Meta-Stating Exaggerated Importance and Self-Importance

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. - Part I
Dennis K. Chong, M.D. and Jennifer K. Smith Chong, RN - Part II

Part I by L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

For most people getting stuck is wanting something
and not getting it. Very few people can pause 
at that point and question their certainty 
that this thing is seriously important to them.@ 
(Richard Bandler, 1985, p. 98)

  "Importance" a word that speaks about our power as human beings to give meaning and significance to things.  You have this power.  You can attribute importance to things.  You can also do this to yourself and to your concept of your self.  Do you see all of the meta-levels and meta-states in the quotation from Richard Bandler?  A meta-state arises whenever we position one state of mind-body in a higher relation to another, hence:  
question certainty  
seriously important.
 Here the gestalt of "getting stuck" in one's own mind, thinking, emotions, and behaviors results from a meta-level structure of
Failing to pause to question the certainty one has about something.  
Taking something as seriously important without questioning.
 Apparently, we can give too much meaning and significance to things.  Korzybski (1933, Science and Sanity) alerted us to this when he warned about believing in our beliefs (p. 440).  This "second order abstraction" (or meta-state) then generates the gestalt of "fanaticism, dogmatism, a know-it-all attitude."  A similar thing happens when we give too much importance to our concepts of self.  Hence, "self-importance." What comes to mind for you when you hear the term "self-importance?" Generally this term carries a negative connotation, something on the order of  
"an exaggerated estimate of one's own importance," "arrogant or pompous bearing or behavior" (Webster's Seventh Dictionary). 
I assume that Richard Bandler had this definition in mind in his quote about "self-importance" being a disease in human thinking.  Andreas quoted Bandler in a seminar about the structure of understanding.  Richard went on in his typical mocking way about "three diseases" that undermines true understanding: seriousness, being right, and self-importance (Using Your BrainCFor a Change, 1985, pp. 94-98).  Being serious blinds us to searching for things as does the need to be right or treating ourselves as high and mighty.  
"These three diseases are the way most people get stuck.  You may decide something is important, but you can't get really serious about it until you're certain that it's important.  At that point you stop thinking altogether." (p. 97)  
  What then is the problem with "self-importance?"   Should we not value and esteem and even consider ourselves important?  Of course  we should.  Bringing thoughts of value and esteem to bear upon our concepts of our "Self" enables us to build a healthy and vigorous "sense of self" so that we can have sufficient "ego strength" and "ego boundaries" to get on with learning, growing, developing, relating, and contributing to the world.   The development stages (Piaget, Erickson) describe the pathway of development each of us must transverse in order to have a sufficiently developed sense of ourselves.  Then, with that level of self-esteeming we can get on to develop the necessary skills to fulfill our talents and dreams.  When we do that, we build up a sense of competence, self-confidence, and self-efficacy.  Good things for a feeling of empowerment.  "Self-importance." in the negative sense of the term, generally refers to the lack of a healthy foundation of self-esteem.  The pompous person who wants the world to revolve around his or her ego generally operates from low self-valuation.  Such persons cannot forget themselves, take a learner=s role to others, admit errors, cooperate (as noted in the Chong's article that follows).  Instead, they are far too insecure with themselves and so become caught up with themselves.  "Self-importance" becomes their way of coping with their sense of inferiority.  Yet the way they cope with their inadequacies, and poor maps about their mental construct of self only makes matters worse.   They seek to esteem themselves by putting others down, by being the center of attention, by becoming "the most important one of all."  In the following article, Dennis and Jennifer Chong have detailed some of the sickness of this state of mind.  The insecure person opts for "self-importance" in order to arrogate to him or herself qualities, skills, and knowledge that he or she does not have.  In this way these individuals attempt to make themselves "all important."

