THE ART OF TURNING ?FLOW?
ON & OFF AT WILL
In Neuro-Semantics we have discovered how to turn the flow
state on and off at will. That?s what the APG training is
about. Turning flow on and off at will refers to the
requisite ability to step in and to step out of an optimum
state so that you can be absolutely at your best when you
need to be at your best with all of your resources
available, and to step out when that?s appropriate.
Interested?
The Flow State. Csikszentmihalyi is the cognitive
psychologist who explored and made ?the flow state?
explicit in his doctorate dissertation on happiness.
Originally, he was searching for the structure of happiness.
Then, in the process, he stumbled onto the fact that has
been known for centuries. Namely, the best way to not be
happy is to pursue happiness! Philosophers have long know
that the direct pursuit of happiness is the best way to not
experience it. The best way to achieve happiness is to
pursue something that?s important to you, something that
makes a difference, and something requiring knowledge and
skilled which you develop along the way. That?s what
Csikszentmihalyi discovered?to be happy you need to be
doing something that?s meaningful and challenging and
something which is based on a skill?a competence.
Yet being happy is not something will happen immediately or
automatically. In fact, the opposite may occur. In the
immediate moment when you have a meaningful challenge which
may be at the edge of your competence, when you step up to
it, it will not ?easy.? Usually it is hard. Usually
you have to begin using all of your energy, effort,
knowledge, and intelligence to be able to do it. This is
true of running a race, playing chest, rock climbing, taking
on a challenging project, writing a book, etc. So
where?s the happiness? Ah, that?s the secret. The
state of ?happiness?(joy, delight, even ecstasy) comes
later. It comes when you look back on the experience.
That?s when you say, ?What great days those were!?
?I was the happiest when I was doing X!? The joy of the
experience typically occurs afterwards. Happiness is the
afterglow of a worthwhile attempt at something important.
In mapping this out Csikszentmihalyi used two
axes?challenge and competence. That generated four
quadrants and the ?flow zone??the pathway to flow
which involved integrating a challenge with the appropriate
skills. In Neuro-Semantics our Self-Actualization Quadrants
integrates this and extends it as we use the axes?Meaning
and Performance.
Stepping in and out. What NLP brings to the flow experience
is the phenomenon of a mind-body state?a state that you
can access, step into, and step out of. States are like
that. Comprised of a dynamic combination of what?s on
your mind, the condition of your body, and the emotions that
you generate from your meanings?a mind-body-emotion state
is simultaneously a state of mind, a state of body, and a
state of emotion. This gives us three ways into state.
Further, we can also distinguish states in terms of purity.
The great majority of our everyday states are mixed states:
a part of me is in a state of learning, a part is
preoccupied with work, another part is fearful of rejection,
etc. Very, very seldom do we access a pure state wherein we
are of one mind about something. A pure state refers to
being fully engaged with one referent. Then we are ?all
there??fully present. In that situation, we have a
laser-beam focus or concentration and that also describes
the flow state.
In early NLP literature, this was called a ?genius?
state, not because it raises IQ, but because it describes
the power of the focused, engagement state?the power of
being of one mind about something. That same literature
identified many of ?the prerequisites of genius.? And
that?s what we took in Neuro-Semantics to create the
Accessing Personal Genius (APG) training. Taking the
prerequisites of personal power, self-valuing,
self-acceptance, self-appreciation, ability to choose
one?s beliefs and suspend limiting beliefs, pleasuring
oneself in higher values, making peace with troubling
emotions, closing the knowing-doing gap, using the as-if
frame for generating new possibilities, setting high
intentions and aligning attention to one?s highest
intention ?we have meta-stated these genius requirements
into a single pattern.
The result? By custom-designing your own ?genius,? or
flow state, for a particular engagement, you can step in and
out of that state at will. Pretty amazing wouldn?t you
say? ?Yes, but does it really work??
I will tell you about my experience with it. Upon learning
and designing the pattern in 1994, I ran the pattern on
myself to create two genius or flow states. One was the
genius reading state, the other was the flow writing state.
That was 1995. Prior to that date, I had written a book,
Emotions: Sometimes I have them/ Sometimes they have me
(1985). That took me eight years. By 1995 I was still
working on the book that eventually became The Spirit of NLP
(1997). That only took five years to put together.
Then came the ability to step in and out of the flow state.
The first result: no more ?writer?s block.? None! I
wrote two books in 1995. And since that time have averaged
2 to 3 books a year, three to five articles a week, two to
three training manuals a year, and numerous Prefaces,
Introductions, and Chapters in other books. How do I
explain this sudden productivity and ease of writing? I can
step into the writing state, write for one minute or five or
for two hours, and then cleanly step out. Then, when I want
to step back in, I do precisely that and start again
wherever I was, even in mid-sentence, without any loss of
focus, attention, energy, vitality, etc. Now how cool is
that? Today (2015) I have written 54 books and counting the
serial books, 68.
The same can be said for other flow states: the coaching
state, the training state, the exercise state, etc. The
great thing is that when you can turn the flow state on and
off at will? it is there to serve you and your
engagements. You don?t have to wait around to ?get in
the mood.? You don?t have to do superstitious
activities like wearing your favorite yellow shirt or making
the victory sign seven times to get into state. You have it
well anchored in the physiologies of the state and so you
just step in.
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Executive Director
Neuro-Semantics International
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
1 970-523-7877
Dr. Hall's email: meta@acsol.net
Friday, 20 November 2015
HOW META-STATES BEGAN
It all began with an Aha! experience in 1994. It was that aha! experience
in the middle of a workshop at a NLP Conference which led to the discovery
of Meta-States. Most of you know the story, but for those who don?t, here
it is again.
I was involved in my very first modeling project on resilience. I had
decided to study how people develop the quality of ?bounce? in their
thinking-and-feeling so that when they get knocked down, they don?t stay
down. In the process I took to interviewing numerous people who had
suffered set-backs, who had been through a living hell of one sort or
another, and who had recovered their passions about living and were back in
the game of life. In the process I had been sketching a basic working
schema for the stages of recovery from set back to being back in the game of
life. Using the schema of the NLP Strategy Model, I prepared a 3-hour
workshop for the Denver NLP Convention when ?the call for papers? went out.
After applying for the previous three years, Steve Andreas finally accepted
this one. So I went and presented to some 50 or 60 people.
After presenting the stages in the process of ?Going for It ? Again,? I
invited someone to come forward ?who had been through hell and had
returned.? When several raised their hands and briefly described the
traumatic events that they had been through and the degree to which they
were back. I selected one gentleman and began inquiring about his strategy.
I wanted to use the interview questions to model out how he did it. At one
point, he mentioned that he moved from one stage to another. So I asked,
?What was on your mind as you did that? What did you think or feel?? He
said something about knowing that it would all work out. ?I know that
eventually I will come out of this stage.? ?How did you know that?? Then
either he said ?I have a state about my state, a meta-state,? or I said, ?So
it is a state about the first state, a meta-state.? I no longer remember
who said it. And there?s a reason for that.
Suddenly the lights and bells went off inside my head! Suddenly the phrase
?meta-state? brought together all of the studies in Korzybski and Bateson
that I had been studying for years. Suddenly it all made sense. And with
that, the Meta-States Model was given birth. The Conference ended a few
hours later, and that evening I drove with three friends over the entire
Rocky Mountain range (250 miles) from Denver to Grand Junction and I
couldn?t stop talking about it. That week, I sat down and wrote out the
model in a 40 page document. And because the NLP Trainers Association was
running a contest for innovations in NLP, I sent my document to Wyatt
Woodsmall. Two months later he called and said it would be given the award
for ?the most significant contribution to the field of NLP in 1995.?
