[Neurons] 2017 Neurons #28 Patterns: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Sun Jun 25 23:00:45 EDT 2017

From: L. Michael Hall

2017 Neurons #28 

June 26, 2017                                                          

Creative & Critical Thinking #2

PATTERNS:

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

Your brain essentially operates as a pattern-detection machine.  To make
sense of the world, you look for, and you create, patterns.  It's what the
brain does.  And it is very efficient in this skill of pattern-detection and
pattern-creation.  That's why a child who grows up in a home where two or
three different languages are spoken-somehow-sorts them out and eventually
learns to speak two or three different languages.  Amazing!

Actually, your brain and my brain is much better at pattern creation than it
is at pattern detection.  That's why we are all inevitably by nature born
creative.  Because of the amount of information that we encounter, we have
to order it, organize it, and structure it so that we're not overwhelmed and
can function.  That's why we are so quick to "jump to conclusions" and
construct a pattern even when there's no pattern or when we really do not
have enough information to legitimately say that a given activity is a
pattern.  As children we were so very quick to jump to conclusions.  

We are also very quick to over-generalize, to mind-read, to label, etc.
These distinctions of the NLP Meta-Model of Language reveal that deep within
us is an essential tendency to engage in pattern-creation.  These cognitive
distortions tell the story of our cognitive development- the
mental-emotional stages that we go through as we develop into mature adults.
This is good, this is bad, and this is ugly. 

It is good because by detecting and creating patterns, we create knowledge
and science.  The key, of course, is first to detect patterns which requires
the ability to delay pattern-creation.  It requires that we slow down our
naming of things, categorizing (classifying), and judging so that we gather
sufficient information and truly detect the way an experience works over
time consistently.  Otherwise we may be jumping the gun and calling
something a pattern that is not actually a patterned way that something
operates.

It is good because now we can detect the structure (or structuring) of
things and discover how things work and how we can put them to good use.
When we do this with people, we can figure out how human nature works, the
actual patterns that explain what people are doing and why they are doing
what they're doing.  When we do this with business, we can figure out how
the market works, how to determine what products or services are needed,
when, by whom, etc.  When we do this about wealth, we can figure out what
wealth truly is, how it works, how to become wealthy, etc.  So also with
health, vitality, fitness, relationships, parenting, loving, leading, and a
thousand other activities.  

It is bad to the extent that we are creating non-existing patterns and
treating them as real and reacting to them as solid or inevitable.  This is
what happens if we do not grow out of the childish thinking patterns (the
cognitive distortions), test them with the Meta-Model questions, and learn
more adult critical thinking skills.  What's bad about this is that we
create all sorts of unnecessary misery for ourselves and others when we
mind-read, over-generalize, personalize, awfulize, label, etc.  Years ago
Albert Ellis, one of the leading psychologists who identified the cognitive
distortions, along with Aaron Beck, wrote a book with the title- How to Make
Yourself Miserable- I mean Really Miserable!  It was a book about the misery
that results from the cognitive distortions.

That is a miserable way to live.  And that explains part of the
transformative power of the Meta-Model- by challenging the ill-formed
structure of our thinking-emoting, the Meta-Model questions enables us, as
adults, to keep updating our mental maps which allows our
thinking-and-emoting to grow up and become more mature.  In terms of
attaining to truly creative and critical thinking, it is a great tool. 

But things go from bad to ugly when you do not effectively manage your
pattern detection and creation skills.  Consider this.  What happens when
you find a pattern?  What happens when you detect a pattern and/or create a
pattern?  This is where things can get ugly.  You stop thinking.  You now
use the pattern for "understanding" and "knowing" what things are and now
you just react from your pattern.

Wow!  If that's the case, you better be sure that you have accurately
detected and/or created a useful pattern.  If not, you are really setting
yourself up for not being able to navigate life very effectively and you may
have established a pattern that is self-destructive, counter-productive, and
dysfunctional for you and others.

Because patterns control attention, your attention is a function of the
patterns that you have learned and created and detected over the years of
your life.  How well are they working?  How productive are you?  How
effective in the domains of life wherein you want to succeed?  The problems
that you have are never "personal" problems, you are just fine as a human
being.  You are unconditionally valuable as a person.  The problem is always
the frame- the pattern.

Now you know why we say that over and over and over in Neuro-Semantics.  

              The person is never the problem; the problem is always the
frame- the pattern.

For a humorous look at the difference between map and territory:

 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7AXskSxxMk>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7AXskSxxMk 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

               Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

               Neuro-Semantics International

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

               1 970-523-7877 

                    Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta at acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta at acsol.net

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