The First one:
THE MODELING THAT DISCOVERED META-STATES
The enrichment of modeling with Meta-States began in 1994 during my very first modeling project— Resilience. I started the project in 1991when I became really fascinated by the quality of staying with something when set-backs occur. It did not begin with big set-backs, but actually with little ones. And with the smallest of set-backs. Until then I had not even really noticed the phenomenon.
Prior to that if someone quit or gave up on something, I dismissed it with a wave of the hand as, “Well they must not really be interested.” Or, “It just must not be their thing.” Or, “They’ve got something else that’s more interesting.” Then one day during an NLP class I was interviewed someone about some very small thing that the person had started, then there was a set-back, and then the person gave up on. Using the Meta-Model questions, I probed and probed to understand the mental map of the person. When we had chased the person’s thinking-and-feeling about that one, he remembered another thing he had started, and a set-back, and a giving that up for something else. That led to a third memory and, of course, “Do we have a pattern here?”
His pattern was to think of something that he wanted or wanted to achieve, make a visual image of it (Vconstruct), then amplify it so that it was really compelling (K+), and in amplifying it, he would compress the time frame for achieving it so the picture came closer and closer and then he would say things like, “It’s almost here; I’m going to have it” (Alanguage), and then if anything got in the way of it (a set-back) like a disappointing result from an action or the realization it would take longer, he would then create another picture of it but this one would either be far, far away or a degraded version of it (Vconstruct) and the more he thought of it, the more it would move over and replace the original picture. At that point he would say, “Agghh. I don’treally want it anyway; it’s not worth the effort.” That would create a momentary sense of dislike and then he would be off to something else.
That got me hooked. Suddenly, I realized that there could be, for some people, a pattern of non-resilience. Set-backs of the smallest nature would put them off. So I started doing the interviews with just about anyone who would let me. As that continued, I discovered bigger and bigger set-backs— real knock-downs (divorces, bankruptcy, being fired, being mugged, rape, war, accidents, and all sorts of traumas).
Now what really amazed me in the interviews was that it was not the size, magnitude, power, number, or intensity of the set-back that determined the person’s response. For some people, the smallest set-back would knock them off-course and for others, the largest, most devastating set-back would not. They would get up, dust themselves off, and go for it again. Even if multiple set-backs occur at the same time— they would do the same thing. Get up, shake off the disorientation, examine what was left, figure out something to do, and bounce back! I was impressed. And, I wanted that! I wanted it for myself and I wanted it for every client that I worked with and I wanted it for those who attended every NLP course that I conducted.
“Okay, so what is the strategy of resilience, of bouncing back after a set-back? How do people think and map out the experience so that they take it as a matter of course, ‘I will be back.’?” That was my question and it was 1991. Many years prior to that I had read the book from Elizabeth Kobler-Ross on grief recovery and the stages that she proposed: shock, denial, bargaining, anger, and acceptance. I had also already read Viktor Frank’s Logo-Therapy and is story of resilience in Man’s Search for Meaning. So I began a search of the literature to see what else had been written. In 1991 there was not the category of Resilience as there is today so there was not much. But there was the study of the Children of Survival from the War in Lebanon.
While I was search out those things and now interview people who “had been to hell and back” I was reading through Korzbyski’s Science and Sanity and Bateson’s Steps to an Ecology of Mind. I was writing and publishing about the language patterns in Korzybski that were not included in the Meta-Model and writing NLP articles about Bateson’s contributions to NLP.
Then in 1994 a call for papers for the NLP Conference in Denver came and I decided to propose a workshop on “Resilience: Going for it — Again!” I worked out the stages: The set-back (or knock-down), the emotional roller-coaster stage of dealing with the emotional shock of a world falling apart, the accessing of stabilization states and skills to stop the fall, the coping stage of putting one’s world back together, and the mastering stage of recovering a new vision and intention so that one would finally “be back.” The strategy was straight-forward and linear. So I gathered my materials and headed to Denver with some friends.
Then it happened. While interview a man at the training, I asked, “How did you know to go from stage 2 to stage 3? And he said something like, “Well, I had this larger vision, this higher state about where I was and I knew that it was just a matter of time and that I would get through this.” Then either I reflected back to him or he said, “It’s like being in a state about my state, in a meta-state ...” Regardless of who actually said the words, the phrase “meta-state” was an Eureka moment for me as it brought together the meta-levels, logical levels, and levels of abstracting that I had been immersed in for three years. “Of course, at the same time that you are coping on the primary level you are also accessing your higher level thoughts-and-feelings and it is those meta-states of vision, intention, and determination that you will get through that’s infusing you with this complex state of resilience!"
