A primary state refers to a state such as those that involve primary emotions (fear, anger, joy, lust, relaxation, pleasure, disgust, etc.). A Meta-state, by contrast, refers to those states that contain thoughts-and-emotions about a primary state: anger at one’s fear, guilt about one’s anger, feeling upset about one’s disgust, fear of one’s fear, depression about one’s fear, etc.

Brain Dynamics
States-about-states (Meta-states) explains the critical importance of the unconscious frames that govern our presuppositional lives. It also explicitly details Bateson’s insights about meta-levels. Bateson argued that we can discern meaning not only via the words or syntax of a structure, but by considering the larger contexts within which the word and syntax occur. This explains how Meta-state technology can have such pervasive and generatice effects in change work.

The Meta-states model explains many of the so-called “failures” which some people have experienced with NLP. Essentially, they have worked with a meta-level experience or phenomena using primary state technology. For instance, to test kinesthetic anchoring, one might have a person access a state involving meta-levels rather than primary levels and set a sensory-based (VAK) anchor for resilience, proactivity, self-esteem. One might then fire off the anchor at a later time and finding that would nor re-access that state, one might then conclude that “NLP does not work.”

Meta-level theory explains that, while we can anchor primary states with sights, sounds, and sensations (VAK), Meta-states need a meta-mechanism (like language, higher level linguistics, symbols, etc.) in order to anchor such experience. After all, self-reflexive consciousness operates at a meta-level to the basic modalities level.

Source: Sourcebook of Magic: A Comprehensive Guide to NLP Change Patterns