes, hearing the sounds and feeling the feelings as if there.

Second Position

When you are in second position, you are “walking in the other person’s shoes.” You take into consideration how a communication or event would look, feel and sound from another person’s point of view. In the second position, you imagine yourself entering the other person’s body. In this position you imagine looking at yourself through their eyes. Second position is to understand, feel with, experience empathy for and see things from another’s point of view. Here you’ll feel in accord with the other and have a strong sense of his or her perceptive.

What do you look like, sound like and what feelings do you get from the other person’s viewpoint of you? In the second position you develop the ability in experiencing empathy. This position gives much flexibility when involved in conflict with someone. From the second position you can appreciate how they feel about your conversation and behavior. Build rapport before going second position. And, by going second position, notice how the rapport deepens. Second position offers an extremely valuable model in deepening rapport.

Third Position

When you distance yourself from an event, you more than likely do it by going to the third position. Third position offers a way of dissociating from the entire event or conversation. In the third position you become an independent observer. Third position allows us to operate from the position of objectivity. Ask yourself, “How would this conversation or event look to someone totally uninvolved?” Imagine yourself being out of your body and off to the side of the conversation between you and the other person. You can see both yourself and the other person. The third position allows you to step back, to gain a sense of distance, to observe, to witness, to feel neutral and to appreciate both positions fully. You know you are in third position when you recall a memory and see yourself in the memory. If you see yourself in the memory, you are “outside” yourself and this allows you to give yourself distance from that memory if you so choose. Whereas first position intensifies the feelings (for most people), third positions diminishes the feelings as you can distance yourself from the memory.

Fourth Position

Robert Dilts (1990) specified the Fourth Perceptual Position in his book Changing Belief Systems with NLP. He defined the Fourth Position as “We” – from the perspective of the system. Many refer to it as the “Systems” Position. In this position, we have “associated in the perspective of the whole system.” To take fourth position, step aside and adopt the perspective of the whole system so that you can there consider what would contribute to the best interest of the system. In the fourth position, everyone in the system is taken account of. A question to ask is, “What are my place, responsibility and position in this system? A linguistic format for this position goes: “If we consider our common goals…” The fourth position (Systems Position) allows us to understand the contexts (cultural, linguistic, business, family, etc.) that influence all of the larger systems and contexts of our world.

In using this for myself, I have modified it somewhat.  Dilt’s model calls for associating into the system. I first associate into the system and then go to the third position to view objectively my position in relation to others in the team.  Then I go second position to each person in the team and then back to the associated systems position. I rotate back and forth through these positions as I deem necessary. I have found this most useful as have other clients that I have coached.

Fifth Position

Marilyn Atkinson (1997) in an unpublished manuscript entitled “Five Central Ideas” suggests another perceptual position – “a universal perceptual position.” This results from applying the generalizations like all, always, everyone, etc to our perspective. Doing so “springboards us to the valuable idea of a universal perceptual position..” This provides the widest and largest level perspective of all.

Figure 6:  Perceptual Positions

By taking this meta-position to everything, we can then learn to take on multiple perceptual positions and even change rapidly between them. Doing so increases our flexibility of consciousness so that we don’t get stuck in any one position.

I love the fifth position for therapeutic purposes.  For people who hold spiritual beliefs, their fifth position is ultimately in their spiritual place. As a Christian, when I go to fifth position, I view myself as being with Jesus. I am way “up there” with Him looking down on myself way down here.  If you hold spiritual beliefs, imagine yourself leaving your body and going up and being with God. Once you get up there and see yourself down here, how does that affect your speech?  Going “up there” is most relaxing and calming to many people.

None of these positions offer a superior position to the other. Each position has equal importance. The wise communicator knows how to move at will from one position to the other.

Getting “Stuck” in one Perceptual Position

Just think what would happen if you got stuck in either position – it does matter where you live. A person stuck in first position would find himself or herself an egotist. Do you know anyone who lives in first position? A person stuck in second position would live constantly over-influenced by other people’s views. In my NLP classes, after I explain the second position, and how those who live in second position tend to let the state of others determine their state, I say, “Second position functions as the position of co-dependency.” Just about every time I do this, sighs come from students as they realize what and how they have caused themselves to allow others to control their states.

A person stuck in third position would become detached and unfeeling. Others perceive these people as “cold hearted.” Indeed, I have found that those who live in third position find themselves as the loners of the world. Many, but not all, also will have the characteristics of the person who lives in a world of words. These people provide society its thinkers and philosophers. Living life detached permits a person to analyze objectively.

Everyone moves from one position to the other. For most, moving from one position to another flows with everyday life. The ability to move from one to the other, either consciously or unconsciously, permits one to act with wisdom and respond appropriately. By moving among the three perceptual positions, you will add richness and choice to your conversations.

Exercise: Exercise: Perceptual Positions

1) Recall the problem state and be in it for just a moment. We will soon “leave” there.

2)  First Position – Associate into your body (first position) by seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard, and feeling what you felt. Do you still feel the same negative emotions you felt then?  You probably will. Be there in that painful memory (associated) if you have memory of it.

3)  Second Position – Now, imagine yourself floating out of your body and floating into the person associated with that painful memory. You may need to do this with more than one person if there were more than one involved in the painful experience. Look through their eyes at yourself. Notice how you looked during that event. How do you appear to the other person?

How do you feel as you look at yourself from their perspective?  Would that person want you to hold on to those negative emotions? What would that person say to you now about the event? You are now walking in the other person’s shoes.

4)  Third Position – Now, imagine yourself dissociated from the total event. Move yourself off to the side where you can see both yourself and the person(s) in that painful experience. How do you view the situation from this dissociated position? As you look at both yourself and the other person, did you really have a justifiable reason to be in such a problem state?  Was your tension justifiable?  Was the person really a threat to you? Or, did you just imagine that the person was a threat?

5)  Fourth Position – If the content of problem involved other people, view the experience from the perspective of your position within the context of the total team, family, etc.  What do you learn from the systems position (Systems Position)? How would other team members, family members, etc. want you to view that experience now?  What would each of them say to you?  What can you learn from each of them?  How can you best serve the team, family, etc. now from what you have learned from this experience?

6)  Fifth Position – Now move to the fifth position way out in the universe, all the way out with God if you have that belief. Go way out in the universe (with God) viewing the experience of your problem from this position, how does the situation change from that position? How do you feel? Do you feel more relaxed and calm being way out there?

If you believe in God or some Universal Being, how do you feel being in the presence of God?  What happens to the tension, fear, anxiety, etc associated with the problem state being in the presence of deity?

Note: Many who have overcome their problems have found the 5thth Position most people are very relaxed and calm which provides the proper state for resolving their problems. Since learning that state of mind, I have found it most useful not only in solving my personal problems but in decision making as well. To my knowledge, I have never made a bad decision when I leave my body with its problem state (dissociate – 2nd Position) and go out and be with Jesus and from there look back and see myself from His perspective (5th Position).  This position will serve you well. Why?   When you are inside (associated) into your higher values, beliefs, etc. represented by your 5th position, you make great choices and  you will find it easy to let go of hurt, anger, guilt, bitterness, etc.Position extremely helpful. They learn how to go there at will through consistent practice. In the 5

I encourage the reader to “process” the materials found in this article. Access some personal problem and take that problem through all eight of the steps explained in this article.  You may experience utter amazement at how that “problem” becomes a lesser problem.