Now the Aha! facet of this experience was that the term meta-state brought
together things that had been percolating in the back of my mind for several
years. Suddenly, lots and lots of things became clear. First and foremost
was the structure of complex states. While it was easy to identify the
structure of the basic states, not so with the complex ones. NLP gave me a
way to think about the primary states of fear and anger, stress and
relaxation, aversion and attraction, love and hate (or apathy), joy and
sadness, etc. I described them by saying that there are ?two royal roads?
for accessing these states?first, mind (thinking, imagining, talking,
hearing) and second, body (physiology, acting, gestures, breathing, etc.).
But what about more complex states? What about self-esteem, proactivity,
forgiveness, understanding, responsibility, etc.? I knew that to model the
structure of these states there was something more, something missing. Mere
representational images and sounds on the movie of the mind is not
sufficient for most of the people I was seeing as clients. After all, how
do you represent ?self-esteem?? What picture induces ?proactivity?? What
sound track fully elicits ?forgiveness? or ?responsibility?? Where do you
kinesthetically sense ?self-esteem?? The primary representational data of
sights, sounds and sensations cannot fully describe these complex state.
So, what?s missing? Within complex states, there was also typically a much
less direct and different kind of kinesthetic. So when the gentleman that I
was interviewing started to describe a higher state, a state about the other
states in coming back from a set-back, he said it was a ?state of knowing
that he would eventually get through it all.? I echoed back his words.
?So it?s a state of knowing that he would eventually get through it all.
Ahhhh. So what do you call this state?? He didn?t know. ?I?m not sure,
it?s a big picture state, like I?m above it all and know that I?ll get
through it all.?
?How do you know that you?re in this big picture state of knowing that?? I
asked again, trying to understand what he was doing in his mind, how he
represented it, and how I could replicate what he was doing.
?Well, it?s like this state is about that other state of feeling the
emotional ups-and-downs of the setback, but I?m not too concerned about my
roller-coaster emotions because I know I will get through. It?s like a
state meta to the other.?
?You mean it is a meta-state about the first state?? I reflected back.
?Yes, a meta-state.? My friends tell me that I finished the workshop that
day. But I don?t remember it. Inside my head was a whirlwind of ideas
spinning around. I was picturing a circle of a mind-body energy state meta
to a first one and governing it and framing it as its internal reference
structure. This dynamic picture provided a new understanding of the
meta-levels of learning in Bateson?s ?levels of learning.? I was also
seeing Korzybski?s layers of referent experiences in action, now his
?Structural Differential? (which was his way of solving the self-reflexivity
of the human mind) was alive and dynamic. This initiated a new search and
began my second modeling project, the structure of self-reflexive
consciousness.
Six months later I had written the first book, Meta-States (1995), and
immediately began running it as a new training which I called ?Dragon
Slaying.? My initial focus with Meta-States was to analyze the problematic
states that arise when a person brings a negative state of
thought-and-feeling against oneself. What I discovered is that this usually
created meta-muddles of self-conflict and self-antagonism. It creates the
disordering of personality, self-sabotages, and wastes incredible mental,
emotional, and personal energy. Dragon Slaying (1996) was then transcribed
and written from that training.
What are meta-states? A meta-state is the structure of
thoughts-and-emotions about the first level thoughts-and-emotions which you
have about an experience. If your first thoughts-and-emotions are reactions
and responses to the world, meta-states are your reactions and responses to
yourself. This includes reactions to your thoughts, to your emotions, to
your experiences, to your concepts, to your abstractions, to all of your
meanings.
My meta-states and your meta-states are our reactions to ourselves. So, how
do you react to yourself? To you react to your thinking-emoting states with
kindness and grace or harshness and judgment? Whatever you do, that sets
the frame or meta-state for the first state. In this a meta-state is a
?logical level? jump. We step back from ourselves as it were to then
think-and-feel a second time, then a third time, a fourth, and so on.
In fact, the process is never-ending. Korzybski noted that it is ?an
infinite process.? This is ?the infinite regress? which philosophers have
long noted. In Neuro-Semantics I began calling it ?the infinite progress.?
Why? Here the good news. Whatever frames you have set and whatever
meta-muddles you have created with limiting beliefs and self-sabotaging
understandings and decisions, you can always make one more step forward and
set a whole new empowering frame. Talk about opening up things so that you
are only as stuck as your frames. This is it!
Why meta-states? That will be the subject for the next Reflections. There
you will discover the power, extensiveness, and nature of meta-states and
how to use them for fun and profit.
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Executive Director
Neuro-Semantics International
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
1 970-523-7877
Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta@acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta@acsol.net
It all began with an Aha! experience in 1994. It was that aha! experience
in the middle of a workshop at a NLP Conference which led to the discovery
of Meta-States. Most of you know the story, but for those who don?t, here
it is again.
I was involved in my very first modeling project on resilience. I had
decided to study how people develop the quality of ?bounce? in their
thinking-and-feeling so that when they get knocked down, they don?t stay
down. In the process I took to interviewing numerous people who had
suffered set-backs, who had been through a living hell of one sort or
another, and who had recovered their passions about living and were back in
the game of life. In the process I had been sketching a basic working
schema for the stages of recovery from set back to being back in the game of
life. Using the schema of the NLP Strategy Model, I prepared a 3-hour
workshop for the Denver NLP Convention when ?the call for papers? went out.
After applying for the previous three years, Steve Andreas finally accepted
this one. So I went and presented to some 50 or 60 people.
After presenting the stages in the process of ?Going for It ? Again,? I
invited someone to come forward ?who had been through hell and had
returned.? When several raised their hands and briefly described the
traumatic events that they had been through and the degree to which they
were back. I selected one gentleman and began inquiring about his strategy.
I wanted to use the interview questions to model out how he did it. At one
point, he mentioned that he moved from one stage to another. So I asked,
?What was on your mind as you did that? What did you think or feel?? He
said something about knowing that it would all work out. ?I know that
eventually I will come out of this stage.? ?How did you know that?? Then
either he said ?I have a state about my state, a meta-state,? or I said, ?So
it is a state about the first state, a meta-state.? I no longer remember
who said it. And there?s a reason for that.
Suddenly the lights and bells went off inside my head! Suddenly the phrase
?meta-state? brought together all of the studies in Korzybski and Bateson
that I had been studying for years. Suddenly it all made sense. And with
that, the Meta-States Model was given birth. The Conference ended a few
hours later, and that evening I drove with three friends over the entire
Rocky Mountain range (250 miles) from Denver to Grand Junction and I
couldn?t stop talking about it. That week, I sat down and wrote out the
model in a 40 page document. And because the NLP Trainers Association was
running a contest for innovations in NLP, I sent my document to Wyatt
Woodsmall. Two months later he called and said it would be given the award
for ?the most significant contribution to the field of NLP in 1995.?
Now the Aha! facet of this experience was that the term meta-state brought
together things that had been percolating in the back of my mind for several
years. Suddenly, lots and lots of things became clear. First and foremost
was the structure of complex states. While it was easy to identify the
structure of the basic states, not so with the complex ones. NLP gave me a
way to think about the primary states of fear and anger, stress and
relaxation, aversion and attraction, love and hate (or apathy), joy and
sadness, etc. I described them by saying that there are ?two royal roads?
for accessing these states?first, mind (thinking, imagining, talking,
hearing) and second, body (physiology, acting, gestures, breathing, etc.).
