THE EXPERIENCE
IS NOT THE MEANING

If there’s any misbelief, myth, misunderstanding, and false perspective that influences just about everyone, it is the idea that your experiences determine your meanings. That’s wrong. It’s wrong on many accounts. And it is an error that undermines the quality of life, the response-power of a person, that denies a person joy and hope, and that misdirects how to cope with experiences.

To give you an idea of how pervasive this deadly idea is, consider the following statements. Sadly, they are as common as they are erroneous and misleading.
“Losing my dream job means I’ll never find another one as good.”
“I can’t help but feel depressed, everyone does when they go through a divorce.”
“I can’t help but being negative. The way I was treated as a child has made me the pessimistic person that I am today.”
“You don’t understand what being molested does to a person, it’s something that you don’t just get over, you carry it with you all the days of your life.”
“What I want is to fall in love because then I would feel really good about myself and have the high self-esteem that I have always wanted.”
“We’re social beings so needing approval is just built in, so don’t tell me that I need to have thicker skin and not take criticism so personal.”

The hidden idea behind all of these is that your experiences determine your life. They determine your meanings, your emotions, and your responses. And what we can infer behind that is that you have very limited range of responses when you have certain experiences. If you have had X-given experience, then you are pretty much fated to think, feel, speak, and act in a certain way. And to make that more explicit: you can’t help yourself. You have to feel depressed if you had a loss. You have to feel suicidal if you were publically humiliated. You have to feel an insolvable grief if you lost the love of your life.

If experience determines life, then we are all in a pretty desperate and pretty much hopeless situation. However, there’s good news—experience does not determine your response! In fact, whatever happens, whatever experience you have or go through—you have a whole range of ways to respond. This is worth writing down— whatever the experience, you have many choices about how to interpret it.

The truth is that you have the power inside you to choose your response. That’s why we have the word, response-ability or response-power. You can determine what your experience means and how to perceive it. You can draw a whole range of different conclusions about the experience so that you can give it the best one possible. In this way, you have the power to fashion your world, your thinking, your emoting, your coping, and your mastering of your life situations. The power does not belong to the experience, to the event—it belongs to you. You are the meaning-maker.

Alfred Adler spoke to this subject in his book, Understanding Human Nature (1927). There he argued that the key is how a person interprets the experience and that from that conclusion he creates his how “style of life” which he will then project onto other experiences.
“We must remember that any experience may have many interpretations. We will find that there are no two people who will draw the same conclusion from a similar experience. This accounts for the fact that our experiences do not always make us any cleverer.” (1927, p. 20)

Whatever you have experienced is just that—an experience. What that experience means, however, depends on you. It depends on how you think about it, perceive it, reason about it, draw conclusions from it, in a word—how you interpret it and give it meaning. And whatever meaning you give it, that’s the semantics that you have created and from that will come your neurology, your emotions, your body sensations, your physiology, your felt life. Together we now have your neuro-semantic reality.

It is in this way that we say that you have a neuro-semantic nature. And the key is your semantics, your meaning-making powers. That’s what enables you to live with hope and optimism, with resilience and determination, and to make your life a work of art.

WHAT’S NOT POSITIVE
ABOUT POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

I have long appreciated, quoted, and acknowledged the work of Martin Seligman in his well-known studies Learning Helplessness (1975) and Learned Optimism (1991) and integrating the core of that in my work on resilience (Resilience: Being the Phoenix, 2019). In those two books, he moved from being a Behaviorist to becoming much more a Cognitivist Behaviorist as he recognized the role that cognition plays in depression and other emotional states. Later he became the President of the American Psychological Association (APA). And with that one-year term, he launched his version of psychology, known as Positive Psychology.

But from the beginning, I have had questions and concerns. “What in the world could I say that would not be positive about Positive Psychology?” Actually, a lot. Here are some of them. First, the term itself “Positive Psychology” originated in Abraham Maslow’s 1964 book, Toward a Psychology of Being. Positive Psychology was one of his chapter titles. But if you read in the field of Positive Psychology, you would never know that. Neither Seligman nor any of his students acknowledge such or give credit to Maslow for the term. And not giving credit to sources is always a sign of poor scholarship and low integrity. This means that not Seligman but Maslow is the true father of Positive Psychology.