 

 Of course, this leads to more and more unsanity.  Korzybski used this term to define someone who still gets along in the world, they have not broken with reality yet (psychosis), but they are not very healthy.  They have poor adjustments in the way they relate to others, to learnings, to skill development, etc.  They are "unsane."  Given this description, as well as the one given by the Chongs, the negative and exaggerated form of "self-importance" arises from a failure to truly accept and appreciate the human condition as it is given.  The person who falls into arrogating and acting pompous has a poor relationship to human fallibility that we always and only think in fallible ways, that we speak and act in ways liable to error.    That we all make many mistakes and errors every day is just a fact of life.  We can do none other.  Imagining, pretending, or hallucinating infallibility may make us feel important, but it is quite delusional.  How do you think about these fallible expressions of your humanity?  How do you handle errors and mistakes as a "concept?"  Do you accept them?  Are you open to recognizing them and learning from them?  Do you appreciate yourself as a fallible human being?  These questions explore your Meta-States about the primary experience of making mistakes, mis-understanding, mis-speaking, mis-behaving, etc.  What frames of reference have you set about such?   When we think that the way to cope and navigate life is by feigning perfectionism, by being better than others and superior to others, that someone our concerns are more important than others, than we exalt ourselves into this negative meta-state of "self-importance."

 

   The solution?      We have numerous choices about how to respond to "self-Importance," whether our own or someone else's.

              1) Lighten up with a touch of humor.  Use humor to tease people out of it.  This was the approach that Dennis took with the man who wailed about the infidelity of his wife.  He essentially asked the man to produce the piece of paper from God that excluded him from the human experience.  "Where is that paper that exempts you from the fallibilities of everyday life?"  Bandler used the same approach as recorded by Andreas in Using Your Brain For a Change.  Actually, this is an easy one to do since we never look more foolish and silly then when we go pompously acting as a big shot!  Jesus of Nazareth caused the self-righteous and self-important Pharisees of his day to bristle under the humor of his jibs.

 

2) Bring Acceptance, Kindness, and Sympathy to bear upon the self-importance.  Remember, beneath all of the work of arrogation is insecurity and low self-esteeming.  Pity the person who has to be the center of the universe to feel okay about him or herself!  Often, we can simply give the person what they have not receivedCacceptance and esteem for being a human being.  I've found that giving this unconditionally tends to blow them away.  They have no map for that.  And it seems humbling.  "Yep, sorry about it ole chap, but you're just a regular ole marvelous piece of wonder and majesty, full of dignity and value, just like the rest of us!  Yep, nothing very special about you except you've got a spark of divinity in you, made in the image of God, and all of that kind of stuff."

  3) Give them a strong dose of reality and reality testing.  "Self-importance," in the negative sense, has a hard time existing in the face of reality, the light of imperfection.  So when we gently put the harsh consequences of ideas, speech, and behaviors gone wrong back in the face of the person, this helps him or her to recognize and own up to his or her fallibility.  "So I guess all your boasting about knowing how to play the market just didn't pan out for you the way you had hoped."   And yes, it might very well first elicit dis-illusionment.  Good.  We need some of our illusions popped so that we can create a better adjustment to what's real.     Of course, we can expect to hear excuses as the person will try to put off responsibility elsewhere, the old "blame frame" that the Chong's write about.  Just let that be... and keep bringing the person back to his or her abilities to respond. 

Summary              Asserting what we do know and can do enables us to experience the resourceful states of self-confidence and self-efficacy.  But when we arrogate to ourselves knowledge, traits, skills, and qualities that we really do not have, but only want and long for, we only make ourselves foolish, cut ourselves off from feedback, and eventually find ourselves looked in a self-made prison.  To develop true excellence and skill, we need to develop a good relationship to the feedback of our ignorance, mistakes, and errors.  These are not things that undermine us.  They actually provide the necessary instructions for how to grow and develop.    What frames do you need to set around feedback of your ignorance, mistakes and errors?  A long time ago, I decided to accept my own, learn to appreciate the value and lessons that I can learn, and to esteem myself as having worth and value while being totally fallible.  Meta-stating myself in that way has helped with adjusting to the constraints of reality.     Oh, by the way, I do work at making at least three good mistakes a day just so that I know that I'm still fallible and stretching beyond my current comfort zone.  How about you?  Let's toast, "Here's one to good ole human fallibility!" Part II Dennis K. Chong,and Jennifer K. Smith Chongã