References:

Atkinson, Marilyn. (1997). “The grammar of God.” Vancouver, BC: Unpublished Manuscript.

Bateson, Gregory. Steps to An Ecology of Mind. (1972). New York: Ballantine.

Bodenhamer, Bobby G., and Hall, L. Michael. (1999). The User’s Manual for the Brain: The Complete Manual for Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner Certification. Wales, UK: Crown House Publishing.

Burton, John, Ed.D. and Bodenhamer, Bobby G., D. Min. (2000) Hypnotic Language: Its Structure and Use. Wales, UK: Crown House Publishing.

Dilts, Robert. (1990). Changing Belief Systems with NLP. Cupertino, CA: Meta-Publications.

Hall, L. Michael. Secrets of Personal Mastery: Advanced Techniques for Accessing Your Higher Levels of Consciousness. (2000). Wales, UK: Crown House Publishing.

Korzybski, Alfred. Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics (1933/1994).  (5th. Ed.), Lakeville, CN: International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Co.

Note: Permission to Reprint – Permission is granted to reprint and distribute this article as long as it is distributed in total including the information about the author.

Author

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
The Institute of Neuro-Semantics
1516 Cecelia Dr
Gastonia, NC  28054
Phone 704-864-3585
Fax 704-864-1545

bobbybodenhamer@yahoo.com
https://legacy.neurosemantics.com

Dr. Bodenhamer first trained for the ministry, earned a doctorate in Ministry, and served five churches as pastor. He is presently serving as pastor of a small church in Gastonia, NC. He began NLP training in 1989, studying with Dr. Gene Rooney of L.E.A.D’s. Consultants for his Practitioner training and Dr. Tad James for His Master Practitioner Certification and with Tad and Dr. Wyatt Woodsmall for his Trainer’s Certification. Since then, he has taught and certified NLP trainings at Gaston College, Dallas, NC.  He has also taught internationally.

Beginning in 1996, Dr. Bodenhamer began studying the Meta-States model and then teamed up with Michael to begin co-authoring several books. Since that he, he has turned out many works as he and Michael have applied the NLP and Meta-States Models to various facets of human experience.

In 1996 also, Dr. Bodenhamer with Michael co-founded the Society of Neuro-Semantics. This has taken his work to a new level, taken him into International Trainings, and set in motion many Institutes of Neuro-Semantics around the world.

Not Quite Everything About Everything
You Want to Know About the New Field of — Neuro-Semantics®

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

We first introduced the new cutting-edge field of Neuro-Semantics in our book Mind-Lines: Lines that Change Minds (1997). Since then we have also published other works in this field of Neuro-Semantics. These include Figuring Out People: Design Engineering Using Meta-Programs (1998), Time-Lining: Patterns for Adventuring in Time (1998), and The Secrets of Magic (1998).

In 1999 we first brought out pieces to highlight and distinguish Neuro-Semantics from NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and GS (General Semantics). The most radical and revolutionary of is the work regarding the so-called “submodality” model.

Since we have had many questions about this new field, this paper will utilize the following questions that we most frequently hear people ask to navigate our way through the process of setting off the distinctive features of Neuro-Semantics. I have written this with the invaluable help of my colleague, Bob Bodenhamer.

• What is Neuro-Semantics & where did it come from?

• How does Neuro-Semantics differ from Neuro-Linguistic Programming?

• How does Neuro-Semantics differ from General Semantics?

• What uniquely distinguishes this new field?

• What central principles govern this domain?

• What is The Institute of Neuro-Semantics®?

• Who are the principal players in the Institutes of Neuro-Semantics?

• What is their agenda, motivation, and intentions?

What is Neuro-Semantics & Where did it Come From?

Neuro-Semantics began in 1997 as the brain-child of Michael Hall and Bobby Bodenhamer as we engaged in various conversations about Meta-States, NLP, and General Semantics. Out of those conversations we wrote several articles regarding the current state of affairs in NLP. The first one we entitled, “The Downside of NLP.” This article, as well as some follow up articles about the state of disarray, bad P.R., the Bandler lawsuit, the over-emphasis and vague emphasis on “installing learnings unconsciously,” etc. were published in Anchor Point. Nelson Penaylillo (NLP Trainer in Australia), Peter Kean (NLP Trainer, Washington DC),  and Robert Olic (NLP Trainer, Philadelphia, PA) were the first to thereafter joined in the conversation.

In extending, expanding, and enriching both NLP and GS, we (Hall and Bodenhamer) first sought simply to unite and synthesize the best pieces from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and General Semantics. Our passion was to get more credibility and validity for the field that seemed so disorganized and torn by competition in the USA. Simultaneously, we were developing numerous new patterns using the Meta-States Model. This was beginning to revolutionize things and it was Dr. Bodenhamer who first saw this vision in the Meta-States model. Consequently we choose the term Neuro-Semantics to designate the new enriched field.

Now the term Neuro-Semantics goes back to Alfred Korzybski. The father of General Semantics introduced both phrases, “neuro-linguistic” and “neuro-semantic,” in 1936 in some of his papers. Later, they showed up in his 1941 Preface to his classic work, Science and Sanity. In Korzybski’s writings, you will find both terms used pretty much synonymously. Here, however, following the Meta-States Model®, we have arbitrary chosen to use Neuro-Linguistics to refer to the Modeling, Methodology, and Technology that has grown out of the field of NLP and Neuro-Semantics to refer to the newer and more extensive Modeling, Patterning, Methodology, and Technology that has resulted from the Meta-States Model. In the next section you will find a fuller discrimination between NLP and Neuro-Semantics.

How does Neuro-Semantics differ from Neuro-Linguistic Programming?

NLP emerged as a happen-chance from a modeling project of Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir. This happened as the young college student, Richard Bandler, discovered his genius of imitation of their language patterns. Linguistics Professor, John Grinder, began working with Richard to model the structure of the therapeutic wizards. This brought them into relationship with Dr. Robert Spitzer, who became their first publisher (Science and Behavior Books). And that, in turn, led to their association with the genius of Gregory Bateson (anthropologist, linguist, cybernetician) when Spitzer moved them onto his property. They became neighbors of Bateson. And that connection, in turn, then led them to Milton Erickson and hypnosis.

Using the new formulations of the then-emerging Cognitive Psychology Models, Bandler and Grinder tapped into the elegance of the TOTE Model of Miller, Galanter, and Pribram. This gave them a linear way to track the processes within “the black box” that Behaviorism had always avoided. Out of this came the NLP Strategy Model— a Model for Modeling Excellence. This model primarily operates like a flow chart of consciousness, tracking “mind” linearly. In Neuro-Semantics, we add the vertical dimension and so tease out the hidden meta-levels within the structure of subjectivity.

