THE NEURO-SEMANTIC DIFFERENCE Part III

“Why ‘Neuro-Semantics?’ What does Neuro-Semantics offers that NLP does not? What would you say is the biggest difference?”

If human self-reflexive consciousness is the unique kind of “mind” which the Meta-States Model focuses on and models, then what else does reflexivity mean besides the ever-continuous layering that creates the complexity of our minds? The answer is simple to say, difficult to comprehend, and almost impossible to describe. But I’ll give it a go: The answer is that human reflexivity makes our mind-body-emotion system within our family, language, business, cultural systems completely systemic.

There, that’s simple. Right? Well, not exactly. In developing and formatting the Meta-States model, I have tried for years to find and use various words and metaphors to explain the systemic nature of reflexivity. But that’s quite challenging. For one thing, as you are thinking or feeling something at one level, you are simultaneously thinking and feeling other things at higher levels about the first thing. Now multiply that times 7 or 10 or more layers and you begin to get a sense of the complexity of human consciousness. And it is your reflexivity that creates the wondrous complexity of human experiences and emotional states.

Not only are you responding to you at multiple levels at the same time, but you are also simultaneously responding to multiple messages from people and events outside of you. This means that both communication loops are in play. While you are using your vertical loop of feedback to yourself (called “thinking” or “believing” etc.) and feed forwarding those thoughts and emotions into your body (called “emoting,” “feeling,” embodying, etc.) you are also using your horizontal loop of receiving feedback from people and events (called “seeing,” “hearing” listening, noticing, etc.) and feeding forward energy to those people and events (called “responding,” speaking, acting, reacting, etc.).

Wow! All of that is occurring simultaneously. Talk about a complex system all in action at the same time. Now how to we model all of that? And how do we talk about our modeling of all of that?

In the Meta-States Model, I have and others have, developed a wide variety of metaphors to help explain this and give a visual image of it. Those that are most prominent are the following: spinning, spiraling, living within a canopy of consciousness, the Matrix, following the energy through the Matrix, seeing how far the rabbit hole goes, etc. To think systemically is to think and

imaginative view the whole system, in this case, the system of a person with a mind-body- emotion responsiveness to the world of people, events, influences, a person who moves through time, and who engages people and events intentionally.

This is where NLP is far too simplistic. Even though NLP came out of several systems models such as Virginia Satir’s Family Systems, Bateson’s systems, Korzybski’s, even Miller’s TOTE model system— NLP has tended to be reductionistic (Grinder’s influence on things) and downplay systemic thinking and responding. This has caused NLP in many parts of the world to be very linear in the presentation of the model and with a focus on techniques.

Many of the key thinkers in the field of systems like Peter Senge use various forms of circles and arrows to try to map out the ever-changing territory of a system. That’s the problem with a non- linear model— the territory keeps changing because the system itself is self-changing, self- influencing, and self-interfering. So to think and work systemically, you have to not only trace out the variables and processes, but take into consideration the influence you are generating as you enter the system. The systems principle is that you cannot not influence the system that you engage!

NLP reduced to a set of techniques misses all of this. And there are a great many people who treat NLP as just a set of techniques. Their thinking is: “Do this to a person, or say that, and they will respond this way or that way.” And this, of course, is what reduces NLP in the hands of some people to a set of manipulations.

But, thank God, people are not so simple or so easy. That’s why when we test and experiment in psychology we use complicated double-blind and triple-blind studies. Why? Because people are devious? No. It’s because of the mere fact that if a person knows you are studying them, that knowledge itself changes the study. They will behave differently. That was the ultimate discovery in the original Hawthorne Studies. When they went into Westinghouse to study employees and what would improve employee satisfaction and engagement, they made the lights brighter and things improved. They dimmed the lights and things improved. They gave longer breaks and the people’s attitudes improved. They gave shorter breaks and the people’s attitudes improved. In fact, everything they did caused things to improved!

After awhile they realized that it was not the lights, the breaks, the actions of the managers, etc., it was the attention. Pay attention to people in any way and they will read that as care, as that they are important, that what they are doing is significant and they will be more pleased and effective! That’s the way it is with human systems. Even studying a human system influences it no matter how careful you are to try to not influence it.

NLP as mere techniques probably explains why my book, The Sourcebook of Magic, is such a best seller. It’s a book that has a list of 77 NLP patterns (including just a few Meta-State patterns). When I put that book together I did not know that there were people who treated NLP as something that you “do to someone to get a particular response.”

The problem is that people don’t like being manipulated, and once they discover a manipulation, they will not allow the manipulation to work— even if in doing so is to their own detriment. Do you? Of course not. So even if the “manipulation” is to your benefit, just for the principle of your own self-determination, you will resist it. We all do. And that’s why simplistic, linear, technique driven NLP only works in a Guru context where people are tricked, deceived, and seduced to give their power away to a Guru, or it only works for the first few times until people catch on. Then it stops working!

And why? Because of the self-reflexive consciousness of people. People catch on! The trick that creates the deception is seen for what it is and the seduction ceases to work— that’s why. And so everyone who is using that form of reductionistic, simplistic, linear, technique-driven NLP is accused of “manipulating.” What’s the solution? I’ll write about that in the next Meta Reflection.