The Psalmist encourages us to "Be still, and know … God . . ." (Psalm 46:10a). He encourages us to " . . . wisely consider his (God’s) doing. . ." (64:9-10) and to ". . . consider his testimonies…" (119:95b). Then in 63:5-6 he says, "My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches."

In this article, I request that you find a place of stillness, consider the subject matter and meditate deeply upon its relevancy for you.

Take a moment to sit back in your chair and just think about your identity. Meditate for a few seconds or minutes about what you experience as your identity. Upon completing this, consider how you experience your own identity. What modality of awareness do you use to create your identity? What do you see, hear, feel and/or how do you talk to yourself to create your identity? Where do you experience your most central self? (in your head, heart, stomach, etc.)

So What Do We Mean by Identity?

When we examine this term identity, we immediately recognize it as a nominalization, do we not? In linguistics a nominalization represents an action that one has frozen. One finds examples of nominalizations in every day speech. Consider a spouse saying of their marriage, "We have a poor relationship." This person has taken an ongoing process of relating to one another and frozen it in time and "labeled" it "relationship." Note how much information such terms leave out and how such labels can distort the facts. The word "relationship" comes to us and presents itself as a noun (identity), yet we cannot put it in a wheelbarrow. We cannot point to it, see it, hear it, feel it, or weigh it. So what hidden verb lies underneath it and within it? A better way of stating such a problem – "We relate poorly by not speaking kindly to each other, etc." The word "education" like wise functions as a nominalization. "He has a poor education?" What does that tell you? Very little if anything. In what subject matter does he have little knowledge? Who poorly educated him? Such thoughts freeze the verb-process of educating into a noun – the nominalization "education."

Likewise with identity. Our identities function as an ongoing process but many create problems for themselves by labeling (nominalizing) themselves with such identity statements as: "I am stupid." Or, "I am unlearned." "I am ignorant." One I heard recently, "I am ADD". Yes, a psychological diagnostic book called the DSM IV consists of a whole bunch of labels. Professionals use it as a guideline in labeling their patients so they can collect insurance payments. Regrettably, many patients buy into these diagnostic labels as a permanent identity for them. An "authority" such as a psychiatrist labels problems that people confront with nominalizations. Often times individuals buy into these labels/nominalizations and think that they can’t ever break lose from them. Their "identity" gets stuck with such terms as "manic depressive", "clinically depressed", "borderline personality", etc. An authority has told them this so they often believe they must be and they stay there all their lives especially if they get paid through disability and get free medicine for it. Because an authority has given them this label, they buy into it as truth for them.

The same thing happens but at an even deeper level with children. This time the authority figure equates to god – the parent. If your father and/or mother continually labeled you by making statements like, "You are stupid." "You will never amount to anything." You will most likely believe them and live out the part, maybe for the rest of your life. "You made a "B", where is the "A"? Such statements like that by parents gets interpreted by children in such identity statements as, "I don’t ever feel like I am good enough. I never can measure up." This results in perfectionistic tendencies.

By such labeling/nominalization, we box ourselves in to limiting identity statements thus limiting our very lives.

But what does the Bible say about such labeling/nominalizing? In no way do I mean to dump a guilt trip on you or anyone else. I just want to get you outside the "box" and allow you to consider Jesus just may have more for you than the label someone has given you and you have unconsciously bought into.

Identify - With the verb in hand, we can now begin the process of discovery.

1. How have you identified yourself?
2. With what have you identified yourself?
3. How have other people in your life identified you?
4. Where did you do you original and formative identifying?
5. How accurate or useful do you find that original identifying?

This de-nominalizing process takes the static nature out of the pseudo-noun identity and restores to us the sense of movement and action involved in this concept. Concept? Yes, ultimately our identity only exists as a concept.

The word of God, constantly calls us to re-concept ourselves:

"As a man thinketh so is he." (Proverbs 23:7, KJV) Our self-concepts determines our identity.

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will." (Romans 12:1-2, NIV)

"Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator." (Colossians 3:9-10, NIV)

Since our identity does not exist empirically in the external world, but only in the mental world of mind by the activity of mind --it exists solely and exclusively as a mental construct – "As a man thinketh, so is he."