But what about more complex states? What about self-esteem, proactivity,
forgiveness, understanding, responsibility, etc.? I knew that to model the
structure of these states there was something more, something missing. Mere
representational images and sounds on the movie of the mind is not
sufficient for most of the people I was seeing as clients. After all, how
do you represent ?self-esteem?? What picture induces ?proactivity?? What
sound track fully elicits ?forgiveness? or ?responsibility?? Where do you
kinesthetically sense ?self-esteem?? The primary representational data of
sights, sounds and sensations cannot fully describe these complex state.
So, what?s missing? Within complex states, there was also typically a much
less direct and different kind of kinesthetic. So when the gentleman that I
was interviewing started to describe a higher state, a state about the other
states in coming back from a set-back, he said it was a ?state of knowing
that he would eventually get through it all.? I echoed back his words.
?So it?s a state of knowing that he would eventually get through it all.
Ahhhh. So what do you call this state?? He didn?t know. ?I?m not sure,
it?s a big picture state, like I?m above it all and know that I?ll get
through it all.?
?How do you know that you?re in this big picture state of knowing that?? I
asked again, trying to understand what he was doing in his mind, how he
represented it, and how I could replicate what he was doing.
?Well, it?s like this state is about that other state of feeling the
emotional ups-and-downs of the setback, but I?m not too concerned about my
roller-coaster emotions because I know I will get through. It?s like a
state meta to the other.?
?You mean it is a meta-state about the first state?? I reflected back.
?Yes, a meta-state.? My friends tell me that I finished the workshop that
day. But I don?t remember it. Inside my head was a whirlwind of ideas
spinning around. I was picturing a circle of a mind-body energy state meta
to a first one and governing it and framing it as its internal reference
structure. This dynamic picture provided a new understanding of the
meta-levels of learning in Bateson?s ?levels of learning.? I was also
seeing Korzybski?s layers of referent experiences in action, now his
?Structural Differential? (which was his way of solving the self-reflexivity
of the human mind) was alive and dynamic. This initiated a new search and
began my second modeling project, the structure of self-reflexive
consciousness.
Six months later I had written the first book, Meta-States (1995), and
immediately began running it as a new training which I called ?Dragon
Slaying.? My initial focus with Meta-States was to analyze the problematic
states that arise when a person brings a negative state of
thought-and-feeling against oneself. What I discovered is that this usually
created meta-muddles of self-conflict and self-antagonism. It creates the
disordering of personality, self-sabotages, and wastes incredible mental,
emotional, and personal energy. Dragon Slaying (1996) was then transcribed
and written from that training.
What are meta-states? A meta-state is the structure of
thoughts-and-emotions about the first level thoughts-and-emotions which you
have about an experience. If your first thoughts-and-emotions are reactions
and responses to the world, meta-states are your reactions and responses to
yourself. This includes reactions to your thoughts, to your emotions, to
your experiences, to your concepts, to your abstractions, to all of your
meanings.
My meta-states and your meta-states are our reactions to ourselves. So, how
do you react to yourself? To you react to your thinking-emoting states with
kindness and grace or harshness and judgment? Whatever you do, that sets
the frame or meta-state for the first state. In this a meta-state is a
?logical level? jump. We step back from ourselves as it were to then
think-and-feel a second time, then a third time, a fourth, and so on.
In fact, the process is never-ending. Korzybski noted that it is ?an
infinite process.? This is ?the infinite regress? which philosophers have
long noted. In Neuro-Semantics I began calling it ?the infinite progress.?
Why? Here the good news. Whatever frames you have set and whatever
meta-muddles you have created with limiting beliefs and self-sabotaging
understandings and decisions, you can always make one more step forward and
set a whole new empowering frame. Talk about opening up things so that you
are only as stuck as your frames. This is it!
Why meta-states? That will be the subject for the next Reflections. There
you will discover the power, extensiveness, and nature of meta-states and
how to use them for fun and profit.
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Executive Director
Neuro-Semantics International
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
1 970-523-7877
Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta@acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta@acsol.net
THE TRICKIEST
COACHING CONVERSATION
When you ask a client what he
wants and he says, “Confidence,” you are in the presence of a situation that
could be the trickiest coaching conversation of all. So, a
warning—Beware! Your next words will be critical if you are to avoid getting
trapped in a dead-end exchange that will go nowhere. You’ve probably fallen
into this trap. Most of us have. You may get trapped in it during your next
coaching conversation. Many who read this article will. The distinctions that
follow are subtle and therefore require careful reading and implementation. So,
if you’re ready, here we go.
It all begins with what sounds
like a perfectly reasonable desired outcome. “I want to have more confidence.”
That’s what they say. Yet is that always helpful? Think about it. It all
depends, doesn’t it? Further the request for more confidence can mean so many
things to different clients. So you have to ask what your client is really
asking for. So inquire before you jump into coaching to it. Ask the
clarity check question. Don’t assume that you know what the person means. So
what are the range of things that confidence could mean to different
clients?
1) “Confidence” as assurance
of being able to do something. The
person wants to be sure that she can actually do something. In
other words, “confidence” to her is equal to “being sure.” The person is
saying, “I will only feel confident when I have a guarantee that I will succeed
in what I want to do. If I don’t feel sure, if I feel any slight twinges of
doubt or frustration, then I’m not ‘confident.’” Now the more risk-averse a
person is, then the more that person will be questioning his ability, doubting
his skills, and not sure. Then, with being unsure, the person feels the lack of
confidence. The focus for this person is on the feeling not being sure rather
than on developing the competence for being able to do the
skill.
Confidence literally refers to your faith (fideo) in or
with (con) yourself. It speaks about your faith that you can do
something. That’s why confidence requires evidence that you have
done it and that means it is a thing of history— you have in the past
demonstrated several or many times that you can do something. Now you can trust
yourself. That evidence convinces you that you can do it, that you are
competent in that skill. So confidence is based on competence. No
competence—no confidence. Confidence without competence is a false and
delusional trust in yourself. We call people who are confident when they can’t
demonstrate competence, fools.
Given that, do you really want
to help someone who wants to feel confidence to feel it if they are
incompetent? Isn’t that undermining their skill development? If they feel
confident, then why would they devote the energy and effort to learning or
practicing?
2) “Confidence” as
comfortable in learning and doing.
Others will use the word “confidence” to essentially mean “comfort.” In other
words, “confidence” is equal to a feeling, to feeling comfort, at ease,
no stress, no strain, no discomfort, etc. For this person, any discomfort
equates with the lack of confidence. She can therefore loss “confidence” very
quickly whenever there are any feelings of discomfort. This will be true for
almost everything new, different, and challenging. Yet because in taking on new
things, we are inevitably required to get out of our “comfort zone,” all new
learning and practicing will be uncomfortable, even unpleasant, disturbing,
etc. If this automatically equates to not having confidence, then all new
learnings and challenges equates with the lack of confidence.
3) “Confidence” as
self-efficacy for future unknown challenges. Yet another uses the word “confidence” as a synonym
for “trust in myself to be able to handle some future challenge.” This person
is “confident” if he knows that he can trust himself to figure something out,
handle any challenge that arise, and use his wits and relationship skills to
create solutions. This is what the person means by the word
“confidence.”
Actually, he is using
“confidence” for a different concept, for self-efficacy, which refers to a
future event. Most people develop this after numerous experiences of becoming
competent in something. They then learn something about their learning
experiences — “It’s just a matter of learning, practice, and eventually I will
get it.” The more times they walk the pathway from incompetence to competence,
the more likely they can jump a logical level and conclude, “I have done this
many times; this is just another instance of moving from incompetence to
competence. I know I will eventually get it.”