In the beginning, NLP sought to avoid all theory, explanatory models, and “the why” question by presenting itself as strictly focused on how do you do that? Accordingly, NLP arose first and foremost as a Communication Model. It explored how the body (Neuro, e.g. the nervous system, physiology, neurology, etc.) gets Programmed by the use of various Languages (linguistics).

By way of contrast, Neuro-Semantics goes beyond the linear “flow chart” analysis of the Structure of Subjective Experience by focusing more fully on the Meta-Levels that support and drive the movement of consciousness along its TOTEs. By tracking the vertical dimensions of human processing, it moves into higher level Meanings much more fully. Accordingly, it tracks and models the neuro-semantic structures of meanings at higher (and typically, unconscious) levels.

Both Neuro-Semantics and NLP operate as interdisciplinary approaches, utilizing models from many psychologies. This includes cybernetics, computer science, neuro-biology, family systems, anthropology, etc.

Neuro-Semantics highlights much more fully and extensively the existence of multiple meta-levels and logical levels than does NLP. Korzybski (1933/1994) labeled the higher level abstractions as “second order” and “third order” abstractions. He suggested that much study and exploration needs to be done in this area of reflexivity about how we evaluate and then evaluate our evaluations and by that create higher levels of “mind.”

Bateson (1972) picked up on this in how he used meta-levels and logical types in his theories of schizophrenia, play, humor, aesthetics, etc. He and the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto laid so much of the foundation for NLP (especially in the 1974 book, Change by Watzlawick, Weakland, & Fisch).

NLP, as a meta-discipline itself, certainly has meta-levels (the Meta-Model, Meta-Programs). And co-developer, Robert Dilts has contributed numerous meta-level models. But nowhere in NLP had a fully descriptive and comprehensive model about Meta-Levels emerged until the development of the Meta-States® Model (Hall 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998). This was recognized by the International NLP Trainer’s Association in 1995 in their award for Meta-States as “the most significant contribution to NLP in 1994—1995.”

In many ways, the Meta-States Model has turned NLP upside down. And it has done so in such a simple way. By merely changing the operational metaphor of “depth” inherited from Transformational Grammar, and adopting the “height” metaphor, Meta-States reformulated NLP. Dr. Graham Dawes noted this in his early reviews of Meta-States and Dragon Slaying commenting that Meta-States will be the model that “ate NLP.” Others have commented that Meta-States outframes NLP as it sets up higher frames for the processes of NLP. If this sounds like we think Neuro-Semantics will replace NLP, we would like to add that we see it in a different function, namely, as extending, continuing, and evolving the development that began with Korzybski, Bateson, Bandler, Grinder, Dilts, etc.

In the Meta-States Model, the nature of self-reflexivity has finally been given its full due. In this way, the model provides a way to track thoughts-about-thoughts, feelings-about-feelings, as our inevitable and inescapable meta-thinking, meta-feeling, and meta-responding generates layers upon layers of cognition. This flexible model provides a way to identify the ever-changing hierarchy of human consciousness, without becoming a rigid way. The levels themselves shift and change. And true enough, while this makes for seeming complexity in human “mind” and experience, the ordering of the Meta-Level Principles formats and structures that complexity. This means that the plastic and flexible nature of meta-levels whereby any thought can reflect back onto itself or onto another thought at any level does not have to create confusion or chaos. We can track it. We can model it as a system.

While the recursive nature of thought-feeling does create complexity, it does not create chaos. Systemic complexity contains structure. So even though it may at first appear as the complexity of chaos, with a meta-level model like Meta-States we can easily discover an ordering at a higher level. And as this distinguishes different levels of “thought”— this provides a new and profound understanding in NLP. We have designated this as the beginning of Neuro-Semantics. This Meta-Level Model thus provides a way of distinguishing such mental phenomena as:

• Beliefs — Validated Thoughts-about-Thoughts

• Values — Valued Thoughts-about-Thoughts

• Understandings— Extensive systems of Thoughts-about-Thoughts

• Decisions — Choiced Thoughts-about-Thoughts

• Identity — Beliefs about Thoughts-about-“Self” Concepts

• Concepts — Extensive (simple or complex) Understandings about Domains of Understandings

• Categories — conceptual sorting of Concepts

• Reasons —higher level structures used as explanatory constructs

• Etc.

As an aside, I should here mention the extreme limitation of the term “thought.” By itself, the term reflects a very limited, Aristotelian, and primitive term—an Elementalism. Using the principles of General Semantics, we know that “thought” includes “emotion,” hence the awkward yet more sane mapping of “thought-feeling.” So to use “thought” sanely we have to do so from a non-elementalistic perspective. For people in NLP, this provides a new piece straight from GS that was not in the original Meta-Model. You will find it in the expanded Meta-Model in The Secrets of Magic.

With the systemic nature of self-reflexive thought-feeling looping recursively back onto itself creating layers of consciousness and the higher level structures (the “mental” phenomena), we have states-about-states or Meta-States. This sets up systemic processing. It generates logical levels in our “thinking-emoting.” It sets up attractors in a self-organizing system. And these run by certain higher level principles— all articulated as the Meta-Stating Principles.

Now we can begin to sort out different kinds of meanings. We can sort out linkage “meaning,” previously known as Pavlovian conditioning or Associative Meanings. It goes further. It introduces Contextual Meanings— the meanings that arise from higher mental contexts. These higher level abstractions of “meanings” into which we categorize and attribute significance to things thereby generates our Semantic or Conceptual States. And with this, we introduce yet another new distinction in NLP.

I trust that by now you can recognize that in these ways, Neuro-Semantics incorporates higher level “meanings” into the structure of subjectivity. Our “states” involve the primary level neuro-linguistic thoughts-and-feelings in response to something out there in the world. That defines a Primary State. A Meta-State involves more. It involves our thoughts-feeling about our thoughts, emotions, states, memories, imaginations, concepts, etc. It involves our meta-responses to previous responses.

There is a lot more to Neuro-Semantics than this (and more being developed every week), but this does begin to offer a set of distinctions. In summary, notice the following chart.

How does Neuro-Semantics differ from General Semantics?

General Semantics began with Alfred Korzybski (1933) and continues today as a viable discipline and field in its own right. As an engineer, Korzybski sought to redesign the old Aristotelian language as our primary way of mapping the territory. He wanted to do this to increase our ability at effective adjustment to increase humanity’s sanity. The old mapping involved several unsane factors: identification, elementalism, confusion of levels, etc.

NLP brought over many of the features of General Semantics into its Meta-Model of language. More recently, we have identified many of the Korzybskian linguistic distinctions not brought over and have added them to the Meta-Model (Hall, Secrets of Magic, 1998).

