We began exploring the power, nature, and usefulness of the presuppositions in our everyday conversation in the previous chapter. That continues in this chapter as we explore and apply them for the purpose of sending our brains off into new and more resourceful directions. These seemingly tiny and insignificant words are actually the terms and ideas that we can use for frame setting and inducing powerful hypnotic states and we can do so in everyday conversation. So let us continue where we left off.
5. Ordinals
We have now covered several presuppositions, yet in this next group, the second thing that’s critically important about what an ordinal is and how to use it is as follows.
Did that jar you? Did you catch yourself stopping and rereading that sentence to see if it was right? Did you wonder, “What was the first thing about ordinals? Did I miss something? Did the computer or typesetter delete a line? What happened? Where is ‘the first thing’?”
Typically, most people (but not all) would have responded by creating a cognitive space in their minds as it were as they would wondered about “the first thing”. Not everybody not do this. Some global thinkers will miss it completely. Some options will also miss it. But specific detailed thinkers and especially procedure thinkers will catch it. So the working of this presupposition depends, to some extent, upon one’s meta-programs and thinking style. Those who judge rather than perceive might notice it.
Ordinals, as the term implies, assign order or rank, to a “one, two, three” list. Use words such as “first”, “second”, or “third”, or “next”, or “later”, and it cues the idea of an ordered sequence. When we say “first”, we set up a direction for the brain to go. It presupposes an order, a sequence, and a series of items. When we say “second” to a sequential thinker without having previously mentioned “first”, it does something different. It jars that person’s awareness. That’s because such individuals are highly primed to sort for series, sequences, lists, and order and care about such. So to start in the middle without a transition violates and interrupts the person’s way of thinking. It invites that person’s brain to go into a search mode. “What was first?” If this happens often, it can invite anger, frustration, and stress. Typically it creates an internal space wherein they go inside and begin searching.
Of course, at that point, we have a place for saying other things, for planting suggestions, without the person’s hearing it consciously. This describes one of the hypnotic ways we can use ordinals.
Ordinals are about syntax. It is about everything occurring in an order, and usually in a correct or right order. So what happens when we turn the order of things around? What happens when we put things “out of order” or into a reverse syntax? Actually, with structures that require a specific sequence, we can have a lot of fun with language as we reverse the syntax of problem statements.
As an example, Carol said she felt worried when her teenage daughter did not come home on time.
To that I (BB) replied, “Your teenage daughter not coming home on time and that caused you to feel worried?” (Pacing.)
Carol said, “Yes.”
“What would happen if you did not come on time with that worried feeling?”
Carol broke out in laughter in response to that. Reversing syntax and reversing cause-effect statements often completely interrupts a problem, blows it out, or disorders it. The linguistic structure of what Carol said can be put into the following formula:
Daughter’s not coming home on time (A) causes mother to worry (B).
This gives us a classic cause-effect statement. “A” happens first, this is followed by the occurrence of “B”. As such, this describes how to construct an “apply-to-self” mind-line reframe. By reversing the syntax, we can put “B” on top of “A”. That is, we can bring “B” to bear on “A”, or apply “B” to “A”. We can also meta-state “A” with “B”. When we reverse syntax with an ordinal, complex-equivalence or cause-effect statement, we bring the problem to bear on itself. We meta-state the problem with the problem.
Presuppositional play with fear of heights
In another training, a participant Bill said that he would be willing to work in front of the training group to work on his fear of heights.
“You have a fear of heights? Tell me, what do you have to do first, in your mind, in order to be afraid of heights? How do you know you are afraid of heights?”
“How do I know?”
“Yes. How do you know?”
“Well, because I feel it? I feel afraid.”
“You feel it? How do you know when to feel it?”
“When I look down, I guess.”
“When you look down?”
“Yes. If I’m on a ledge or high up and look down, I feel afraid.”
“Do you have to actually be looking down before you feel it?”
“When I open my eyes and look down I feel it. I sure do.”
“You can’t do it just in your mind … here … now?”
“Oh, sure. Yes I can do that.”
“Good. What a skill! So right now I want you to just imagine yourself up on a high place and looking down, and go ahead … feel it.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I know. I can see that. But would you just do that for a moment? Let’s make sure you have not lost this skill. That could happen, you know. That’s why we have to test these things.”
“OK … Whew!”
“And, how is that a problem for you?”
“How is it a problem?”
“Yes, is it a problem? Maybe it is not. How does having this fear of heights when you look down on things, even in your mind, and you feel this fear of heights—how is this a problem for you?”