4) “Confidence” as a sense
of self-value and worth. Others
confuse self-esteem with self-confidence, so when they ask for confidence, they
want to have a strong sense of personal value in some context. Yet because they
frame their personal value and worth as conditional, then whenever they engage
in something new, something thewy are not all that competent and skilled at,
they then question their self-esteem and feel that their sense of self is
fragile or shaking in a given role or activity. Now they want “confidence.”
They want self-assurance that they are worthwhile.
The bottom line is that you
just never know how a person is using a word. This is especially true
when they say that “I want to more confidence.” So check it out. Find
out what they are really talking about— assurance, comfort, trust in self,
esteem of self. You’ll be glad you did; and they will be even more glad.
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Executive
Director
Neuro-Semantics
International
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520
USA
1 970-523-7877
Wednesday, 24 September 2014
NEURO-SEMANTICS AND THERAPY
Our primary focus in Neuro-Semantics is on psychologically healthy people
and facilitating their ongoing development so that they can create the best
version of them and the best version of their families and organizations.
This focus led to all of the developments in Meta-Coaching (the 12 books in
that series) and in Self-Actualization Psychology (four books on this
subject). It has led to our focus in business on leadership,
self-actualizing business leaders (Unleashing Leadership); it has led to our
focus on politics- on developing self-actualizing politics and politicians
(Political Coaching). It has led to our focus on wealth creation
(Inside-Out Wealth).
With all of this focus on people who are basically okay, what about those
who are not? What about those who need therapy- psychological healing?
What about those who are not only not-okay, but suffering on the inside
their mind-emotion system? Who are inwardly traumatized and who simply are
not psychologically healthy, but unwell?
This is actually where NLP began as it model the therapeutic skills of Fritz
Perls, then Virginia Satir, and then Milton Erickson. For that reason, NLP
was quickly and early mis-identified as a therapy, or a meta-therapy
discipline. Yet it is not. While the early developers modeled
psychotherapists, that was not their interest and it was not what they
actually created. Yes, they were fascinated by what those world-class
therapists were able to do and how they did it. Yet above and beyond the
content of therapy, they were interested in the process of communication and
change. Subsequently they created a Communication Model- the Meta-Model of
Language.
Neither Bandler nor Grinder were therapists, only Pucelik studied therapy
(Gestalt Therapy) at the University and only he continued doing what we
would recognize as "therapy" as he focused on drug and alcohol addictions
and ran (and still runs) recovery programs. And yet, in spite of that
history, NLP has numerous patterns that are recognized as therapy patterns
and for the first two decades, NLP mostly attracted therapists.
Accordingly, the majority of the early books on NLP applied NLP to therapy
and some of the early authors didn't differentiate what NLP is (i.e., a
Communication Model) and its application in psychotherapy.
My primary work in this area was the book I wrote on personality,
Personality Ordering and Disordering using NLP and Neuro-Semantics (2000) in
which I addressed the 14 personality disorders in the DSM IV. Collaborating
with me in that book was Bob Bodenhamer, Richard Bolstad, and Margot *.
Other books on psychotherapy was the second book on the Meta-States Model,
Dragon Slaying (1996/ 2000) and Games for Mastering Fear (20??) With Bob
Bodenhamer, also Mastering Stuttering and Blocking (20??) By Bob Bodenhamer,
now titled, In Their Voice. Later, The Crucible (200?).
Therapy- The Neuro-Semantic Approach
What is the approach that we, in Neuro-Semantics, take regarding therapeutic
work? How do we conceptualize therapy- what it is, how it works, who needs
it, the therapeutic change work, etc.?
What it is. "Therapy," by definition, refers to healing. So given that
we're talking about psycho-therapy, this kind of therapy focuses on healing
the mind, emotions, memories, and relational and social skills. Given that,
what is there about one's mind, emotions, memories, etc. that is "hurt"or
"sick" (toxic) and needs "healing?" How can our mind-body-emotion system be
hurt or get sick?
Using Carl Roger's definition of self-actualization provides what I consider
an excellent answer. He said that a self-actualizing person is a
fully-functioning person- fully functioning mentally, emotionally,
relationally, professionally, etc. So when that is not present, when one is
not fully well, then one is not-fully-functioning in those areas or
dys-functional.
So what is hurt or damaged or not working the way it ought to work? Answer:
One's mental maps. The meanings that a person has constructed about things
are not the kind or quality of meanings that enables a person to function or
cope well in the world. What's wounded is one's understandings, beliefs,
decisions, identity, etc. How one thinks (cognitive processing style,
cognitive distortions) and what one things (erroneous understandings,
limiting beliefs, toxic decisions, false knowledge, etc.).
To have "hurting" emotions requires having a mis-match between what you
think, believe, and expect from what you are getting and living. If the
mental map is severely disconnected with the reality on the ground of one's
everyday experiences, then we experience what we call "the negative
emotions." These "negative" emotions (anger, fear, frustration, annoyance,
stress, upset, grief, sadness, depression, etc.) indicate a gap between
experience (territory) and mental model of the world (map). The larger the
gap between experience and expectation, the more we sense that our map of
the world is being violated. That's what gets hurt when we feel bad. We
feel disappointed or upset or disillusioned because reality felt far short
of our expectations.
Neuro-Semantically, these "negative" emotions provide tremendously important
information and are therefore highly significant and valuable. The negative
emotion of anger says that something of value in your mental map feels
violated. The negative emotion of sadness says that something of value in
your mental map feels lost. Fear says that something feels dangerous. To
the extent that this is true, and an accurate appraisal, that emotion
provides emotional energy to "stop, look, and listen" to make appropriate
change. This is the positive use of negative emotions.
Normally none of this does any semantic damage to us. In fact, it is the
natural and normal functioning of our emotions. But if we hate, reject, and
refuse the negative emotion- paradoxically it does not go away, but gets
stuck in us. Then we keep re-processing things over and over and keep
feeling worse and worse. This is the resentment (feeling the sentiment
repeatedly) process and thereby turns our energies against ourselves (hence,
it creates a "dragon" state). And if we do not use the negative emotional
energy for changing either our mental map about things and/or our skills in
handling the challenges of life (our coping skills), the "hurt" doesn't go
away, but keeps repeating. In this way we keep re-traumatizing ourselves
with limiting beliefs, inadequate coping skills, meta-stating of negative
emotions against ourselves ... and let that continue and it will distort
human thinking-emoting- and coping. And given that is how we "do"
personality, it will over time distort personality. It is in this way that
we create a strategy for misery- depression, anxiety, and all of the other
problems that call for therapy. While there is nothing wrong with the
person as a person- the person has come to so misuse his or her personality
powers and functions that the person now needs to stop the traumatizing and
heal the old traumas that are kept alive inside.
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Executive Director
Neuro-Semantics International
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
1 970-523-7877
Our primary focus in Neuro-Semantics is on psychologically healthy people
and facilitating their ongoing development so that they can create the best
version of them and the best version of their families and organizations.
This focus led to all of the developments in Meta-Coaching (the 12 books in
that series) and in Self-Actualization Psychology (four books on this
subject). It has led to our focus in business on leadership,
self-actualizing business leaders (Unleashing Leadership); it has led to our
focus on politics- on developing self-actualizing politics and politicians
(Political Coaching). It has led to our focus on wealth creation
(Inside-Out Wealth).
With all of this focus on people who are basically okay, what about those
who are not? What about those who need therapy- psychological healing?