Neuro-Semantics differs from General Semantics by its NLP emphasis on modeling excellence and designing patterns, technologies, and new methodologies for human design engineering (a phrase, by the way, originated by Korzybski, 1921). In Neuro-Semantics we have begun to create a Merging of the Models (NLP and GS). What we began in November 1998 in London as a three-day training program under the title, The Merging of the Models, will eventually result in a second modeling — or Engineering Training using other as-of-yet unmined treasures of Korzybski.

What Uniquely Distinguishes this new field?

Neuro-Semantics stands out as both “enriched” NLP and “enriched” General Semantics. Returning to the sources of NLP, General Semantics, Bateson’s works in anthropology, schizophrenia, Levels of Learning, and cybernetics, MRI Institute, Cognitive Psychology (Miller, Galanter, Pribram), etc., we have sought to establish Neuro-Semantics on solid, scientific, and highly researched studies.

NLP, for a variety of reasons, has seemed to have received lots of negative and harmful Public Relations and General Semantics has seemed to locate itself in a small and isolated community. For these (and other reasons), we have sought to step aside just enough from NLP and GS so that we can both continue the adventure of modeling and engineering human excellence but not tied down to the limitations of the two source disciplines.

I should mention here that we in the Institute of Neuro-Semantics are not the only ones who have been moving in this direction. Canadian Dennis Chong, M.D. and Roye Fraser of Blue Dell Systems, both NLP trainers, have in recent years written about Neuro-Semantic Programming (NSP). As noted on our web site (www.neurosemantics.com), Dr. Chong has written several books mentioned NSP, Don’t Ask Why, Language Elegance, and Knife Without Pain. While we have some differences with these gentlemen, the basic thrust and emphasis corresponds to an amazing degree.

Neuro-Semantics has also found new life and excitement in Chaos theory, Self-Organization Theory, the newer developments in Cognitive Psychology, Performance Coaching, Brief Psychotherapy, REBT, Glasser’s Reality Therapy/ Control Theory, and many other fields.

What Central Principles govern this domain?

First and foremost of the principles that govern Neuro-Semantics is the Bateson principle that “The higher levels govern (modulate, drive, organize) the lower levels.” Meta-levels serve as the frame-of-reference for the activity (thinking, feeling, responding) that occurs at the levels lower to the frame. The meta-level thus operates as an attractor in a self-organizing system. From this we have identified numerous other principles.

Someone (or something) will always set the frame of reference. The question becomes, “Who set the frame?” Count on your Meta-State becoming your unconscious frames— your “way of being in the world,” your attitude.

Whoever sets the frame will govern the experience (run the game!). Since higher frames govern—and since somebody also sets it, the person who sets the frame thereby takes charge of the subsequent experiences. The resulting thoughts, ideas, concepts, beliefs, emotions, behaviors, language, problems, solutions, and experiences derive their existence from the frame. Frames govern.

The whole determines the parts and from the parts, the whole emerges. This speaks about the systemic nature of the mind-body system. It speaks about the gestalt nature of our neuro-linguistics processes. The system that emerges from the meta-levels that govern the lower levels brings about an overall gestalt (or configuration of interactive parts) which in turn, define the character of the whole.

In outframing, we set up a higher level frame-of-reference that will take over. The power to identify a frame enables us to step aside from a frame and to set a whole new frame. Doing this transforms everything. It performs meta-level “magic” in that it installs a new self-organizing attractor at the top of the semantic system.

What we call “experience” differs radically and significantly at each level. Korzbyski described these in his “levels of abstraction” model regarding how the nervous system abstracts at different levels. We can use the same word/s at the different levels as multiordinal terms —terms that have no specific meaning until we specify at which level we refer.

Reflexivity endows consciousness with systemic processes and characteristics. Reflexivity describes the mechanism that drives these levels of abstraction and these meta-level experience. This refers to the fact that our consciousness can reflect back onto itself or its products (thoughts, emotions, beliefs, values, decisions, specific concepts, etc.). As it does, it sets up feed-back and feed-forward processes and thereby creates a circular system.

Meta-level disorientation and conflict can create living hells. Generally speaking (numerous exceptions do exist), whenever we bring negative thoughts-and-feelings (states) against ourselves or any facet of ourselves, we put ourselves at odds with ourselves. And when our self-relationships (relation to ourselves) become disturbed, we begin to loop around in vicious downward self-reinforcing cycles. And when self-disturbed (self-condemning, self-contempting, self-repressing, self-hating, etc.), this then creates a disturbance for all of our relationships with others. This creates neurosis, psychosis, personality disorders, character disorders, etc.

Paradox frequently governs meta-level solutions for health, integration, balance, and empowerment. The only way to rid ourselves of unwanted thoughts, emotions, behaviors, habits, etc. involves, paradoxically, welcoming, accepting, appreciating, and celebrating that very thought, emotion, behavior, etc. By welcoming it into consciousness we can take counsel of it, reality check it, learn from it, etc. To not reckon with it leads to unuseful suppression, repression, self-rejection, etc.

Setting a frame necessitates neuro-linguistic energy & repetition. How do we actually set a frame or establish a meta-level State? Merely “thinking” or even “feeling” will not do it. We can think, know, feel, and have awarenesses that do not establish a higher level frame-of-reference. Here we need to utilize the natural processes of how our brains operate—we need to use drama, energy, repetition, etc.

Altering higher level frames alters Identity and Destiny. You can’t change what you do (so that it lasts in a pervasive and generative way), without also changing who you are. Does your higher frame of self-definition support the change? Your behavior is like a printout of your Operating Programs.

What are some of the New Techniques & Patterns that have already emerged from Neuro-Semantics?

At this point in time we have not made a full account of the scores of pattens and technologies that have arisen. Every month in Meta-States Journal we have published at least one new or adapted pattern. There you will find more than twenty fully described patterns. (We also have most of those in outline form in Secrets of Meta-States, the Training Manual). You can locate 16 new Time-Lining Patterns in the book by that title, and technologies in the remaking of Meta-Programs (Figuring Out People).

• Conceptual Positions (the Perceptual Positions reformatted as a Logical Level System and incorporating Semantics.

• Meta-Yesing: A Ten-Minute Belief Change Pattern.

• Inserting Resources Pattern

• Meta-Detailing: The heart of Genius (see Meta-Stating Genius)

• Modeling with Meta-Levels (see NLP: Going Meta)

What is The Institute of Neuro-Semantics®?
Who are the Principal Players in the Institutes of Neuro-Semantics?

It began when Michael Hall and Bob Bodenhamer filled for trademarks for Neuro-Semantics and Meta-States in 1997. The Registration of the Trademarks were finally obtained in 1998 (Registration numbers: 2,210,336 and 2,199,913). During this time, Dr. Bodenhamer established The First Institute of Neuro-Semantics in Gastonia NC. Later, Robert Olic (Olic Performance Seminars) began sponsoring Neuro-Semantic Trainings by Michael Hall on the east coast.

Since that time, The Institute of Neuro-Semantics has established two Web Sites, and has begun to align with other promoters and trainers (Cynthia Tuma, Houston, Evergreen Educational; Ginia Polygos, Logos Development Group, Charlotte, NC; Dr. Philip Nolan and Denis Bridoux, Post Graduate Professional Training in the UK).