“It paralyzes me.”
“You get paralyzed?”
“Yes.”
“You know, Bill, if I were you, I think I would just paralyze that fear of heights—now—because if you paralyzed that fear I wonder what would happen.”
Bill didn’t say anything for a few moments. But it was obvious that he was processing things inside. I’m sure the gears were turning inside because it seemed that smoke was coming from his ears. Shortly, the entire group broke out in laughter. I gave him some time to process the reversal of the syntax and let things settle.
“OK, Bill, let’s go back up to that image of height again. How high do you have to be in order to feel that fear?”
“I have to be on the rooftop of my house.”
“Good. Then, Bill, let’s go on a field trip. In fact, everybody here, let’s all go with Bill on this field trip—to the top of Bill’s house.”
Actually I had Bill walk out to a deck in the building where we were and to stand up and to look out. The deck stood approximately 15 feet (4.5 meters) above the ground. To test the process, I asked him to walk over to the edge of the deck. His fear was gone. Prior to this he said he would have been clutching, white-knuckled, to the banister. Actually we tested this resolution of his fear of heights several days later as well to see if it had maintained as his new frame. He did. He reported that he had undergone other therapies in an attempt to fix this fear of heights, yet none of them work. Yet this worked by the use of a linguistic presupposition, the paralyzing a paralyzing feeling. And that, of course, is part of the magic of our neurolinguistics.
6. Inclusive/exclusive or
One of the oldest linguistic structures in hypnotic language is the double-bind pattern. Milton Erickson’s genius really shone in his ability in setting a benevolent double-bind. He would casually talk with a person and ask whether it would be most appropriate to get well within thirty minutes or thirty days. He would ask if the person wanted to go into trance in his favorite trance chair or just in the chair where they were sitting. In each case, the specific answers were not as important as the fact that the person was hearing and processing and making some response.
By positing either this or that, the higher frame of getting well or going into a trance was thereby accepted. And you might be interested to know that we couldn’t make up our minds about whether we should focus this chapter on practical applications of transformation or on mastery, so we did.
When we set up a benevolent double-bind, we do so by using the linguistic patterning that we call Inclusive/Exclusive Or. We can see this in the following statements:
“Would you prefer to resolve this issue and feel satisfied with the solution by the end of our coaching session or would it feel more real if it took thirty days?”
“As you develop mastery of NLP do you prefer to mark and measure each and every step of your progress so that you can consciously recognize it, or would it be okay if you just continually move in that direction so that it becomes your basic life orientation?”
Figure 22.1: Inclusive/exclusive or
How does this presuppositional language work? Notice that it seems as if the speaker were offering a choice. The speaker describes resolving an issue and then offers the choice in terms of time: when do you want it resolved to your satisfaction? Shall it be in this session or in thirty days? In order for this simple double-bind to work, a person focuses on the content question about time, the details of how long. In focusing on that question, by presupposition the person has already accepted the higher frame of the benevolent double-bind, namely, that he or she will resolve the issue. That is no longer in question.
At the primary state, the person’s mind (conscious awareness) is on the details of time. Yet the very process of focusing on that in itself necessitates the acceptance of all of the higher implied frames. It accepts the original intent above and beyond the Inclusive/Exclusive Or. This terminology means that the statement both includes the choice of resolving the issue (whether in thirty minutes or thirty days) and excludes the possibility of not experiencing the higher frame (resolving the issue).
By presupposition, the Inclusive/Exclusive Or includes all the lower levels of choices. This is what gives the illusion of choice. By presupposition, it excludes the person from escaping the “frame box” that has been set, whether it’s getting well, resolving an issue, going into trance, or whatever. This higher-level choice occurs by the acceptance of the either/or choice at the lower level. Typically we do not hear the higher-level choice: we merely accept it “unconsciously” to the extent that it lies outside of our conscious awareness.
For more elegance in persuasion, we will want to ask such questions. We will want to ask questions that contain within them such resourceful presuppositions, that, in the very answering of the question, it presupposes the acceptance of the higher-framed presuppositions. In this way we communicate the higher frames while distracting conscious attention with primary-level questions. So, while the lower questions direct a person’s mind toward various details, the very answering of the question enables the person to accept the presupposed frames that support some desired outcome.
Given the structure of this Inclusive/Exclusive Or, we can sometimes use it to pull off a linguistic “visual squash”. Suppose, for example, a person says, “I don’t know whether I should stay in this relationship or if I should leave.” As we gather more information we discover the person’s positive intention in saying this and in struggling with this decision is to feel more secure (and less insecure) and to have more of a sense of freedom.
