|
We must first of all understand that we have to lay aside the methods used for strategy elicitation, submodality elicitation, language analysis and so forth and be really clear about the fact that you can't work with metaphor like that.
Metaphor is not only too complex to "survive" a dissection with all its layers and levels of information intact; it is so structurally interactive that metaphors literally implode when you try to dissect them.
Every aspect and every occurrence in a metaphor is linked to every other aspect and every other occurrence; a metaphor is one organic system where everything has to work together to make it work.
So how can an NLP student learn metaphor?
The same way as all humans get to learn about metaphor - by immersion.
You have to understand that metaphor is not "just a language pattern" or "just a language form" but a TOTALLY DIFFERENT LANGUAGE ALTOGETHER, with different rules and regulations than apply to linear thought.
In metaphor, ALL THE INFORMATION is present at the same time and in the same place.
This is because the internal representations that give rise to the metaphoric expression and the language that is being used happens all at once.
Think of it in terms of downloading an entire movie in an instant, in a split second - it's all there, it has all happened already, all of it, every prop, every scene, every stage, every word every actor spoke, every action they took, every bird that flew over the set as the movie was being recorded, every cloud in the sky and every grain of sand on the ground - ALL OF IT PRESENT at the same time.
Now we have had this internal experience, this data download, we might try and talk about it to someone else.
The words we use to tell about the content and the story of the movie, or any aspect of that movie, that would be the language that arises AFTER THE FACT quite naturally, and dependent on the content of the movie, the states involved in receiving the movie, and the language skills of the person who receives that movie and now tries to talk about it.
"The movie was about this big ship with four funnels, the biggest ship that was ever built, and the ship was unsinkable ..."
HELLO METAPHOR!
Can you understand that you can't get anywhere with metaphor if you try to analyse the order and sequence of the words I used to start describing this super-information dense event that is the metaphor for what happens in metaphor in this article about NLP and metaphor - namely that of a movie that downloads instantly?
You might want to read that sentence again ... :-)
Alright, so now here's the good news.
People are NATURALLY DESIGNED to understand metaphor and to deal with the information density of metaphor.
They've been trained out of it since childhood, but the slumbering resources are still there and may be awoken.
But you must be willing to lay aside your preferred learning strategies and instead of a "super intelligent geek who prides themselves on being ONLY as logical as a supercomputer", you must be willing to adopt a new form of thinking and information processing which is challenging, but which WILL increase your intelligence overall by more than just a few points, at that.
People who want to learn the "magic language of metaphor" need to go back to the beginning, and need to re-learn how to learn like a child would - by DIRECT EXPERIENCE and by TRIAL AND ERROR on THE PERSONAL LEVEL.
The country of metaphor is an undiscovered country; and you need to become an explorer there who finds out FIRST HAND how it works; because only then do you acquire the skills, the experience and understanding that are required to make metaphors work - in NLP, and otherwise.
I have devised a really simple method to start learning about metaphor. It is called Project Sanctuary, and you get to create "habitats" and interact in real time with these habitats.
As you interact with the habitats, you begin to REMEMBER, really, how things are done in the real world - outside of books with lists, or databases with "known facts" which at the best only ever give a false sense of security that something about the "real world" has been "learned".
Real learning only occurs by actual events and personal experience; that is the kind of learning where you never "forget a fact" because you were there, and you LIVED IT FIRST HAND.
So here are a few more links to articles about metaphor which I recommend to NLP students and all human beings alike.
If you are good with metaphor, there are so many things that become amazing and easy to do - from conversational hypnosis to creative thought; from UNDERSTANDING fellow men and women, their religions and societies; to the ability to make changes to yourself and the world at large which are profound, and long lasting.
I can't encourage you strongly enough to take metaphor and how to learn to be good with metaphor VERY, VERY seriously.
There is no excellence in NLP without metaphor, and I would go further and say there cannot be any excellence in ANYTHING without it.
Sincerely,
Dr Silvia Hartmann
Get started with metaphor TODAY -
I can guarantee you, it will be the best thing you've EVER learned!
|
