Polariser or Unifier ?

NLP Meta-Programs

There's a lot of flowery labels used in the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), mainly because one of the creators, John Grinder, was a very wordy chap indeed and gave everything a label. He was probably trying to be helpful, but for me it got in the way of learning the techniques. 20+ years on I still have to use a search engine to remind myself of what things are called.

AI gave me a nice short explanation of what meta-programs are:

In essence, meta-programs are the background mental programs that shape how the brain processes information daily, helping individuals sort and understand their surroundings

Most meta-programs can be visualised as a line that joins two opposites. The easiest one to understand is:

Towards and Away From

A towards person will 'go towards' the things they want. An away-from person will 'move away-from' things they fear. So the meta-program illustrates what drives us to do the things we do. If you want to know more, search using the term NLP Meta-Programs and you'll find loads of information on them.

The great things about meta-programs are:

• Most of us have a comfortable default on the line between the two extremes and understanding where that is helps us understand why we do the things we do in the way that we do them.
• When you learn about them, you realise that there are lots more positions on the line that you can try out and it opens us up to an infinite number of possibilities when we look across all the meta-programs. It also helps us on the journey to understand others who have different default settings and empathy and communication improves as a result.
• Living your life at the extreme edges of any meta-program is a challenge and most of us learn to avoid it.

I was brought up living an away-from life. My mother believed the world was a scary place out to kill us and taught me to believe the same. As a result, I played things safe all the time and managed to make a full colour life pretty grey. When I found out that towards was a possibility, I started to move my position on the line and now life is full colour and beautiful. I still notice the scary stuff, but it has a much much smaller influence on decision making than it used to.

This weeks post is about another meta-program, which seems to have become weaponised with the help of technology and, of course, money.

Similarities and Differences

Similarities/Differences or Sameness/Difference is a meta-program that explains how our brain compares things. Someone who defaults to differences will be able to quickly and effectively identify the differences between two things and someone who does similarities can see, as you would expect, the similarities. When I was learning about meta-programs I had a bit of a panic attack on this one. Weirdly, I do both extremes very well and it took me a while to work that out.

There is a similar meta-program - matching/mismatching. This one describes our preference for agreeing with people (matching) or disagreeing (mismatching). When you are good at differences and mismatching (like me), it makes you a great problem solver and a total pain in the arse. Understanding these two meta-programs helped me understand the impact of my actions on others and helped me use the skills I had more effectively. I can still be a pain in the arse when I want/need to, but it is a lot more conscious and controlled nowadays.

But, like all meta-programs, living at the extremes is both challenging and impactful, to you and to the people around you. Some people who understand this stuff will intentionally use differences to cause unrest and anger in others to help them get their outcomes. By leveraging the reach of the internet and social media, they cause untold damage. Unfortunately this seems to have become the norm across the world and we are swamped with polarising voices, wanting us to blame someone for our situation.

Fear is the mind-killer

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

Frank Herbert - Dune

This quote from Dune sums up the way that influential people have controlled society for thousands of years. It's a simple formula that works well. It's easier to control the population through fear than through love. Fear puts us on the back foot, leaving us off balance and in react mode. But fear makes us angry and that anger needs to be focussed on something or someone. So the smart cookies will give us someone to blame for our situation and focus our hate on. If they can get us angry enough and afraid enough we will condone actions that no civilised culture would normally accept. If you're not convinced, just read up on any historical genocides or turn on the news for 5 minutes.

That's where differences come in. It starts with targeting a group of people because of their differences. Whether it be social class, faith, race, colour, it doesn't matter. The difference just needs to be sufficient for us to think that 'they' are not like 'us'. 'They' can then become the problem and once enough people believe it, the solution can be presented - 'get rid of them'. Stop the boats. Send the immigrants back to where they came from. Get all the people not working into jobs that don't exist and they're not able to do.

Now this approach was successful just through word of mouth thousands of years ago. Books made it easier, followed by newspapers, cinema and TV. Each iteration increased the speed and impact of the messages. Then came the internet and social media, which enabled way more people to use the technique but at the same time increased the impact of those in power who have always used it.

But the thing that has weaponised the use of differences to generate fear and exert control of us is....

US !!!

Fear is the drug...

Monetisation of internet content doesn't care about wellbeing, kindness, fear, love, hate or anything else. It cares about making as big a profit as possible for its owners and shareholders. As a society we seem to be hopelessly addicted to fear and polarisation and just keep craving more and more. The more we click on it, the more money the publishers and platforms make, so the easiest way to make a living as an influencer these days is to make content that polarises us and makes us see each other as different.