With that information, we could now reply, “How will you ever experience the real freedom to relate to anyone if you don’t learn to feel secure with yourself?”
In this case, we have moved up the levels by finding the highest positive intentions and then we have applied those intentions to the speaker’s situation. We have applied freedom and security back onto the speaker in such a way as to give him or her a new meaning, a new frame of mind. In the classic NLP visual squash we take two conflicting parts, states, ideas, or beliefs and we bring them together, forcing them to exist in the same time and space. Here we have done that linguistically.
Demonstrating the Inclusive/Exclusive Or
Terry presented a classic description of an inner conflict when he said, “If I do therapy in my office at home it causes problems with the wife because I have people coming in and out of our private home. But, if move out and rent office space, that will increase expenses and overhead, and I will have to charge my clients more.”
This describes a classic problem of internal conflict. Two parts of him were at war about what to do, what to decide.
If Terry works at his therapy practice at home, he can keep his rate low and work at home, but his wife doesn’t like that. And that leads to arguments. If he moves his practice out of the home, he has to rent space. That increases overhead, and will force him to raise his rates, which will be hard on some of his clients.
I (BB) immediately asked Terry about his motivations. Why practice at home? Why keep the rates as low as possible? What did he get from that? He said that he felt that was yet another way of helping his clients.
“Terry, I get the sense that you want to stay home mostly because of your compassion for your clients?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“So what would it be like for you if you gave yourself as much compassion as you give your clients?”
I played with the word “compassion” in this exchange. Terry had not specifically used that word, so where did I get it? I sensed it from our discussion. It was a generalization that put into words what I felt Terry was feeling. I sensed that this was his driving meta-state that put him into the conflict. People regularly use the words that they most value and, if we have our ears attuned to such value words, we will hear them. I knew that compassion rated as a very high value and positive intention for Terry, and from his double-bind I also knew that it was the compassion for both his clients and for his wife that created his difficulty. I knew that he valued his wife more than his clients.
So, guessing at his highest positive intention, I brought that to bear on the double-bind of the problem. At the moment of this linguistic intervention, neither his wife nor his clients were present. So I invited him to apply his value of compassion to himself and to his map. I did it this way:
“So, Terry, here you’re facing a double-bind situation, caught between wanting to be compassionate to your clients and keep the costs down and to your wife, to create a safe and private home environment. You are in an Inclusive/Exclusive Or format. So, I’m interested. What would happen if you gave your wife the same amount of compassion you give your clients and yourself?”
A long pause occurred as Terry went inside, into a deep trance. As he did, I said, “Yes, that’s right. And just let those thoughts and feelings sink in—sink in very deeply. And you can decide that you can trust that the answer will come to you with regard to what you need to do about your clients and what is most important in your life.”
In this case, I meta-stated Terry by asking him to access the state of compassion and to apply it to the problematic state wherein he felt a conflicting double-bind. This gives us, as it were, a linguistic visual squash. At the primary level Terry was aware of two contexts: his relationship to his wife and their home and his relationship with his clients and his work. At the first meta-level, the frame that drove both was compassion. Yet what one frame wanted conflicted with what the other wanted.
As I helped Terry to become more conscious of compassion as his positive intention for both of these two parts, I also asked him to meta-state himself and his mapping of these things with compassion. What happened? What was the effect of the higher-level compassion on the structure of the Inclusive/Exclusive Or?
By having him apply compassion to both of his relationships and to his own mapping, I helped his awareness to expand. He realized that his marriage was first and foremost in his life and that making his marriage work was crucial. So, as compassion rose up to function as an even higher and larger frame, it outframed even the entire the Inclusive/Exclusive Or structure so that it no longer was an either/or structure.
7. Cause-effect
A presuppositional frame that we all assume as we move through the world is the neuro-linguistic structure of cause-effect. This refers to how we frame and construct our mental maps to posit that some things (ideas, events, or activities) are “causes” and others are “effects” of those causes.
What are the cues or linguistic markers of cause-effect structures? The Meta-Model lists such words and phrases as “like”, “because”, “if then”, “made”, “makes”, “causes”, and “force”. Actually, any active verb presupposes a level of causation. “Since” and “so” also assume cause-effect.
In terms of the Meta-Model, we question and challenge such the cause-effect statements that are ill formed. “He makes me angry” is ill formed because it does not describe the process for how one person is causing another person to experience an emotion. “Rain makes me wet”, by way of contrast, is a well-formed cause-effect statement. So is “He makes me lose credibility with the boss by making me late more than fifty percent of the time that I ride with him.”
