Improving Metacognitive Abilities 22 Minutes

Taken from a course on improving metacognitive abilities, this meditation aims to put us in touch with our already existing metalization skills and hone them. These are the 6 qualities identified by the Rome School: Identification, Differentiation, Integration, Relating Variables, Decentration, Mastery.

Transcript

So cool.

Sitting up straight.

Pushing the crown of the head up towards the ceiling and starting to settle in.

And so go ahead and take a few deep breaths.

Good.

Now we're gonna do a brief imaginal exercise,

Visualizing the actual meditation before we do it.

So see yourself there meditating and now see yourself getting lots of insights.

The meditation going very well.

Now see yourself getting frustrated.

Maybe that was a direction that you didn't understand,

But then you remember that this is also an equanimity practice.

So you just let it go sweetly.

And then you also remember how we're all doing this together and we're all kind of patiently,

Lovingly doing the practice.

And then now once again,

See yourself meditating.

And now it comes to the end.

And at the end,

You notice all these insights and you have this tremendous sense of accomplishment.

And now feel into that now.

Okay,

Good.

So now we'll do like a two minute body scan just to help us settle in.

So now feel the feet,

Legs and hips.

And now feel the abdomen rise and fall.

And now feel the chest expand and contract.

And now feel the shoulders and upper back.

And now feel the arms and the hands.

Now feel the head,

Neck and face.

And now take a deep,

Deep breath and feel the whole body all at once.

Now exhale,

Feeling the whole body exhale all at once.

Okay,

Good.

We're gonna start the formal meditation.

Okay.

So now go back to your schema and your mode that you picked out.

And also if things kind of change or shift in the meditation,

Go with that.

Go with what's natural for you.

Let's start with the schema.

See how this colors your view on life.

See if you can come into the schema and then a way to do that is to kind of trigger yourself.

Put yourself in a situation where you felt triggered,

Where you felt this schema was triggered.

And now see how there's a certain view of self that is apparent when you're,

Let's say under the spell of the schema.

And now also notice how you view the world in a certain way.

You view others a certain way.

Notice that now.

And you can fill in the sentence down.

When I'm in my schema,

When I'm fully believing it and I'm triggered in this way,

Others seem so.

Now first,

Let's kind of step outside of the scene and see what we're doing.

And this is a metacognitive exercise.

We're relating variables and we're already creating a narrative.

See that now.

And then also now by stepping outside of the scene,

We're working on the metacognitive function of decentration.

And we're also developing equanimity,

The ability to just observe.

And we're also working on perspective taking.

And now notice what that's like.

Okay,

And now go back and fuse again with the schema.

So trigger yourself to where the schema is real again for you.

You might wanna bring up a situation where you feel it's very real.

And now once again,

See how there's this component of,

Oh,

When I'm in the schema,

I view myself such and such way.

I seem so very such and such.

And now fill in the blank.

When I'm in my schema fully believing it,

The world seems so,

Or others in the world seem so such and such.

And now when I'm in my schema fully believing it,

I often end up feeling like I have to respond in this certain way,

Or I just end up responding in this certain way.

And this might be a surrender mode,

An avoidance mode,

Or an overcompensation mode.

And you can kind of think of this as freeze,

Flight,

Or fight.

And you might see that you do all three,

But go ahead and see that now.

And once again,

We're seeing,

We're exercising the integration or narrative piece of metacognition.

Let's see how your,

We'll call it neurotic behavior is necessary.

And that it makes perfect sense that you behave this way.

Good.

And now pick one of your kind of coping behaviors,

One of your coping modes,

One of the things that you do.

And give that way of being,

Or you could call it a part of yourself,

Give it a name,

Like name it in such a way that it's kind of memorable and means something to you.

That's right.

And now notice how there's a certain signature in the body when you're inclined to engage this coping mode,

Like a kind of signature feeling in the body.

So here we're relating variables,

And we're identifying what's happening.

And then we're going to look at the body's behavior and how it's related to the body.