We established Meta-States Journal in 1997 as a monthly publication for Neuro-Semantics. It promotes and markets much of the current research and discoveries, training schedules, responses from around the world, and much more.

E.T. Publications has become one of the facets of Neuro-Semantics as we have continue to seek to publish and promote products.

We have also created a Web Site at https://legacy.neurosemantics.com. Dr. Bodenhamer constantly updates this site monthly with articles and techniques from several authors. He does this to offer the new developments in Neuro-Semantics and to create a forum for feedback.

What is the Agenda, Motivation, and Intentions of those Associated with Neuro-Semantics?

The purpose (agenda and motivation) of The Institute of Neuro-Semantics is to continue the exciting research and modeling into the adventure of human design engineering using the tools of General Semantics, NLP, and Meta-States.

The design of this? To Engineer Human Excellence by modeling the best, by identifying the structure of Excellence, and by designing afresh new forms of human excellence in all fields.

And the meta-outcome of that? To enable people to find, discover, and actualize their best — to consciously enter into more experiences of Flow (Czikszentmihalyi), Positive Addiction (Glasser), Genius (Bandler, Grinder, Dilts, etc.), to empower people to run their own brains and to manage their meta-minds, and to achieve high performance whether it be in career, relationships, personal development, spirituality, health, or whatever.

Historical Development of the Meta-States Model
(Compiled by Denis Bridoux, NLP Trainer with Post-Graduate Professional Education, Harragate, England)

1933: Alfred Korzybski coined the phrase neuro-linguistic training, postulated his theory of the levels of abstraction, constructed his theory of second-order abstractions, third-order, etc. in his classic word Science and Sanity.

1972: Gregory Bateson’s classic work Steps to an Ecology of Mind that brought together all his revolutionary studies on double-bind theory, applications of Logical Theory of Types, going meta to meta-levels, the levels of Learning Model, etc.

1975-1983: John Grinder & Richard Bandler utilizing the idea of going meta in their NLP model beginning with the Meta-model—an explicit model about how language and VAK representations work in human experience. They distinguish sensory-based level from the evaluative level, the importance of meta-parts, and the strategy model for modeling “the structure of subjective experience.”

1994: Michael Hall specifies how meta-levels of mind-body neuro-linguistic states factor into the structure of subjective experience and bring over Korzybski and Bateson ideas into the strategy model. This arose from modeling resilience and discovering that within it people have embedded numerous layers and levels of consciousness and states. Awareness by the International Trainers Association of NLP (1995) for the most significant contribution to NLP during 1994-1995.

Mission Statement

Neuro-Semantics, using the Meta-States Model, operates as an advanced development of NLP, as well a synthesis from General Semantics and NLP.  This model primarily seeks to promote the exploration and modeling of human experiences in order to present the strategy of excellence.

As a Society of Explorers, we seek to establish a positive presence of respect, cooperation, and congruence in this presentation. In the ongoing modeling of excellence, we seek to do so as a Win/Win Community based upon cooperation not competition, abundance not scarcity, respect not arrogance, and ongoing research and development, not dogmatism or lack of intellectual rigor.

THE FIRST GRADUATES OF NEURO-SEMANTICISTS

With the completion of the Meta-States and Neuro-Semantic Certification Training in Florida and the launching of the Society of Neuro-Semantics, we now have our first group of graduates—men and women thoroughly trained in the Meta-States Model —as a Model. This means that they have been completely initiated and certified as competent and skilled in the first facets that comprise any model or system:

1. THE THEORY: the theoretical background, foundation, hypothesis, etc. that offers an explanatory model for how the model or system works, the governing ideas and how to test and refine the ideas in order to create new applications.

2. THE VARIABLES AND ELEMENTS: the pieces and parts that go into making up the model—all of the necessary and sufficient elements that comprise the unique and absolutely necessary features.

3. THE GUIDING OPERATIONAL PRINCIPLES: the “laws” or principles (presuppositions) that define and articulate the mechanisms that make it work and how to use them in a methodological, systematic, and systemic way. This gives one the ability to keep refining the model.

4. THE TECHNOLOGIES: the specific tools that provide immediate application for using the Model or System to achieve something.

Bob Bodenhamer, Robert Olic, and I are happy to announce and present the 14 graduates as the first members of the Society of Neuro-Semantics. We’re delighted to hear the graduates speak about how Neuro-Semantics and Meta-States has given them even higher State Management Skills for running their own brain and developing their own personal genius than ever before. The Modeling Skills and understandings enabled every single Certificant to engage in design engineering new processes and to invent several new Meta-Stating Processes. These will be published in The Journal of the Society of Neuro-Semantics beginning in January, 2000.

We have designed the Society of Neuro-Semantics to be a community that people want to join and be a part of as we move into the new Century and Millennium with one primary objective— to model human excellence so that we can promote much greater Science and Sanity. In doing that, we want to build a community of thinkers, dreamers, researchers, practitioners, and geniuses who are—

• Congruent and who have high level Personal Integrity
• Highly Skilled and Competent in the Model as a Model
• Think and act in a Win/Win Cooperative way with others truly believing in Abundance
• Passionate about Achievements & Compassionate with Persons
• Empowered to Walk their Talk

I really appreciate and agree with the evaluation that Peter Maxwell wrote. He said that “they have achieved world-class status.” We now have two NLP Training Centers in the UK who are also Institutes of Neuro-Semantics, soon Steen Jenson will have the first in Denmark, and Sam Feterman will establish the Institute of Neuro-Semantics in Guatemala. And so the adventure has begun…

And, of course, we’d love you to come and enjoy the Exploration, the Community, and the Fun.

Additional Recommended Reading: Dimensions of Modeling: How Modeling Evolves from Strategies – Neuro-Semantics Series and “How Meta-States Enriches Logical Levels in NLP.”

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

WELCOME TO THE WILD & WONDERFUL WORLD OF META-STATES

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

• What is a meta-state?
• How do meta-states work?
• What’s the value of knowing or working with meta-states?
• How does meta-states (and the Meta-States Model) relate to NLP?

Suppose I offered you a way by which you could learn to “run your own brain” so that you could develop some high level state-management skills and live resourcefully? Would that interest you; would you like that?

In those two sentences I have just introduced both NLP and Meta-States.

In the first line I used three key phrases from NLP that highlights the value and important of our Neuro-Linguistic (or mind-body) states, namely,

• Running your own brain
• Managing your states
• Living resourcefully.

And that’s what NLP is all about. As a model of “mind,” communication, and human functioning, NLP puts in our hands a highly efficient set of tools for updating our Model of the World so that we can develop more effective maps. In this way, NLP gives us some powerful tools for navigating life as it enables us to go places and to do things that we couldn’t before.

The second sentence in the first paragraph implies and invites you into a meta-state. The question invites you into the state of interest in and liking for the NLP experience of running your own brain and taking charge of your own life. If you read and responded to that question by accessing the states of “interest” and “liking,” then you accessed a state “meta” to the first state.