When we use presuppositional languaging, we do not question even ill-formed uses of causation terms: we use them to evoke a response in others. In fact, our words and how we say them hypnotize people and make them go into trance where we coach them to access the resources that facilitate healing, response potentials, or new resources.
If you reread that last sentence, you will see (a verb assuming a cause-effect action) that using causation can be quite useful in directing awareness and perception hypnotically. And since, as master practitioners, we are becoming skilled communicators, we will use linguistic structures that will cause us and our listeners to go where we invite a mind to go—because brains (ours and theirs) cannot not process such words and create such mapping because as people track such words it causes them to construct such maps.
When we use cause-effect statements (whether hypnotically or in everyday conversation), it effectively allows us to link thoughts. Causation terms enable us to link one thought to another, one state to another, one resource to another. This works wonders not only for the hypnotist, but also for the therapist, the sales person, the parent, the employer, or the marketer. Even trainers will find them powerful in training and installing new skills and competencies.
Since you are becoming ever more masterful as a practitioner, it must mean that you are learning advanced language structures that will only make you a more superb communicator.
Examine that sentence. Notice how it has two cause-effect statements using the presupposition terms “since” and “make”. We used the cause-effect word “make” to link the thoughts of becoming masterful as a practitioner to the idea of become more superb as a communicator. Complex equivalences also serve as great linkage language and so, “it must mean” provides the linguistic marker of an equation.
Reversing syntax
We can do more with cause-effect structures. In the following statement, consider how Suzanne maps your problem.
“My sister makes me feel guilty.”
In its simplistic format, the problem is: A (sister) makes B (Suzanne’s feeling of an emotion).
“Suzanne, is this an ongoing problem for you? Or does it just come and go.”
“It is an off-and-on type of problem.”
“It goes off and then it comes on? So when do you know to turn it on rather than off?”
“You mean, when do I know when it’s time to feel guilty?”
“Yes. I need to get a little more information to get it into a little clearer form. When we do that, then we can reverse the mapping. I can’t do that yet: I need some more information about the problem. So, when do you know when it is time to feel guilty?
“Well, when she’s not happy—that’s usually when I feel guilty.”
“Good. So, when she’s not feeling happy, you know that it’s time to feel guilty about that?”
“Yes.”
“So, when she’s not happy, that event causes you to feel guilty. Okay, now let’s chunk down from that level. What I want to know now is this: how is that a problem for you?
“Well, I can’t be happy when that happens.”
“You say you can’t be happy? ‘I can’t be happy if she is not happy’? ‘So, when she is not happy, I can’t be happy; it prevents me from being happy.’ That might work.
“It does work. That’s my problem!”
“So, Suzanne, what would happen if you could not be happy with your not being happy over her not being happy?
(Laughs) “I think it just went! … Yes, it just went.” (Snaps her fingers.)
At this point, Yvonne spoke up: “My brother-in-law makes me angry.”
“He does? Hmm. So, what would happen if you got angry at your anger at your brother-in-law? Right now just feel angry at your anger at your brother-in-law so that your anger just disappears.”
It did.
As with the ordinal presupposition terms, we can format a problem as a cause-effect or a complex-equivalence structure. Once we do that, we can then reverse the syntax. We can take how we have mapped it and reverse the things we say are “causes” and exchange them with the things we call “effects.” Frequently this will eliminate or blow out a problem linguistically.
The Meta-States model explains how this works. With Suzanne, we applied “not being happy” with “not being happy”. We brought not-happiness as a state, put it at a meta-level to not-happiness. Doing this, in her case, functioned as one negative canceling out the other negative. With Yvonne we applied “anger” to “anger and her getting mad at being mad” and that caused the anger to be canceled out. In terms of the Mind-Lines model, we describe this as the linguistic pattern of “apply to self”.
EXERCISE: Cause-effect
1. Identify the problem.
In pairs, the first person identifies a problem or challenge to play with.
2. Formulate the problem in cause-effect structure.
The person being the coach will ask questions until the problem can be put into the form of a cause-effect or a complex-equivalence statement-to the satisfaction of the first person.
3. Reverse and test.
Then reverse the syntax and present it to the first person. Calibrate to how the person responds. Continue until you reframe, blow out, or change the problem.
4. Check ecology and future-pace.
We do this to install as a new way of thinking. Reverse roles.