Second, as I read books on Positive Psychology, and I have read many of them, not giving credit for the name itself is not the only thing they overlook. For the most part, the writers completely overlook that it was Abraham Maslow who began the focus on the positive side of human nature way back in the 1930s and 1940s. Somehow they completely ignore that (or intentionally overlook it). They also overlook the work of Carl Rogers in his focus on the positive side of human nature and even the Human Potential Movement which arose in the 1960s from Maslow and Rogers (see Self-Actualization Psychology, 2008).

Third, when Seligman does mention Maslow, which is very seldom, it is almost always in a context where he disagrees with Maslow and criticizes him. Now I’m fine with one scholar offering a critique of another, but when every single reference is a critique and there is not a single acknowledgment of Maslow’s contributions— something is wrong. In other books on Positive Psychology, the first mention of Maslow or Rogers will be some 100 pages in and again, most of the references are critical of them. In Martin Bolt’s book A Positive Psychology Guide (2004), the first reference to Maslow is on page 135, the next was on p. 153 where he criticizes Maslow.

Now why would anyone do that? Why would a famous psychologist do that? Typically when a person has to push someone else down it is in order to push himself up—which is a sick neurotic behavior. It is an illegitimate and unhealthy maneuver to prop up oneself.

Now also unknown to most people, the reason Positive Psychology got a big boost and became recognized as quickly as it did was because Seligman was given over 30 million dollars in grants from having been voted President of APA in 1998. Dr. Carl Lloyd, who teaches Positive Psychology, says, “It was these two things which really helped him to launch research in the field of Positive Psychology.” And with 30 million dollars, who couldn’t make a gigantic splash in any field of Psychology?

Fourth, another concern about Positive Psychology relates to the online research pieces they have distributed. Often it really does not reflect the best research. Dr. Lloyd noted that his junior-level students who had some studies in undergrad sequence of research and statistics have raised
relevant questions about the validity and reliability of the research methods and results.
“For instance, they can take one questionnaire and then repeat it several days later and get fairly different results. That’s a problem with reliability. It begs the question if the research concerns are defined well enough to be valid. Anyone can collect tons of data, but is it enriching the field at all or answering the questions that are being asked?”

Fifth, in reading much of the literature on Positive Psychology from Seligman, there is the presence of what can only be characterized as arrogant self-promotion. It reeks of self-promotion in a lot of the writings.

Sixth, Positive Psychology seems to be almost exclusively for normal people or those who only need a bit of counseling. It does not seem to address the deeper issues of therapy, neurosis and character disorders. In Bolt’s book, there is not a single mention in the entire book of therapy, trauma, or neurosis. He quotes Seligman:
“The main purpose of a positive psychology is to measure, understand, and then build the human strengths and the civic virtues.” (2004, p. 2)

When Positive Psychology was first launched, all of the original books were mostly academic and offered very little in terms of practical applications. Over the years, others entered into the field and began creating applications, especially in the areas of appreciating, thriving, flourishing, personality strengths, looking for a positive frame, etc. Today Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi are considered the founders of Positive Psychology, both of them have contributed significantly to psychology and especially to humanistic psychology. In Neuro-Semantics I have from the beginning given plenteous acknowledgment to Seligman for his work in learned helplessness and learned optimism. I also gave full credit to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi for his work in “flow.” In relating to how flow relates to the genius state, I quoted many of his books.

The kind and quality of psychology that we use in Neuro-Semantics is certainly positive psychology. It was developed from the developers in the Human Potential Movement—people who predated Seligman by 50 years. It was demonstrated by Satir, Perls, Bateson, and others which is how it entered and formed NLP.

WHY SELF-HELP BOOKS DON’T HELP

That was the question Geraldine asked. “Why is it that self-help books don’t help?” “You mean ‘a lot of people’” I added to clarify the question. “Yes, for a lot of people it doesn’t seem to help very much or at all. Why is that?” I was busy reading at our favor coffee shop and so I answered her briefly, “They don’t know how to read and they read too fast.” But, as usual, my brief answer did not satisfy her so she re-engaged me and we continued the conversation. At the end, she said, “You ought to write an article about this!” And I knew what that meant!

Here’s the thing. The process of actually reading any book and using it for significant and effective learning and development involves a set of skills that the majority of people have simply not learned. That means that they actually do not know how to read a non-fiction book to mine it for its riches and transfer that wealth into themselves.

For the first thing, most people read too fast, too passively, and too shallowly. The shallow part goes to a person’s intention. Most people read in order to get a general idea about something. Many are looking for something specific and so as they read, they filter out anything and everything that doesn’t fit. Many read a non-fiction book the same way they read fiction. They skim through the paragraphs. They’re looking for the story.

