“The thing that really surprised me was that it [Earth] projected an air of fragility. And why, I don’t know. I don’t know to this day. I had a feeling it’s tiny, it’s shiny, it’s beautiful, it’s home, and it’s fragile.”
–Michael Collins, Apollo 11
Have you ever looked closely at ants? In your house (annoying!) or outside, watching the way they go about their business, doing ant stuff, lifting big food scrap weights (yeahhh), hanging upside down all crazy, doing amazing, collaborative ant construction with thousands and thousands of ants working together in unison.
Yeah, ants are pretty cool from your point of view, because you can see how capable they are individually and together, and the totality of their systems and organization. But to an individual ant? Imagine what an individual ant’s point of view is like… fortunately this has already been done in the movies Antz and A Bug’s Life!
You are immersed in your life, much like the individual ant is. You always have been, and seemingly always will be. This is fine and dandy if you like the immersive experience you are in. But what if you don’t? What if there’s something about your life you want to change? Fortunately, you are more capable than the ant is: you are self-aware; you have consciousness.
In order to create change, a technique that is sometimes employed is called “going meta.” It feels trendy to say that, as internet memes are one of the popular ways that a meta phenomenon emerges. It is basically a thing self-identifying as part of a pattern in a larger system, and by seeing this, something changes.
When you conceptually move from the level of the individual ant, to the level of multiple ants around them, then to the colony as a whole, you just “went meta” over at least 3 levels. But you did it from the outside (being yourself and not the ant), so this was fairly easy.
Now try it in a fairly common scenario. Imagine you are playing a board game, like Chess. As you know, the object of the game is to checkmate your opponent while adhering to the rules of how the pieces can move and capture one another.
But take a step back from the game you are playing: across the table from you is your nephew, who has only played the game a couple times in his life. Early in the game, you recognize this, and can see him make some, per the rules of the game, big mistakes. If you just tried to win as quickly as possible, it would be over in a couple minutes. So you decide to “go easy” on him, and not take full advantage of his early mistakes. Congratulations, you just went meta.
In that moment you saw you were doing more than playing chess, you were (*big zoom out*) building a relationship with an important member of your family. This moment called for a different set of rules than the game, so you decided to prioritize the good vibes that transcended the game at hand.
Now imagine this one on yourself. Someone brought cookies to work. Again. You like cookies. Have a cookie. Have another. What’s gonna stop you? Sometimes this is all that happens, yay cookies. Sometimes we are completely “the ant.” But if you’re not liking that ant life, you can pause and go meta on yourself, and remember that in the bigger picture, there are things you want/like more than cookies right now.
*meta record scratch* Internal monologue: How will these cookies affect my goals? I have had so many good cookies in my life, maybe it’s time to explore other good feelings? Maybe someone else will enjoy these cookies more than I will now. Look at me, thinking of others. Go me.
The act of watching yourself doing the action can often be the difference. It also gives you some time to come down from the initial heightened state surrounding something you are traditionally reactive to (me want cookie now!), and perhaps make a less reactive decision after some time has passed.
This is where daily journaling also shows its merit, because it is the regular act of going meta on your daily experiences. It is a post action, so it’s only as effective as your follow up on it, but through this fundamental awareness, before, during, or after, other things and futures for yourself are possible.
Not always. And certainly not always without help. A lot of our most powerful “ant” patterns are deeply embedded and strong, and going meta in one instance won’t be enough. Sometimes you need the support of your team and/or coach to help you do it too.
Coach Mauricio