Meta-competence describes the ability to take a higher perspective, which has decisive advantages especially for dealing with negative thinking or stressful feelings. Through meta-competence, one can view both thoughts and feelings from the outside and thus partially control or use them. Even if it sounds comparatively banal, the ability to put oneself outside one’s thoughts is actually a quantum leap in inner development. When we are face to face with another person and are in conversation with them, it is comparatively easy for us to detect constricting or limiting ideas in the other person. The same applies to feelings. With others, we quickly realise that the “train has sailed” and someone is being taken over by their feelings. With ourselves, it is much more difficult to perceive this.
Metacognition helps us to realise the limitations of our own thought patterns or emotional reactions. The distance gained through metacognition frees us from conditioned and dysfunctional behaviour patterns that arise from mental fixations or emotionally unconscious schemata. This frees up access to intuition, while at the same time expanding the ability to dialogue with others. After all, one can only listen when one has distance from one’s own thinking. One of the characteristics of meta-competence is meta-cognition and means the distance to one’s own thoughts.
Mental freedom begins when I no longer have to think every thought through to the end, or no longer identify with every thought. As soon as the identification with thoughts is broken, one can better recognise one’s own thought patterns. Through the growing anchorage in the inner observer, an aspect of meta-competence, one gradually succeeds in recognising more clearly the patterns and themes with which the mind is preoccupied. One learns to look at one’s thoughts from a higher position in order to experience which thoughts run through the consciousness all day. We think about 40,000 – 60,000 thoughts per day or more precisely : our brain produces about 40,000 – 60,000 thoughts per day. We can either witness this process or be drawn into this stream of thoughts.
Benefits of meta-cognition – the mental aspect of meta-competence:
It is more satisfying to consciously choose a pleasant, constructive thought than to mentally chew through an unpleasant thought. Most people’s thought patterns consist almost entirely of reactions to what they observe. When they observe something pleasant, they feel good. When they observe something unpleasant, they don’t feel so good. They believe they have no control over how they feel because they realise they have no control over the phenomena they observe. But you do have potential control over your thoughts and what thoughts you want to focus your attention on. Bringing your awareness to a metacompetence level means no longer waiting for things to get better, but consciously choosing a thought that feels good when you choose it. When you manage to control your attention focus by consciously choosing thoughts that feel good or are in line with your goals, your life circumstances inevitably change as well, according to the principle of resonance and self-fulfilling prophecy. The fact that expectations determine reality has been clearly demonstrated in social psychology by the studies of Robert Merton (Self-Fulfilling Prophecy-Oxford University) and Robert Rosenthal – (the Pygmalion Effect/Stanford University).