What about those who are not only not-okay, but suffering on the inside
their mind-emotion system? Who are inwardly traumatized and who simply are
not psychologically healthy, but unwell?
This is actually where NLP began as it model the therapeutic skills of Fritz
Perls, then Virginia Satir, and then Milton Erickson. For that reason, NLP
was quickly and early mis-identified as a therapy, or a meta-therapy
discipline. Yet it is not. While the early developers modeled
psychotherapists, that was not their interest and it was not what they
actually created. Yes, they were fascinated by what those world-class
therapists were able to do and how they did it. Yet above and beyond the
content of therapy, they were interested in the process of communication and
change. Subsequently they created a Communication Model- the Meta-Model of
Language.
Neither Bandler nor Grinder were therapists, only Pucelik studied therapy
(Gestalt Therapy) at the University and only he continued doing what we
would recognize as "therapy" as he focused on drug and alcohol addictions
and ran (and still runs) recovery programs. And yet, in spite of that
history, NLP has numerous patterns that are recognized as therapy patterns
and for the first two decades, NLP mostly attracted therapists.
Accordingly, the majority of the early books on NLP applied NLP to therapy
and some of the early authors didn't differentiate what NLP is (i.e., a
Communication Model) and its application in psychotherapy.
My primary work in this area was the book I wrote on personality,
Personality Ordering and Disordering using NLP and Neuro-Semantics (2000) in
which I addressed the 14 personality disorders in the DSM IV. Collaborating
with me in that book was Bob Bodenhamer, Richard Bolstad, and Margot *.
Other books on psychotherapy was the second book on the Meta-States Model,
Dragon Slaying (1996/ 2000) and Games for Mastering Fear (20??) With Bob
Bodenhamer, also Mastering Stuttering and Blocking (20??) By Bob Bodenhamer,
now titled, In Their Voice. Later, The Crucible (200?).
Therapy- The Neuro-Semantic Approach
What is the approach that we, in Neuro-Semantics, take regarding therapeutic
work? How do we conceptualize therapy- what it is, how it works, who needs
it, the therapeutic change work, etc.?
What it is. "Therapy," by definition, refers to healing. So given that
we're talking about psycho-therapy, this kind of therapy focuses on healing
the mind, emotions, memories, and relational and social skills. Given that,
what is there about one's mind, emotions, memories, etc. that is "hurt"or
"sick" (toxic) and needs "healing?" How can our mind-body-emotion system be
hurt or get sick?
Using Carl Roger's definition of self-actualization provides what I consider
an excellent answer. He said that a self-actualizing person is a
fully-functioning person- fully functioning mentally, emotionally,
relationally, professionally, etc. So when that is not present, when one is
not fully well, then one is not-fully-functioning in those areas or
dys-functional.
So what is hurt or damaged or not working the way it ought to work? Answer:
One's mental maps. The meanings that a person has constructed about things
are not the kind or quality of meanings that enables a person to function or
cope well in the world. What's wounded is one's understandings, beliefs,
decisions, identity, etc. How one thinks (cognitive processing style,
cognitive distortions) and what one things (erroneous understandings,
limiting beliefs, toxic decisions, false knowledge, etc.).
To have "hurting" emotions requires having a mis-match between what you
think, believe, and expect from what you are getting and living. If the
mental map is severely disconnected with the reality on the ground of one's
everyday experiences, then we experience what we call "the negative
emotions." These "negative" emotions (anger, fear, frustration, annoyance,
stress, upset, grief, sadness, depression, etc.) indicate a gap between
experience (territory) and mental model of the world (map). The larger the
gap between experience and expectation, the more we sense that our map of
the world is being violated. That's what gets hurt when we feel bad. We
feel disappointed or upset or disillusioned because reality felt far short
of our expectations.
Neuro-Semantically, these "negative" emotions provide tremendously important
information and are therefore highly significant and valuable. The negative
emotion of anger says that something of value in your mental map feels
violated. The negative emotion of sadness says that something of value in
your mental map feels lost. Fear says that something feels dangerous. To
the extent that this is true, and an accurate appraisal, that emotion
provides emotional energy to "stop, look, and listen" to make appropriate
change. This is the positive use of negative emotions.
Normally none of this does any semantic damage to us. In fact, it is the
natural and normal functioning of our emotions. But if we hate, reject, and
refuse the negative emotion- paradoxically it does not go away, but gets
stuck in us. Then we keep re-processing things over and over and keep
feeling worse and worse. This is the resentment (feeling the sentiment
repeatedly) process and thereby turns our energies against ourselves (hence,
it creates a "dragon" state). And if we do not use the negative emotional
energy for changing either our mental map about things and/or our skills in
handling the challenges of life (our coping skills), the "hurt" doesn't go
away, but keeps repeating. In this way we keep re-traumatizing ourselves
with limiting beliefs, inadequate coping skills, meta-stating of negative
emotions against ourselves ... and let that continue and it will distort
human thinking-emoting- and coping. And given that is how we "do"
personality, it will over time distort personality. It is in this way that
we create a strategy for misery- depression, anxiety, and all of the other
problems that call for therapy. While there is nothing wrong with the
person as a person- the person has come to so misuse his or her personality
powers and functions that the person now needs to stop the traumatizing and
heal the old traumas that are kept alive inside.
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Executive Director
Neuro-Semantics International
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
1 970-523-7877
Monday, 7 April 2014
FITTING THE MODELS OF NEURO-SEMANTICS TOGETHER I decided to make explicit the system of Neuro-Semantics after getting questions in my Meta Master Practitioner training: "How do the pieces of Neuro-Semantics fit together? How do the models interface with each other?" The following sorts out the models of Neuro-Semantics in terms of: Processes, Patterns and Models and I end it with how it all fits together within the larger context of Self-Actualization Psychology. Processes: First of all – State. A state is a general description of the combination of thinking, feeling, body movement, degree of muscle tension etc, We are always in a state and that state effects what we think, feel, and how we act and speak. We get information about the world outside our head through our eyes, ears, nose, tounge and touch/sense. We re-present this information through mental imagery, sounds or voices, tension and other kinds of feelings in our body and we also store information in smell and taste. We edit the movies (a metaphorical description of the VAKOG-information) by how we relate to it in space (near/far, above/under/in front of/behind, inside our outside the images etc) and we give meaning to that relationship to the "movie". In Neuro-Semantics this is called Meta-modalities or Sub-Modalities. As we represent the world in sequences of images/sounds/feeling/smell/taste we called that
We use Language as a way to code the world symbolically and metaphorically (all language is metaphorical). Language is correlating with our representations - "internal senses", the meta-modalities, and we use language to give meaning and even though we use the same words they mean different things depending to how we make meaning of the symbols through what we see, hear/say and feel about them. The Language patterns or language models are all different applications of the same process, Language. Then we give Meaning to things through language. We make sense of the world by explaining it to ourselves linguistically by what something "is" or adapt our "map" (which of course is a metaphoric description of how we connect things) to what we learn from parents, family, friends, school (which has the purpose of making us productive citizens), work, media etc. We can give meaning that explain, that give us freedom… and toxic meaning that limit us and can make us sick both physically and mentally. We embody meaning and when we tell ourselves that the meanings we have given to things is real and true we form beliefs.
