[Neurons] 2022 Neurons #12 DISTINGUISHING STATES

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2022 Neurons #12

March 21, 2022

Distinctions #10

 

DISTINGUISHING STATES:

Primary, Meta, Gestalt

 

What I'm focusing on in this series on critical distinctions are the
essential differences that make a difference.   I'm doing that because
"expertise is about distinctions."  That is, critical distinctions within a
relevant domain is what separates the person who is an expert from those who
are not.  The well-trained person, an expert, can see, recognize, and work
with distinctions that others are simply blind to.  The distinctions I'm
mostly focusing on here are those that are critical for personal
development, psychological well-being, healthy relationships, etc.

 

Here's a distinction about mind-body states that we make in Neuro-Semantics
and about which most NLP practitioners are clueless.  Unless they have
studied Meta-States (2012) or any of the Meta-State books, they will not
even be aware of this three-fold distinction.  Yet all states are not the
same.  As there are many different kinds of emotions and many different
kinds of thoughts, so there are many different kinds of states. 

 

Levels and Complexity of Mind-Body States

Primary States. A primary state is directly about an event or trigger in the
outside world.  As a primary state, it is a state of mind, body, and emotion
made up of one of the primary emotions that you can easily identify in your
body.  Ask about where in the body you feel the emotional state.

Where do you feel fear?  Where in your body do you feel anger?  What about
relaxation?  Or stress?  Where and how do you feel love, apathy, joy,
sadness, etc.? 

 

Also ask about the trigger that elicits or provokes the primary emotional
state.  

You are afraid of what specifically?  You are angry about what precisely?
What triggers your love, your joy, stress, relaxation, disgust, attraction?

 

Meta-States.  When you have a state that is meta to a primary state, you
have a meta-state.  And most human states are meta-states.  What do you
think or feel about joy, or anger, or fear, or love, or any other emotional
state?  Whatever you think-and-feel is a state about that state, a
meta-state.  This means you have thoughtful anger, kind anger, gentle anger,
respectful anger, patient anger ... all which would give the state of anger
a better quality.  Or you can have stressful anger, hateful anger, fearful
anger, rageful anger ... all of which would turn anger into a monstrous
experience.  The mental-emotional state you apply to a state sets the frames
of meaning about the first state.  That's what makes the meta-states so
powerful, so dynamic, and so determining.  Nor does this occur just one
level up, you can have multiple meta-states about a state.

Gestalt States.  As a system of thinking-and-feeling in the mind-body,
states-about-states set up numerous systemic processes, one of which is the
gestalting process.  This refers to the fact that when more than two
meta-states are applied to a primary state, there is a strong likelihood
that something "more than and different from" the sum of the parts will
emerge.  This emergent property, as a property of systems, then brings into
existence something other than what you can define by making a summation of
the component pieces.  You have a gestalt; you have a gestalt state.
Courage is like that.  Made up of fear at the primary level and possibly
responsibility, love, and risk taking at the meta-level, "courage" emerges.
So also with resilience, forgiveness, magnanimity, self-esteem, wisdom,
inspiration and dozens and dozens of other of the most wonderful human
experiences.

 

"Why is it important to make this distinction between the kinds and levels
of states?" you ask.  For lots of reasons.  First and foremost is that fact
that each level of a mind-body state operates in very different ways.  The
functioning processes of primary, meta, and gestalt states are very
different.  And if you don't know that, you will be easily seduced into
treating the higher level states (meta and gestalt) as if they were primary
states.  I noted in the book, Meta-States, that this explains much of the
so-called "research" on NLP in the 1970s and 80s.  Those doing the research
did not know the difference and so "proved" by their faulty research design
and lack of competent skills that "NLP doesn't work."  Actually, they proved
that they did not understand what they were doing!

 

Primary states are directly related to the outside world.  They are about
something external which ground them in reality.  Meta-States and Gestalt
states are directly related to the inside world- to a previous state or
experience.  In them, you are relating to yourself.  Perhaps you are
reflecting back on some emotion, some concept, some memory, some
understanding, etc.  While it is your representational mind that governs
primary states, it is your self-reflexive mind that governs your higher
states.  And when you are meta-stating, you are working mostly with your
outside-of-conscious mind, your intentionality, and your highest values.
It's an entirely different world.

 

Now for a meta-question- what do you think about what you've just read?
What do you feel?  How fascinated would you be to learn more about your
self-reflexive consciousness and run the higher levels of your mind?

 




 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton CO. 81520 USA

www.neurosemantics.com 

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to Neurons, write to meta at acsol.net    

134324 NeuroSemantics Inside Out Front Cover

 

 

 

 

 

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