What does that mean?

It means that you have moved above the first state (of running and managing your own experience) and have accessed a second state (i.e., interest in and liking). This second state occurs at a higher level. It is a state about the first state. It is a state in reference to the first state. And with that, you now know the meaning of the term “meta.”

So having just read that description, what do you think or feel about that? Do you have a clear understanding of meta-states? Or, perhaps confusion? Or maybe you are almost getting it?

Welcome, once again to meta-stating. You have just experienced it again!

“I did?”

“Sure, let me tease out the structure again.”

1) Your first state was having “read a description” and presumably having been in a state where you were attempting to understand it. State #1.

2) Then, regarding that state and whatever “success” you had in it, what did you think or feel about that? Do you like understanding, confusion, on the verge of getting it? Do you dislike it? Bored? Excited? Curious? Intrigued? Do you feel controlled? Toyed with? Do you feel playful, creative, or intelligent? That was State #2– a state about your first state.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Ah, there I go again. Even that question invites you to step back yet again to register some thought or feeling about all of the previous feelings. And stepping back to gain yet even further perspective, awareness, clarity, etc., invites you to move up, that is, to take a “meta” move.

We create meta-states that easily, that quickly. It’s the way our minds work…. and keep on working, forever thinking-and-feeling about previous thoughts-and-feelings. It’s what makes us uniquely human, complex, and difficult to “figure out.”

Does that now make sense?

Oops. I just did it again. Invited you into yet another state of mind and emotion about your ongoing experience of reading and seeking to comprehend.

Now I wonder, suppose I asked you a question that presupposed you jumped up and accessed a really powerful state about your learning and discovery? What if I asked you a resource evoking question like:

How playful can you be in thinking about these jumps as you read, knowing that you will get it and use it to enrich your life? Would that playfulness in your learning strategy generate more motivation?

Sneaky, eh? And yet, that’s just the way our minds (and meta-minds) work. And when you know that, and know how to use it in powerful, effective, and delightful ways, it gives you the ability to operate from the higher levels of your mind. Interested?

Welcome to the Meta-Function

This meta-function of where we can respond to our responses describes the factor about our consciousness that is most human. Philosophers and psychologists say that we have “a self-reflexive consciousness.” In our minds, we can step back to notice and react to ourselves. How often do you do that? For most of us, it occurs all the time! And it is this self-referential freedom of our thoughts that allows us and empowers us with a rich and complex kind of mind.

How many different states of mind, emotion, and body did you experience today? Did you get angry, afraid, frustrated, stressed, or disgusted during the day? Did you feel joyful, delighted, humorous, playful, curious, or contented? Did you get serious, upset, demanding?

To even answer these questions you have to step back from your experiences (your states) and access a state of awareness and mindfulness and observe your states. And doing that puts you at a meta-level. Oh sure, you’re still in your body. And yet, in your mind, conceptually, you have layered another level of thoughts and feelings upon your thoughts and feelings.

Did you realize that? Doesn’t that excite you about the power and possibilities of being a meta class of life? And isn’t it fascinating that once you’re made aware of these levels of awareness, levels of thought, that you can hear and see each of these questions as generating even more?

Well, welcome to the wild and wonderful world of meta-states.

They’re Everywhere; they’re everywhere!

Recognizing the ever-present reality of meta-states can be astonishing, mind-blowing, confusing, disorienting, and even disturbing at first. What does it mean? What do we do with this awareness?

This “infinite regress” (as the philosophers describe it) of thoughts and feelings about thoughts and feelings can, if uncontrolled, send a person into spiraling loops. We all have done that one.

We experience something upsetting and then feel ashamed of being upset. And then feel guilty for being ashamed, and then angry at our guilt, and then upset about our guilt, and then bad for feeling upset… The loop goes round and round without an exit.

We know we have to get to sleep, and feel the need to sleep, but then feel concerned and anxious that we might not sleep, so we try really hard to sleep and find that only makes matters worse, so we intolerantly demand in our heads to “just go to sleep,” because we really need to sleep…

We realize that we have forgotten someone’s name as we’re meeting them and then feel stupid and incompetent for forgetting the name, it’s such a simple task, and wonder what in the world is wrong with us, and then remember that we have forgotten to pay attention because our thoughts have been about feeling inadequate for forgetting…

These are the kind of vicious cycles and spirals that our minds can get into if we don’t know how to handle the meta-levels of our mind. And it is these kinds of spiraling loops that scare lots of people from “thinking.” They are the ones who are quick to warn others, “You think too much!” The very process of thinking about their thinking seems like a run-away train to them. So they fear their thinking– a meta-state itself.

This, in fact, highlights one of the most important discoveries in Meta-States. Almost anytime you bring a “negative” thought and/or feeling (fear, anger, disgust, contempt, rejection, etc.) against yourself, your states, your thoughts, your feelings– you put yourself at odds with yourself. And when we do this, we create internal conflict, incongruency, and “dragon states.”

“What does that mean, never have a ‘negative’ thought or feeling?”

No, not at all. It means we need to use our “negative” thoughts and feelings as signals about our experience with things “out there” in the world: fear of provoking a wild animal, fear of driving dangerously, anger at the violation of our values, disgust about something that we deem appropriately “disgusting.”

“So if our thoughts and emotions are about something out there– external to us, that’s better?”

Yes, precisely. Then the thinking-and-feeling can operate as a signal of the relationship between our Model of the World and our Experience of the World and let us know if it seems to be going in the right direction (the “positive” emotions) or in the wrong directions (the “negative” emotions).

“So what happens if I have ‘negative’ thoughts or ‘negative’ feelings about one of my states?”

That’s when we essentially reject, attack, or insult ourselves. We do this with–

• Fearing our fear
• Fearing our anger, joy, sexuality, tenderness, playfulness, assertiveness, etc.
• Being angry at our fear, our anger, our frustration, our stress, etc.
• Rejecting and contempting our failure, weakness, fallibility, etc.
• Shaming and Guilting ourselves over our fear, anger, frustration, etc.

“So what are we to do? How should we relate to ourselves and some of these negative states?”

First of all, access the state of acceptance so that you just fully and freely welcome them into awareness. Strange, eh? Paradoxical, huh? Yes, it certainly seems counter-intuitive. Our more “natural” tendency is to reject our fear, beat ourselves up for our anger, judge ourselves for our fallibility, shame ourselves for our mistakes, etc. Yet that is precisely how we get locked up inside ourselves, and set taboos against acknowledging our experiences for whatever they are.

Accepting our fear, anger, disgust, stress, etc. does not mean we approve of them or condone, but just acknowledge, witness, observe so that we can then decide the informational value of the emotion and take whatever steps are most appropriate. This is the first step in true State Management.

I acknowledge my fear and accept that I’m feeling afraid, knowing that it is just a feeling and then evaluate whether the fear state is appropriate or inappropriate, current or dated, information to take counsel from or to face with courage, etc. In this, by meta-stating acceptance first, we are then able to effectively master our fears and use them in an intelligent and human way.