Intervening with detailed questions
We have taken a pattern that originally came from Richard Bandler and have adapted it to create a process exercise. This demonstrates the use of cause-effect presuppositional language in directing a person’s awareness from a problem state to a resource state.
EXERCISE: Problem to solution
1. In pairs, identify a problem to play with
2. Entertain focus questions.
The second person will then ask the following questions (see below) of the first person. Be sure to give each other time to process each question.
3. Process internally.
The person being questioned is not to respond verbally to the questions, but only process them internally. When the person has processed a question, nod to signify the questioner to move on to the next question.
List of questions for the questioner:
- What’s wrong?
- What caused this problem?
- How have you failed to resolve this problem so far?
- How can you overcome this problem?
- What would you like to change?
- When will you stop it from being a limitation?
- How many ways do you know you have solved this?
- I know you are changing and seeing things differently, aren’t you?
- How good will you feel when you have fully resolved this and moved on with your life? And what will be some of the key resourceful states you’ll experience?
Debriefing the working of this languaging
A. What’s wrong?
Because this question is in the present tense, it invites us to associate into the problem. We make our internal movie and step into it so that we are there as the key actor in the film. In terms of the SCORE model, this is where we identify the current problematic symptoms.
B. What caused this problem?
This temporal presupposition presupposes that something in the past (“caused”—past-tense verb) brought the problem about. Now we step out of the movie to create another movie, an old movie of something that previously happened. In SCORE, this is cause.
C. How have you failed to resolve this problem so far?
With this question we step back into the movie and experience the problem and our failing to solve it. It refocuses our awareness so that we are not sorting for the cause but for the failure to solve it. With the presupposition of existence, the question does introduce the idea of resolution (“resolve”). But this is framed as a “not” (“failed to”). It moves us from the cause of the problem to the failure to resolve, and yet one step closer to the direction of resolution. It presupposes the possibility, but not reality, of resolution. It therefore paces with this focus. The final “so far” presupposes that it is just the current state of nonresolution and that resolution will come.
D. How can you overcome this problem?
This question contains a process term (“how”) that looks for structure, a spatial presupposition (“overcome”), and a modal of possibility (“can”). It presupposes that we can move from the cause of the problem to the solution of the problem; that it’s possible and just a matter of strategy (“how”). When we find or discover that how-to knowledge, we will then be able to overcome the problem. This presupposes that the solution is possible, and is possible for you.
E. What would you like to change?
“What” gives us a presupposition of existence, “like” a modal of desire, and “would” a modal of choice and will. “You” makes it personal. Having moved to the place of mapping “overcoming the problem” as a possibility, we have stepped into the movie of change. We are moving toward solution. “What would you like to change?” This puts us “at choice”. Solution has a form or structure (D). Next we have an embedded command to the past problem.
F. When will you stop it from being a limitation? (Use a different tone or volume for the phrase in italics.)With the questions having invited a person to start moving toward a solution and mapping the possibilities of choices for changes, “when” invites us to make yet another choice, to stop letting the “problem” “be” (existence) a “limitation” (complex equivalence). This presupposes a “no!” to the old frame thereby creating space for saying “yes” to a new frame. The embedded command is the invitation to say “no”. “Stop it!” Stop framing the experience as meaning “limitation”. “When” (a temporal presupposition) becomes the focus, “When will you …?” Answering that question means accepting the higher frame of “Stopping it”. Being in the movie invites us to look at this moment or in the future for “when” to do this. We are no longer focusing on the problem, but on the solution.
G. How many ways do you know you have solved this?
“How many ways …?” presupposes there are many ways, many choices; “you have solved …” presupposes “solution”, and solutions in the past. This invites us to map that we have already solved it. Our movie shifts to a solution movie and we look backward to resources in the past, previous solutions that we have not yet mapped as solutions. This reinforces that we have many choices in solving this problem. It invites us to view the past as solution-filled rather than problem-filled. The implied frames in this: “What new behaviors and choices do you now have that confirm that you have solved the problem?”
H. I know you are already changing and seeing things differently, aren’t you?
This invites the person to lock in the changes by noticing them. Using the awareness presupposition (“know”) invites the person to share in the knowing. Present-tense active verb (“are already changing and seeing”) invites stepping into that movie. The tag question (“aren’t you?”) invites a confirmation to the awareness. It invites a rhetorical “yes”.
I. How good will you feel when you have fully resolved this and moved on with your life? And what will be some of the key resourceful states you’ll experience?
