Meta-Cognitive Awareness
We learned how to think when we were children, and most of the time we still think that way. Some schools of thought distinguish between the primitive mentality of childhood and more advanced cognitive strategies. Mood Disorders [anger, anxiety, and depression] and addictive disorders [substance use, overeating, compulsive use of sex, games, or money] are maintained by the mentality of childhood.
An important developmental milestone is the appreciation that subjective experience, including cravings, negative thoughts, and anxious feelings are merely temporary state-dependent phenomena, and not part of objective reality. The objective world is populated with events. Beliefs and emotional reactions, and the story that gives it meaning exist only in the experience of the beholder. The technical name for this realization is: Meta-Cognitive Awareness.
Passions [including fear and desire] bias perception. The first drink looks different to Mr. Hasselbring just before the relapse than the day after. His appraisal of the wisdom of the first drink is state-dependent. When he is looking forward to the drink he perceives the world through different lenses than he will when he is suffering the shame and demoralization of having relapsed again. The disspassionate observer is relatively free of such state-dependent distortions, which explains why it is easier to see the solution to other people’s problems than to our own.
Whatever increases emotionality diminishes are ability to exercise will. The more we want what we want, and the more we are frustrated when we don’t get it, the more vulnerable we are to state-dependent distortions. and the more difficult it is to exercise will [for more on this, please see Detachment from Outcomes].
Doing Mode & Attachment
In the process of doing thingsl, we have to continually evaluate whether we are on the right track so we can make adjustments as needed. Doing things puts us in the role of the performer who is constantly recieving positive and negative feedback. This is the normal mode of relating to the demands of living. However, doing is not the only way to spend time. An alternative to the role of the performer is the role of the dispassionate audience. Making a Meta-Cognitive Shift involves shifting from the associative perspective of the performer to the dissociative perspective the observer in order to awaken from automatic, mindless ways of reacting.
In my office, Hasselbring is already in this dissociative perspective. To tell me his story he takes the observer’s perspective to describe the external events and internal experiences, for example when describing a fight with his wife he observed, “I felt hot and angry and thought, ‘she is always putting me down, I felt like killing her.” Note that the Hasselbring in my office describing the fight experiences it differently than he did when it was happening. He remembers what the feelings were like, but now can look at it dispassionately, somewhat free from the distortions caused by the angry emotional state.
Being rational and competent in my office is cheap. The ability to be rational and competent during an emotional crises is dear. Awakening is a one path to the Meta-Cognitive Shift that can free you from the Soul Illusion.
