Author: Michael Hall

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

What Steve Andreas doesn’t seem to understand is that when it comes to human thinking-and-feeling as a dynamic, non-linear system, we do not follow the rules of Socrates and Aristotle’s rules of logic as we create our mental categories. Instead, as Alfred Korzybski noted, we are not logical, nor even psychological, but psycho-logical beings. When it comes to the way we categorize things, since categories and categorization is the central subject of his book, in human experiencing and meaning-making through thinking-and-feeling, we can categorize just about anything as a member of any category.

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

If Andreas had done his homework in studying the Meta-States Model, he would have known that we define a meta-state as an “attitude” and that, as such, it sets an evaluative frame at a higher level so that we redirect our focus. He would know that I have often described a meta-state as a shift to a more specific logical level, a higher concept or category.

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. Cartoon violence —talk about an oxymoron! Violence over cartoons! Aren’t we getting a little too serious? Violence and riots and even death over sketches! Sketches —maps about a territory and not the territory. Yet that’s what has been dominating so much of the news in the first two weeks of February (2006). When I first heard about the cartoons of the prophet Mohammad which portrayed him as a terrorist and some of the uproar about it from those who didn’t like it, I remembered that there had been controversy over some insulting and degrading images of the virgin Mary and images of the Cross a few years back. But hardly riots and certainly nobody died because of it.

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. It is no secret that teachers, educators, knowledge workers, and business experts who know that to keep up with the acceleration of change they have to create learning organizations and themselves stay on the cutting-edge of information have long been using both NLP and Neuro-Semantics. In the field of NLP there are many, many books, articles, and trainings that apply the NLP model to learning.

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
It all began in September of 1994 during a presentation on Resilience at the NLP Comprehensive Conference in Denver, Colorado. While working with a participate in the front of the room, interviewing and modeling his strategy for handling “a living hell” that he had been through and had come back from, the idea of meta-states hit me like an Aha! moment.

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Meta-States describes a very simple phenomenon. In fact, the Meta-States model describes a human phenomenon that’s so common, everyday, and down-to-earth that it hardly needs mentioning. Yet, at the same time, we have to mention it or people will miss this obvious elusive.

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Imagine your face pressed so tightly against a wall that your lips are kissing it. Yuck. Not only does it taste bad, but you can’t see much, can you? What building is this anyway? Is it an office building, a sky scraper, your home, a wall around a garden? When you’re that close you can’t tell. To find out, take a step back. So, it’s an office building.

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By Dr. Bob Bodenhamer
No doubt, you may have considered the New Year and what you want to accomplish. In recent decades, many have written about the process of effectively setting goals. Many years ago I memorized the acrostic for S.M.A.R.T. goals

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Attention Deficient Disorder or ADD is a distressful and unpleasant state. What is it like? How would we create it? What things make up the disorder of the mind?

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
With Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D. Min.
There are so many patterns in NLP and NS (Neuro-Semantics) for dealing with fear that we found that we could not use all of them when we put the training manual Mastering Your Fears (2000) together. So we picked the best to design the training that Bob is currently doing at Gaston College.

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Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
When I sat down think about all of the NLP and Meta-State patterns that address the experience of fear, I felt both surprised and delighted. My intent was to gather highly effective patterns and to present them in a Workshop format at the local college to begin my eighth year there teaching NLP.

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Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
Imagine with me, if you will, that it is tomorrow morning and like all other mornings you wake up to face another day as a person who stutters. You begin your normal morning routine that in all appearances resembles any non-stuttering persons morning routine.

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Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
During my early NLP training, I realized the awesome power of the language pattern that we call Modal Operators and how they affect our perception and behavior. Indeed, in the development of our beliefs, these Modal Operators formulate the very maps we use to navigate the territory. They do that by determining the “boundaries” of our belief systems.

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
The subjective experience of stuttering occurs as a speech pattern when we begin to say something, but then feels “tied up” and unable to express ourselves in an easy and spontaneous way. Sometimes it feels as if we have two or more competing ideas or feelings fighting for dominance, each interrupting the other.

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
There’s a dangerous game afoot that can undermine our growth, sanity, and resourcefulness¾it’s the “Experience is Real” Game. When you play that game, then your experiences control you¾they define you, determine you, and fate you. This undermines personal power and effectiveness. Our resourcefulness therefore depends upon learning how to refuse this game. Do you know how?

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Richard Bolstad
Margot Hamblett
At any given time, 6%-7% of Americans show diagnostic signs of substance dependence (O’Brian and McKay, 1998, p 127). In this research, substance is used in the strict sense of substances such as alcohol, cocaine, cannabis, or opiates.

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Rob McCarter, MS, LPC/NCC
Over the years, I have been most fortunate to be one of those that God has called to aid others in eliminating barriers to success in their lives. In each situation, I help them discover their own resources and then get out of the way for their own resources to knock down the barriers.

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
You have a lot more thoughts, ideas, and representations than you do beliefs. You can think lots of things without believing them. When we believe–we trust our thoughts, validate our ideas, and say “Yes” to those representations as right, true, reflective of reality, and something we can hang-on to.

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L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
With this understanding of the role, functioning, nature, and structure of beliefs, we can now identify those that poison and sabotage us and construct beliefs that will empower and enhance life. What totally empowering belief would you like to get stuck in your head as a frame-of-mind to operate from?

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