META-STATING META-MUDDLES

— What is the heart-pulse of the Meta-States Model? — Why is that so important?

The heart-pulse of the Meta-States Model deals with how your self-reflexive consciousness works and how you can work it to your health and effectiveness. It is about how you constantly, inevitably, and forever reflect back onto yourself. It is about how you reflect back onto yourself with more thoughts, emotions, and physiology. It is about how you apply one state to another of your states. Yes, I know. Stating it in that way doesn’t sound very sexy. Stating it in that way, in fact, sounds boring. But I promise you that it is not.

Reflexivity is the most peculiar feature of human consciousness and it is the very essence of our consciousness that causes it to differ from that of every other creature on this planet. That’s because when you reflect back, you move to a position above what you just thought or felt and as such, this means you have just stepped up to a meta-position. Now you are no longer in reference to the world, you are in reference to your state. You are in reference to your thoughts, to your beliefs, to your understandings, to your memories, to your imaginations, and so on. You have turned inward. And because of this, whatever you think and feel at this higher or meta- level sets a frame about whatever is below it.

Ah, and with that, the magic begins. With that, you classify the lower. You catagorize the lower, you embed the lower thoughts and feelings inside of a higher frame that defines the lower, that positions the lower, that determines what you will feel about the lower and how you will respond. And with that you enter into the magical land of framing and reframing.

An example. Say you have an experience wherein you worry about someone or something. You know that one don’t you? Recall a time when you worked up a good case of worrying. Shouldn’t be too hard to do. Most of us are pretty skilled at worrying, especially about things that never happen.

Now to create a meta-muddle out of worry. To do that, worry about your worrying! That’s right, worry that your worrying is irrational and that maybe you’re losing your mind or perspective, and that if this continues you’ll create an ulcer. Now fear that this may happen. Now dread it. Now hate that this is happening to you. How’s that for a sick, morbid, and very, very un-useful meta- state which is a real meta-muddle!

So far you have categorized your worry in the class of Worry (Worrisome things). Then you classified your worry-of-your-worry in the class of Dreadful Things. Then you put all of that inside of the frame of Things to Hate. Do that and you will create some black magic. You will create a complex meta-state that will undermine your health, peace of mind, and effectiveness. And with it you just might send enough messages to your nervous system to actually create an ulcer.

But what if you want to create some white magic? Okay, let’s start with worry again. Got it? Now step back and bring a state of Witnessing to the worry so that you categorize worry in the class of Things to Observe and Witness. How’s that? Now given that most worry is silly and un-useful and an unrealistic exaggeration, bring Exaggeration to the Witnessed-Worry. Exaggerate it to the most extreme situation that you can. Doing that you categorize witnessed- worry in the class of Humor. How’s that?

This describes how frames work, how meta-stating works, how reflexivity works. And it is magical. Yet, you ask, How can I say that? What does that mean?

It is “magical” in the sense that you can put almost anything in any category that you want — no matter how unsane, insane, crazy, irrational, stupid, idiotic, etc. that it may be. Consider fanatics who take a fundamentalistic attitude to whatever they believe in. They are great examples of this. A fanatic fundamentalist is someone who forgets, or doesn’t know, that “the map is not the territory” and so a fundamentalist actually thinks that his or her belief is true. So above the meta- state of a belief (a validity thought about a first thought), they believe in their beliefs. And they believe in their belief of their beliefs. All of this, of course, closes them to new or different information. It doesn’t matter if the person is a Christian fundamentalist, a Muslim fundamentalist, a Science fundamentalist, etc. The structure is the same.

So a fanatic fundamentalist might believe that they way to honor God is to kill people. They have to kill the abortion doctor who kills babies to show him or her that they are not supposed to kill. Right! The Muslim extremist has to kill innocent women and children as the 19 did on 9/11 because they are infidels and that will teach them to believe correctly. Right! The liberal fundamentalist wants free speech except where a Christian, Jew, or Moslem believer wants to speak up at school or have a rally on a state-supported university. Right.

The problem with these examples is not that these people have beliefs. Having beliefs is fine. We all do. The problem is that they believe-in-their-beliefs which leads them to assume that they cannot be wrong, cannot be corrected, and cannot have an open explorative conversation. In their meta-muddle, they cannot simply believe. Having over-loaded their beliefs with so much meaning and significance, even a question about their belief triggers them to feel attacked and so they get defensive about ideas in their heads or the heads of others.

The process of meta-stating involves bringing thoughts-and-feelings to an experience, to a state, and that creates categories of the mind —classifications, frames, contexts, meaning structures, etc. And when people do this without awareness that they are not even dealing with the world, just their own layers and levels of thinking-and-feeling —they confuse their internal mappings with the territory. Then they think their meta-thoughts and meta-feelings indicate what’s real. And when they get to that point, they are very deep in meta-muddle.

So what is the solution? First and foremost is to become aware of this. What categories have you created as you have meta-stated some primary experience that has become semantically loaded in a way that creates limitations and problems? Second, it is to dis-identify with the map (or belief). You are more than what you believe. Your beliefs are just human maps trying to map out something. The problem is never you as a person, the problem is always your frames. So stop identifying yourself with your frames and categories — dis-identify yourself and that will begin to give you some perspective.

Now most meta-muddles build up and get created in lightning quick speed. Really. In a nano- second you jump logical levels and bring various thoughts-and-feelings to your experiences (to your primary states or to some level of a meta-state). And just as soon as you do, the next thought —there you go again. Again, this is your reflexivity at work! And if you can begin to just observe it, you will be able to catch the process without judging and evaluating. And with that, you begin to develop an incredible skill that few humans have, a meta-skill that will enable you to unleash potentials like no other skill. Why? Well, that will be in the next Meta Reflection. See you then.