METAPHORS ARE META-STATES

Whether you know it or not, a metaphor is a meta-state. Actually, the word itself tells you that. Metaphor from meta “over or above” and phorein “to carry” refers to carrying over one idea, feeling, state, or reference to another. When you create a metaphor, you compare something that you know (a source) to something that you’re trying to understand (a target). You rise above the target and apply the source to it. You meta-stated the target with your source.

So structurally, a meta-phor is a meta-state. You have set up a structure for understanding using something common and well-known and applied it to something less well known or that you want to understand in a new way. You have started with a primary state or experience (X) and in reference to it, you have made a meta-move, transcended it, and now include it inside of a larger frame— the metaphor.

Consider this metaphor. “NLP is like having the owner’s manual for running your own brain.” The subject as a target is Neuro-Linguistic Programming. What is it like? What can I compare it to? Let’s see, what if it is like a Owner’s Manual? I know about owner’s manuals— I have one for my car, I have one for my computer, I have one for several electronic items in my home. So what do I know about an owner’s manual?

It provides instructions about how to use the item. It lists the parts and variables of the item. It shows relationships between things. It lists things to do and warns about things not to do.

Thinking about NLP as an owner’s manual suggests that in NLP you will discover instructions about what to do to run your own brain, you’ll come to understand the key variables of your mind and consciousness, how it’s related to your body, neurology, emotions, etc. You’ll learn how to effectively set outcomes, achieve goals, access resources, attain expertise, and much, much more.

As meta-states, metaphors set frames for how to understand something and how to respond. As a meta-states, metaphors suggest or imply experiential states that you will step into and feel about the target subject. With a metaphor, now you have a lense through which to think about and emotionally respond to the target subject.

Given all of that— the metaphors that you and your clients use are doorways into consciousness. It provides a pathway into a person’s mind and personality— how they think, feel, and respond to something. This will be especially true of the metaphors that a person repeats and relies on for thinking. As any meta-states sets the higher level frames as the internal contexts, it establishes the domain of understanding for that person.

As you think about a given area of life, what are the metaphors that you use? What metaphors does your client use that formats her way of thinking and understanding about the area in which you are coaching her?

Asking these questions is easy, answering them is not. That’s because most metaphors hide. Most of them are invisible to your awareness— unless or until you have developed your own skills of metaphor awareness. As all language is ultimately metaphorical, most metaphors are hidden in plain sight in the language that you and your clients use— but you never notice. Noticing metaphors, like noticing values, beliefs, predicates, etc. requires training, focus, and repetition. At first, you will only notice the most obvious metaphors and especially the novel metaphors. Only with focused practice will you begin to catch the orientation metaphors that arise from neurology and physiology, metaphors like up, down, in, out, forward, behind, beyond, etc. Sentences that include statements such as “it is like...” announce as if they were Romans horns, the coming of a metaphor. Whereas sentences that use the passive verb “is” hide the potential metaphor and you are more likely to identify X with Y and think it is literal. “Cause is a force.”

“I feel like a hamster in a cage on a treadmill that goes nowhere.” A client who says this is clearly shouting, “Here’s a metaphor about my job.” He is not a hamster. He is not literally on a treadmill. He is not literally going nowhere in his job. That is a source metaphor that he is using as a meta-state about his feelings about his job. Think “Caged hamster on treadmill” as the meta- state over his “feelings about job” —the primary state.

The meanings that this client has created is encoded in a metaphor. The metaphor, like a nominalization, like a cause-effect statement, like a complex equivalence, is a linguistic structure that you can meta-model. And like the other linguistic statements, to truly understand the person, you will want to work with the metaphor to gain more clear and precise information. And for that you will need to ask questions that first “run with the metaphor” to see where it goes and then de-metaphor the metaphor to get back to primary experience.

What kind of caged hamster on a treadmill is this for you? How fast or slow are you running on the treadmill? What kind of running are you doing? Do you always feel like a caged hamster or are there times when you’re not on the treadmill? This running-nowhere-caged-hamster feeling refers to what activities that you do ar work?

Key your eyes open— a new book, Thinking Metaphorically will be available in sometime in April, 2021.