Global metaphors

Remember my raging[69] CEO? The same day I made the distinctions that led to the creation of the technology of Transformational Vocabulary, I discovered the value of what I call global metaphors. I knew that my CEO used words that intensified his emotion, and I wondered what made him feel those negative feelings in the first place. As you and I already know, everything we do is based on the state we're in, and our state is determined by our physiology and the way we represent things in our minds.

So I asked him why he was so upset, and he said, " Well, it's like they have us in a box with a gun to our heads." Do you think you'd react rather intensely if you believed or represented in your mind that you were trapped in a situation like this? It's not hard to figure out why he was in a rage. Now, for many years without realizing it, I'd helped people change how they were feeling by interrupting their patterns and changing their metaphors. I just wasn't aware of what I was doing. (That's pan of the power of creating a label: once you have a label for what you do, you can produce a behavior consistently.)

I turned to the CEO and asked, " What color is the squirt[70] gun? " He looked at me in a puzzled state and said, " What? " I repeated the question, " What color is the squirt gun? " This immediately broke his pattern. In order to answer my question, his mind had to focus on my weird[71] question, which immediately changed his internal focus. When he began to picture a squirt gun, do you think his emotion changed as a result? You bet! He started to laugh. You see, virtually any question we ask repeatedly, a person will eventually entertain an answer to, and when they do answer your question, it changes their focus. For example, if I tell you over and over, " Don't think of the color blue, " what color are you going to think of? The answer, obviously, is " blue." And whatever you think about, you'll feel.

Getting him to think about the situation in terms of a squirt gun, I immediately shattered his disempowering imagery, and thereby changed his emotional state in the moment. What about his box? I handled that in a different way because I knew he was competitive; I simply said, " As far as this box idea is concerned, I don't know about you, but I know no one could ever build a box big enough to hold me." You can imagine how quickly that destroyed his box! This man regularly feels intense because he's operating with aggressive metaphors. If you are feeling really bad about something, take a quick look at the metaphors you're using to describe how you are feeling, or why you are not progressing, or what is getting in the way. Often you're using a metaphor that intensifies your negative feelings. When people are experiencing difficulties they frequently say things like " I feel

like the weight of the world is on my back" or " There's this wall in front of me, and I just can't break through." But disempowering metaphors can be changed just as quickly as they were created. You choose to represent the metaphor as being real; you can change the metaphor just as quickly. So if someone tells me they feel like they have the weight of the world on their back, I'll say, " Set the world down and move on." They'll give me a funny look, but sure enough, in order to understand what I just said, they'll make a change in their focus and therefore how they feel immediately. Or if someone tells me that they just can't make progress, that they keep hitting a wall, I tell them to stop hitting it and just drill a hole through it. Or climb over it, or tunnel under it, or walk over, open the door, and go through it.

You'd be surprised, as simplistic as this sounds, how quickly people will respond. Again, the moment you represent things differently in your mind, in that moment you'll instantly change the way you feel. If someone tells me, " I'm at the end of my rope, " I'll say, " Set it aside and come over here! " Often people talk about how they feel " stuck" in a situation. You're never stuck! You may be a little frustrated, you may not have clear answers, but you're not stuck. The minute you represent the situation to yourself as being stuck, though, that's exactly how you'll feel. We must be very careful about the metaphors we allow ourselves to use.

Be careful of the metaphors that other people offer you as well. Recently I read an article about the fact that Sally Field is now turning 44. The article said she's beginning to start " down the slippery slope of middle age." What a horrible and disempowering way to represent your expanding wisdom! If you feel like you're in the dark, then simply turn the lights on. If you feel like you're drowning in a sea of confusion, walk up the beach and relax on the island of understanding. I know this can sound juvenile, but what's truly juvenile is allowing ourselves to unconsciously select metaphors that disempower us on a consistent basis. We must take charge of our metaphors, not just to avoid the problem metaphors, but so that we can adopt the empowering metaphors as well.

Once you become sensitized to the metaphors you and other people use, making a change is very easy. All you need to do is ask yourself, " Is this what I really mean? Is this really the way it is, or is this metaphor inaccurate? " Remember, anytime you use the words " I feel like" or " This is like, " the word " like" is often a trigger for the use of a metaphor. So ask yourself a more empowering question. Ask, " What would be a better metaphor? What would be a more empowering way of thinking of this? What else is this like? " For example, if I were to ask you what life means to you, or what your metaphor for life is, you might say, " Life is like a constant battle" or " Life is a war." If you were to adopt this metaphor, you'd begin to adopt a series of beliefs that come with it. Like the example of the atom and the solar system, you'd begin to conduct your behavior based on a set of unconscious beliefs that are carried within this metaphor.

A whole set of rules, ideas, and preconceived notions accompany any metaphor you adopt. So if you believe life is a war, how does that color your perceptions of life? You might say, " It's tough, and it ends with death." Or, " It's going to be me against everybody else." Or, " It's dog eat dog." Or, " If life is really a battle, then maybe I'm going to get hurt." All these filters impact your unconscious beliefs about people, possibility, work, effort, and life itself. This metaphor will affect your decisions about how to think, how to feel, and what to do. It will shape your actions and therefore your destiny.