Non-fiction books are, for the most part, not written to convey a story. They are written to present an understanding, a concept, and a procedure. In Executive Learning I recommended applying the seven dimensions to your learning in order that your learning be active and dynamic.
Get in the right state, establish how to record (represent) the information you gather in your mind, sort out the background information you already have about the material that helps and that may hinder, encode the higher level concepts as the knowledge to be constructed, identify the meta-level principles of learning the specific subject, make the information experiential, and then identify pragmatic steps for incorporating it.

The problem for most people is that their learning is passive. They “cover the material.” They “finish the chapter.” They follow the line of thinking or reasoning and they then conclude that they “know” the material. In all likelihood, they do not. This is one of the great illusions about learning. By following what someone is saying or writing, you assume that you thereby know it. If so, then let’s test it. A good way to test it is to explain what you read, or heard, to someone who doesn’t know it. That will test to see if you actually know it. The bottom line: If you can’t explain it to another, you don’t really know it.

This is also why most people read too fast. They try to read a book in the same manner that they read a newspaper or magazine. They need to slow down and see if they can summarize a paragraph or a page in their own words. For years, my habit of reading is that at the end of each page, I stop and write one to four words at the top of the page that identifies the subject of that page. Even better, write a summary of one sentence on a blank sheet of paper that succinctly sums up that page. That will make you think! Which is what most people are actually not doing when they’re reading. They are not thinking. They are just mentally following along. There’s no real mental work, just a passive following. But to truly think is to consider, to question, to explore, to doubt (see Executive Thinking, 2018).

It is in getting yourself to actually digest the ideas in the text that begins the process of actually beginning to learn it. Next comes the process of integration wherein you make it yours. This means making the material, the ideas, experiential. Plant this question in your mind as you read: “Given that I am reading, or listening to this, how specifically will I make it part of my inner and outer experience?” If you think that reading or listening is just a mental activity, you have cut off half of the learning process. Learning is inevitably experiential.
∙ So, what are you experiencing? What actions will occur?
∙ After all, you are reading for a purpose, are you not? What is that purpose?
∙ What difference will reading X make in your life?
∙ How will it change you— your person, your skills, your relationships, etc.?

If you don’t know, stop and establish a learning intention. Self-help books could help, but to help you have to take an active stance. You can’t read for entertainment. Instead, read for transformation. Identify the change that you want. Then, using the seven dimensions of learning, use that structure to organize your learning experience.

For more, check out: Executive Learning (2021) on www.neurosemantics.com

STRIVING FOR EXCELLENCE
AND OTHER FOOLISH ACTS

Perhaps the most subtle way that people sneak perfectionism into their lives is by giving it different names. Because many are weary about perfectionism, they don’t use that term. Instead they call it by other names. “I’m just striving to be the best that I can be.” Or, ‘I’m just trying to meet the quota and deadlines that have been set, that’s all.” Or, “I’m just striving for excellence, not to be perfect.” Ah, yes, sneaky indeed!

If you ask, “What’s the problem with perfectionism?” there are many. Not only does it establish a nearly impossible goal, but it sets up an expectation that is sure to come back to bite you in the rear-end. You raise your standards or criteria and then when you get anything less— you feel disappointed! You’re upset, perhaps even depressed. So you beat yourself up, and freely “should” on yourself. “I should have tried harder.” “I should have started sooner.” “I should have…” the expectation delivers a bite into your attitude and state of mind. You now become less and less patient, tolerant, and accepting. These are the unecological consequences of perfectionism.

Another problem. Perfectionism puts you on a treadmill so that you strive and strive. Now sometimes, through all of that striving you may actually reach your goal and if so, you will then feel great. But this also becomes a danger point— dangerous that you might take that illusion outcome and think that this is the way to do things, to get things done. “Just give 100%, burn the candle at both ends if necessary, strive until you’re exhausted, run on adrenalin— that’s the secret of success.”

But it is not. All of that is delusional. It is not ecological and it is certainly not sustainable. That’s a formula for burn-out, for stress-induced illnesses, for ruining your relationships, and for the loss of your vitality over the long-run. It is also a formula for procrastination. The reason is that if it takes all of that to succeed, then you are more likely to wait until you are fully ready to make that commitment. So today, you put things off.

