[Neurons] 2021 Neurons #22 METAPHORS ARE LURKING

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2021 Neurons #22

May 3, 2021

How Metaphors are Meta-States #4

 

 

WARNING: METAPHORS LURKING

 

I ended the last post on metaphors with the suggestion that we need to make
them conscious.  By becoming mindful of the metaphors that we're using in
our thinking and reasoning, we can then manage them and make sure that they
are ecological for our system.

 

Until you develop a sensitivity to metaphors, you will tend to think of them
only in terms of poetry, humor, a tool of persuasion, etc.  The truth is
that they are everywhere- they are all around you.  There are several
reasons for this.  One is that all language, by its very nature, is
metaphorical.  That is, words stand for something other than themselves.  As
we use words to refer to people, objects, experiences, actions, ideas, etc.,
the words we use are not literal or real, they are metaphorical.

 

Then there is the fact that we inevitably use metaphors to learn.  We do
that so naturally, so quickly, and so unthinkingly that it almost seems
obvious when we explain it.  Whenever you encounter something new, something
you have had no experience with, what do you do?  You try to find something
comparable that you can compare it to.  Your brain is trying to work out,
"What is it like?"  And with that you are now thinking metaphorically.  You
are comparing what you already know are familiar with to something that you
are not familiar with.

 

What are you most familiar with?  Yourself and how you move about the world
and how your body functions.  This leads to the orientation metaphors that
Mark Johnson and George Lakoff have highlighted in Metaphors We Live By.
These metaphors are so integrated into everyday language that we hardly ever
notice them.  They arise due to the bodies we have.  For example, because we
stand up and look around, up and down are fundamental orientation metaphors.
"Happy is up; depressed is down."  "Success is up; failure is down."  We are
comparing the state of being happy to the concept of something going up.

 

As a metaphorian, there's an art to flushing out unconscious metaphors.
After many years of using sub-modalities, I did that with that domain of
NLP.  Actually several clues came together at the same time.  Why are some
so-called sub-modalities also meta-programs?  Why do we use nominalizations
and categories to describe sub-modalities if they are supposed to be the
smallest elements?  So I began questioning the terminology.  Maybe we are
been calling these cinematic features of our movies by the wrong name.
Maybe they are not sub- at all.  Maybe the metaphorical idea of them being
smaller units is the problem.  And that's what Bob and I discovered.  The
lead to the book, Sub-Modalities Going Meta (2005).

 

I did the same thing with framing.  As a metaphor, your frames are not your
basement walls.  They are the structural forms that form the building and
that make up the roof.  A frame operates above and over, hence meta, to the
content.  And of course, that's the domain of Meta-States.

 

Consider the metaphors in "success is up" and "success is more."  Using up
and more metaphorically then leads us to assume that to be more successful,
you need to build up more and more- whatever the "more" is.  We need more
money, more stuff, more cars, more influence, more brand names, etc.  We
don't ask why.  We don't ask what are we going to do with all the stuff when
we get it.  We just want more.  No wonder consumerism is such an
intoxicating factor in most people's lives.  No wonder dissatisfaction is as
prevalent in first-world countries and sometimes more so than in the
countries that are striving at the survival level.

 

The metaphors we use are not innocent.  They can be incredibly powerful and
determining and, to a great extent.  And why?  Primarily because we are not
even aware of them.  So first, we need to make them conscious.  Once you
tune in to the metaphors all around you and begin to become mindful of them,
then you are in a position of true choice. Then you can ask:

           Does this metaphor actually improve things?

           What are the entailments of this metaphor that may be bringing
along with it things that do not serve my well-being?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D., Executive Director 

Neuro-Semantics 

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

               1 970-523-7877 

 

Books can be purchased at www.neurosemantics.com 

Many other PDF books can be purchased at "The Shop" on
www.neurosemantics.com

131688 NeuroSemantics ThinkingMetaphoricalyCover FRONT

 

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