“How” as a process word again focuses on strategy. Accepting the question as legitimate presupposes that we will feel good upon completion, it’s just a question of how good we will feel. Presupposed also is getting the problem “fully resolved” so that one is moving on with life. The second question presupposes that resolution leads to more resourceful states.
We have three ways to utilize cause-effect statements hypnotically. We can use them in hypnotic languaging by linking ideas. We can set a problem up as a cause-effect (or complex-equivalence) statements and then reverse the syntax. And, we can use the detailed questioning pattern to move a person from problem state to solution state and focus.
8. Complex equivalence
We construct a complex equivalence whenever we use a part of an experience (some aspect of external behavior) and set it up as equivalent to some internal significance (meaning) or state (internal state). This gives us the basic formula for the magic box and cube that we use in the Mind-Lines model: EB = IS.
When we have mapped things in this way, “magic” occurs. Then, to an external cue, we are able to assume that it carries a whole load of semantic meaning.
“You spoke harshly to me again; you just don’t love me any more.”
With a map like that, a person can experience semantic reactions any time of day or night, in the presence of the person or when just thinking about the voice quality. Yet in this case, the ill-formed structure of this Meta-Model distinction creates an impoverished map of the world that creates unnecessary pain. That’s why we question or challenge such. Yet, presuppositionally complex-equivalence statements provide us with an outstanding linguistic structure that we can use to direct perception. It also makes for effective transitional languaging patterns for hypnosis.
Because we can link one thought with another thought with both cause-effect and complex equivalences, reading this now and using this understanding means that you are mastering this field and in the days and weeks to come will be utilizing these language patterns for directing your own awareness and that of others.
Identity
There are many other things we can do with the complex-equivalence structure. By definition, a complex equivalence refers to the meaning that we give to the sensory-based things of our world. What do those things mean? We equate them to our internal representations. This means that meaning is not only an abstraction, but a very personal abstraction.
What does anything mean? It depends on what any given person represents and references on the movie screen of the mind. Whatever internal state or significance we link to the external subject, that is the meaning, the complex equivalence. This also shows that we can change meaning at will. We call this reframing the meaning. We had framed it one way: “harsh tonality” means or is associated with, classified as, and categorized as “unloving behavior”. Now we can reframe it: “harsh tonality” means “stress”, “unresourceful state”, “lack of skill in communicating when experiencing a negative emotion”, and so on.
Since meaning is always subject to change, we can suggest new meanings linguistically easily and subtly. We can set other frames for the behavior or event “out there”. This is what hypnosis is all about: changing frames.
This becomes especially useful when we think about the complex equivalences that we have used (consciously or unconsciously) to set up the frames of our identities. In the Extended Meta-Model (Chapters Eleven and Twelve, Hall, 1997, 2001), we have an additional form of complex equivalence as identification.
Actually, we create this complex equivalence very easily because we have the language to do it so easily. Via identification, we create the mental-emotional entity of “identity”. All we have to do is use any form of the verb “to be”. The “to be” verb gives us the linguistic markers for identification and identity, “I am depressed”. “I am a loser”. “He is so dumb”. “They are inferior”.
When we say “I am …” we identify ourselves with what lies we put on the other side of the equation. A (I as a self, as a person) = B (some behavior, experience, or concept). We identify ourselves with the “B.” We are Americans, Africans, teachers, selfish, Catholics, Muslims, alcoholics, sex offenders, whatever.
If I say, “I am a therapist”, then is that all that I am? Even in the context of career and work, am I just a therapist? Perhaps I am also a writer. Could I also do some other things or are all other things eliminated?
Identification statements are prevalent all over the world. It seems to be a human predisposition and need to identify with something and to identify oneself. This is one way to map things. Yet it is not the only. We could also map that these are just experiences, behaviors, skills, functions. Instead of mapping things in terms of our identity (as an abstract concept), we could map them as actions and performances.
“I do therapy and I write, but I am always more than those two behaviors. I also mow the grass, straighten up the house, and work on websites.”
“I engage in reading, researching, writing, training, talking to people, coaching, running, sleeping, eating, and watching television.”
