The Conceptual Meta-Programs Conceptual/semantic Realities; Identity/self/”Time” Etc. 40-51

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#40. Value sort:

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Emotional "needs," beliefs

emotional needs/belief systems

Concept: When we use the nominalization "value", it sounds like a thing, like something
real and tangle and external. It is not. The process involves valuing. And we value by how we treat something as important, significant, and/or meaningful. Our "values" are the objects of this way of thinking-and-feeling.

By means of our valuing in our thinking, feeling, focusing, talking, and acting, we appraise things, people, experiences, qualities, and ideas as important. Accordingly, we build mental maps and movies about how something holds value to us. Our "values" then operate as our meta-frames and meta-states all at the same time and we use them to perceive the world. In this way they function as our meta-programs as well.

Structurally, a "value" contains a two-level phenomenon. To the primary-level thought, we first have it in some meta-program format (global! specific, match/mismatch, for instance). Then to the meta-program format we have a thought of importance and significance about it.

Every meta-program we use habitually, we value. Anticipate discovering that they actually have many reasons and motivations for engaging in such thinking! Our values arise, in part, from our meta-programs themselves, especially our driver meta-programs.

Elicitation:
• What do you think is valuable, important, or significant about this (e.g., job, relationship, idea)?

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#41. Temper-to-instruction sort:

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Strong-willed/compliant

self-willing versus compliant

Concept: This meta-program refers to our relationship to choice, instruction, command, authority, power, control. Some people comply and others resist these experiences and so develop a different meta-program.

Compliance refers to those who take orders, information, and demands well, who comply with instructions. They may do so in an unhealthy way (fear of taking personal responsibility, cowering before everybody else), or they may do so in a healthy way (recognition of authority structures and willingness to receive instruction).

Strong-willed refers either to those who so define themselves in terms of their will and freedom of choice or to those so traumatized by obnoxious authority figures that they have set a frame for perceiving any instruction (even their own) as a violation of their freedom of will.

Elicitation:
• Can someone "tell" you something?

• How do you think and feel when you receive "instructions"?

• How well can you "tell" yourself to do something and carry it out without a lot of internal resistance?

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#42. Self-esteem sort:

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Conditional/unconditional

Concept: This meta-program refers to the higher-level belief frames we operate from with regard to our conceptual understandings about the value and dignity of "self", what we believe about human beings.

Conditional self-esteem refers to viewing and feeling self-esteem as
conditional and based upon any number of things as determined in a person's culture or belief systems: looks, money, strength, intelligence, degrees, status, and the like. People who prefer and use this as a meta-program are forever thinking, feeling, and concerned about how they are doing on the self-esteem scale. Their ego concerns are always"on the line".

Unconditional self-esteem refers to viewing and feeling self-esteem as un-con-ditionally given and therefore full, complete, and unassailable. People who prefer and use this meta-program operate with few ego concerns since they are centered.

Elicitation:
• Do you think of your value as a person as conditional or unconditional?

• When you esteem yourself as, say, valuable, worthwhile, having dignity, do you base it upon something you do, have, or possess, or do you base it upon a given (e.g., your inherent humanity or that you feel yourself to have been made in God's image and likeness)?

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#43. Self-confidence sort:

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High/low

Concept: This meta-program refers to one's feelings of confidence, trust, or faith in one's skills and abilities. It refers to how much faith in particular skills in a given context that a person operates from. It can also refer to a generalized sense of confidence in self to learn, develop, and grow.

Low self-confidence describes those who lack confidence to do a particular thing, and those who distrust their ability to learn.

High self-confidence describes those who have confidence in a particular activity, and it can refer to those who generally trust that they can learn and develop new skills.

Elicitation:
• As you think about some of the things that you can do well, and that you know, without a doubt, you can do well and may even take pride in your ability to do them skillfully, make a list of those items.

• How confident do you feel about your skills in doing these things? How have you generalized from these specific self-confidences to your overall sense of self-confidence?

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#44. Self-experience sort:

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Mind/emotion/will/body/role or position/spirit

Self-experience definitions

Concept: This meta-program refers to the beliefs and understandings that we use and operate from in defining ourselves, and so in how we experience ourselves. We can base our self-definitions on a wide variety of things: for instance, thought, body, status, emotion, roles, degrees, choice, experiences.