Using “striving to be the best you can” or “striving to be excellent” as your approach to learning, to skill development, to actualizing your highest and best— is unrealistic for fallible humanity. It does not bring out our best. In the short-term, it may work and thereby deceive you, but in the long-term, it is a disastrous strategy.

What’s more effective? A more effective strategy is to learn a new skill one step at a time. It is to take things slow and easy and to have fun playing with it until you get the feel for it. Instead of “striving to be the best” aim to simply learn one new distinction at a time. Then aim to practice that new distinction until you get it—until you integrate it and make it automatic. First learn to keep the bicycle balanced so it stays upright and moves forward. Later on you can think about riding with no hands or doing flips. Don’t worry about excellent, instead concern yourself with quality. If you need to go slower to do quality work or learning, go slower.

One way to be kind and gentle with yourself as you learn is to count everything that moves in the right direction. Rewarding the little pieces that are working sets in motion the learning process. It is the high standards of perfectionism that leads to discounting the progress you are making, and that will kill your spirit. Then, when you have a whole day of discounted attempts— you’ll feel like quitting, you’ll go home feeling frustrated and angry.

The best learning and development comes from states of openness, exploration, curiosity, fun, playfulness, etc. It does not come from stress— from being upset, frustrated, angry, etc. Those are not good learning states. Putting yourself under pressure does not bring out your best. Learning a single distinction, integrating it well, having fun is th way to go. Then you can go on to the next distinction, the next skill. Focus on one thing at a time and as you do— be fully present to it. Release from your mind and concern any worry about the future. Keep bringing your focus back to today and to the activity.

Instead of striving to be the best, or excellent, strive to enjoy learning what you are learning. If the striving is “work” if it is hard, burdensome, a chore, tedious, etc., you will burn-out. If the striving is enjoyable because it is meaningful, valuable, if it counts— then you will keep at it and if you keep at it in this way— you will get better and better and one day, you may become an expert. And that’s how you’ll actualize your highest and best.

INTRODUCING 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 this calendar year (1999), we plan to bring out more pieces to highlight and distinguish Neuro-Semantics from NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and GS (General Semantics).  The most radical and revolutionary of these will be the work regarding the so-called “submodality” model.  We’ve entitled it, Meta-Stating Genius: Distinctions of Excellence.  It is scheduled for publication in August, 1999.

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.

∙    What is Neuro-Semantics and 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 and Where did it Come From?

Neuro-Semantics began in 1996 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.

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.  We have also created a website at www.neurosemantics.com.

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 NLPduring 1994-1995.

ISNS The International Society of Neuro-Semantics

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

(970) 523-7877

NLP A Model of Communication that empowers people to run their own brains by using the “languages” of the mind, namely, the sensory representational systems — the Visual, Auditory, & Kinesthetics (body sensations).  We think in these see, hear, and feel dimensions or modes.  As we so represent things to ourselves on the inner screen of consciousness which we call “thinking,” so we signal our bodies.  This then puts us in state— that is, in a Mind-Body State of Consciousness.

Developed by two guys fascinated by human excellence.  NLP provides a model, insights, and specific step-by-step techniques for running your own brain, managing your own states, communicating more effectively and elegantly with yourself and others, and replicating human expertise in every field.

META-STATES®

A Model of Reflexive Consciousness that details precisely how we reflect back on our thoughts and feelings to create higher levels of thoughts-and-feelings.  In so using our thoughts-and-feelings thoughts-about-our-thoughts, feelings-about-feelings, we thereby create mind-body states-about-states or Meta-States.

This differs from a Primary State like fear, anger, joy, relaxed, tense, pleasure, pain, etc. in that a Meta-State has a layering of higher level concepts such as fear of my fear, anger at my fear, shame about being embarrassed, joy of learning, esteem of my self, etc.

NEURO-SEMANTICS®

A Model of Meaning or Evaluation that utilizes the Meta-States Model for articulating and working with higher levels of states and the Neuro-Linguistic Programming Model for detailing human processing and experiencing.  Neuro-Semantics presents a fuller and richer model that offers a way of thinking about and working with the way our nervous system (neurology) and mind (linguistics) create meaning, evaluate events and experiences, and assigns significances (semantics).

∙    Where does Neuro-Semantics come from?

∙    What are the theoretical foundations of Neuro-Semantics?

∙     What contributing forces influence the development of Neuro-Semantics as a model and field?

∙    How does Neuro-Semantics differ from NLP as a model?

