[Neurons] Meta Reflection #55

[meta]

L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections #55

Dec. 18, 2007 



PARADOX

AND THE META-STATE SECRET





In the last Meta Reflection,"The Art of Chasing Your Tail" I wrote about paradox to contrast it to a real problem. Actually, a paradox is not a real problem, it is a pseudo-problem. What seems like a problem or a confusing contradiction only seems like a contradiction. The situation in a paradox is that we have confused levels. When we un-confuse the levels by clarifying the structure of the experience, the paradox goes away. The paradox simply disappears.

How does this relate to Meta-States? Ah, that's the beauty of this. "Paradox" often lies at the very heart of meta-stating. That's why if anyone wants to effectively work with meta-levels (with Meta-States Model and Neuro-Semantics), it's critical to understand paradox. It's important to understand how it works, and what you can and cannot do with it.

Since the beginning, I have always included a list of meta-state interfaces in the APG training manual. These detail 16 of the possible interfaces that can occur when you apply one state to another state. Sometimes in creating a-state-about-a-state structure, the higher state will negate the first. At other times, it creates paradox. It can also create confusion, humor, weakening of a frame, solidification of a frame, and so on. These mixtures of meta-states generates some truly wild and wonderful human experiences, some that are existential, conceptual, transcendental, complex, and even paradoxical.

The seventh interface in that list is one about creating paradox. Via meta-stating we often create paradox by confusing levels. Examples in the manual include:

"Now I want you to try really hard to relax."

"Never and always are two words one should always remember never to use."

"I'm absolutely certain that nothing is absolutely certain."

How does this work? In meta-stating we can create paradox because we covertly shift to a higher state about a primary state without even being aware that we are doing so. Sometimes this works as a limiting double-bind (as noted in the last Reflection) and sometimes this works to delight and thrill us. The meta-stating process of paradox creation actually offers lots of possibilities for creative transformation. 

The Paradox of Welcoming Fear

The meta-stating process also can provides a way of analyzing such powerful techniques as the "paradoxical intention" intervention. In the field of Logotherapy, Viktor Frankl (1953) developed "paradoxical intention" to address the troublesome experience of "anxiety about anxiety" and "fear about fear." The most typical reaction to fear-of-fear is flight from fear. About this Frankl wrote:

"'Flight from fear' as a reaction to 'fear of fear' constitutes the phobic pattern, the first of three pathogenic patterns that are distinguished in Logotherapy. The second is the obsessive-compulsive pattern: whereas in phobic cases the patient displays 'fear of fear,' the obsessive-compulsive neurotic exhibits 'fear of himself,' being neither caught by the idea that he might commit suicide-or even homicide-or afraid that the strange thoughts that haunt him might be signs of imminent, if not present, psychosis. How should he know that the obsessive-compulsive character structure rather is immunizing him against real psychosis (pp. 131-132)

When we meta-state fear with a higher level of fear we create paranoia, fearfulness, timidity, and the like. This structure actually serves as a model for most negative meta-states. We are responding to ourselves and our states with negative thoughts and feelings which paradoxically is only making things worse. The fearful thoughts-feelings (a meta-level state) about the primary state of fear amplifies it. Then paranoia, as one's frame-of-mind, typically leads to more morbid ways of thinking and feeling. To then fear our fear-of-fear can create a whole complex set of embedded states that becomes a runaway system of fear. As such it creates an unsolvable paradox or a double-bind. At least it does so until the levels are sorted out and un-confused.

So the most paradoxical or counter-intuitive thing you can do in this case is welcome your fear, honor your fear, explore your fear, be curious about your fear, even enjoy your fear. The solution is paradoxical, seemingly contradictory. That's because the problem is not the original primary fear, it is in the frames that we bring to the fear.

Procrastination

Similarly, we can take the primary state of procrastination, and by reflexively applying procrastination to itself, we create what seems like a contradiction. As we feed it back onto itself, we shift levels and the meta-procrastination results in negating the primary procrastination. If you have ever procrastinated, recall the experience for a moment. At the primary level you experienced it as an immediate and intense mind-body state of putting off something. You know it needs to be done, but you hesitate. You excuse yourself. You don't feel that you're ready. You have lots of inhibiting thoughts and feelings holding you back. That's the state of procrastination.

Now imagine meta_stating the procrastination with procrastination. As you bring a "putting off" state (with all of its thoughts_emotions) to eventually getting around to the task of procrastinating, you know that one of these days you'll get around to procrastinating, but not now. You procrastinate on your procrastination. And when you procrastinate on your procrastination, you get busy with things. Ah, the seeming contradiction!

In this case, the meta-level procrastinating negates the procrastination state. This is the structure that creates paradox. The result seems like a contradiction, the solution to procrastination is to procrastinate on your procrastination? Who would have thought? Yet actually you are creating a second response to the first one at a different level.

Paradox

About paradox Webster defines it as "a statement seemingly self-contradictory or absurd, a self-contradictory proposition." It comes from the Greek word, paradoxon which means "contrary to received opinion."

This process opens up a whole world of possibilities for constructing human realities and creating positive changes. Turning a state on itself has the possibility of enabling us to design-engineer all kinds of paradoxical states, that is, states that seem counter-intuitive. The process is simple. Simply take a primary emotion or state and feed it back onto itself. Do that and generate a batch of paradox. When I doubt my doubt, I become more sure. When I procrastinate on my procrastination, I get busy with things.

The structure in this is reflexivity. We turn the state back onto itself. In this lies the power for "paradoxical intervention" so that we prescribe symptoms. "I want you to intentionally practice the stuttering this next week; each morning practice stuttering for five minutes." It seems contradictory. It is the last thing the person would think of doing or that would help. In fact, the person stuttering has spent his whole life avoiding stuttering. Why would he now actually practice the non-fluency of stammering? It's counter-intuitive. Yet the practice of non-fluency changes things. At a higher level we are meta-stating a new frame. The person can now apply a non-serious, even a playful attitude to what has been a source of pain.

The bottom line, not frequently paradox is the very thing that governs solutions for health, integration, balance, transformation, and empowerment. At a higher level, the frame we set alters our experience; it's always about the frame. But when we entertain second thoughts or states and fuse them so that we think they operate on the same level, we experience what seems to us as a contradiction. But it is not. That's why as soon as we recognize the truth, the truth that our second state is a higher frame; the paradox vanishes.

That's why the way to rid yourself of unwanted thoughts, emotions, behaviors, habits, etc., is to paradoxically welcome, accept, appreciate, and even celebrate those thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Who would have thought! Welcoming the experience allows you can take counsel of it, reality check it, and learn from it. To not reckon with it, the fight begins as you try to repress it or use some other defense to reject it.

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The Ultimate Self-Actualization Workshop: Unleashing Potentials for Peak Performance is the newest Neuro-Semantic Training . In preparing for the launch of the New Human Potential Movement-for May 2008, we began the Self-Actualization Workshops around the world beginning in the USA, then Australia, South Africa, Mexico, Switzerland, England, France, Italy and other places

In May 2008 we are anticipating a dozen or two dozen Neuro-Semantic Trainers along with me to launch the new human potential movement.



2007 Schedule 

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.

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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