Metaphors Can Die!

A colleague asked me how I use metaphors in change work. As I described how I elicit and mirror metaphors, I rather casually gave him an example: 

You’ve said you want to be able to distinguish between falling into excitement--which carries passion and commitment, or falling into yearning--where you’re stuck in envy and unable to move forward.

Let's say I asked you what falling into excitement is like and you said, "It’s like flying, like a bird in migration that knows, that follows its instincts."

Then I might ask, "Tell me more about that bird, and where you are in the picture."

And you might respond, "I'm flying, following the bird, and it’s an eagle."

I then explained if he were my client, of course, his metaphor might be very different and it would be important to honor that, because a metaphor is only potent if it’s alive for the person wanting the change. 

“But as soon as you mentioned eliciting a metaphor,” he said, “I thought of flying!”

In his next email he wrote, “Thanks for an enlightening conversation. There is a subtle excitement in me... like the feeling I feel just before flying in a dream... a warm light that tries to burst from my chest... pulling me forward... a child's spirit... a wisdom unmistakably ancient... an eagle turning its smiling eye back at me... knowingly flapping its wings.. leaving a soothing breeze in its wake... I will follow it.”   

Unwittingly, I’d used a metaphor that was alive for him. But metaphors can be dead if they have no figurative value. Someone who sails might say, for example, “It’s like being on a sailboat in a heavy wind,” but continue the discussion in everyday language because the sailing image is literal and therefore dead as a metaphor. If the same person says “It’s like I’m balancing on top of a huge ice skate going very fast” this is probably a live metaphor. 

Listen for combinations of words that don’t fit known patterns of meaning – these are more likely to engage right-brain processes, and live on, as the eagle did for my friend. 

For What Are You Willing to Die?

When I was a girl I was struck by Patrick Henry's speech imploring Virginians to join the American Revolution, ending with the famous phrase, "...as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" Was there anything I believed in strongly enough that I would face death to preserve? The answer then was no, a response dictated by my as-yet-unexamined Enneagram personality style. Committed to avoiding conflict at all costs, I had NO opinions, much less a passionate opinion. 

My answer now is YES, I would be willing to die to preserve the rights of women and a society that honors women as well as men. I realize that's a tall order, and I'm renewing last year's resolution to mentor coaches who still have the youth and vitality to be working in the world toward true equality.

Today is a good day to set goals based on passionate principles. Stanford's Michael Ray suggests we ask two powerful questions: "Who is my Self?" ("your divinity, your highest future potential") and "What is my Work?"  ("the purpose of your existence, what you are meant to be").

Answering these questions from Bill O'Hanlon will begin to stir your passion:

• What gives you a sense of aliveness, that feels "just right"?
• What do you dream about; what holds you spellbound?
• What are blessings you could give back to the world?
• Whose work or life inspires you?
• What would you talk about if given an hour of prime time TV to influence the nation or the world?
• What makes you angry enough to correct in the world?
• What contribution of yours will be more profound than others doing something similar?

To these I add:

• What do you believe in so strongly that you'd be willing to die to preserve?

Grist for the Mill

"I love what I'm hearing. You're giving me the opportunity to see myself in a different way. Not like two sessions ago when I had a kind of tantrum after we finished: I am not going back to Mary Bast! She reminds me of my mother!

Hmmm. Well, of course the first part was pleasing. But even more so, the second half of my client's admission pleased me. First, because she felt free to tell the truth, which was useful feedback that I'd unwittingly let out my preachy side; second, because a coaching session can be the perfect place to relive and experiment with parent-child patterns that still hold influence.

As a coach you may not get a chance to observe clients in interactions with others. You'll hear only their reports of what happened and, because none of us is entirely objective, that report will be missing some pieces. So it's vital to pay attention to how a client's patterns show up in exchanges with you.

In that former session I'd forgotten a simple guideline for making process observations: describe specific behavior. Instead, I'd offered a theoretical analysis, suggesting she loved her career because it provided variety. Yes, yes, I know: ask powerful questions, don't give advice. My style is conversational, however, so sometimes an opinion comes off as a pronouncement. And I believe it's good for clients to see how we, too, get caught up in archaic patterns, and to observe how we own and learn from them instead of being defensive.

So I was able to authentically applaud my client for sharing her reaction to my off-putting behavior, model my willingness to explore a persistent pattern of my own, and invite her to signal if she felt the same way again -- confirming our equal partnership and at the same time opening the door to some real-time information about her relationship with her mother.

Years ago, in my social psychology program at the University of Cincinnati, Len Lansky gave me the best piece of advice I ever received from a mentor: "Everything is grist for the mill."

Monkey Mind

You've heard of monkey mind. Most of you will associate the term with the agitation of thoughts when trying to meditate. Some of you may also think of your mind and body as inhabited by a particularly agitated monkey when you're feeling anxious. 

If you tell me you've NEVER felt like you "might jump out of your own skin," I'll have a hard time believing you. I can feel the core of anxiety in my belly right now, no different from every other time I've sat down to write anything, no matter how excited I am about the topic or how confident I feel that it will appeal to readers.