∙    What is Neuro-Semantics not?

What is it?

Do you to know what it is?   Neuro-Semantics is a model that describes how we humans get meaning (semantics) so incorporated into our body (neurology) that we feel meanings and do so in terms of our emotions and states.  Neuro-Semantics is an inter-disciplinary field that explores the structure of meaning and how those meanings become embodied within us.  In Neuro-Semantics we approach the mind-body-emotion system in several ways.  From the mental dimension, we explore how language works inside of us, how we attribute meaning, create meaning by words, associations, framing, metaphors, etc.  From the neurological dimension, we explore how our body works with ideas to “realize” or “actualize” them and how what we do influences what we believe.

Neuro-Semantics, as a field of study and as a model, arises from many sources.  Much of it comes from psychology, linguistics, semantics, anthropology, systems, etc.  In this article, I will sketch out a brief history of the key sources that have come together to create the foundation of this inter-disciplinary study.

Why do this?  First I want to locate and position Neuro-Semantics as a field and to distinguish it from those disciplines that gave it birth.  And why is this important?  I want to do that to set the boundaries and parameters of the field.  As a new emergent field, this is important (especially here at the beginning) in order to make clear what Neuro-Semantics is and its focus of attention.  And why do that?  Mostly because there are many who are entering this field as trainers, coaches, and researches who keep asking me about this!   And so for those enter the field as well as those already in this field, and for those who are just now discovering this field and examining it to see if it fits with their interests, I want to provide a clear sense of what Neuro-Semantics is and what is not.

From General Semantics to NLP

To give credit where credit is due, it was an engineer, Alfred Korzybski, who first gave voice to the terminology of neuro-linguistics and neuro-semantics as he founded the field of General Semantics with his classic work, Science and Sanity (1933/ 1994).  By these terms he referred to the human mind-body system as a holistic system of many interactive parts.  It was his way of re-uniting the fragmented elements of “mind,” “body,” “emotion,” “beliefs,” etc.

In thinking structurally about a living human mind-body system in interaction with the world “out there” beyond the human nervous system, he looked at it in terms of information coming into the protoplasm of the human nervous system and how the nerve impulses from sense receptors to the internal processing structures of the brain and how we abstract from one level to another level to create our inner “sense” of the world.  We map the world into ourselves and we feel that map (or layers of mappings) as feelings, emotions, and intuitions.

To understand this dynamic communication process, Korzybski used a metaphor, that of mapping a territory. What we humans do in and with our neurons, nerves, nervous energy, and nervous systems is create a map, so to speak, about what we are encountering and interacting with.   Out there in the world there are energies —energies that we recognize as the electromagnetic spectrum.  We translate and interpret these energies as light, sound, sensation, smell, taste, and balance.  We do that by the protoplasm of our body which we experience as our sense receptors.  At the end of our nervous system we have eyes, ears, skin, olfactory and taste buds, and inner ear hairs and structures that enable us to “sense” the world.  We then use these senses (the sensory modalities) to “make sense” of the world.

Our first maps about what is “out there” are strictly neurological and occur a long time prior to awareness or consciousness.  The energy “out there” impacts and stimulates our sense receptors and we “sense” things in terms of the sense receptors.  We see objects, hear sounds, feel textures, pressures, moisture, temperature (sensations), we smell smells and taste tastes and have a sense of balance or dizziness.  These sensory systems interpret the energies in these terms.

But close your eyes and press on your eyelids and you will see colors and shapes.  Pressure on the end- receptors of eyes is translated and interpreted as light. Each end-receptor funnels, channels, and interprets “energy manifestations” out there according to what it is designed to pick up and interpret.  Each sense maps the world according to its own design.  Even at that level, it’s just a perception.

From this Richard Bandler and John Grinder created the components of NLP in the 1970s.  They specified the “languages” of thought in terms of the sensory systems— the Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, etc. systems.  We re-present to ourselves in our mind what we have seen, heard, and felt.  This gave rise to the VAK.  We think in terms of pictures, sounds, and sensations.  We make a movie in our mind.  We also say words about our movie, and so the meta-representation system is language.  This was the genius of NLP.

NLP began with the presupposition that Korzybski specified, “The map is not the territory.”  This means we do not deal with reality directly, but indirectly.  We deal with it through our maps.  If our world seems impoverished and we feel unresourceful, the problem lies in our maps.  Do we have a rich enough map to go places, do things, understand things, etc.?  If not, the problem isn’t ourselves or th world, it’s in enriching our map.  Successful and effective people have rich and empowering maps in their heads.