Recommended books on the processes, patterns and models: Processes: VAKOG: MovieMind by L. Michael Hall Meta-Modalities: Sub-Modalities going Meta by L. Michael Hall and Bob Bodenhamer Get the life you want – Richard Bandler Language: Communication Magic by L. Michael Hall MindLines by L. Michael Hall and Bob Bodenhamer Hypnosis – a comprehensive guide by Tad James Richard Bandlers guide to Trance-Formation by Richard Bandler Cognitive Linguistics – An introduction by Vyvyan Evans and Melanie Green Hypnotic Realities by Erickson, Rossi & Rossi Training Trances by Overdurf & Silverthorn Precision – A new approach to Communication by Grinder & McMaster Sleight of Mouth by Robert Dilts Meaning & Meta-States: Meta-States by L. Michael Hall Neuro-Semantics – actualizing Meaning & Performance by L. Michael Hall States of Equilibrium by John Burton Beliefs by Dilts, Hallway & Smith (not explicitly on Meta-States but if read with "Meta- State eyes" it´s all about Meta-States) Patterns: The Sourcebook of Magic by L. Michael Hall The Sourcebook of Magic Volume II (Meta-Stating patterns) by L. Michael Hall Change your Mind and Keep the change by Steve Andreas and Connirae Andreas Heart of the Mind by Steve Andreas and Connirae Andreas Models: The Matrix Model by L. Michael Hall The Crucible by L. Michael Hall Meta-Coaching vol I by L. Michael Hall and Michelle Duval Meta-Coaching vol II – Coaching Conversations by L. Michael Hall and Michelle Duval Self-Actualization Psychology by L. Michael Hall Unleashed by L. Michael Hall Unleashing Leadership by L. Michael Hall Benchmarking by L. Michael Hall Group and Team Coaching by L. Michael Hall Systemic Coaching by L. Michael Hall
CLEANING UP FLUFF
You can clean up your language and get over a lot of precision by using the
Meta-Model of Language and the Representational Model (#13). These
precision models inform you how to become more precise and specific in the
way you think and then talk. Now within the Meta-Model is a particular
distinction that's especially critical-nominalizations and the skill of
de-nominalizing.
This is actually a subject that I speak and write about a lot. And even
though I do, I find that most of us, including myself, can so easily get
seduced by the hypnotic power of nominalizations. And if you really don't
know how to recognize these great big fluffy words (a nominalization) and
deal with it, your language is going to be sloppy- very sloppy. And that
means you will not be precise in communicating even though you probably will
think you are. That's one of the seductions of nominalizations. The
speaker has details in mind when speaking, but the language form does not
convey them. So the speaker will feel as if he or she is being precise even
though what comes out of the mouth is vague, indefinite, and fluffy.
So, what is a nominalization? A nominalization refers to an action or a
process which has been named, or nominalized. The problem is that when we
give a name to an action, it tricks our mind. The "name" (noun) makes the
action sound like and seem like as if it were a thing.
One person relating to another person is doing something: talking,
requesting, kissing, holding, hitting, smiling, laughing, crying, helping,
listening, etc. By relating they now have a relationship. Sounds like a
thing. It is not.
When you think and value yourself as valuable as a person, you esteem
yourself as significant. When you name this action, you create the
nominalization, self-esteem. It sounds like a thing. It is not.
When a person is leading a group with a vision, he or she is said to have
leadership qualities.
Prior to Transformational Grammar which came up with the term,
"nominalization," Abraham Maslow called this process- reification. Others
have called it thingification. Nominalizing is the concretizing of a
dynamic moving process (which is best described by verbs) as if it is a noun
("a person, place, or thing"). Yet it is not.
As a result of this, it makes the nominalization false-to-fact. What the
nominalization presents is not just an over-generalization, not just a idea
that's very fluffy and vague. The nominalization is actually a lie, a
deception. The so-called thing is not a "thing" at all!
"My self-esteem these days is really because of the problems in my
relationship which makes me feel stressed-out and it's going to lead to a
depression."
All of the italicized words in the above sentence are nominalizations and
they are connected by fallacious cause-effect structures (indicated by the
words "because" and "going to lead"). Here is one single sentence and it is
full of fluff and vagueness. The person's languaging here is really sloppy.
And the person probably doesn't have a clue as to how this single sentence
is semantically loaded with toxic ideas and how it works as a post-hypnotic
suggestion to make life more and more miserable in the future.
If you want to create imprecision, just take some action words, nominalize
them, connect them to some cause-effect statements and you can semantically
pack a sentence so that it is full of abstract concepts. What you say will
seem meaningful to you. And I'm sure you are trying to communicate
something. But when you do that you will not be communicating with
precision and so those of us listening will typically experience confusion
... or we will hallucinate our own meanings onto the other's words.
Okay, now for cleaning up our language. The solution is simple:
de-nominalize the nominalizations. That is, turn the false-nouns back into
verbs and then specify the verbs. If you hear "relationship," ask "Who's
relating to whom?" "What is X doing in relating to Y?" If you hear the
nominalization "self-esteem," ask "How are you esteeming yourself? By what
criteria? In what way?"
Now to turn a false noun back into a verb, you first have to be able to
recognize a false noun or nominalization. When I first learned NLP, I was
introduced to two tests for a nominalization:
1) The Wheelbarrow Test. Can you put the nominalization in a wheelbarrow?
Can you put "relationship" in a wheelbarrow? No. Can you put "self-esteem"
in a wheelbarrow? No.
2) The Ongoing Test. If you say, "it is an ongoing ..." and fill in the
blank with the word, does it make sense? "An ongoing relationship..." Yes,
makes sense.
3) Here's another test: See if you can make a picture of the word. You can
make pictures of real nouns of "persons, places, and things." It doesn't
work with a false noun. Can see a "relationship" or "motivation." So ask
some more questions until you can see what they are talking about.
Nominalizations have their place especially in doing trance inductions, but
not for communicating with clarity and precision. Use them sparingly, if
you use them too much your language will be fluffy and sloppy. That's why
we need to clean up our language of them.
Neuro-Semantic News
. It has been over 3 years since Meta-Coaching occurred in the
United States . and it may be another 3 years. So this year --- July 1-3
and July 4-11 for Modules II and III is a special event. Register now and
get a big savings. Write for a brochure: meta@acsol.net
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Executive Director
Neuro-Semantics International
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
1 970-523-7877
Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta@acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta@acsol.net
What is Neuro-Semantic NLP?
Neurons: Get your free subscription to the weekly International \Post on
Neuro-Semantics by Dr. L. Michael Hall. Subscribe at:
wwww.neurosemantics.com
Solutions: Sign up for the Neuro-Semantic Newsletter ---
<http://neurosemantics.com/newsletter> neurosemantics.com/newsletter.
This is a monthly newsletter for anyone new to Neuro-Semantics. Femke
Stuut, Editor.
Coaching: For world-class Coach Training - The Meta-Coaching System:
www.meta-coaching.org and \
<http://www.metacoachfo/hich/a/hich/af31506/dbch/af31505/loch/f31506%20f3150
6/dbch/af31505/loch/f31506%20undation.org/hich/af31506/dbch/af31505/loch/f31
506/hich/af31506/dbch/af31505/loch/f31506> www.metacoachfoundation.org.
Meta-Coach Reflections sent every Wednesday to the group of Licensed
Meta-Coaches.
Self-Actualization: Neuro-Semantics launched the New Human Potential
Movement in 2007, for information about this, see
<http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org
NSP --- Neuro-Semantic Publications: Order books from Neuro-Semantic
website, <http://www.neurosemantics.com> www.neurosemantics.com click on
Products and Services and then the Catalogue of books. Order via paypal.