And now,

Okay,

Imagine that you're in your coping mode once again,

And now see how there's a certain unfolding that happens in the mind,

That there are a bunch of image thoughts,

Auditory thoughts,

Views of the world,

Views of self that automatically get triggered.

I like to call this like a mental signature of the mode.

See that clearly.

And now also notice how when you get into your mode that you act a certain way in,

Let's say,

Your social life.

See here,

We're noticing cause and effect.

This is relating variables.

And now it's very much be an observer with this kind of broad metacognitive awareness of what's happening,

And just see your behaviors and just see the knock-on effects of them.

And now examine these knock-on effects in your work life.

So you get into your mode,

The one you've identified,

And named,

And then you tend to show up at work a certain way.

What is that?

And here we're relating variables,

Seeing causal unfoldings.

There's no judgment here,

Just interest and curiosity.

And now look at what your personal explorations look like when you're in your mode.

So this personal exploration means going after the things that you value.

What kind of effect does being in your mode have?

Good.

And now let's step back from that and now go back to the belief that kind of brings about this mode of behavior.

So this is your schema.

See,

And so you can find it by getting back into your mode and then feeling into how you see yourself and how you see others in the world.

And now reflect.

This did not come from nowhere.

I learned this way of viewing the world.

And so now imagine that you float back maybe to childhood,

Adolescence,

Earlier adulthood,

Whenever,

And then let a scene arise from your past.

And this can be like a real scene or like an amalgamated composite scene where this conditioning was reinforced in you.

See where you are,

See who you're with,

And see how you're learning this,

Let's say,

Toxic lesson or unfortunate learning.

This is just a normal thing that happens,

You know,

A kid or a young adult just picks up the lessons that are available and kind of step outside of yourself and see how you're having learned this is not personal to you.

Anybody in that situation would have learned the same lesson.

Now just take a minute with that and see this clearly.

Here we're doing both equanimity and decentration,

Which are both forms of mastery,

And we're constructing a story that doesn't blame ourselves.

Oh,

We just learned these lessons and just now see that clearly.

And now see how this lesson still impacts you today.

And see how there's a way that you still see the world in the world.

And now step outside of that and just see this,

See yourself seeing this way,

See yourself viewing the world from this lens.

This is the schema,

This is the belief,

And this is good identification.

Very good.

And now why don't you go back to the scene where you learned this negative belief about yourself,

Others,

And the world.

And now see the real suffering that this has caused you.

This is more of a,

This kind of understanding the suffering.

This is a more cognitive compassion.

But now bring the attention to the heart area and open up the heart.

And kind of,

And really feel into this.

And then send the desire to your child self that you might be relieved from the suffering.

And now reflect,

Oh there are so many others who have suffered in this same way.

And feel into the sense of camaraderie with them of knowing their mental states to a imperfect extent.

But roughly you know what it's like for them.

And now let that go.

And now bring up your coping mode,

Bring up the,

We'll call it the neurotic or unskillful way that you deal with this schema or any other schema.

Once again bring up the name that you have for it.

Now kind of review the story of it all.

It's like,

Oh yeah I have this belief so I naturally act this way.

Once again we're here,

We're reinforcing the narrative and also relating variables.

And now see the suffering that this coping mode causes you and maybe others.

But now this is very important.

We're not shaming you at all.

We're just appreciating the suffering.

This is seeing causation.

And now bring up both this kind of more cognitive compassion,

Cognitive empathy,

Understanding the difficulty that you experience.

But then also this more affective,

Affective emotional compassion.

So like have this heart opening towards yourself.

It's like,

Oh I'm sorry that you're compelled to do this.

I'll see to it that we work through this.

And now bring up this sense of agency.

See how you have had some insights,

How you now feel more equipped for working with your own psyche.

Now feel into that clearly.

Make a deep impression of this.

And now release some meditation.

I'll count from five to one.

And when I get to one you'll be awake and present in the room,

Settled in the experience.

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Awake and present in the room,

Settled in the experience.