Elicitation:
• As you think about your thoughts, emotions, will, body, roles, and positions that you experience in life, which facets of yourself seem the most important, real, or valid?

• Do you think of yourself primarily as a thinker, emotional person, chooser, in terms of your physical looks or body, in terms of your roles and positions, or what?

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#45. Self-integrity:

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Conflicted incongruity/harmonious
integration

Concept: The meta-program relates to how well you live up to your values, rules, and beliefs. It relates to the degree of your personal integrity.

Those who experience the comparison between their ideals and ideal self with their actual experiences as congruous and fitting feel that they have “self-integrity.” This provides a strong sense of self-acceptance and centering. It enables one to even more effectively devote mental and emotional energies for actualizing one’s values and visions.

Those who lack that sense of congruence feel inwardly torn and at odds with themselves. This frequently leads to the expenditure of lots of internal energy conflicting and fighting with oneself, negative emotions, negative judgments of insult toward one’s self.

Elicitation:
• When you think about how well or how poorly you live up to your ideals and in actualizing your ideal self, do you feel integrated, congruous, doing a good job in living true to your values and visions? Or do you feel torn, conflicted, not integrated, incongruous?

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#46. 'Time tenses sort:

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Past/present/future

Time processing: past, present, future

Concept: Our processing of "time" in terms of the time zones of awareness refers to which time zone we prefer to sort for, pay attention to, and use in our calculating things.

Past-time processing refers to the preference to use the past, past events, past learning experiences, and so on. When overdone this can lead to your living in the past, to your wanting the security of past references.

Present-time processing refers to the preference for using the present, the now, and to valuing current experiences and feelings.

Future-time processing refers to the preference for using future possibilities as one's point of reference. This can lead to visionary thinking, possibilities, dreaming, or fearfully worrying about dangers and terrible things that might happen.

Elicitation:
• Where do you put most of your attention-on the past, present, or future?

• Or have you developed an atemporal attitude so that you don't attend to "time" at all?

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#47. 'Time"experience:

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In time/through time; random sorting versus sequential

Concept: This meta-program has reference to how we code and process our timelines. As a meta-frame about the concept of "time" it relates to whether we live in it or out of it, associatively or dissociatively.

In-time refers to processing "time" in such a way that the "line" goes through us (through our body) so that we live and perceive "inside of time" so to speak. This generates an experience of living in the eternal now, and easily getting lost in time. We live in a primary state of "time" and have little awareness of "time" as such. This makes us spontaneous, systemic, and random in our orientations and behaviors.

Through-time refers to processing "time" from a higher or meta-level, and so being out of time in such a way that our "line" occurs outside of us. It does not go through our body. This gives us more perception and awareness of "time" and makes us more sequential, linear and "on time".

Elicitation:
• As you take a moment to relax, and to feel inwardly calm, allow yourself to recall a memory of something that occurred sometime in your past ... And something else from long ago ...

• Now think of some event that occurred today ... and another ...

• Now think of an event that will occur, one of these days ... and another future event ...

• As you now stand back or above those "time" places in your mind, point to the direction of your future, and point to the direction of your past ...

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#48. 'Time"access sort:

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Random/sequential

Concept: This meta-program relates to how we access our memories of the past and functions as a sub-category of how we store or code "time" itself. Two overall patterns prevail: those who use a random accessing style and those who use a sequential accessing style.

Random Access. Notice if a person randomly accesses his or her memories. Do they easily jump from one memory to another? Do they have their memories stored in an unconnected way so that they can quickly and directly jump across boundaries of time, subject matter, and people? This describes the random access style. In this style, a person organizes memories by comparing different events that occurred at different times. They move to a meta-level position and hold two memories simultaneously.

Sequential Access. This style results from having coded one’s memories in a linear and connected way. Accordingly, the person does not move from one memory to another in a random way, but in a highly sequenced way. They may view the events on their time-line as the cross-ties on a railroad track. Such sequential storage tends to make it more difficult to access memories—the person has to start somewhere else and then move linearly until they get to a memory.

