[Neurons] 2011 Meta Reflections #51

[meta at acsol.net]

From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections 2011  #51
Oct. 31, 2011
The Meta-State Structure of a Belief 
Part II

	BELIEFS ARE SENTENCES



>From Part I, if a belief is a sentence, then it involves

words and typically, abstract and conceptual words.  Yes, it
will also include within it visual, auditory, and
kinesthetic representations, yet above and beyond that there
will be words that tie the representations together and give
it meaning— cause-effect meanings, equation meanings,
value or importance meanings, etc.  Let’s call this
“VAK–Plus.”

VAK–Plus 
Recently an especially intelligent NLP Trainer who I highly
respect heard me say that “A belief is always a sentence
and not simply a set of sensory-representations.”  After
that he questioned me for more than an hour on how that
could be.  It violated what he had learned in his original
NLP training and, for him, was actually a shocking and
upsetting idea.  So his first response was to protest:
	“But there are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic elements
in a belief!”

I agreed.  “Yes, within a belief you will find some
pictures, sounds, sensations and other sensory
representations, but that does not make it a belief.  These
facets by themselves do not comprise the structure of a
belief.”  I paused.   Waited a bit, then I added with a
smile, “And ... yes I know that in saying this, I have
committed NLP heresy!”

Now what I did not say but what I could have very easily
have said as I was that I had been making this statement for
many years (back to the mid-1990s).  And yes, I have made
that argument in Mind-Lines, Meta-States, Winning the Inner
Game (Frame Games), and other books and articles.

So yes, while beliefs involve sensory representations, here
is the point: Just having sights, sounds, and sensations by
themselves do not a belief make.  Belief require the VAK
plus language that provides an explanation, interpretation,
evaluation, and understanding of the VAK.

And this explains why beliefs do not change by merely
changing the VAK.  Yes, I know of the old out-dated NLP
so-called belief change pattern based on changing
sub-modalities.  I learned it directly from Richard Bandler
in the late 1980s.  And I also know that when Bob Bodenhamer
and I began challenging this in 1996, when we asked trainer
after trainer, almost no one ever made that pattern work. 
The full story is told in Sub-Modalities Going Meta
(chapters 8 and 9).

This, for me, explains why Robert Dilts invented a different
Belief Change pattern and why it is basically a Meta-Stating
Pattern.  His Museum of Old Beliefs Pattern essentially
meta-states an old belief with several resourceful states: 
•	Ecology: Is it limiting?
•	Doubt: Are you absolutely sure?  Could you be wrong?
•	Oldness, Antiquation: Is this an old belief?  Maybe a
belief from childhood?
•	Release: Are you ready to let this belief go?

Once you access these states and anchor them spatially—you
can step into them in different spots and use them so they
become the frame—the meta-state about the old belief.  You
take the old limiting belief into each of these and let them
change the old belief until you are ready to release it. 
That opens space so that you can then step into an Openness
to considering a new more empowering belief.

That’s one way to do it.  In Neuro-Semantics we have an
even more direct approach: access the state of
dis-validation (dis-confirmation) to weaken the old belief
and then access the state of validation (confirmation) and
say “Yes, this is true, this is real, this is the way it
is.”  Or, if you are not ready for that, “Yes, I would
like to validate this as true, real, and the way reality
is.”  The disconfirmation is not to the belief directly,
but to it’s ecology.  Is it useful?  No.  Is it
empowering?  No.  Does it make your life better?  No.  
Would you like it for your children?  No. 

The Bottom Line
What is the bottom line about beliefs?  Words.  You have to
use words to create a belief because beliefs are more than
merely the sights, sounds, and sensations of the world—
they are part of your Neuro-Semantic landscape.  In your
mind, you not only represent information, you confirm and
validate information as your map about what is real.  And
when you do that, you create something much more powerful
than a mere thought, you create a belief.   And that belief
operates as a command to your nervous systems— which your
neurology will do the best it can to actualize.  That’s
why and how your belief because self-fulfilling prophesy. 
They operate in your neuro-semantics as self-organizing
attractors and so make up the structure of your matrix of
frames.

There’s more to be said, so I’ll write about beliefs and
emotions in the next part.


References 
	Mind-Lines: Lines for Changing Minds.  Chapter 3, pp.
62-64.  Chapter 4, pp. 71-75.
	Sub-Modalities Going Meta, see chapters 8 and 9 on
“Beliefs.”
	Check out www.neurosemantics.com  Articles.  Several
articles on Beliefs.