Meta-Stating for Fun and Profit

I’ve described the negative side of our self-reflexive consciousness, yet that’s only one side of the story. That’s the dark side of this power. Un-appreciated and un-recognized, we turn our mental and emotional states against ourselves and end up with all kinds of destructive and toxic frames of mind. We have designed them as “Dragon States.”

So what’s the positive side?

The bright side of our meta-cognition powers is that it gives us the ability to set the frames of mind that will support our resourcefulness. As we learn how to handle the infinite regress of state about state, we learn how to set the frames that we want at the highest levels of mind. And when we do that, we are able to access, create, and commission our executive levels. This brings about an inner alignment with ourselves so that all of our energies become focused like a laser beam. And that, by the way, describes the heart of the structure of genius. We can also take to layering into our state of mind-and-body the kind of resources that just perfectly textures our overall experience. Kind of like Design Engineering.

Since meta-states are everywhere and make up so much of the heart of the structure of experience developing awareness of the layering of thought upon thought, feeling upon feeling, state upon state develops our understanding of our experiences. Every meta-state sets another frame of reference for our thinking and feeling. As such it forms the very structure of how we give meaning to things. And that determines the games that we play in life.

This describes one of the other ways that we speak about meta-states– Frame Games. You can see the “game” by observing behavior and listening to speech. The games that we play are all the actions and inter-actions that we engage in. The “frame” gives direction and meaning to the game. It includes all of the higher levels of mind about what we’re doing, how, and why.

Meta-States– Taking NLP to a Higher Level

Literally hundreds of NLP Trainers and Master Practitioners have commented that Meta-States has tied the entire NLP model together for them. They have said that in discovering Meta-States, it has given them the missing piece for how all of NLP works together. Using the Levels of Thought (or the Meta-States) Model has enabled them to more fully understand how many of the NLP patterns work so powerfully for changing things. Accordingly, we have re-ordered 30 of the basic NLP patterns using the Meta-States format. This has streamlined NLP in a way that many people didn’t even think was possible.

And yet it does more. As you shall soon discover, because it provides a conscious understanding of the mechanisms of the mind, it opens up new domains for discovery and creativity. In the first four or five years, nearly 100 Meta-State Patterns were discovered, invented, and created. And there’s no end in sight. Every week, practitioners and trainers are finding new and more exciting applications for Meta-States and using it to model even more complex human experiences.

In many of the other articles on this web site you will find descriptions of the Meta-States model– some simple, others more advanced. Meta-States differs from traditional NLP in that it involves a much more systemic way of thinking. Instead of the more linear approach, as in the TOTE model of NLP strategies, Meta-States involves tracking “mind” around loops, backwards and forwards. It’s truly a different way of thinking.

If you get lost in the process– welcome to the Meta-Zone! It happens to us all. It’s part of our heritage as a class of life that lives on symbols and that reflects back onto itself. Be patient and give it time, and I promise that new expansive worlds will open to you as it will bring you into the domain of Neuro-Semantics… that world of layered and textured meaning.

And when you enter there– the magic really begins!

Note: Click here to read the article “How Meta-States Enriches Logical Levels in NLP.” This article also serves as a great introduction to Meta-States.

L. Michael Hall. Ph.D.
Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D. Min.

Let us tell you a story about magic. It’s a magical story, full of wows! And woes. It’s a story of magicians and wizards and frogs turning into princes. It’s an adventure into the very magic that occurs everyday in human neuro-linguistics, a story about you and the magic that’s going on this very minute in your neurology.

What we call NLP is really the story of a new cutting-edge model about–

• How to run your own brain.
• How to effectively represent your experiences.
• How to map the world of experiences that you’ve been through, that you think is possible to experience, and that you hope you will get to experience.
• How to take charge of your states.
• How to develop effective strategies for your everyday life.

Now what we call, “the magic,” is simply the highest and best of human experiences, “excellence” in human functioning. And the magic of that magic is this: there is rhyme and reason to your everyday experiences. In NLP, we say, the magic has structure. Above and beyond the details and content of any experience– there is a framework that explains how it operates. And when you know that, you know many of the secrets of magic.

Magic?

Yes, the magic of getting over past hurts, the magic of forging a great big compelling future and making it happen, the magic of implementing your knowledge, the magic of getting into rapport with others, working through conflicts, taking another person’s point of view on things, etc.

We use the term “magic” in NLP to speak about the very structure and experience of excellence. So when anybody does something in a superb and wonderful way– from learning, decision making, staying motivated, being resilient, operating proactively, managing, making wealth, selling, etc., we know that that experience has structure and that we can learn and replicate that magic.

And that’s what NLP is all about.

The Letters– The Letters

Okay, okay, the set of letters themselves. NLP literally stands for a mouth-full of a phrase: Neuro-Linguistic Programming. This refers to the fact It means that we have a mind-body system that we can program very much the way we can program software for a computer. This mind-body system or our neuro-linguistics is made up of our neurology (our nervous systems that enables us to live, breathe, think, and function) and our linguistics (the symbol systems that run the neurology).

Put mind-body together– the linguistics of neurology and we have a marvelous, mysterious and even magical human bio-computer. And the best news– it’s programmable. Sure, it’s hard-wired with a few basic dispositions, but for the most part, “as we think (symbolize, give meaning to things), so we are.” And with that, the adventure begins.

How?

What do you mean?

We mean that if you don’t have a great strategy for making friends, learning, staying healthy, looking at the world with the eyes of opportunities, etc., then you just need a strategy. You work perfectly well. There’s nothing wrong with you. You may simply not have the right strategy for the job, or you may have some stupid strategy running your programs of thinking, feeling, speaking, and behaving that’s getting in the way.

NLP, as a model of human functioning, takes a very different attitude from some of the old psychologies. In NLP, we do not start from the assumption (and what an assumption it is!) that people are broken. No. Instead, we assume the opposite– that people work perfectly well, that they have all the resources that they need, and that the only problem isn’t with them, but with their programming.

The Sources

If that sounds familiar and similar to other fields, it is. NLP is a branch of the Cognitive Sciences and Cognitive Behavioral Psychology. It grew out of General Semantics (Korzybski), Transformational Grammar (Noam Chomsky), Anthropology and Cybernetics (Bateson), Reframing (Watzalawick, et al.), Family Systems (Virginia Satir), Gestalt Therapy (Perls), Medical hypnosis (Milton Erickson), and several related studies. This is most of the respectable body of knowledge from which NLP arose.

The Founders

To understand the story of how NLP came to be, you have to understand the times of the early 1970s in America and specifically in California. In a time of social upheaval, Vietnam War protests, drugs and rock-n-roll, a young college student happened upon the work of Fritz Perls and then Virginia Satir and found that he could mimic their high-level therapy skills to a degree that surprised him. So he got a young college professor of linguistics to help him figure it out and supervise a class and suddenly they both were replicating the skills that were supposed to be graduate therapy skills.