Elicitation:
• Use the "time"-accessing questions as in #47.

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#49. Ego-strength sort:

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Unstable/stable

unstable-stable; reactive-proactive

Concept: This meta-frame relates to how well we face the world, reality, facts with mind, degree of adjustment. "Ego" refers to our cognitive and perceptual mind in facing what exists.

The Unstability Sort. Those who easily and quickly feel frustrated by the tiniest little annoyance become unstable in the face of difficulties. They can perceive almost anything as a “difficulty,” worry and fret about it, feel insecure, unstable, emotionally distressed, etc. This generally describes how we all responded during infancy and childhood and the childish coping style of throwing tantrums, raging whenever frustrated, not tolerating delays, etc.

The Stability Sort. Those who take a more philosophical attitude toward life and progress toward any worthwhile goal know that this will involve expecting and accepting problems, road-blocks, problems to solve, etc. In the face of such undesired occurrences, they stay calm, cool, unruffled, and objective. They immediately go into problem-solving in a matter-of-fact way without wasting a lot of time fuming and fretting. Ellis (1975) writes

“The world has great difficulties and injustices, but you don’t have to whine or make yourself furious about them.”

Elicitation:
• When you think about some difficulty arising in everyday life, a disappointment, problem, frustration that will block your progress, what usually comes to your mind? How do you feel about such events? How do you typically respond to internal needs or external hardships? Where do your mind-and- emotions go when you face a problem?

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#50. Morality sort:

Back 11

Weak superego/strong superego

Concept: This one relates to our sense of conscience, to following moral and ethical principles.

The Unconscientious Sort. Those who have a weakly developed super-ego tend to not recognize or sort for true guilt—the violation of a true moral standard. So they disregard obligations, rules, ethics, morals, etc. They live self-indulgently, narcissistically, disrespectful of morals, choosing whatever they find expedient for their immediate goals. Others can’t depend on their moral consciousness to do “the right thing.” Over-done, this leads to the criminal mind of lacking any “conscience,” hence sociopathic.

The Conscientious Sort. Those who have a well-developed super-ego sort for the rightness or wrongness of events, especially those that truly fulfill or violate genuine moral standards. This internalized moral consciousness results in creating individuals who have a high level of sense of responsibility (#27), personally disciplined, having a strong sense of duty, staid to immediate pleasures to do wrong, moralistic, etc. When over-done, the conscientiousness can create a guilt-proneness so that any mistake or expression of fallibility evokes within them feelings of badness, wretchedness, condemnation, etc.

Elicitation:
• When you think about some misbehavior that you engaged in, what thoughts and- feelings arise when you realize that you have acted in an inappropriate way that violated legitimate values?

• When you think about messing up, doing something embarrassing, stupid, socially inept, etc., what thoughts-and-feelings flood your consciousness along with that realization?

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#51. Causational sort:

Back 12

Causeless, linear CE, multi-CE,
Personal CS, external CE,
Magical, correlational

Concept: This one relates to how we sort for "cause". What makes things happen? Is it inexplicable magic, direct linear cause-effect as in mathe- matics and physics? Is it a whole range of contributing factors? Or does nothing actually cause other things, or, at best, do effects exist only in correlation with other events?

Causeless: No causes, all is by chance, random.

Linear cause-effect: Simplistic stimulus-response world.

Multi-cause-effect: Many contributing influences, systemic.

Personal cause-effect: I cause whatever happens, at cause for everything.

External cause-effect: I cause nothing, it all comes from without-blame!

Magical cause-effect: Superstitious beliefs about entities and forces in the universal causing things.

Correlational: Recognizing things can happen simultaneously without a causationaI relationship.

Elicitation:
• When you think about what caused you to work at the job that you work at, how do you explain that?

• What brought the current situation of your life to exist as it does?

• What makes people behave as they do?

• How did their relationship get into that state?

• Why did you get divorced?

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The conceptual meta-programs

Back 13

conceptual/semantic realities; Identity/Self/”Time” etc. 40-51

The Meta Meta-Programs (MMP)

The Meta-Programs that lie meta to all of the other Meta-Programs (MMP). These exist above and beyond all of the specific Meta-Programs.