Identity-- It's All In Your Head

Of course, where else would we want to posit identity? As it turns out with the most important of human realities -- they exist in our heads. We construct them. We build them as mental representations that we conceive. Identity, in this sense, differs in no way from any other concept in our mind. So whether we conceptualize time, space, relationships, causation (cause-effect relationships), morality, destiny, origin, etc., a mental concept arises by how we think about something. It comes into existence through first representing something, then thinking various other thoughts about that representation, etc. We change mental concepts all the time. Has it ever occurred to you that you can choose to change your identity concept?

Ultimately, this provides some really, really good news for people who have built some very problematic, nasty, obnoxious, and toxic ideas about themselves. As they constructed their mental pictures, sounds, and sensations in the first place, and then embedded them in various frames-of-references -- so they can de-construct those forms and build more enhancing and empowering ones.

More Enhancing and Empowering Ones:

Thus, the Scripture encourage us to "transform our minds," to "put off the old" and to "put on the new". The Scriptures encourage us to, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Philippians 2:5-8). And, Jesus did not go around labeling Himself. He knew that His identity rested in His relationship to His heavenly Father and He did not buy into any of the labels others tried to give Him. "Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves." (John 14:9-10).

To have the mind of Christ requires that we "think" like Him. To have the mind of Christ means we "conceptualize" like him. To have the mind of Christ, means we "talk to ourselves" like He talked to Himself. To have the mind of Christ means we hold beliefs about ourselves as he held beliefs about Himself.

All of the cognitive sciences present the same understanding about human functioning. RET (Rational-Emotive Therapy) describes human experiences (C) as resulting from some activating event (A) getting filtered through our belief systems (B). Hence, RET’s ABCs of emotions and personality. NLP describes subjective experiences as arising from how we have learned (or failed to learn) to run our own brains using various "languages of the mind." The Hebrew idea put it in a proverb, "As a man thinks (appraises) in his heart (soul), so he is." The Christian idea described metamorphosis (Greek for transformation) as resulting from "the renewing of the mind." Marcus Arelius, the Roman Emperor and Philosopher also put it in poetry: "men are not disturbed by things, but by their interpretations of things,"

Conceptual reality, therefore, including identity, operates as a function of thinking, conceptualizing, thinking and meta-thinking, and human map-making. Identity has no more "reality" than any other concept.

Yet It Feels So Real and Solid!

Indeed, it does. Why? This arises due to the very nature of the verb, identify. After all, what differs from this concept (one’s self-definition or identity) and any other concept lies in the fact that as we define, describe, form and format, construct, and build this concept -- we then step into it and identify with it. In this way, we give our identity concept lots of power. We invest it with "our very being." We make it "the last word about ourselves."

No wonder then that our identity concept carries so much weight and power and pervasive influence in our lives. No wonder it can affect all aspects of our very being: our state of mental health (our sanity), our physical health, relationships, how we cope and master various aspects of life, etc.

If we build a non-enhancing or toxic concept of identity and identify with it, then we won't question it. Then we will simply assume it as "real," "solid," "stable," and "unchangeable." Then we will use it as our map of reality as we move out into the world. It will thereafter govern our perceiving, thinking, feeling, talking, acting, relating, etc.

Why then does it feel so real and solid? Because we have embedded our representations (Image, See Figure 1) of our "identity" into a larger frame-of-reference with words. We have gone meta (above) and embedded it into a reality frame. We do this by identifying with our thoughts and feelings about things.

Developmentally, we grow up and get all kinds of negative and toxic ideas tossed our way.

"Can't you use your head? What's wrong with you?"

"You're just lazy to the bone --you'll never amount to anything!"

"Another ‘C’-- That just shows what an idiot I have for a son!"

"Four-eyes! Four-eyes!"

"I'll whoop you good for stealing cookies from the kitchen, you little thief!"

To this we first create representations (Images, See Figure 1) using the sensory representation systems. Then later we start believing these ideas. We confirm them as "real" and "valid" as we go meta (above) our image made of on one or more of the pictures (Visual), sounds (Auditory), feelings (Kinesthetic), smells (Gustatory) and/or tastes (Gustatory) inside the image inside our heads and say, "Yes, that's what I am." This then becomes our frame-of-reference. We use it as our reference system for our developing identity. We use it for self-definition.