What does this mean?  It means that NLP is primarily a Communication Model. It’s a model about how we use the languages of the mind to construct our maps and how to enrich those maps.  It’s also about identify and modeling the maps of experts to streamline the learning process.  NLP modeled three world-class therapists from three different fields to create a model of how language works (the Meta-Model) and how to use language for more precision or for more artful mapping (the Milton Model).  From Family Systems they modeled Virginia Satir; from Gestalt Therapy they modeled Fritz Perls; and from Ericksonian Hypnosis they modeled Milton H. Erickson.

NLP provides powerful models and technology for “running one’s own brain” and thereby changing our states and experiences.  As a model, NLP is not about any particular field, but is a meta-discipline. It’s a model about the structure of experience and so has practical applications for business, negotiating, selling, parenting, therapy, education, training, influence, marketing, writing— in a word, for anything that involves communication, relationship, and people skills.  That some people have taken the model and misused it speaks about the power of this cutting-edge communication model.

Neuro-Semantics began here.  What NLP did not have was a model about self-reflexive consciousness and how to model, take into account, or use reflexivity in communication, relationship, or modeling.  With the Meta-States model I provided those structures and so created another meta-domain of NLP— Meta-States.

From “General” Semantics to “Neuro” Semantics

Where did Meta-States come from?  From two key sources—Korzybski and Gregory Bateson.  It was in Korzybski’s “levels of abstraction” (his Structural Differential) and his theory of multi-ordinality that I found much of the structure of Meta-States.  Having immersed myself in Korzybski’s work for many years, when I “stumbled” upon Meta-States while modeling the structure of resilience, I found myself referring mostly to many of the features in General Semantics.

So after I first introduced Meta-States in England under the sponsorship of Denis Bridoux and Dr. Philip Nolan (Post Graduate Professional Education), for three years we followed that up with a series of workshop on GS and NLP.  These trainings in England were first entitled “The Merging of the Models: General Semantics and NLP” and later Advanced Flexibility.  It was during that time that I was able to more fully develop and articulate the structures, processes, guidelines, and patterns in Neuro-Semantics.

We were able to translate abstract ideas and concepts in Science and Sanity that informed General Semantics into practical Neuro-Semantic tools—extending the Meta-Model, developing the first meta-level questions to deal with human psycho-logics (“logical levels”), use mathematics for modeling (finding variables in an experience and identifying those variables as functions of some multi-ordinal concept).  What has and remains abstract and obtuse in General Semantics became dynamic processes in Neuro-Semantics.

For more on this, see Chapter 8 in NLP: Going Meta: Advanced Modeling Using Meta-Levels (2001). It is entitled, “Levels of Abstraction: Alfred Korzybski’s Neurological Meta-Levels.”  Also, Communication Magic (2001).

From Bateson’s Frames and Meta-Function to Neuro-Semantics

Another crucial source in the Roots of Neuro-Semantics is anthropologist Gregory Bateson.  It was his fabulous work, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) and his treatise Mind and Nature (1979) that completely captured my attention on several accounts.

First there was his use of the meta-function (his phrase) regarding the structure of complex experiences from schizophrenia to national personality traits (cultural phenomena), to wisdom, art, change, learning, and so on that enabled me to see the systemic nature of meta-states.  Once I had constructed the first tentative Meta-States model, I began testing it with numerous experiences that had layers of thoughts and feelings like proactivity, forgiveness, self-esteem, etc.  With each of these, I kept revisiting Bateson’s way of thinking to borrow more and more of his formulations about frames and making a move to a  meta-position.

In Neuro-Semantics Bateson led us to move beyond modeling the individual to working on cultural models, cultural modeling, anthropology, and cybernetics.  It was from Bateson that I build systems thinking and systems dynamics into the feedback and feed forward loops of the Matrix.

To see how much Bateson’s thinking, terminology, and conceptions inform Neuro-Semantics, see Chatper 7 in NLP: Going Meta: Advanced Modeling Using Meta-Levels (2001).  That chapter is entitled, “Bateson’s Logical Levels of Learning.”  Also, see The Bateson Report (2003) which contains more than a dozen articles on Bateson and our use of his work in Neuro-Semantics.  Also, the training manual, Cultural Modeling using Neuro-Semantics.