Of course the monkey above seems quite pensive. That's because it knows something vital about anxiety. Anxiety holds on with greater strength when you try to avoid or overcome it; anxiety lets go when you let it in. No one knows this better than Daniel Smith, author of Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety.

Typically I use book references or quotes to support a concept I'm sharing, but Smith's book is so good, this post is also a positive review. I could pick any section at random to demonstrate his wit and honesty, but here's one about his personal anxiety scale:

It runs from zero to ten, zero being catatonic and ten being the guy in Edvard Munch's The Scream, where, psychologically speaking, you're on a bridge surrounded by faceless strangers who are unable or unwilling to help you and the sky is blood-orange-red and swirling and hectic and everything is so bleak and awful that you'd rather die than spend another second where you are.

Eventually Smith discovered what I learned from R. Reid Wilson. However counter-intuitive it may seem, when you face into your anxieties, they surrender.

You and the people you coach can design experiments that speak directly to their anxieties. One of my clients, for example, loved amusement parks but avoided the scary rides, especially the roller coaster. While exploring her anxieties, she agreed that her fear of the roller coaster could symbolize all her fears, so she went to the amusement park, sat alone in the front seat of the roller coaster car, and stayed on the ride several times, until her anxiety subsided. This shifted her assumption that her fear had her.

Smith exemplified his own, similar shift, by his reaction to cutting his finger while slicing an English muffin:

The cut was severe. I could see the pink of deep tissue and beneath it the bone. A year earlier I would have had instant visions of disaster -- the night, the week and in turn an entire existence ruined by a hasty gesture. Now I just stood in the kitchen watching the blood drip into the sink, thinking, Well, that just happened. Better do something about it. And then I allowed myself a moment of quiet pride, for such matter-of-fact poise and practicality -- such reflexive poise and practicality -- signaled a momentous shift in my mental life. When they wove the stitches in, I almost smiled.

Brain Food

No doubt some of your clients have asked for help to stop unwanted habitual behavior, and then been surprised at how difficult that can be. Always looking for a powerful metaphor, I was delighted to read, in David Eagleman's Incognito, about the fanciful German expression innerer schweinehund or "inner pigdog" -- referring to the part of us that wants instant gratification no matter how firm our dedication to a long-term goal.

Neuroscientist Eagleman points to Christmas Clubs as one type of solution to the arm-wrestling between short- and long-term desires: give it over to someone else. I must admit I've tried this with my addiction to Wedderspoon's Munuka Honey and Ginger throat lozenges, asking a friend to hide them from me or I'd never have any on hand when I actually have a sore throat. This worked for a while, but finally I just quit buying them.

Eagleman retells the story of Ulysses, who knew the dangers of sailing past the island where the Sirens' music was so alluring that passersby steered to their deaths on the unforgiving rocks. Before approaching the island, he had his men lash him to the mast, fill their own ears with beeswax, and instructed them to ignore his pleas as they sailed past the Sirens, no matter what he threatened. Knowing his innerer schweinehund would opt for immediate gratification, he structured a future where he could count on satisfying his long-term goal. Thus a freely made decision that binds you to a future outcome is called a Ulysses contract.

This is why many coaches ask for commitments from clients, and talk about holding clients accountable for what they've said they were going to do. Though this makes a kind of logical sense, I don't think it's a good idea for coaches to make Ulysses contracts with clients. Yes, it's useful to know their wiring naturally creates a struggle between opposing forces, but I'd rather help people strengthen their own ability to dedicate themselves to a desired future. Because of this, I only hold clients accountable for what they DO, not what they said they'd do. We pay attention to how the inner pig dog operates so we can learn where and how to begin changing the wiring.

(Eagleman also wrote the fictional Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives.)

 

Gain from Pain

When concrete results aren't obvious while coaching someone with heightened emotions, I sometimes wonder if simply listening is enough. Focusing is one way to help clients translate their emotional pain into kinesthetic experience and imagery with the potential to heal symbolically. 

Among the many free articles at Dr. Kathy McGuire's Creative Edge Focusing web site, those on grieving have been especially useful to me when someone is experiencing strong feelings: "Your body knows how to grieve and will direct the process to a healing conclusion, if you can stop suppressing it."

In her "Five Minute Grieving" process Dr. McGuire suggests:

1. Invite the client to cry ("...let's make room for your tears...")
2. Empathize without trying to "fix" or take away the grief ("It seems bleak right now...")
3. Help the client find words or images for the tears ("It helps to get a handle on the feeling...")
4. Empathize again, often by paraphrasing the client's words ("So it's your fear you won't find a new job and that's hard...")

Continue steps (1) through (4) as long as makes sense, then orient the client, if necessary, by doing a "present time" exercise ("You're welcome to sit here for a minute... let's make sure you're back in the world..."), or you may want to establish closure ("Let's see if we can look for solutions to your situation...").

This quote from Campbell and McMahon, creators of Bio-Spiritual Focusing, beautifully conveys the focusing attitude:

Imagine you have found an abandoned infant... how you would, through your bodily attention, convey complete acceptance and love and safety... "You are totally wanted in this world and safe with me."

(Leonid Sadofiev provided the above photo through istockphotos.com)