"I'm just the kind of person who doesn’t like personal discipline."

"I'm Irish and therefore I just naturally have a hot anger."

"I'm a girl. That makes me emotional and right-brained."

"I'm a cowboy and cowboys don't show emotion."

"I'm from Mars. Sometimes I just have to hide away in my cave. So leave me alone."

"I'm disabled. Therefore I can't be expected to function like other people."

"I'm a child of an alcoholic, therefore I'm have low self-esteem and problems in relationships, and. . ."

Etc.

Once we build a frame-of-reference and use it as our mental-emotional map for navigating life, it becomes our reality strategy for living our lives. It becomes our belief box about ourselves. Regrettably, few step outside their limiting belief box to even consider the idea that they may be "much more" than their limiting belief box indicates. And once it reaches that level of development (and abstraction), we just take it for granted. It becomes one of our operational presuppositions that we just never question. "Everybody knows that you can't change a person's identity!"

"Once a person reaches seven, his or her personality is set."

Embed your mental construct of identity in one of those ideas -- and you then frame it as unquestionable, unchangeable, unalterable. And so it seems and feels to you.

Aristotelian "I am"--ing

I hope that you have noticed the language of identity as you have read to this point. But in case you didn't -- go back to the quotes that I set off and notice the languaging of identity.

We typically language the concept of identity with the Aristotelian "to be" verbs. "I am a failure." "I am a victim." "I am phobic of getting rejected." This creates the "I," a term which Gregory Bateson (1979) called, "the greatest nominalization of them all." It generates a "complex equivalence." This means we have taken two things, one existing in the external environment--a living breathing person, and another "thing" existing in the mind--an idea, and then link them together.

EB (External Behavior or Event) = (equals) IS (Internal State or significance)

For Korzybski, any and all identification represents a form of unsanity. Why? Because it represents a false-to-fact mapping of things. To say that "I" am this or that facet of my experience, this or that idea, this or that association, etc. severely limits me as a person as it puts me into a box of labels and definitions.

It represents a false-to-fact mapping, additionally, because it takes a set of processes (i.e., actions, relations, behaviors, etc.) and attempts to nominalize them into some Noun Box. This creates a static, non-moving, and non-dynamic representation of me.

Jesus calls us outside our limiting belief boxes. To Nicodemus Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again" (John 3:3). Paul defined this rebirth as a new creation, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (II Cor. 5:17 KJV). The word creation is the Greek word ktisis meaning in this context "creation" (NIV) or "creature" (KJV). To experience the rebirth of Jesus means He makes us all over again. What we lost in the Garden of Eden through sin has met its match in the re-creation of Jesus. These simple truths come from The Gospels 101. Don’t you think it time that we Christians get our identity from our new position in Christ and not from what our parents or some authority figure has told us?

A more true-to-fact mapping our identity minds would assert this following:

"I exist as a human being with powers of thinking, feeling, speaking, behaving, and relating. I operate in the world using such mental constructions as beliefs, values, understandings, decisions, etc. In other words, I also believe, value, understand, decide, etc. I function in mothering or fathering roles, as a worker in this or that job, etc. I am more than my thoughts. I am more than my emotions. My behaviors do not summarize the last word about myself. I exist as so much more than any given relationship, task, activity, or idea.

"I once lived as a sinner but I have now accepted Christ. I have now put on His identity and my worth as a person in Him is a given. I believe and accept Romans 5:19 "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." I have taken off the old and He has put on the new. He has given me a brand new identity.

"As a believer in Jesus, I live my life constantly becoming the new person He has created me to become. Daily He takes off the old person and puts on the new person. As with Paul in I Cor. 15:31b "I die daily." And daily with Paul I say, "For which cause we (I) faint not; but though our (my) outward man (self) perish(es), yet the inward man (self) is renewed day by day" (II Cor. 4:16)"

This frame helps a person to dis-identify when he or she has over-identified with any one facet of life. It also maintains the motion and movement, and the dynamic processes of thinking, feeling, acting, etc. This, in turn, allows a person to keep changing, evolving, growing, developing, and transforming.

