Meta States Model
Meta State Model – The State of your State of mind
The Meta State model is wildly inventive. It is also the champion’s path to living meaningfully and powerfully.
“Hey, imagine that you are in complete control of every aspect of your life. Your work, relationships, health, recreation and self-image are all incredibly satisfying. Every day ushers in exciting new possibilities.”
As a trainer and coach, this is the invitation I would offer to a layperson unfamiliar with NLP. To the NLP practitioner, I would revise the invitation to include technical terms. I would say:
“Let me invite you to master the science of running your own brain which will allow you to develop high-level state-management skills and thus live resourcefully all the time.”
For the NLP practitioner, this invitation is peppered with three key ideas from NLP:
- Running your own brain
- Living in an aware State – a word used to describe one’s internal emotional condition, made of thoughts, feelings and physiology
- And living resourcefully – the result of achieving the above two points
It’s easy to see why NLP has such a wide appeal. Everybody is looking for a model filled with tools and techniques to navigate the world. Everybody – not just sci-fi astronauts – wants to boldly go where no-one has gone before.
Now let’s extend the power of NLP with a new paradigm using the invitation above. And for the purpose of clarity, let’s repeat the invite with an addendum.
“Let me invite you to master the science of running your own brain which will allow you to develop high-level state-management skills and thus live resourcefully all the time. Would that interest you? Would you like that?”
The two questions added to the invitation introduce us to the Meta States model of Neuro-Semantics. In the first draft, the invitation does not elicit a response from you about your interest and liking. In the second draft, you are being asked to gauge your emotional response. You look inside, assess your “interest” and “liking” and thereby enter a state that is meta to the first state evoked by the invitation.
The word “meta” alludes to the thing itself but from a higher perspective instead of from within. For example, in software systems, a customer’s information is stored using a customer key ID. This ID is the metadata that points to the customer, making it data about data.
Seen in that perspective, Meta States Model is the state about a state. The invitation creates a possibility of exploring the world efficiently using NLP and the questions make you climb up to a higher plane of awareness that tells you how you have received the invitation.
That’s meta and Meta States Model for you. What are your thoughts and feelings about it? Did you grasp it immediately? If so, do you feel proud of your intellect? Or are you confused? If so, then does your confusion trigger a thought that you are not as smart as you thought?
The above paragraph is a new invitation asking you to leap further up to a new Meta-State.
Now that you see how this concept works, how do you think and feel about it? Do you find it playfully inventive? Do you think it is manipulating you into a particular channel of thoughts? Or are you indifferent/bored/excited?
There we go again, into a new Meta-State! We humans are capable of creating and entering Meta States in the blink of an eye. We are a churning ocean of thoughts and feelings that keep conjuring up more thoughts and feelings. Each Meta State can be seen as a wave crashing into the shores of our consciousness, and as each Meta State recedes, it is theoretically possible for another to take its place. If you are feeling playful, you could equate Meta-States to Russian Matryoshka dolls. Each doll looks whole until you open it and find another inside it and so on.
Needless to say, each Meta State is another layer of meaning that determines the purposefulness (or the lack thereof) of your actions. Which means that you are a Matrix of meanings – layers and lattices of meanings that even you may find difficult to decipher. That’s what makes you unique and wonderfully complex. But this complexity can come in the way of your progress, and that’s why you need Neuro-Semantics – the only holistic behavioral framework dedicated to deciphering meaning. And the way Neuro-Semantics achieves this is by using the Meta States model with precision.
Let’s take the above thread of invitation-questions to illustrate this. So far, the questions were rudimentary. Now, let’s suppose that you feel manipulated and controlled by these questions. In this context, let’s bring in a mind-altering set of questions:
What would happen if you dropped your apprehensions about the questions for a moment? What if you are not being manipulated but being sincerely invited to a path of self-discovery? How would it be if you focused on the playfulness of this methodology? Can you think of even more playful ways to jump up to higher Meta States? And in knowing you have the power to do so, would you feel more motivated to learn more about this process?
In an open mind, this series of questions nudges you from a state of cynicism to a state of learning and discovery.
How would you feel if you can use this process to constantly live in a State of resourcefulness that helps you tackle every challenge?
This brings us to the Meta-Function.
The Meta-Function of Meta States Model
The concept of self-reflexive consciousness is at least 70 years old. It’s a unique feature in human beings – having a consciousness that is always aware of itself (its intrinsic nature) and can tap into itself at any point in time. It is a distinct type of awareness in which we become both the subject and the observer. However, till the advent of Neuro-Semantics, this powerful idea lay solely within the purview of philosophers and clinical psychologists. Neuro-Semantics brought this into practical use by inventing the Meta-States model and the Meta-Function – which is to do with the phenomenon of responding to our responses.
How many times did your emotions change today? How many transitions from positive emotions to negative emotions do you remember? Did you feel surprise, joy, curiosity, excitement, peace? Did you get angry, afraid, sad, guilty, ashamed?
These questions, aimed directly at your internal emotional state, invite you to enter a Meta-State. Even as your body remains in the same physical space, your mind enters a higher level of thoughts and feelings about your thoughts and feelings. Like a man rubbing never-ending dirt off his palms, higher Meta States are constantly available to the diligent and resilient person. Only one’s own limitations prevent one from reaching the outer limit of this idea, assuming such a limit exists.
The infinite nature of the process can be empowering. Or it can be confusing, disorienting or debilitating. And in either case, a spiral can be created.
