WHEN YOU FRAME, YOU META-STATE

What else can I say about Meta-States and the meta-stating processes? Here is something. When you frame you are meta-stating. Conversely, when you meta-state, you are setting a frame. Most NLP people don’t know this because they don’t know the Meta-States Model or don’t appreciate its depth and it is here that the Meta-States Model takes NLP to several new levels and dimensions.

Let’s start with the idea of frames and framing. The person who really developed this and popularized the language was Gregory Bateson. He developed this in the 1950s in his research in schizophrenia and looking at the levels of awareness and the power of a higher level to influence and even govern a lower level. Then, developing the levels of awareness into his levels of learning, levels of change, he and his research team provided many new approaches to therapy and business.

NLP picked this up and, as a discipline, talked directly about frames and reframing. This led to the list of ways to reframe (“Sleight of Mouth”) which we turned into Mind-Lines: Lines for Changing Minds (1997). In doing that, I was able to create a systematic way to frame. That gave us seven directions to frame, i.e., to send a brain. And in each of those seven directions there were many framing formats available.

Today, framing is a critical distinction and skill in Neuro-Semantics. It is so critical, that we benchmark the competency in Group & Team Coaching and in the PCMC level of Meta-Coaching. We also benchmark it in Presentation skills for trainers. It is critical because “The person who sets the frame governs the game.”

Framing inevitably occurs when you bring one state to another. That’s because within a state are thoughts, feelings, and physiology and these are the component variables of a frame. If you bring the state of “respect” to your anger and set respect over your anger, you generate “respectful anger.” In doing that, “anger” now becomes a member of the class of “respect.” So all of the thoughts and beliefs about “respect” of people is inside of, incorporated within, and now the governing frame for how you think about and experience “anger.”

If you bring a state of “resilience” to a state of “disappointment,” “frustration,” “worry,” etc., you set a frame of “I’ll get through this,” “I won’t let this defeat me,” “I’ll bounce back,” etc. that’s because these ideas are inside of resilience. So in meta-stating resilience to disappointment, you do not just bring the new feeling to primary feeling, but you also are setting a reference frame that re-calibrates the disappointment. Now the disappointing thoughts-and-feelings are inside of a new category—that of resilience. This changes everything! Talk about a very, very powerful transformational process. And you can do it in such a simply profound way, by accessing and applying one state to another. So simple in process, and yet so profound in effect!

This explains in part why that when you attend any training in Neuro-Semantics, you will hear a lot about frames, framing, reframing, etc. That’s because no matter what experience you have or want to have or want to stop having, that experience is what it is due to the frames that comprise it. The experience is what it is because of the frames. The frames create it.

It is not the case that you have not been framed, you have! The questions are: How have you been framed? What framing (or whose framing) are you now living? Do you like those frames? Are they serving you well? Do they bring out your best? Or your worse? Or what is mediocre in you? Do you even know the frames? Would you like to?

Neuro-Semantic NLP focuses on enabling people to detect frames. Can you detect the frames that others are offering you? Can you detect the frames within yourself? Or can you detect the levels of frames in others? Can you detect the frames that hold other frames in place? How much mental flexibility do you have to play with the frame one you detect it? Or do you tend to let “the frame that be” hypnotize you into compliance and non-questioning obedience? Do they enslave you into their frame world?

We also focus on reframing. That’s because if there’s a frame and it does not bring out your best, do you know how to reframe it? Have you developed your skill to reframe it in dozens of ways so that you can then choose the best reframe? Do you know how to figure out what frame will out-frame it the very best?

Why? What do all of this? Because when you set a frame, you control a brain. So start with your own! Precisely because brains operate according to their frames, when you work with your frames, you learn to “run your own brain.” So, just as a computer’s mainframe controls the processes for how the computer operates, your frames govern how you interpret things, draw conclusions, create your mental maps, and experience your world. Your frames are that influential in your life experience!

No wonder then that we speak a lot about winning the inner game of our frames in Neuro-Semantics. If you want to become a winner in life—that’s where it begins. And to become a winner in your frames, we recommend you start with learning the foundations of NLP and Meta-States.