Korzybski said that all use of the “to be” verb was “unsane”. He believed that every process of identifying and identification was the source of all ill-formed mapping. While we may not want to go that far, we do think its best to eliminate the “am” (or other inflections such as is, be, being, been, are) altogether from your self-identification. Sometimes I do therapy, sometimes I write, sometimes I read books, sometimes I mow grass …
For us, we seek to avoid identifying ourselves with what we do. Doing is but one facet of experience. And doing always occurs at a given time, in a given context, for specific purposes, and, at best, is but an expression of us, not “us”. When we identify with what we do (or any other identification), we then invest all of our physical, mental, emotional, personal, and spiritual energies into it. Then we experience ourselves as that identification. We are our jobs, our titles, our relationships. Yet, when we identify ourselves with things that can be taken away from us, we set ourselves up to be threatened at our sense of self. This is the structure of what we call an “identity crisis”. “Identity” can be put into a crisis only if we create a complex equivalence and identify ourselves with something external that can be threatened.
For a long time, I (BB) identified myself as a minister. Then the day came when I lost a large pastorate. The identification caused me to ask, “Who am I now?” I had identified my self with what I was “doing.” What I did equated with me. So when I lost the “position” I identified with, status, right to do what I had done, I lost my identity. At the time I went through quite an identity crisis and transformation. I began identifying myself with my “being” rather than my “doing”. Realizing this now, I know better than to equate self with actions and that is very liberating.
How do we dis-identify ourselves from what we do? Begin by using the infinitives of the nominalizations that you use in your identity statements. We express these in the form of, “I am” statements. This creates a tremendous nominalization. All of our actions, processes, and activities are frozen into the first person. To denominalize such limited identity maps, restore the infinitive. Restore the activities. Question the “I am” statements by meta-modeling them.
- To be that, what do you do?
- What actions, activities, and processes do you engage in?
- When you do those things, is that all you are?
- What else do you do? What other things do you express?
- When you identify with the “EB” side of the complex equivalence, do you really want to identify yourself with that?
This also works powerfully when people identify (or overidentify) with an emotion, an emotional state, or a label. When someone says, “I am depressed” or “I am angry” or “I am sad” they have identified with one emotional state and yet we know that they “are” and experience much more than just that.
Dis-identification through presuppositions
When Suzanne said, “I am sorry.” I (BB) asked, “Is that who you are? Are you sorry?” And she said, “Yes.”
“Is that all you think you are?”
“Well, no, but I am always saying that ‘I’m sorry’ about things.”
“What are you that is more than sorry?”
There was a long pause. “Thoughtful,” she said. “I am thoughtful.”
“You are thoughtful? And, what are you that is not thoughtful?”
“I am much more.”
“And beyond much more, what are you?” (Long pause.)
“I am covering new ground.”
“And much more than covering new ground, what are you?” (Pause.)
“I am trying to bring the big picture on.”
“You are trying to bring the big picture on. And do you know you are trying to bring the big picture on?”
“I care.”
“How do you know you care? What kind of behaviors do you do that show you care. What are you doing that lets you know you care about people?”
“I see a lot of good in people.”
“You see a lot of good in people. And what does that mean about you as a person?”
“There is a lot of good in me.”
“What happens when you bring a lot of good in you to bear upon that limiting belief that you are sorry?” (Long pause.)
“It goes away.”
“That’s right, just disappear that limiting belief that you are sorry, now.” (Long pause.)
EXERCISE: Presuppositions for dis-identifying pattern
This pattern provides a useful model for challenging and transcending boundary conditions associated with complex equivalences. It can be used both reflexively and when coaching others. For other patterns for dis-identifying see The Sourcebook of Magic.
1. Elicit an identity complex equivalence using the verb “to be”.
Who are you? As you think about identifying yourself, how do you think about yourself? Listen for the form of “I am X”.
2. Pace and feed back the complex equivalence to the person for validation.
So you are X; is that right?
3. Question and challenge the identification.
Is that all you think you are?
(Calibrate to physiological shift.)
Are you not more than that?
(Calibrate to agreement.)
4. Invite new higher-level mapping that goes beyond identification.
What are you that is not X?
(You want a verbal answer here.)
You are what? What Y?
(As a more expansive identification map is formed, find a word or term or way of expressing this understanding to solidify it.)
5. And beyond that Y (word elicited in 4), is that all you are?
How much more are you than that? You do know you are more than that, don’t you? How do you know?
6. Confirm new self-defining, check ecology and future-pace.
EXERCISE: Redefining using pure potentiality
The following pattern uses temporal and spatial presuppositions to tear up limiting complex equivalences at the identity level. This pattern can be used in everyday language. Even with mild things the language will take you up, up and away to the higher levels of the mind for a more expansive perspective.
It’s important in this pattern that after the person has moved up the levels that you begin feeding back what the person says. This pacing will not only validate and confirm, but it will have the effect of lighting up their neural networks as they associate more and more into the higher levels of awareness.