Cognitive Psychology’s Contribution to Neuro-Semantics

Even though neither Bandler nor Grinder were psychologists, psychotherapists, or had any extensive training in therapy, they model three therapies (i.e., Family Systems, Gestalt Therapy, and Ericksonian Hypnosis) and so constructed a model that is now recognized as a Cognitive-Behavioral model.  In psychology textbooks, NLP is classified in this way and has for more than 15 years.  Why is that?  How did that come about?

Possibly for two reasons.  First, Korzybski’s presupposition is that we operate by the mapping and maps we create in our heads about things—a cognitive premise.  Second, Noam Chomsky who created the Transformational Grammar model for linguistics, in which field John Grinder was an expert and contributor, was a key person in the founding of the Cognitive Movement.  In fact, it was he more than anyone else who single-handedly defeated Behaviorism in 1956 with his paradigm changing book, Aspects of Grammar. For more about this, see Howard Gardner’s book that documents the history of, The Cognitive Movement.

There’s a third reason, Bandler and Grinder also relied on and quoted George Miller for his classic 1956 paper “The Magic Number Seven Plus or Minus Two” that launched the Cognitive movement as well as relied on him with Gallanter and Pribram for Plans for the Structure of Behavior (1960).  From this book came the T.O.T.E. model that NLP turned into the Strategy Model (see NLP: The Structure of Subjective Experience, Volume I, 1980, Dilts, et al.).

In addition to this, my training, first as a psychotherapist and then as a psychologist was in Cognitive Psychology, specifically in Albert Ellis’ RET (later REBT) model, Aaron Beck’s work, and William Glasser’s models of Reality Therapy and Control Theory. These and other cognitive models were the guiding models and principles that guided my thinking and so became intimately incorporated in Neuro-Semantics.

Minor contributions, still within this general area included the field of Meta-Cognition.  This field arose in 1977 and focuses mostly on the study of memory and meta-memory devices.  Key thinkers, theorists, and researchers in this area work on how feedback loops govern feedback loops at a higher or meta-level.  For more on this, see chapters in Meta-States Magic (2003).

Logotherapy, a cognitive psychology/philosophy, also contributed to the early development of Meta-States and hence to Neuro-Semantics.  Neuro-Semantics takes from Viktor Frankl’s work on the therapy of meaning (logo-therapy) a focus on meaning and meaningfulness in a philosophical sense.  It is, after all, the search for meaning and the use of our powers to create meaning that fill our neurology with the most intense and powerful emotions.

Cognitive Linguistics and Neuro-Semantics

While studying the linguistic distinctions that Korzybski highlighted in General Semantics, I continued reading in the field of linguistics.  I did that, in part, as one of my natural interests and, in part, as part of my degree in psycho-linguistics. What I found was fantastic—at least to me.  It seems that the linguistic foundations of NLP, Transformational Grammar, was rejected by its founder Noam Chomsky in 1976, one year after the appearance of The Structure of Magic by Bandler and Grinder.

What did this mean?  What was the significance of Chomsky throwing out Deep Structure (D-structure) and declaring that the Transformational Grammar approach was untenable and unworkable?  How did this relate to all of the information in NLP books about the Surface and Deep Structure?  As I began searching I found out that the field of Linguistic had shifted emphasis over the years and that by the 1990s Cognitive Linguistic has taken over.  Transformational rules had given way to thinking about grammar in terms of “space” (hence the book, Space Grammar) and the use of our “representational screen” to posit objects (nouns), trajectories of movements (verbs) to objects.  See Harris, The Linguistic Wars for more on this as well as works by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.

Philosophy of Mind, Neurology, and Neuro-Semantics

There are many thinkers who write on what is called “philosophy of mind.”  These writers and theorists offer numerous conceptualizations for how to think about “mind.”  These frameworks provide the presuppositions that we begin with.  Among them, I continually return to Bateson (Mind and Nature) for insights.  Among others who I have found influence and whose influence on my thinking is incorporated in Neuro-Semantics are Daniel Dennett (Kinds of Minds, Consciousness Explained, Intentional Stance), Stephen Kosslyn and Olivier Koenig (Wet Mind), Julian Jaynes (The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind), etc.

Neuro-Semantics is also based in Neurology, the levels of the brain-body structures that make up our neurological structures is detailed in Korzybski who also specified things about the representational systems that I’ve never seen reproduced in NLP.

It is to John Searle (The Construction of Social Reality) as well as other writers in anthropology, cultural studies, social psychology, etc. that Neuro-Semantics owes a debt.