The negative spiral of Meta States Model
We have all experienced negative spirals of thoughts and emotions – sometimes referred to as an infinite regress. Here are a few examples:
- You are at the mall with a loved one. Someone rams against you, as if on purpose. In your anger, you turn and scream at this person who screams back at you. You experience a complete meltdown. When you cool down, you are ashamed that your loved one witnessed you in such a state. This makes you angry at yourself for behaving so badly. And later in the day, as you simmer in anger, you wonder whether the person rammed against you on purpose. The possibility that he didn’t makes you feel guilty for your actions. But the possibility that he deliberately rammed you makes you confused and angry about your guilt. From anger to shame to anger to guilt to confusion and more anger, you have just experienced a negative spiral.
- You have to complete an important task by tomorrow. You decide to watch a little bit of TV to put you in the right mood. A few hours later, you look at the clock and become infuriated at yourself for having wasted precious time. You find yourself unable to concentrate on the work and you spend many more hours in distractions that again make you ashamed and angry. And the spiral could continue till it is broken with resolve.
- You peruse through an old family album and feel sad remembering the passing of a loved one. The guilt at not being by her bedside during those final hours returns to haunt you. You go outdoors to seek relief and are reminded of the loved one again as you pass an ice-cream shop. More sadness seeps into you and you find no joy in anything throughout the day.
Inexpert handling of Meta States causes negative spirals. Instead of accessing more resourceful States, one starts accessing negative States of being. Many who have experienced this reach the fallacious conclusion that they must stop thinking altogether. And they might term others fond of introspection as morose or over analytical.
A negative spiral is a human being entering into an adversarial relationship with oneself. If you enter a negative spiral, you might start blaming yourself, your thoughts and your emotions. It can lead to a muddled mind, in congruency and what is called the dragon state.
The naive and impossible solution would be to avoid having a negative thought or feeling. The practical solution is to learn from our negative thoughts and feelings. They are telling us something about how we relate to people, events and objects out in the world. Acknowledging this link between our inner world and the outer world kick-starts the solution out of this turmoil. If we are feeling negative emotions, we are moving in the wrong direction “out there.” And if we are feeling positive emotions, we are moving in the right direction.
Again, it is important to understand that negative emotions have negative repercussions only in the short term. Suppose we stop:
- Fearing our fears
- Getting angry at our anger
- Getting fearful of your anger
- Feeling guilty about our negative thoughts and emotions
- Feeling disgust and contempt for our failures and fallibilities etc
Suppose we accept our darkest thoughts and emotions. What will happen? We would, instead of dismissing them, welcome them into our self-reflexive consciousness. This will allow us to acknowledge that we did indeed have those thoughts and emotions. We could ask expert questions about them, taking us deeper into our consciousness which we can witness dispassionately. Thus, we are now ready to address and manage our State and enter higher Meta States through a series of self-directed questions.
We learn from our thoughts and emotions. Guilt will teach us not to repeat a malicious action, envy will teach us to set a goal to seek that thing which made us envious, fear will teach us to safeguard ourselves against threat.
The moment we step out of an adversarial relationship with ourselves, the negative spiral can come to a halt.
The positive progress
Here’s an example of a positive spiral.
Raghu has always been fond of teaching. He has made enough money in his corporate career and would readily quit if only he could overcome the fear of public speaking. That is mandatory for a teacher. So, he begins by asking questions that take him up Meta States.
How can I begin my journey as a public speaker? How will I feel if I conduct a successful inaugural workshop?
This sets him on a short-term goal of conducting a technical workshop for his colleagues. 15 people attend and give him rave reviews. Raghu realizes that his technical expertise was key to making the workshop a success. This triggers further questions:
How confident will I feel if I had expertise in every topic that I talk about? How nice was it to be complimented about my use of the right word and positive body language? What quality of life would I have if I replicate this experience every single time?
Today, Raghu is a renowned speaker. He has even delivered a keynote address to an audience of 1000 people.
His journey was made possible by asking the right questions that took him into more positive frames of mind that augmented his natural resourcefulness. He gained the ability to stay focused on his goal with single-minded determination. His self-confident thoughts begot a series of self-confident thoughts in an infinite spiral in the desired direction.
In a way, knowing the power of Meta States, and Meta States Model “gamifies” progress. We playfully stroll towards our goals with an ease we did not deem possible. We can be helped in this by observing those who inspire us and modelling excellence using their behaviour.
And all this becomes possible because our positive emotions stem from deep meanings we attach to goals. As we become aware of what is important to us and why, the how becomes easier to model.
In summary
Till salt was discovered and used, nobody knew what they were missing. That’s what Meta States Model has done to NLP. Before it, NLP was a nutritious offering. After it, NLP has become the tastiest dish to alter behavior quickly, effectively and permanently.
By tapping into our self-reflexive consciousness, Meta-States has opened up endless possibilities. In the first few years after its inception, nearly a hundred Meta-State patterns were discovered or invented – with sound structures. At this juncture, it has become difficult to keep track of the brand-new applications of the concept, with exciting new inventions being made on a daily basis. Some of them are simple, some advanced.
Meta-States runs faster using the muscular power of NLP because it is metaphorically the more structured athlete with a better training regimen. It is more flexible and non-linear than NLP. It will follow the thoughts/emotions of the subject up and down the chain of Meta-States. If one gets lost in this hierarchy of thoughts and emotions, one enters the Meta-Zone. Anyone having the patience to navigate through a seemingly infinite series of Meta-States will be rewarded with new possibilities. Each layer of meaning will translate into a fresh way of looking at oneself and the world. And as Neuro Semantics says, meaning determines everything else.
That’s why countless seasoned NLP practitioners have become diehard fans of Meta States Model and Neuro-Semantics.