You may say, "But in my head I believe what you say, but I just can’t make it work for me. How do I make those truths work in my inmost self?" Great question, I (BB) hear it all the time from therapy clients. To you I suggest the following as you remain in your quiet meditative state:

1) Identify current identity.

Who are you? (How do you think of yourself?) What words, terms, labels, metaphors, etc. do you use in generating your own self-definition?

Define and describe yourself with 10 words: nice, brave, quiet, caring, etc.

To what extent do you use the following as part of the way you define yourself: your height, size, race, strength, wisdom, friends, schooling, degrees, social status, religion, place of origin, geography, etc.

How do others define you?

2) Identify Problems

What part or facet of your self identity do you not like?

What would you like to change or re-invent?

3) Identify a new, desired Identity

Who would you prefer to become?

Knowing and believing Whom Jesus desires to make of you, what would your new identity in Christ look like? Feel like? Sound like?

Describe your Ideal Identity with 10 words. Language your new identity with some of the suggested Scripture above or choose some of your favorite passages.

Visualize this Ideal Self fully -- and edit it so that it meets all of the ten words. You may wish to make the picture of your ideal self-brighter, more colorful, closer, bigger, etc. Edit that picture of your new self so that your hear Jesus say, "That looks exactly what I can make of you."

Step into this idealized self -- and experience being this kind of a person. Imagine yourself living the life of that person. Just mentally step into that picture and become that new person seeing through the eyes of the new you. Hearing significant others in your life talking to the new person Jesus has made of you. Listening to yourself as you talk to yourself being this new person.

4) Step out and ask yourself if any part of you disagrees with you becoming this Ideal Self

What stops you from being this way? Welcome these objections should you get a sense of any.

What States -- frames -- rules – taboos, etc. would stop you from becoming this person?

If you get an objection, ask the objection(s) the(ir) purpose in objecting. What do(es) the(se) objections have for you? Careful. Often times these objections come from old childhood memories and/or identities and can really sabotage what Jesus has in store for you. For those trained in NLP, these objections require use of the Meta-Model of Language to expose them to the conscious mind for reframing.

Recently I challenged a friend to utilize their great intellectual ability to move out of a low wage position and go to college so they could advance their career. This person had an IQ as a child of 140. When I asked this friend who is in her mid 40’s about doing that she immediately replied, "But they said I couldn’t do that. No one in our family goes to college." I immediately asked, "Who is ‘they’?" She said my parents and some aunts and uncles. I inquired, "When did they say this?" "When I was a little girl." I directed her to get a picture of one of those memories and to see herself as a child hearing her parents and others tell her that she couldn’t do that." She did. I then said, "It is a lie!!! That isn’t true any more. You are no longer a little girl. Your parents and family did the best they could do. They came off their own limiting beliefs. Let it go. Put a new meaning to those memories. Forgive their ignorance. They meant your good. But they told you a lie. Let it go. Paul said, "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (I Cor. 13:11 KJV). It is time to put away that childish thinking and use that marvelous brain that God has given you." That friend just enrolled in college.

Watch those objecting parts. They function as "bitter roots" (See Hebrews 12:15) that can rise up and cause you trouble. Take them to Jesus and let Him re-language them for you. I will direct you in how to do that in just a moment. (See article on this Web Site entitled "How to Take A Bitter Root to Jesus.")

What steps must you take in order to move toward becoming this kind of a person?

5) Re-Designing.

Taking external constraints into account -- re-design your Ideal Self so that it meets your criteria.

Commit yourself to becoming this kind of a person.

Identify what One Thing you need to do today to begin this direction.

Identify the individuals in your life who will support you becoming this kind of a person --and tell them about your goals.

6) Integration

You should now have two major concepts in mind. You have the old identity you desire to change. You have the new identity that Jesus desires for you. How do you get the new identity installed? I will tell you how remembering that you have two marvelous powers at work in addition to your thoughts. You have the Truths of the Scripture. And, you have the indwelling Holy Spirit welding God’s Word onto your hearts. Now, I ask you a question—which in your mind functions more powerfully: your old negative identity-beliefs or the power of God’s Word empowered by the Holy Spirit? If you answered the latter, the following cannot not but work for you.

