THE LAYERING

The Inner Layering —Part I

THE LAYERING

There’s a special and wonderful mechanism within thinking which most people know nothing about; for the most part.  Most people have no clue about it.  What are they clueless about?  Their higher level reflexive mind.  And why are they clueless?  Primarily because no one taught them about the thinking mechanisms within their brains and how to think with those mechanisms.

Consequently, they think in very limited ways—is a way that is more animal-like than human.  What is this animal-like way of thinking?  Linear thinking.  You see something tangible, a ball, a banana, a stick, and you think, “Ah, a ball.  Great, I can play with that ball.”  And off you go.  Later you do the same linear thinking when you see–hear–or–feel an intangible subject, “Ah, a goal.”  “Ah, a problem.”  “Ah, a solution.”

In linear thinking, you thinking goes out as if in a straight horizontal line.  You follow “a line of thought.’  You follow it out to where it directs you, and when you get to the end, that’s also the end of your thinking. If your goal is to lose weight, you think:

“Okay, losing some pounds would be good.   I‘d look better if I lose a few pounds.  But then again, I’ll have to stop eating cake and ice cream, but John’s birthday part is Saturday.  Okay, I’ll do it next week.”

That’s linear thinking.  You have thought, but you have not reflected. By way of contrast, real thinking transcends linear thinking as it includes reflexive thinking.  As a human being, you think-about-your-thinking. You reflect back on your first thought (“Ah, a goal”) and as you do, you entertain a second thought (“Goals are hard”). If the first thought generated a desire (“I’d look good if I lose some weight”), and if the second thought generated some counter-feelings (“but it would be hard, difficult and take a lot of effort”), then layering the second thought about the first creates a more complex and more negative state.

What state?  Within the thinking—emoting of the second thought would be some unpleasantness (dislike of the idea and the effort involved). Yet because all of this would be mostly unconscious and processed very quickly, in a millisecond, all the person would experience would be an away-from feeling, an aversion to the goal.  If there is any awareness, it would be on the order of— “I don’t know, I just don’t feeling like doing that.” [In what follows T/E stands for thinking—emoting. As part of the mind-body system, neither thinking or emoting can operate alone.  T/E is a holistic state.]

What’s going on here?  Layering.  Bill’s self-reflexive mind has layered an unpleasant T/E upon his first thought.  He did that unconsciously.  As a habit of the way he thinks, the idea of expending a lot of effort around managing food automatically led to his second T/E.  He meta-stated with a T/E which counter-acted his first T/E.  After that, he went to John’s birthday party and had cake and ice cream.

With your self-reflexive mind, you also layer thoughts upon thoughts, emotions upon emotions and create levels of meta-states.  As you do this, you create meta-layers which build up to become your ‘mind’—your model-of-the-world.  These layered T/E states then make up your ‘logical levels.’ It makes up your mental maps, your belief systems, your inner world of meaning.  In Neuro-Semantics, this is the meta realm.  We call it the Meta Place.

You think of something, “It would be great if I could be more disciplined about exercise.”  Then you think, “Discipline means I lose choices and that’s no fun.”  Later, as you think again, you confirm the second thought, “Yes, discipline is hard and take away my freedom.”  This confirmation transforms the thought into a belief.  It solidifies the meta-level making it a ‘command to your nervous systems.’  Later you think about that belief, “Discipline is a kill joy.”  And later again, “Life is too short to deny myself pleasures.”   And later again, “It’s best to enjoy today, you only live once.”  In this way, you repeatedly build up a belief system is your Model-of-the-World which  governs how you interpret things.

Now as you do all this layering of T/E—not only does this operate unconsciously, it’s your way of thinking, reasoning, and therefore your psycho-logics.  From the inside–out, it is logical.  It is not logical from the outside!   Others may view the way you think as crazy, unconventional, weird, and not understand you.  But for you, it makes perfect sense.  You live inside that inner world which you created—it is your reality. It defines your interpretative style.  It is your Semantic Home.

And as you repeat your T/E layering, all the levels coalesce.  Over time the layers merge together so you feel them as a single state, not multiple states or multiple levels.  As ‘joyful learning,’ once coalesced feels as one state, you experience it as a primary state.  If you created ‘depression’ by layering feeling ashamed about feeling sad and layered on top of that ‘always’ (‘it will always be’) and on top of that layered ‘inadequate self’ (‘I’m flawed, worthless’) eventually it will all coalesce into ‘depression.’  You will feel it as a single state and have no awareness of how you layered it into existence.

Ah, layering of thoughts/emotions (meta-states) which can create a beautiful life and mind or a tortured and dysfunctional one!  It is in knowing how you do the layering that you learn to take charge of your life— the subject of Part II.

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