[Neurons] Meta Reflections #49

[meta]

L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections #49

November 5, 2007 



UNTYING THE KNOTS OF OLD HABITS





Habits-a habit is a solidification of some way of thinking, way of feeling, way of talking, or way of acting that now allows us to go unconscious. This is truly a powerful dynamic in human nature, is it not? We have the innate ability to repeat some thought, emotion, attitude, belief, ritual, way of responding, etc. and through the process of repeating and validating we can put install it as our default program for how we operate as a person. At that point the program goes on automatic so we don't have to think about it, but our neurology, our neuro-pathways, and our conditioned muscle memory "knows" how to continue the operation.

Further, once we have done this, we can relax our concern for remembering all these things. We can trust that it will just operate whenever its cues are triggered. So like typing on a keyboard, driving a car, tying a bow, playing a sport, or hundreds of other things in daily life-we now become unconscious of the content of that learning. The learning goes on automatic pilot. As a result this frees our mind for turning our attention to other things, new things, things more interesting, new things to learn.

This description enables us to see habit as an old learning. It is a past learning that is now fully incorporated in our neurology thereby freeing our mind for learning something else. This is part of the "ecology of the mind" that Bateson wrote about in his classic work, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972).

Now, as a meta reflection, consider the essence of a habit. We could say that a habit is a mind-to-muscle embodiment. How about that? In the creation of a habit, we take what we know consciously in our mind, and agree with intellectually, and through repetition, through practice, through affirming it repeatedly, through using our body and actions to act on it-we take what was just mental and we make it corporal. We in-corporate it. We embody it. We run neuro-pathways until it becomes "in the body" and our "way of being in the world."

That's really powerful! You and I -in the mechanism of "habit"- have the ability to mind-to-muscle great ideas into our neurology. It is in this way that we "metabolize" ideas. We digest them and they become part and parcel of our soma, our body.

So all of this is great, right? Well, no, there are some problems in this. And they begin so innocently. For example, once we have developed a habit, the habit is in control. That's a problem? Well, yes, it is if the world changes. It is if we need to change. It is if our current situation calls for new flexibility to adapt to new influences and factors in our life. After all, a habit by definition reduces our adaptability (our ability to adapt) and so our resilience, flexibility, being present to each present moment, and ability to continuously learn and improve.

This describes both the bright and dark sides of habits. They enable us to get great ideas into our body and they lock also us up within the prison of those very ideas reducing our choices and adaptability. Habits, in fact, are one of the great interferences to self-actualization. Habits as past-learnings-solidified-into-neurology are often the very things we have to unlearn. As solutions and answers to previous challenges and problems, habits are old answers and sometimes they become irrelevant answers to problems and questions that no longer exist.

Ah yes, unlearning. We come back to that. This means that unlearning our habits of mind, emotion, speech, and behavior makes up one of the key mechanisms for continually unleashing new and exciting potentials from within ourselves. So, how about you? What former ways of thinking, believing, deciding, emoting, speaking, acting, and so on that once was a new perspective, a new strength, a new development but is now a problem? Now it is in the way? Now it interferes with taking your skills or person to a new level?

The skill to unlearn is as critical, if not more so, than the skill to learn. And as accelerated learning improves the quality and speed of our learning, so does accelerated unlearning. This is, in fact, the kind of change that often that precedes a new development or transformation. First, we have to clear the space and undo the inner structures- the psycho-logics that hold it in place.

Now while the Axes of Change model is an efficient change model for generative change that describes how psychologically healthy people change, its focus is on the dance of change that primarily seeks to create and invent something new rather than unlearning something old.

And this is where the Crucible comes in. As a holistic and holographic change model, it is designed to facilitate unlearning. And it is especially appropriate when a former learning has become an ingrained and unconscious habit. As a default program, when we try something new, we find our old habit of thought or emotion activated in a nano-second and long before we become conscious of it. In this way it interferes with the installation and integration of the new learning.

So, if you find yourself trying and trying to get a new learning inside, if you find yourself knowing intellectually what you should do, and even know how to do it, but even before you have an external cue for realizing now is the time to use that learning-an old learning is activated and interferes, you have the very thing that calls for an unlearning strategy and change process. You have the context that is perfect for using the Crucible. And it is this which is ideal to take into the Crucible of Change and Transformation.

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The Ultimate Self-Actualization Workshop: Unleashing Potentials for Peak Performance is the newest Neuro-Semantic Training . We launched it in Portland Oregon with Rich Aanrich and Cat Wilson of Apositiva and the second training of it has just finished in Gold Coast Australia with Martin Urban of Inspired Focus. 

2007 Schedule 

8) Nov. 20-22, Lisbon, Portugal. EvoluiTech Formacao e consultoria. Amalia Duarte, aduarte at evoluitech.pt 

9) Nov. 23-24, London, England, NLP Conference. Jo Hogg, Director, jo at nlpconference.co.uk. Three hour workshop: Actualizing Your Highest and Best.

10) Nov. 30 - Dec. 3, 2007. Avignon, France sponsored by Formation Evolution et Synergie and Gilles Roy, Neuro-Semantic and NLP Trainer. gilles.roy2 at orange.fr www.coaching-pnl.com 33 (0) 4 90 16 04 16. 

11) Dec. 7, 8, and 9, 2007. Italy, Bologna. Sponsored by an Institute of Neuro-Semantics and Lucia Guiovannini and Nicola Riva. lucia at blessyouitalia.eu nicola at blessyouitalia.eu www.blessyouitalia.eu +39 348 229 2562.





If you or your organization would like to sponsor the Ultimate Self-Actualization Workshop, contact me. I'm looking to present it as far and wide as possible.

2008

1) April 4-7, Portland OR. sponsored by Apositiva, Rich Aanrich and Cat Wilson (www.apositivechange.com rich at apositivechange.com). (503) 525-0595. 

2) May 17-19. ID Com. International, Montreal Canada. Isabell David. Phone: 450-224-5398 / 514-815-5457. idcom at cgocable.ca / idcom at idcominter.com

Web: www.idcominter.com 

This training will be delivered in English and simultaneously translated to French. 80% of the participants in 2007 spoke both English and French; with 20% speaking only French and 10% speaking only English. Come and enjoy a taste and feel of Europe in Montreal as you self-actualize.













L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Neuro-Semantics Ltd., Executive Director
ISNS - International Society of Neuro-Semantics
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, Colorado, 81520 USA
www.neurosemantics.com 
www.meta-coaching.org
www.self-actualizing.org 

Email: meta @onlinecol.com @acsol.net @mindfocus.co.za
(970) 523-7877
(970) 523-5790 FAX
(877) 686-2867 toll free in the USA only
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