Simply get the thought of your old identity and then set it aside. Now, get the new identity thought Jesus gave you and bring the new identity to bear on the old identity. Just merge those two thoughts together in your mind. What happens? Jesus wins, doesn’t He? Now, if in #4 above you got objections, bring the new identity you have in Jesus to bear (or merge them together) on the objecting thought. Then once you have eliminated the objections with the Lord’s new identity for you, bring the Lord’s identity to bear on the old identity from #2 above.

But Bob, that seems so simple. Yes, it is. But never, I mean never, minimize the price Jesus paid for us on the Cross. Without the Cross, we have no new identity.

How does it work?

As we have discovered, our identity exists only as a thought. We construct thoughts through the word meanings we give our internal representations (images, See Figure 1). Our internal representations (images) interact with our physiology through our central nervous system, which produces our states of being. Our states of being determines our behavior, our walk, our talk,

Because the word-meaning we give our internal representations, exists as "about" our internal representations, they exist at a higher level of abstraction. Now, not only do we have thoughts (word-meaning) about our internal representation, we have thoughts about other thoughts. The mind works as a self-reflexive organism by thinking thoughts about thoughts.

Gregory Bateson in his classic work Steps to an Ecology of Mind states that higher levels of thought modulate lower levels. Suppose you have hatred but come to hate your hatred, what happens? By hating your hatred the hatred just might disappear. Higher levels of thought modulate lower levels of thought sometimes by strengthening, sometimes by weakening and sometimes by eliminating thoughts.

The concept of higher levels modulating lower levels finds expression with the Meta-states’™ model. Our brains have the unique quality for abstracting. In NLP you read and hear a lot about "logical levels." Logical levels refer to higher level abstractions. Consider the following:

In Figure 3 note how with each word going up, you move to a higher level of abstraction. Start with the word "transportation." We know that "transportation" functions at a higher logical level than does the word "car" for transportation includes "cars" but it includes more. The word "car" includes the term "Car Door" but it includes more than just a car door, etc. Hence, each word functions as a higher order abstraction in that it contains what lies below it and more.

Figure 3 is what is commonly taught in NLP as a "System of Logical Levels".  This must not confuse the reader as to what we mean by "Logical Levels" in the Meta-States Model as well as in the teachings of "Patterns for Renewing Your Mind International". For, in our model we understand "Logical Levels" to refers to the process of layering our mind with one thought on top of another thought.  When we do this the 'second thought' will modulate/ control the first thought. What? I know it sounds confusing but let me illustrate. Consider the English word "Love".  Just take note of what that word means to you and how you experience it inside your body. Now, let's take that word, which is a noun, and let's add some adjectives.  What about familial love?  Or, what about passionate love?  Or, what about brotherly love? You will notice that when an adjective is applied to the noun, both the meaning and your experience of the word "love" changes.

And, the fact that an adjective modifies a noun and an adverb modifies a verb or another adverb illustrates exactly by what we mean as to "higher levels modulate lower levels". And, when we take one thought-feeling and apply it to another thought-feeling, the first thought-feeling will change.

Let's do another example. What about your experience of the word "fear"?  Do you fear heights? Do you fear failure? Do you fear getting up in front of people and speaking?  Think of something you fear and take note how that "feels" in your body. Now, set that aside for a moment and think about what the Lord-Jesus means to  you. Think of just how much He loves you. Note how knowing his unconditional love for you and your faith in Him, take that state of 'believing in Jesus' and 'having His love, His strength and His power apply  or bring to bear your faith in Jesus onto and into that fear you had. What happens to that 'fear' when it comes into the presence of Jesus?

You can do this visually by just bringing the two pictures of your fear and of your faith in Jesus together. You can do it kinesthetically by moving 'fear' to and into the place where you feel Jesus.  You can do a combination of the two. You could visually see Jesus sending His Light of Unconditional Love to and into that place in your body where you feel the 'fear'. I have had many clients who simply let Jesus speak His love to the 'fear' with the visually representation of "fear' usually being the younger self in some early painful experienced that birthed or greatly contributed to the installation of 'fear'.

I love using just my eyes, keeping my head very still, I take my eyes and lift my fear up and move it into the place where I picture Jesus. Jesus obliterates my visual representation of fear. It's is gone.  Thus, the second thought-feeling of knowing Jesus obliterated my first thought of fear. (On this web site you will find different ways to accomplish the same thing. This is a great way and it is easy.  You may wish to read the Technique "How to take a Bitter Root to Jesus" as it will offer further assistance.