What Neuro-Semantics is Not

With these fields and sources of Neuro-Semantics, I hope it is clear that Neuro-Semantics is a meta-discipline about the structure and form of things, not another psychology or philosophy.  Neuro-Semantics is the study of how we translate data into information and then into communication to create our inner worlds of reality, our inner Matrix of frames within frames within frames.

And as Neuro-Semantics is neither a psychology, nor is it a psychotherapy.  It is not primarily about the healing of human hurts, although it certainly has powerful applications to therapy.  Neuro-Semantics studies the structure of how people get hurt, find healing, and move on to actualize their greatest potentials.  In this Neuro-Semantics transcends any particular psychotherapy as it is looking for the structure that makes such therapies effective.  Nor is Neuro-Semantics a theology or religion.  Undoubtedly people will use Neuro-Semantics to model various spiritual experiences and perhaps to explore various theologies, but that is not what Neuro-Semantics is.  It is only an application.  Neuro-Semantics holds no allegiance with any particular religion whether Christian, Jewish, Moslem, Buddhist, etc.  It is not related to any New Age ideology or to any alternative healing modality.

From Practical Down-to-Earth Pragmatic Applications

Neuro-Semantics also arose from another source.   While the original model of Meta-States was the brain-child of L. Michael Hall, very early I looked to others to help me explore what we could use it for and where we could go with the model.  It was in this way that Dr. Bob Bodenhamer and I began having conversations.  At first we worked on some books together, but it soon became evident that Bob’s skills at the clinical level of working with clients would become a source of credibility for the new patterns and ideas.  So it was with Bob’s clients and students that we “tried out” and experimented with many of our new ideas and models.

This moved Neuro-Semantics from the conceptual level to the practical level of everyday life.  What we worked through conceptually on paper, we then had Bob put to the test in working with people who had come to him for assistance.  It was in this way that the Meta-Yes Belief Change pattern emerged as well as many others.  In the development of various patterns we would give it a go, adjust the steps of a pattern to create a more streamlined sequence, add or subtract steps, put in new preframes, etc.

We then began transferring the same to our trainings.  I came up with the Mind-to-Muscle pattern while doing a training in Wealth Building because I felt the need to transfer the great ideas that were already in the minds of participants (they knew good and well what to do), they just were not actually doing them.  This came about in a training when I just so happened to ask if anyone knew any principle about finances, financial intelligence, building wealth, etc.  Hands went up all over the place.  I inquired about what they knew.  After 30 minutes of that I had discovered something very important.  I did not need to share anything else about the content of building wealth.  Everybody already knew plenty.  If I were to keep adding other “great ideas” they would just be even more overwhelmed and have more to feel bad about since they were not doing the most simple of things like the principle “Spend less than you make.”

For me that was an “Ah ha!” moment.  The problem wasn’t knowing, it was doing.  The problem wasn’t lacking great concepts, wonderful principles, or inspiring ideas.  No.  They knew.  The gap was between knowing-and-doing, between the head and the legs.  It was at this point that I began asking myself many questions, questions that would stimulate the creation of a new pattern:

∙      How can we close this knowing-doing gap and get what they know in their heads into their muscles?

∙      Can ideas or concepts move from “the head” into “the body,” into muscle memory?

∙      What is muscle memory anyway?

∙      How do ideas get into muscle memory?  What are the mechanisms involved?

∙     How can we take ideas about wealth building and translate them so that people actually act on what they know and learn?

Everyday practical life and challenges—this is one of the ongoing sources of Neuro-Semantics.  Today we have lots of people doing this very thing.  That is they have eyes to look for gaps, for problems, for needs.  That’s why Neuro-Semantics has gone the way of creating dozens of Gateway Trainings and using the hard questions we find in those fields—the places where other fields and disciplines are stuck to stimulate creativity.  Bob Bodenhamer has done this with people who block and/or stutter.  I have done this with Defusing Hotheads and other Cranky and Stressed-out People.  We have people now doing this in criminal justice departments, with weight management, fitness, stress management, resilience for times of change, leadership, etc.  This also is the focus for the Neuro-Semantics Developers group that we are now developing.

Author: L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. was first a psychotherapist, then psychologist, then NLP Trainer, then discover of Meta-States, then co-founder of Neuro-Semantics, now an entrepreneur, prolific writer, researcher, modeler, and explorer of things of the mind-body-emotion system.