You’ve Got to go Meta to Change Your Personal History
Meta-States in NLP Patterns Series
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”
(Richard Bandler)
Recently Bob and I began consciously detecting and identifying just how many of the interventions and models in NLP actually depend upon “going meta,” that is, on getting a person to make a meta-move to a higher logical level and creating the magic of change at that level.
As we think about this in terms of the Meta-States Model, the reason seems quite clear. It occurs because the majority of phenomena (subjective experience) that gives us problems occur at meta-levels rather than primary levels. Most human problems, challenges, and distresses do not occur at the sensory-based level of mere description. Rather, most occur at the meta-levels of human experiencing– at the levels where we evaluate and attribute to the descriptions higher level meanings.
We believe that this explains the reason why sometimes direct submodality shifts on beliefs do not work (see Anchor Point, Nov. & Dec. 1997, Jan. & Feb. 1998). Submodality shifts will seldom alter the meta-level frame of reference that creates the higher level context of an experience– unless specifically applied to the meta-level. And true enough, sometimes this occurs apart from a person even noticing. Accordingly, since most “problems” and all beliefs operate at levels higher than the primary level of experience, submodality work that only affect changes primary level will seldom “work” for meta-level structures (e.g. beliefs, understanding, decisions, values, etc.). One would have to apply the submodality shift to the meta-level or directly work with the meta-level.
I (BB) stopped doing submodality shifts on beliefs and direct strategy work early in my NLP career because I could not consistently obtain good results. Today, the Meta-State Model explains why I did not always obtain good results and it also provides me with some powerful tools for working with such structures and getting good results more consistently.
This understanding has set each of us back to the incredibly insightful works of Korzybski and his original model and training processes in neuro-linguistics and neuro-semantics. Korzybski (1933/1994) noted that humans seldom have “problems” with what he called “first-order abstractions.” At the sensory representational level– we map over from the world using the most basic of our neurological mapping mechanisms– what in NLP we call the VAK or 4-tuples. We map over the sights, sounds, sensations, smells, and tastes that we experience via our sense receptors so that we internally have a “sense” of the same.
What initiates the truly human use of our nervous system occurs when we move into “second-order abstractions,” “third-order abstractions,” etc. This necessitates that we use the meta-representational system of language as well as mathematics, music, poetry, etc. Here we make maps of our maps, abstractions of our abstractions, and conceptual generalizations of our concepts. And when we do– we move up the scale of abstraction and into the land of nominalization and generalization. And here we can create generalizations and distortions that do not serve us well at all.
The Conceptual Neuro-Linguistic States
Among the abstractions of abstractions that we activate or create, and which can generate human “problems” we include such concepts as: time, space, cause-effect (causation), self, past, future, purpose, destiny, nature of the world, of people, relationships, materialism, spirit, ability, responsibility, etc.
Nor do we stop abstracting with these abstractions. Our self-reflexive consciousness inevitably (and inescapably) generates concepts of these concepts. In this way we can create a map in childhood full of cognitive distortions, inadequacies, irrationalities, dysfunction, etc. and by then believing in it, or thinking that we are forever stuck with it (two concepts of concepts), we then believe-in-our-beliefs which causes them to seem unchangeable and therefore our “fate.”
In this way, we can continue to experience ongoing trauma even when the traumatic experience came to an end fifty years ago. This gives us the ability to continue to traumatize ourselves only using a memory of a past experience. Korzybski describes this use of our neuro-linguistic maps as “unsane.” He further described it as a morbid second and third order abstraction.
In NLP today we describe it as a set of unenhancing maps that do not function in an ecological way in our lives. And we have a pattern– the Change History Pattern for transforming it. In the following, we have reformulated the Change History Pattern to show how it operates as a meta-level pattern to address meta-level processes.
Going Meta to Change History
1) Identify an incident or experience in your personal history that you believe has a continuing and undesirable influence on your life today. Such an incident may have consisted of a hurtful or ugly act imposed upon you by another person. Or it may comprise a long series of unenhancing interactions with someone. Or it may have arisen as an experience of derision or failure in a particular area of life (sports, academics, relationships, having fun, music, etc.) that keeps you from engaging that area today.
Pick an incident that you experienced as problematic, unpleasant, or distressful– to which you then built some kind of understanding (or mental map) that still affects you. As you do, identify an event that if it had not happened, you would experience (think, feel, talk, act, relate) in a different way today.
Obviously, to do this you have to go meta to “the now,” and access a conceptual state called, “the past.” You also have to access a meta-level conceptual state that you have stored under some nominalization– “failure,” “disappointment,” “I’m no good at sports,” “I can’t concentrate on technical subjects,” etc.
2) Identify a current resource which, if you had it available back then, that resource would have made all the difference in the world in your experience at that time. This resource could consist of a piece of knowledge or understanding (about yourself, others, the world, how something works, etc.). “Dad just didn’t pass Parenting 101.” “If a person acts in ugly or hurtful ways– the responsibility for that belongs to them.” It could consist of a belief, a skill, a behavior, a state (confidence, competence, self-esteem), etc.