So, what do we mean by Higher Logical Levels?  We basically mean simply that when we have one thought about another thought the second thought will become the "boss" of the first thought. The second thought becomes a "Logical Level" above/ about the first thought. The first thought is encapsulated into the second thought and the second thought will change the first thought thus creating the process that L. Michael Hall has labeled "Meta-States. If the second thought is the opposite of the first thought as to state of mind and if it is strong, such as your faith in God, then the second thought will eliminate the first thought. It is so important for you to learn how this works and how you can actually do this process inside your head. It will allow you to take your mental hurts and pains, your "Bitter Roots" and lay them on the altar and leave them there.

Well, how does this meta-stating stuff apply to this pattern?  That is a good question. Importantly for this "insert pattern" to work, when you "insert" Jesus into an old painful memory, Jesus becomes the "second thought-feeling" that is applied to the first thought-feeling of pain and/ or hurt contained in the movie of your mind. Jesus is applied to the pictures of the hurt from the past. He eliminates its. Watch Him as He totally reorders those visual and painful memories. This procedure is primarily a visual procedure but you can modify and adjust it to work best for you.

More about Meta-Stating

We Meta-State all the time. When we are having thoughts about thoughts our reference is not external but internal. We are not thinking about something outside our mind-body but inside for we are referencing thoughts about another thought.

In the Meta-state™ model, we utilize the power of higher levels in the modulation of lower levels. The brain has the unique ability to internally apply one thought to another thought. The brain abstracts to another state level and reflects that state to another state. Suppose you experience a primary state of fear from some external event. Internally you may choose to apply the thought of "appreciation" to your fear and take appropriate action to any external threat. Or, you may choose to apply another state of consciousness called fear to the fear you had from the primary state of fear. Thus, you fear your fear. Guess what you will get? Paranoia. You fear your fear and the higher level fear modulates and increases your primary state of fear and suddenly you experience paranoia. But, notice the difference in outcome states when you apply the meta-level state of appreciation to fear. What do you get? You sure don't get paranoia, do you? Indeed, we Meta-State ourselves sick and, if we are to get well, we will Meta-State ourselves back to health by applying Jesus and other higher resources to our old un-useful problem mental frames.

Michael formerly defines Meta-states as,

A state of consciousness about another state of consciousness, i.e. fear of fear, joy of anger, sadness about fear, etc. A Meta-state, driven in linguistics (words, language--a meta-level phenomenon), refers to any state above, beyond, and/or about any other state. These states transcend logical levels, involve self-reflexive consciousness, and that therefore exist as "spiritual" states. (1996)

Thus we understand neurologically how the Word of God works. What happens when you bring the love and forgiveness of God to bear on your bitterness towards a fellow human being? Bitterness must go. What happens when you bring your faith in Christ to bear on your fear? If your faith in Jesus operates at a higher level than your fear, your fears must go.

Now, what happens when you take an identity statement like, "I am stupid" and bring your new identity in Jesus to bear upon such an identity statement? If within your thought/ belief system, your belief in Jesus operates at a higher level of abstraction than the belief, "I am stupid" the old belief disappears. If it doesn’t, build your belief in Jesus, intensify it by making the picture bigger, brighter, more colorful, etc. Then, really empower it with the Word of God with such statements as, "I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me" and then bring it to bear on the old limiting belief. Just merge those thoughts together. Jesus wins all the time.

For a deeper presentation of the functioning of Meta-States, read Michael Hall's article, "What if we put the VERB back into 'Logical Levels'?"

References

Bateson, Gregory (1979). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York, Ballantine.

Korzybski, Alfred (1941/1994). Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. (5^th ed.). Lakeville, CN: International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Co.

Michael Hall, Ph.D (1995). Meta-States: A Domain of Logical Levels, Self-Reflexiveness in Human States of Consciousness (Grand Junction, CO: E. T. Publications.

Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min.
1516 Cecelia Dr.
Gastonia, NC 28054
(704) 864-3585
Fax: (704) 864-1545

© 1998 All Rights Reserved. Bobby G. Bodenhamer, D.Min. and L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.