~ Article written by L. Michael Hall PhD and Shawn Dwyer ~
Modelling your clients matrix experience – as you know from your Meta-Coach studies is layered. What you see at the primary level, the performance of actions and words is the outer game. And while you do coach to the outer game, you do more. A lot more. As a Meta-Coach you coach to the inner game. Yet to do that, you have to model what’s inside- and usually what’s deep inside.
Now even though you know that mind or consciousness is stratified, it usually doesn’t seem that way. And until you are trained to recognize and deal with the stratified layers- everything that you find inside will seem like one thing. Yet it is not. There are thoughts, and then thoughts-about-thoughts, feelings and then feelings-about-feelings. There are memories about references and old understandings about imaginations, and so on.
A Template For Human Experience
Modelling your clients matrix. This is where the Matrix Model gives you a very usable tool for dealing with something as systemic, complex, and layered as consciousness. As a template of human experience- you can simplify things a bit as you sort out eight significant processes. Beginning with state, inquire about how the person has accessed that state- what is his immediate thinking and feeling, what do they within him? At this point listen carefully for which category is activated- self-value, competency, relationships, time a domain or role, an intention, or a meaning (belief, understanding, concept).
Modelling The Structure of Experience
Modelling your clients matrix. As you fill out a matrix form of the person’s Matrix-you can quickly detect where a problem may be or a lack of a resource. When we model those who stutter, the state was the first dimension activated- one of fear, apprehension, tightening up. Then the meaning dimension of viewing oneself as inadequate and flawed. And then, the Others dimension, fearing others will mock, laugh, and reject. No wonder the very idea of stuttering was so semantically loaded! To stutter activated two fundamental fears- to be personally inadequate and to be socially rejected. No wonder the stutterer would tighten up as if in a state of threat or attack. In a way, he was under attack. Yet in the inner game, he himself was doing doing the attacking with his beliefs about what stuttering meant. When we modelled the structure of that experience, we can see how it works. And that usually gives some significant hints about what to do to win the inner game.
Modelling your clients matrix diagram, you have 15 places for information.
About each aspect of self, there are meanings, intentions, and states. The meaning column enables you to detect where the semantic energy is in your client’s system. You could add a number (1-10) to indicate how much meaning is being activated as you explore the person’s ideas and beliefs. That will give you a lot of highly valuable information.
Behind the meaning column is the intention column and here you find out your client’s purpose, goal, objective, agenda, etc. For stutterers, they all wanted to stop the dysfluency. And they all tried – mightily. Yet the problem was that speaking is a natural response as is the process of “trying to get your words.” And natural processes are not easily controlled (if at all) by exertion of raw will power. Typically that makes things worse and sets up a paradox- the more I try to control it, the worse it becomes, the less control I have. The state column lets you know the multiple things that your client is feeling- which can involve numerous self-contradictory states at the same time.
State, Meaning and Performance
Grounded is the the state as the overall experience which results from all of the meanings and intentions. After all, it is within the person’s one body that all of the emotions are being processed and experienced. The three-dimensional diagram integrates the meaning- performance axes of Neuro-Semantics. Your focus here is on the quality of the meanings that the person is experiencing as well as the quality of the performances. What kind of meaning is your client constructing and how does it show up in his behaviour? Here’s to your very best modelling of your client’s subjective experiences!
Learn more about modelling in NLP Practitioner