If people didn't consume it and money couldn't be made, the bombardment would reduce, but we're hooked and we need our daily fix of drama and polarisation just to get by. Whether it be republicans vs democrats in the US, Israel vs Palestine, Russia vs Ukraine or Reform UK vs immigration, it's our craving for it that keeps the content coming.

We seem to have slipped well down the differences end of the meta-program and made cultural polarisation a default. We are so used to living in fear that we've normalised it. It's our comfort zone but it's not comfortable. But we've found a way to make it survivable. Regular reminders that, however sh1t we feel our lives are, others have an even sh1ttier life makes it bearable. But, like any drug, the effect wears off and our tolerance increases, so we need higher doses more often. And so it goes, on and on.

A better way ?

Now you may be thinking....

Thanks Mike. I was feeling a little bit sh1t about things and reading this has made me feel worse. What's your point ?

Well, the point is a simple one. Just because this has become the norm, doesn't mean you have to see it as normal. As I mentioned earlier, meta-programs tell you why you do the things you do in the way you do them AND they show you that there are alternative ways of operating. So if, while reading this, you've been thinking:

Hmmm... I do seem to crave drama and I keep on consuming more and more of it, but it doesn't make my life any better...

I'm hoping you'd be open to exploring the other part of the sameness/difference meta-program with me to see how it can change your perspective for the better.

Connecting across the ether

This week I had a profoundly joyous experience, thanks to my good friend Paul Field. I've known Paul for a few years as we're both trainers for Art of Brilliance. Our relationship went quickly from colleagues to good friends because we have a really strong values match. Paul is living in Ivano Frankivsk in Ukraine working in the wellbeing space, teaching English and generally being the brilliant human being he is and he offered me the opportunity to chat with some students in the philology faculty in King Daniel University as speaking to native English speakers helps them improve their command of the language.

I jumped at the chance, but was a bit nervous to be honest. I know very little about Ukrainian culture and wanted to make sure the students got the most out of it. Anyway, 30 minutes before we are due to start I get a video from Paul of him walking to the University with an air raid siren going off in the background and the message - it should be fine ! It reminded me how different things are over there.

So we connected at the appointed time, I introduced myself and we started chatting about stuff. I told them about Wales, it's people, our language, my embarrassment that I never learnt to speak my native tongue and my respect for them and how brilliant their English was. We chatted for the best part of an hour with a slight interruption due to a short blackout their end which reminded me again of their situation. I was a little bit sad when it was over.

I say sad because, in that short time we had together, I felt a level of connection that I thought was impossible to get in an hour on a video conference. We were 1500 miles apart in two places that couldn't be more different, but we found so many things in common in that short time it was amazing. I told them about the welsh word 'hireath' which conveys a longing for home and doesn't have an equivalent in English - but they had an equivalent in Ukrainian (I think I managed to pronounce it correctly but don't know how to spell it yet). We talked about how the Welsh perceive the English, Scots and Irish and how we didn't have any preconceptions of Ukranians. We talked about family, community and values. I shared my Welsh heritage with pride and it was clear they felt the same about their Ukrainian heritage.

Just before I finished I did try and influence their use of English by sharing the well known silly phrase we use here:

I'll be there now - in a minute

and if in 20 years time that becomes a shared colloquialism between Wales and Ukraine I will die a happy man.

It's a choice

So thank you Paul and all the students I met virtually this week at the King Daniel University in Ivano Frankivsk for reminding me that we all have a choice. In a world that increasingly wants to polarise society, you can make an active choice to unify society instead.

If we fixate on the differences it is easy to find reasons to disagree, ignore, devalue and hate. But it's just as easy to notice the similarities and form strong connections over shared values. It is easy to look at the world and see the hate and division bubbling away, but there is just as much love and kindness there, if you look for it. It's calm and peaceful and quiet so can get drowned out by the negative noise, but, once you connect to it, it changes your life for the better.

I have a simple way of assessing whether someone is trying to create division and fear. If they are telling us that a group of people who are poor and desperate are the reason that we need to use food banks, that house prices are unaffordable or that our children can't get a job, they must be lying to us. Because it's just not possible for such a group to have that impact on our lives.

But, if we keep following the script offer to us, targeting the most vulnerable communities, being ok about persecuting people because of their differences, we may just wake up and find it's our turn next. It will always be easy to find loads reasons why we see ourselves as different from someone else, or we could focus on the one, single, massive reason, which is hiding in plain sight. That we are all the same. We are all human beings, just trying to live, love and be happy in this bonkers world of ours. That easily overrides all the differences we can come up with, even the yawning chasm that exists between iphone and android users 😉

Mike xx