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For more info www.abetterlife-perth.com.au
You can clean up your language and get over a lot of precision by using the
Meta-Model of Language and the Representational Model (#13). These
precision models inform you how to become more precise and specific in the
way you think and then talk. Now within the Meta-Model is a particular
distinction that's especially critical-nominalizations and the skill of
de-nominalizing.
This is actually a subject that I speak and write about a lot. And even
though I do, I find that most of us, including myself, can so easily get
seduced by the hypnotic power of nominalizations. And if you really don't
know how to recognize these great big fluffy words (a nominalization) and
deal with it, your language is going to be sloppy- very sloppy. And that
means you will not be precise in communicating even though you probably will
think you are. That's one of the seductions of nominalizations. The
speaker has details in mind when speaking, but the language form does not
convey them. So the speaker will feel as if he or she is being precise even
though what comes out of the mouth is vague, indefinite, and fluffy.
So, what is a nominalization? A nominalization refers to an action or a
process which has been named, or nominalized. The problem is that when we
give a name to an action, it tricks our mind. The "name" (noun) makes the
action sound like and seem like as if it were a thing.
One person relating to another person is doing something: talking,
requesting, kissing, holding, hitting, smiling, laughing, crying, helping,
listening, etc. By relating they now have a relationship. Sounds like a
thing. It is not.
When you think and value yourself as valuable as a person, you esteem
yourself as significant. When you name this action, you create the
nominalization, self-esteem. It sounds like a thing. It is not.
When a person is leading a group with a vision, he or she is said to have
leadership qualities.
Prior to Transformational Grammar which came up with the term,
"nominalization," Abraham Maslow called this process- reification. Others
have called it thingification. Nominalizing is the concretizing of a
dynamic moving process (which is best described by verbs) as if it is a noun
("a person, place, or thing"). Yet it is not.
As a result of this, it makes the nominalization false-to-fact. What the
nominalization presents is not just an over-generalization, not just a idea
that's very fluffy and vague. The nominalization is actually a lie, a
deception. The so-called thing is not a "thing" at all!
"My self-esteem these days is really because of the problems in my
relationship which makes me feel stressed-out and it's going to lead to a
depression."
All of the italicized words in the above sentence are nominalizations and
they are connected by fallacious cause-effect structures (indicated by the
words "because" and "going to lead"). Here is one single sentence and it is
full of fluff and vagueness. The person's languaging here is really sloppy.
And the person probably doesn't have a clue as to how this single sentence
is semantically loaded with toxic ideas and how it works as a post-hypnotic
suggestion to make life more and more miserable in the future.
If you want to create imprecision, just take some action words, nominalize
them, connect them to some cause-effect statements and you can semantically
pack a sentence so that it is full of abstract concepts. What you say will
seem meaningful to you. And I'm sure you are trying to communicate
something. But when you do that you will not be communicating with
precision and so those of us listening will typically experience confusion
... or we will hallucinate our own meanings onto the other's words.
Okay, now for cleaning up our language. The solution is simple:
de-nominalize the nominalizations. That is, turn the false-nouns back into
verbs and then specify the verbs. If you hear "relationship," ask "Who's
relating to whom?" "What is X doing in relating to Y?" If you hear the
nominalization "self-esteem," ask "How are you esteeming yourself? By what
criteria? In what way?"
Now to turn a false noun back into a verb, you first have to be able to
recognize a false noun or nominalization. When I first learned NLP, I was
introduced to two tests for a nominalization:
1) The Wheelbarrow Test. Can you put the nominalization in a wheelbarrow?
Can you put "relationship" in a wheelbarrow? No. Can you put "self-esteem"
in a wheelbarrow? No.
2) The Ongoing Test. If you say, "it is an ongoing ..." and fill in the
blank with the word, does it make sense? "An ongoing relationship..." Yes,
makes sense.
3) Here's another test: See if you can make a picture of the word. You can
make pictures of real nouns of "persons, places, and things." It doesn't
work with a false noun. Can see a "relationship" or "motivation." So ask
some more questions until you can see what they are talking about.
Nominalizations have their place especially in doing trance inductions, but
not for communicating with clarity and precision. Use them sparingly, if
you use them too much your language will be fluffy and sloppy. That's why
we need to clean up our language of them.
Neuro-Semantic News
. It has been over 3 years since Meta-Coaching occurred in the
United States . and it may be another 3 years. So this year --- July 1-3
and July 4-11 for Modules II and III is a special event. Register now and
get a big savings. Write for a brochure: meta@acsol.net
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Executive Director
Neuro-Semantics International
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
1 970-523-7877
Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta@acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta@acsol.net
What is Neuro-Semantic NLP?
Neurons: Get your free subscription to the weekly International \Post on
Neuro-Semantics by Dr. L. Michael Hall. Subscribe at:
wwww.neurosemantics.com
Solutions: Sign up for the Neuro-Semantic Newsletter ---
<http://neurosemantics.com/newsletter> neurosemantics.com/newsletter.
This is a monthly newsletter for anyone new to Neuro-Semantics. Femke
Stuut, Editor.
Coaching: For world-class Coach Training - The Meta-Coaching System:
www.meta-coaching.org and \
<http://www.metacoachfo/hich/a/hich/af31506/dbch/af31505/loch/f31506%20f3150
6/dbch/af31505/loch/f31506%20undation.org/hich/af31506/dbch/af31505/loch/f31
506/hich/af31506/dbch/af31505/loch/f31506> www.metacoachfoundation.org.
Meta-Coach Reflections sent every Wednesday to the group of Licensed
Meta-Coaches.
Self-Actualization: Neuro-Semantics launched the New Human Potential
Movement in 2007, for information about this, see
<http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org
NSP --- Neuro-Semantic Publications: Order books from Neuro-Semantic
website, <http://www.neurosemantics.com> www.neurosemantics.com click on
Products and Services and then the Catalogue of books. Order via paypal.
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For more info www.abetterlife-perth.com.au
Monday, 24 March 2014
LIFE IN THE REALM OF LANGUAGE
We live our lives in language. At a most fundamental level, we are
linguistic beings. We inevitably create mental maps using our native
language and whatever additional languages that we have learned. We cannot
do otherwise. And if we don't, we don't become human. Is that shocking?
It ought to be. And if you ask for the evidence, you have to go no further
than the phenomenon of "feral children."
There used to be feral children-the children who in some way got lost from
home, from mother and father, and left in the wild, they were "adopted" and
raised by animals- dogs, wolves, etc. Once upon a time feral children were
not that uncommon, but fortunately the last ones reported were in the
nineteenth century. What we discovered about such children is that if they
missed the imprint period of language, that period in which a child enters
into the semantic world that's navigated by symbols- later when the child
was discovered and brought into society, it was never able to enter into,
and live in, the symbolic world of human culture and language. The feral
child would not wear clothes, eat without utilizes (gobble food like an
animal), would be unable to talk and use language, etc. He or she would
never really enter into the human condition.
We are so inevitably linguistic in nature that without language we cannot be
human. If all we could do would be to create visual images, auditory
sounds, kinesthetic sensations, olfactory smells, and gustatory tastes and
we could not name any of these or relate one to a conceptual idea of
meaning, our consciousness would be extremely limited. In NLP we call these
sensory experiences our representational systems, our VAK languages of mind.
These enable us to detect and work with the movies that we play in our
minds.
In NLP we call the domain of language-the meta-representational system. And
while there's lots of problems with it, it is this system by which we can
use develop our meta-consciousness (consciousness-of-consciousness). It is
the language system that allows us to detect our thinking, adjust it, refine
it, and improve it. It is our self-reflexive consciousness that takes
fullest use of this higher and more abstract thinking and that enables us,
as humans, to create science and art so we can keep improving upon our
knowledge over the ages (e.g., time-binding).
