META-ANSWERS

This past week while I was in the Coaching Mastery training in Mexico City, a participant said something to me that gave me a new perspective. It happened when he I checked in with him at the end of his coaching session.

“I really appreciated this whole thing of meta-questions! This is great and to have more than 70 meta-questions really makes this meta-coaching powerful. It has just opened up so much for me.”

As I thanked him, I wanted at the same time to find out a little more as to what was opened up for him, and what were some of the specific values that he found in the meta-questions. So I asked, “What has opened up for you and why is that so important?”

That’s when he said something that I had never thought of before, and especially not in particular words he used. He said, “The great things about meta-questions are the meta-answers that you get!”

The first thought that dashed through my mind was, “Why hadn’t I ever thought of that phrase? I’ve been talking about and working with meta-questions for many years now, and I have never thought about meta-answers.”

Do you know how a term or a phrase can dance in your mind opening up new vistas? It’s a great experience, usually a creative experience when you find a turn of phrase or a new term that allows you now to think about new things or things in a different way. Well, that’s what happened to me with this phrase “meta-answers.” These were my second and third and fifteenth thoughts. I began turning the phrase over and over in my mind, trying to understand it and letting it elicit new perspectives.

Meta-answers —answers at a meta-level that make up the belief frames, value frames, identity frames, etc. that are “answers” to things, that are the higher-level answers which provide the resource solutions that we’re looking for.

Meta-answers— let me see, what would be an example of that? A meta-answer might be a belief about identity, meaning, purpose, intention, and so on that solves a particular situation.

Meta-answers— answers to the meta-muddles that we so often create in our mind that self-organizes into states of disorientation, confusion, stupidity, erroneous and the meta- answers now straighten out that mess.

And so it went, a rush of thoughts in the stream of consciousness and then I had another thought (two in one day!). “I wonder what meta-answer he got that delighted him about meta-questions in the first place?” And so, I asked him.

“Oh, you mean the meta-answer that we got in that coaching session this morning? It was when my client said that she needed permission to just have an emotion without having to act on it, that she could just notice and witness the emotion. So I said that if she could set that as her new mental frame about emotions and especially strong negative ones ... and she then said that that would be the answer she was looking for, that she wouldn’t have to fix the emotion or make it go away, that she could just notice and then have choice about whether to take counsel from the emotion as you say or let it go as irrelevant to the situation. And that was the meta-answer.”

A meta-answer then can be any meta-level belief, understanding, decision, permission, intention, memory, hope, anticipation (or any of the other 80 logical levels of Meta-States) that answers a question that we have in our mind or emotions or behavior. These higher level answers gives us the perspective and resource that we need to achieve our goals. These higher level answers are the more resourceful frames and maps that give us access to our full potential and which also unleash those potentials.

Meta-answers. What higher level answer do you need inside yourself that if you got that new frame of mind, new robust attitude, new perspective about the meaning of things, new definition or metaphor that frees up your energies and powers—it would empower you in unleashing more of your potentialities? What higher level answer would give you the leverage in your meta-mind over yourself?

Meta-answers. If you want a meta-answer—ask a meta-question!

To your success as you actualize your highest and best potentials!