The fact that we do not just operate at one level, but multiple levels simultaneously brings into focus that we cannot model most subjective experiences without tracking our self-reflexive consciousness as it creates multiple meta-states. We are multi-layered beings. We do not just think or feel— we are always and inevitably thinking-and-feeling (a state) about our thoughts-and-feelings and we are also experiencing states about those states. This comprises the matrix of frames that we have about things: our beliefs, values, identities, memories, imaginations, decisions, models, intentions, and dozens and dozens of other meta-level understandings. So to model in a full and complete way requires using the Meta-States Model for modeling out the self-reflexivity of the mind-body system.
L. Michael Hall, Ph. D.
The Second one:
The Second one:
HOW TO MODEL WITH META-STATES
In the last article I described the modeling that discovered Meta-States, now for an overview of how to model using the Meta-States Model. This was actually the surprise that I experienced after discovering Meta-States. While I was absolutely delighted to identify the meta-level structures of resilience(#6), I really had no ideal how extensive the Meta-States Model would apply. And how extensive does it apply?
In any and every experience where a person’s self-reflexive consciousness is operative.
Now if you are new to Neuro-Semantics and to Neurons, self-reflexive consciousness is the kind of consciousness, the kind of mind that you have, that we humans have. What does it mean? It means that you never just think. You never just feel. As soon as you think–and–feel (create an emotional state), you think–and–feel about that first state. You do not just get angry, you get afraid–of–your–anger or you get angry–at–your–anger, or you feel ashamed–of–your anger. And that’s just the first level. Then you think–and–feel something else about that first meta-state. And so it goes.
This explains the complexity of your states. This explains why it is often very difficult to answer the question, “What do you feel about X?” When you think about that X, there is your first level thinking–and–feeling, then your second level, third level, and so on. Up the levels it goes. Nor do these “levels” stay separate. It is their nature to combine and integrate. We call it coalescing in Neuro-Semantics.
So if you meta-state your learning state with joy, fun, or delight and you create the meta-state of joyful learning, if you do that repeatedly, then after awhile the joy and the learning so coalesce that they operate as if they were a single primary state— joyful learning. Then try as you will to pull the joy out of the learning and you will find it next to impossible. Why? Because your mind-body neurology is designed to make–actual (actualize) your thinking–and–feeling and so when you keep meta-stating learning with joy, you generate a new gestalt state so that a new emergent property arises— joyful learning.
For modeling, this is crucial. It lies at the heart of every complex and dynamic “state” that we humans are able to generate and this goes far beyond the linear modeling of basic NLP. And if you want to model the rich, robust, powerful, and complex states that characterizes experts— resilience, self-efficacy, seeing and seizing opportunities, entrepreneurship, leadership, etc., then you have to model out the meta-levels within the meta-states of the expert. Ignore that and you only get the surface first level and you will never tap into the rich layered qualities that lie behind it.
Now years ago I wrote a whole book on Modeling with Meta-States, I gave it the title of NLP: Going Meta (1997) and wrote it after the formatting that Robert Dilts used in Creating NLP: The Study of the Structure of Subjective Experience, Volume I. So I also titled it, NLP: Going Meta — Advanced Modeling Using Meta-Levels, Volume II.
So just how do you model using Meta-States? The answer lies in detecting and identifying the meta-levels that a person has reflexively brought to him or herself that now qualifies the experience and operates as a frame to the experience. What this means is that as you and I access another thought–and–feeling about our first state, that second state operates dynamically to do several things—
∙ It brings another mind-body state to it and so adds qualities or qualifies the first.
∙ It sets the cognitive ideas within that state as the frame for the first.
∙ It puts the first as a member of a class, the “class” being the classification that the second one creates.
The second bullet point means that all of the so-called logical levels (beliefs, values, identity, mission, spirit, intention, permission, memory, imagination, meaning, etc.) are dynamically inside of the second state (the meta-state) and set the frame of meaning for the first. Back to the example of “joyful learning.” Is that a belief? Do you believe you can joyfully learn? Is that a value? Do you value learning for the joy it gives you? Is that an identity? Are you a joyful learner? Do you have memories of joyfully learning? Do you imagine it in your future? Do you anticipate, expect, desire, give yourself permission, etc. to learn joyfully?
So what is it? It is all of those things at the same time. It is we with our linear thinking who want to separate these things and make them different phenomenon. Yet are they really? Could they all be aspects of the same thing? That’s our position in Neuro-Semantics. We look at all of these “meta-level phenomena” and view them as facets of the “diamond of consciousness.”
What does this mean for modeling? It means that when you discover a meta-level that’s qualifying an experience— there are beliefs in it, values in it, identities within it, intentions, permissions, prohibitions, and all of the other 100 logical levels. Oh yes, there are one hundred logical levels (actually more). I made a list of 104 of them in the book, Neuro-Semantics (2011).
There’s more to describe about this — especially the third bullet point on classes and categories as well as how to detect and call forth the meta-levels. I’ll write about that next time. To your effective modeling!