1. Pace current situation and move up the levels.
Starting where the person is at, invite the person to move up the levels of the mind. Repeatedly ask, “What do you think or feel about that?”
2. Travel to the heights; go up, up, and away.
Invite the person to move up the levels beyond words, beyond what can be expressed in propositional language. Take them to the formlessness void beyond that level. Use all of the meta-level words and levels.
“What do you believe about that? What does that mean to you? What ideas come to you about that?”
3. Confirm they have moved beyond words, then repeat.
“How do you know that you are there?” (Validate that they know: “I just know.”)
What’s beyond that? How do they know that?
4. Push it as far as you can.
“Great, and yet, are you not more than that?”
(Eventually, they will constantly be saying, “Yes.”)
“Is that all you think you are?”
(Utter this statement, with an astonished tone. Do so holding the belief that the person is always more than what he or she thinks about him-or herself. Ask with a questioning and incredulous tonality, “Is that all?” Doing this sets the frame that they are more than whatever they think they are. People are so much more than anything they can map about themselves.)
5. Reverse the question and ask the negation.
“What are you that is not X, Y, or Z?
(All of the things they told you previously. Find out what the previous rung on the ladder is to get the person to move up to the next rung.)
6. Come back down the levels.
Once the person has moved well beyond any physiology that gives any hint of the problem, start going back down the levels and verifying at each step:
“You do know you are more than that don’t you?”
[Anchor this as you come down as you continually ask—]
“How do you know that?”
7. Check ecology of the new self-definition and future-pace.
Debriefing the pattern
As we begin using this pattern, we want to get content about self and self-identification. Doing this will be easy and natural because you are engaged in a regular everyday conversation. Conversely, you will not need to get any content about the problem. Rather than know such details, or the length of the problem, you need to know only the belief.
Starting up the levels may be slow at first, but then will begin to move very quickly. As soon as you sense that you are getting agreement, say, “Well what are you that is not X, Y, Z?” They tell you. Then say, “And, beyond that, is that all you are? How much more are you than that?” The person will go up in one place and come down in another. With the expansive awareness the person achieves at the higher levels, we will ground that awareness back into reality by bringing it back down with them as we ask for evidence.
Demo with Nancy
Nancy wanted to work in a training on her weight problem. She began by making an identity statement: “I am overweight.”
“Is that all you think you are?”
“I am a woman.”
“Aren’t you more than that?”
“Yes.”
“What are you that is not overweight?”
“I am a mother, business lady, I am going to write a book.”
You are a mother, business lady and you are going to write a book. And beyond that is that all you are?” (Pause.) “How much more are you than that?
“I am child of God.”
“And, how do you know you are a child of God?”
“He has promised it.”
“He has promised it. And, how do you know it is yours?”
“I believe in him.”
And being a child of God, now, and believing in him, how do you feel about that? “I feel very good about that.”
“Which state is better: the one you came out of or the one you have now?”
“This one.”
At this point Nancy broke out in laughter.
With this pattern you can burst limiting and impoverished complex equivalences in an ever so simple way. Using temporal presuppositions we invite a person to expose the complex equivalences that they have used for identification. We then “chunk up” the levels until we move to a place that’s outside the person’s box and to the representations of “not”. When the person gets to the “not”, and to the place of pure potentiality, they will find numerous resources there. At that point we can set the frame above the current reality strategy that “they are more than that”.
Summary
We have now explored several linguistic presuppositions around such key conceptual categories as existence, awareness, possibility and necessity, temporal and spatial, ordinal, the Exclusive/Inclusive Or, cause-effect, and complex equivalence.
So, as we now have and recognize this sense of just how effective presuppositions are, would you consider the possibility of skillfully utilizing them in your speech, which will enable you to move your or another’s perception in any direction that you choose to move that awareness? Because you can take perception and move it backward or forward, up or down, or in several other directions. And you may choose to move it step by step either leading to resources in the thoughts in the back of the mind or maybe in the higher mind. And, as you lead a mind out of the problem state and up into resourceful states, then that will only cause the realization that we are more, much more than any problem we could experience. And, as we realize this, we will even now begin to see ourselves as being not a person with a problem but a person with innate resources that occur at many, many levels. We are resourceful, and far more resourceful than we have dared to imagine before … now.
We can direct perception through the skillful use of language by using numerous linguistic presuppositions that give us a structure for how to think about doing this. Presuppositions simply define what has to be true in order to make sense out of something.