So the student (Richard Bandler) and the professor (Dr. John Grinder) teamed up to see if they could figure out (or model) the magic of these therapeutic wizards. So there on the campus of the University of California at Santa Cruz, Bandler used what he knew about patterns in mathematics and computers and Grinder used what he knew about patterns in linguistics to create a model about the Perls and Satir model– a meta-model (“meta” is Greek for “above, beyond, and about).

Bandler’s natural gift for mimicking enabled him to hear and replicate the language patterns by Virginia and Fritz. So he play acted with a group of students to see what he could do.

After enjoying immediate and powerful results from this initial modeling, Richard and John set out to model the hypnotic skills of Milton Erickson. And it so happened that he and Dilts and others of the original group were taking classes from Gregory Bateson at the University who not only introduced them to Erickson, but to other influential persons.

Within two years, they produced the original NLP books–

The Structure of Magic, Volumes I and II

The Patterns of the Hypnotic Language of Erickson, Vol. I & II

And that’s how it began.

They built a communication model about human “thinking” and “processing” and used that model of how we see images, hear sounds, reproduces smells and tastes and touches in our mind to track and model the structure of subjective experiences.

NLP– The Study of Excellent Experiences

Robert Dilts was soon commissioned to write the first scholarly book on NLP. He entitled it, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Volume I: The Study of the Structure of Subjectivity. This set forth NLP as a model and the key features of the model. For example, NLP speaks about “thinking”– or information processing as the reproducing in the mind the sensory components of what we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch with our sense receptors. This is known as the Representational Systems, the VAK systems and these stand for the way or the “modes” by which we represent information:

Visual (Eyes) – for the Pictures, Sights, Images

Auditory (Ears) – for the Sounds, noises, tones, volumes

Kinesthetic (skin/body) – for the sensations, touch, pressure, etc.

When we think about something, anything, we encode our “thoughts” using our “senses.” So we speak about our sensory systems or modalities. This makes our “thoughts” much more specific.

Think about your home or apartment. Got it?

What does it look like?

Sound like? Any noises or sounds associated in your picture?

What about smells?

Here’s an “Thought Experiment” that we have in the book, User’s Manual for the Brain. Try it out. Have you ever experienced anything that you would call “pleasant?”

Recall a pleasant experience from your past. As various things may pop into your mind, just allow yourself to go with some pleasure memory for the moment and allow yourself to go with that thought….

As you experience this pleasant memory, notice its visual aspects. What do you see? Notice the images. Now make the picture larger. Let it double in size… and then let that picture double again… Notice what happens. Do your emotions intensify?

Now shrink the picture. Make it smaller and smaller. Allow it to become so small you can hardly see it… Stay with that a moment… Do the intensity of the feelings decrease? Experiment again with making the picture bigger and then smaller. When you make it smaller, do your feelings decrease? And when you make it larger, do your feelings increase? If so, then running the pictures (sounds, feelings) in your awareness in this way functions as it does for most people. However, you may have a different experience. Did you? No big deal. We all code our experiences in our minds uniquely and individually. Now, put your picture of that pleasant experience back in a format where you find it most comfortable and acceptable.

As you maintain the same picture, move the picture closer to you. Just imagine that the picture begins to move closer and closer to you, and notice that it will. What happens to your feelings as it does? … Move the picture farther away. What happens when you move the picture farther away? Do your feelings intensify when you move the picture closer? Do your feelings decrease when you move the picture farther away? Notice that as you change the mental representation in your mind of the experience, your feelings change. This, by the way, describes how we can “distance” ourselves from experiences, does it not?

Now experiment with the color. Are your pictures in color or in black-and-white? If your pictures have color, make them black-and-white, and vice versa if you have them coded as black-and-white . . . When you changed the color, do your feelings change?

What about the focus of your images? Are they in focus or out of focus? Do you see an image of yourself in the picture or do you experience the scene as if looking out of your own eyes? What about the quality of your images: in three dimensional (3D) form or flat (2D)? Does it have a frame around it or do you experience it as panoramic? Experiment by changing how you represent the experience. Change the location of the picture. If you have it coded as on your right, then move it to your left.

Playing with the Brain

Did you like that playing with your brain? The neat thing about playing with our brains in that way is that as we change our coding, we change our feelings. The neurology of our emotions responded to the linguistics (or symbols) of our brain. When we change various features of our representations, it affected our responses.

This describes, in part, how “the magic” of NLP works. As we work with the very structures and processes of representation, rather than content, we change the programming. In the Thought Experiment, you might have changed how you feel by changing the quality and structure of your images. Amazing, is it not?

And when you know the structure of experience, then we can begin to use that knowledge to create more generative processes for improving life all around. What would happen if you made all your unpleasant pictures small, dim, and far away? What would happen if you made all your pleasant experiences big, bright and up close?

To learn to play with your brain and make it do wild and wonderful things, to run it for fun and profit, to induce the kind of positive states of mind-and-body, emotional states and states of value and belief, you only need to understand some of the basic components and how they work.

The VAK Representational Systems– Sights, Sounds, Sensations, Smells, etc. These are the basic components.

Each of these have certain Audio-Visual components. Think of a TV or Radio and we have volume, tone, pitch, location, etc. We have distance (close/ far), clarity (clear/ fuzzy), dimension (3_D or flat and 2_D), etc. The NLP term for these qualities or distinctions is “sub-modalities.”

Perceptual Positions– the point of view that you take in thinking about something: your own (first person), another person’s (second position), the point of view of the larger system (third position).

Running Your Own Brain

In the past 25 years, hundreds of techniques (the NLP technology) has arisen that provide step-by-step processes for “running your own brain” to produce outstanding results. There are patterns for effecting lasting change with phobias and trauma (the Phobia Cure pattern), for changing long-term habits (the Swish Pattern), for changing old traumatic reactions to memories (Decision Destroyer), for altering meaning (Reframing patterns),

NLP does indeed offer a fairly large toolbox of techniques. And it is it more than that. Co-founder, Richard Bandler has said,

“NLP is an attitude and a methodology that leaves behind a trail of techniques.”

The attitude of NLP involves one of intense and excited curiosity. It involves the desire to know what goes on behind the scenes. With this kind of attitude of curiosity, we want to know what makes the human mind work. So NLP runs on an attitude of experimentation. This attitude leads us to try all kinds of things. After all, we do not sort for “failure,” but only for “feedback.” If we find that something doesn’t produce the results we want, we just try something else. When you get the attitude or spirit of NLP, you’ll experience a wild and wonderful passion for exploration, experimentation, and innovating. It will make you more creative, more open to the world of possibilities, and more of a pioneer.

The methodology of NLP is that of modeling: coping and mimicking how something works.

That’s the Foundation

There’s a lot more to it than that. Today there are training centers for NLP around the world, books in most language, and the model continues to grow and develop. Here at Neuro-Semantics we have been researching and expanding the NLP model, developing ever-new patterns and processes, modeling new areas, and taking NLP to a higher level using the Meta-States Model.

Now that you know about “NLP,” move to the next level and read about “Meta-NLP” which we believe is the “next step” in NLP.