Full recall, experience, and anchor this resource so that you have ready access to it. Strengthen it through appropriate amplification mechanisms (submodalities and meta-programs)– really juice it up so that you have it in full measure.
3) Take that resource back to the earlier incident and relive it with the resource from your future. As you take this current resource back and relive the memory with it, begin to notice the ways your experience changes. Repeat this process with the resource, or even other resources, so that with each re-run through the incident– you find that the event keeps changing and transforming into something more and more useful.
Obviously this involves taking a meta-position to your “memory” (“time,” the “past”) and bringing the resource to bear on the memory. This reveals a meta-stating process– as you outframe the old frame with the new thoughts-and-feelings of resourcefulness. This puts you at a meta-level to the old frames-of-reference that has not served you well.
4) Next, “grow up” with the resource and the new memory. When you have finished letting the memory change, “grow up” with that new memory. This means bringing yourself up through your personal history with that changed experience totally intact.
Again, more outframing of the old contexts and contexts-of-contexts by bringing thoughts-and-feelings of developing (“growing up”) with a resource to bear upon the memory. Doing this in a trance-like state of relaxed comfort and inward focus activates all parts of the brain and nervous system to real-ize it in terms of neuro-linguistic processes.
5) Future pace the resource by thinking about some situation in the future that you might find yourself in. Imagine that future event and moving into that situation having changed your past and having grown up with that resource and just notice all of the ways in which you respond so different from what you otherwise might have done.
Changing Susan’s Personal History
Susan recalled a painful experience from her childhood when Bob invited her to do so during a NLP Master Practitioner training. He then asked about the submodalities of the old experience and, as he did, invited her to make a dissociated image of herself– that younger Susan, so that she could see it clearly– from a distance.
As Susan did, she saw a dissociated image of that younger Susan out in front of her. The image stood out in front of her, down low, and about six feet from her face. As she saw it, she noticed that It had some color in it.
“Susan, I want you to focus on that image …” Bob prompted her.
As she developed her focus on that image, he gently began, “Now, Susan, of course, you realize that that event that happened to that younger Susan, happened many years ago. And that it is no longer real. That event happened way in your past, and the people in your life at that time have changed… they have changed dramatically, and so have you…”
At this point, Bob had moved her through step 1 and into step 2 as he had her apply some resources to the old representations, namely, a sense of distance, a sense of change, a sense of “no longer real.”
“As you look at that picture now, I want you to begin to bring to bear on it some of your current resources … resources that enable you to feel confident and courageous and which allows you to know fully your own value and dignity and as you do this, just begin to notice how it changes that no-longer-real memory from your past … And how does it change it?”
“It is disappearing.” Susan said.
“That’s right, Susan, and that image can totally disappear as your resourcefulness increases, can it not?”
And it did. The image totally disappeared. She realized that her map was not the territory, but only a map, a memory of the territory. She also realized that she was no longer ten years old.
“So as you enjoy this experience of the old disappearing, you can begin to imagine yourself moving up through time, growing up as it were with that resource … and as you imagine this, and feel this fully, you can anticipate arriving at today with this resource that has grown up those memories so that when you imagine your future– and other experiences, you can imagine being the you with all these resources and history… now.”
In reviewing this model notice how it depends totally upon the NLP Presupposition, originally from Korzybski, namely, “The Map Is Not the Territory” (or as we like to paraphrase, “The Menu Is Not the Meal.”).
Susan’s map of the old memory obviously did not exist as the territory. The original territory from which she developed her map occurs 35 years prior to this experience. It occurred to her younger self– to a little girl of ten years of age. So not only did her map not exist as the territory when she originally conceived it, her similar map of that day certainly did not consist of the territory these years later.
Changing History Changes the Now
Just today I worked with a client who draws social security disability due to a manic depressive disorder. She came for a follow up therapy session. In the four years she hasn’t worked, but recently she did take a part time job. Today she said that she fears that she cannot keep the job.
Why not? The source of her fear lies in an old memory of a bad experience at work. She had a dissociated image of a former bad experience when she lost a job several years ago. She has her image coded as a panoramic picture right in front of her. I used the same procedure with this client as I did with Susan.
The result? Her image totally disappeared because that memory had become no longer real to her. Prior to coming, she had meta-stated herself into an almost panic from that memory. Utilizing the same neurological processes that she used to negatively meta-state herself, I led her through a process whereby she meta-stated resources and applied them to that same memory. Doing that caused it to disappear.
References
Bandler, Richard and Grinder, John. (1979). Frogs into princes: Neuro-linguistic programming. Moab, UT: Real people press.
Hall, Michael (1997, 1998) Recognizing the Meta-Levels of Beliefs series. Anchor Point, Nov.& Dec. 1997, Jan.& Feb. 1998. Salt Lake City: Anchor Point Associates.
Korzybski, Alfred. (1933/ 1994). Science and sanity: An introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics, (5th. ed.). Concord, CA: International Society For General Semantics.
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