THE SELF-REFERENCE GAME

If self-reference is the name of the game (Meta Reflection #30), and if it is a game that we are all involved in, and if it is the essential game that generates our meta-states, then how do we learn to play that game effectively? How do we learn to win at it? How do we understand self-reference in a way that simplifies the complexity that arises from spiraling round and round things?

The meta-stating process of self-reflexivity and self-referentiality means that you as a human being can catch yourself in states of awareness. When did that last happen to you? Did it happen just now reading this? Did you become aware of your own self-consciousness and if you did, what do you think about that? And if you do, how do you experience catching yourself in that act? And if you don’t like catching yourself, what reflexive belief or thought do you set to prevent yourself from being aware of catching yourself?

Our self-referentiality explains why we often get ourselves caught up in a game of trying to outwit ourselves. Smokers often do this. When a smoker discovers that smoking is an actual and real health risk and begins to want to quit, he or she may also know that the habit is well- habituated and that can be fearful to not be able to quit. The smoker has to quit but also fears whether he or she can. The smoker wants to quit and doesn’t know what will happen if he doesn’t succeed. So the smoker wants to hide from himself how much he really wants to quit. So to quit the smoker has to outwit the smoker within. This typically leads to convoluted tricks, tricks when involve tricking his or her own self in various defense mechanisms.

In this way you relate to yourself as both the acting subject and the object of your concerns. Using the Meta-States model, self-as-a-subject is a meta-state and self-as-an-object is the primary state. First you objectify yourself as if an object of your awareness. If you then reify this process you’ll end up with entities inside yourself (e.g., id, ego, superego). Then you say things like, “My id is struggling against my superego.” “I don’t know how to raise my self-esteem; I’ve tried everything.” The paradox here arises from how you create confusion by confusing the self- reference levels and layers.

In language, self-reference enables you to stand outside of yourself. You can then observe yourself, edit your realities, create new selves, establish a destiny and direction. You can talk about yourself as if you were someone else. And if you ask, “What is this madness?” The answer is that it is your human creativity. Yet whether you use it as your glory as a human being or your hell, that depends on the content of how you use this structure.

In Neuro-Semantics we recognize that language is semantically loaded and that we can semantically load language and when we do we create various aspects of the self-reference game that we play with ourselves and others. This means that every time you have an experience you also have a conversation about that event. In human experience, experiences do not occur without our semantically-loaded conversations. In the conversation you construct the event, you construe it, you interpret it, you evaluate it. And as you do this, you become the stories you tell! This is self-reference at work. Your self-reference also leads you to arguing with yourself.

How do you argue with yourself? What arguments do you have? How do you draw conclusions and create your interpretations about your previous levels of experience? Does it enhance your life and empower you as a person?

How you reflect back on yourself and your experiences (the meta-stating process) critically determines the quality of your thinking, emoting, speaking, and acting. It critically determines the quality of your life. Taking something serious imprisons you to it. Your reflective and self- referencing sets the frames at the higher levels. Now on the surface it may seem that working with this and managing this effectively is like trying to arm wrestle yourself, but it is not.

And why not? It’s not because you can step back to self-reference yourself and set that so that you don’t get lost or don’t spin around in a spiral. You can hold a level of self-reference in place so that you step back to quality control, to choice point, to ecology questions, etc. You can set back and, holding that level of experience in place, you can ask a whole series of meta-questions to gain a whole new level of clarity.

The Self-Reference Game is played by learning how to handle your self-reflexive consciousness. You learn to win at that game by learning how to recognize levels and then hold them as you quality control the value of any given self-reflection. You can win by applying the higher frames of your best values and visions. You can win by catching the self-reflexive arguments you have with yourself. And, of course, all this is Meta-States and meta-stating. To your highest and best self-reflexive referencing!