Yet language itself is a challenge and a problem. That's mostly because our
languages are not very precise. Both the structure of our language and
hundreds, if not thousands, of words are very poor "maps" for using to
navigate the sea of experience. And no wonder. Our words and language and
ideas have developed over thousands of years and grew up from more primitive
times. And growing up during more primitive times, we still have many
primitive pre-scientific, unscientific, and erroneous ideas incorporated in
our language.
For these reasons (and others), one of the tasks before all of us, if we are
to live a sanely and effectively, is to clean up our language. With so much
contamination in our words, our sentences, our ideas, our philosophies, and
our assumptions- when we use words without consciousness of what we are
saying, the premises we are operating from, what we are presupposing without
evidence, etc., we thereby contaminate our responses, our relationships, our
emotions, and more.
Another factor enters into this consideration. We are not only linguistic
beings, we are neuro-linguistic beings. What does that mean? First, it
means that the very creation and generation of our words and language arise
in our neurology from how we use our neurology. Korzybski described this in
terms of how our nervous systems abstract from the world "out there," the
energy-manifestations that impact our sense-receptors, and then transform
those impacts along the neuro-pathways of our body and sent then to the
various sensory cortexes where that information is processed. The NLP
founders described this as how our nervous systems model the see-hear-feel
world of experiences that we encounter by deleting, generalizing, and
distorting that information. This enables each of us to create an unique
mental model or map of the world and use it in our responses.
[Read more about that in Korzybski's classic book, Science and Sanity (1933,
1994) and Bandler and Grinder's The Structure of Magic (1975, 1976).]
As neuro-linguistic beings, using language enables us to send signals to our
body and our body (neurology, physiology) responds to that information.
When those signals are coded as "beliefs" then the signals operate as
"commands" to our nervous systems which they then seek to "actualize" (make
real). In Neuro-Semantics we highlight this structure and use it to guide
the thought-signals and the belief-commands we want to be commissioning our
body to feel and actualize. That's because we know that "as we believe, so
we are" and "so be it unto you." In this way beliefs become self-fulfilling
prophecies (or self-organizing attractors).
Is it any wonder then that we need to clean up our language? Do you know
what you are doing to yourself with your language? Would you like to? In
this and the next articles, I'll be addressing some of the ways that you can
clean up your language and give reasons for how it will improve the quality
of your life. There are so many ways in which language can misdirect you
and send you off in unproductive directions. Yet the amazing thing is that
you can use such language and never suspect this. You can use the most
dis-empowering language and not even realize it. That's why Meta-Coaches
learn to listen for that kind of language and then invite awareness, "Do you
hear what you just said? Do you really hear what's implied in what you just
said?" That's step on for cleaning up your language. More are to come.
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Executive Director
Neuro-Semantics International
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
1 970-523-7877
Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta@acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta@acsol.net
We live our lives in language. At a most fundamental level, we are
linguistic beings. We inevitably create mental maps using our native
language and whatever additional languages that we have learned. We cannot
do otherwise. And if we don't, we don't become human. Is that shocking?
It ought to be. And if you ask for the evidence, you have to go no further
than the phenomenon of "feral children."
There used to be feral children-the children who in some way got lost from
home, from mother and father, and left in the wild, they were "adopted" and
raised by animals- dogs, wolves, etc. Once upon a time feral children were
not that uncommon, but fortunately the last ones reported were in the
nineteenth century. What we discovered about such children is that if they
missed the imprint period of language, that period in which a child enters
into the semantic world that's navigated by symbols- later when the child
was discovered and brought into society, it was never able to enter into,
and live in, the symbolic world of human culture and language. The feral
child would not wear clothes, eat without utilizes (gobble food like an
animal), would be unable to talk and use language, etc. He or she would
never really enter into the human condition.
We are so inevitably linguistic in nature that without language we cannot be
human. If all we could do would be to create visual images, auditory
sounds, kinesthetic sensations, olfactory smells, and gustatory tastes and
we could not name any of these or relate one to a conceptual idea of
meaning, our consciousness would be extremely limited. In NLP we call these
sensory experiences our representational systems, our VAK languages of mind.
These enable us to detect and work with the movies that we play in our
minds.
In NLP we call the domain of language-the meta-representational system. And
while there's lots of problems with it, it is this system by which we can
use develop our meta-consciousness (consciousness-of-consciousness). It is
the language system that allows us to detect our thinking, adjust it, refine
it, and improve it. It is our self-reflexive consciousness that takes
fullest use of this higher and more abstract thinking and that enables us,
as humans, to create science and art so we can keep improving upon our
knowledge over the ages (e.g., time-binding).
Yet language itself is a challenge and a problem. That's mostly because our
languages are not very precise. Both the structure of our language and
hundreds, if not thousands, of words are very poor "maps" for using to
navigate the sea of experience. And no wonder. Our words and language and
ideas have developed over thousands of years and grew up from more primitive
times. And growing up during more primitive times, we still have many
primitive pre-scientific, unscientific, and erroneous ideas incorporated in
our language.
For these reasons (and others), one of the tasks before all of us, if we are
to live a sanely and effectively, is to clean up our language. With so much
contamination in our words, our sentences, our ideas, our philosophies, and
our assumptions- when we use words without consciousness of what we are
saying, the premises we are operating from, what we are presupposing without
evidence, etc., we thereby contaminate our responses, our relationships, our
emotions, and more.
Another factor enters into this consideration. We are not only linguistic
beings, we are neuro-linguistic beings. What does that mean? First, it
means that the very creation and generation of our words and language arise
in our neurology from how we use our neurology. Korzybski described this in
terms of how our nervous systems abstract from the world "out there," the
energy-manifestations that impact our sense-receptors, and then transform
those impacts along the neuro-pathways of our body and sent then to the
various sensory cortexes where that information is processed. The NLP
founders described this as how our nervous systems model the see-hear-feel
world of experiences that we encounter by deleting, generalizing, and
distorting that information. This enables each of us to create an unique
mental model or map of the world and use it in our responses.
[Read more about that in Korzybski's classic book, Science and Sanity (1933,
1994) and Bandler and Grinder's The Structure of Magic (1975, 1976).]
As neuro-linguistic beings, using language enables us to send signals to our
body and our body (neurology, physiology) responds to that information.
When those signals are coded as "beliefs" then the signals operate as
"commands" to our nervous systems which they then seek to "actualize" (make
real). In Neuro-Semantics we highlight this structure and use it to guide
the thought-signals and the belief-commands we want to be commissioning our
body to feel and actualize. That's because we know that "as we believe, so
we are" and "so be it unto you." In this way beliefs become self-fulfilling
prophecies (or self-organizing attractors).
Is it any wonder then that we need to clean up our language? Do you know
what you are doing to yourself with your language? Would you like to? In
this and the next articles, I'll be addressing some of the ways that you can
clean up your language and give reasons for how it will improve the quality
of your life. There are so many ways in which language can misdirect you
and send you off in unproductive directions. Yet the amazing thing is that
you can use such language and never suspect this. You can use the most
dis-empowering language and not even realize it. That's why Meta-Coaches
learn to listen for that kind of language and then invite awareness, "Do you
hear what you just said? Do you really hear what's implied in what you just
said?" That's step on for cleaning up your language. More are to come.
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Executive Director
Neuro-Semantics International
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
1 970-523-7877
Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta@acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta@acsol.net
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