In NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming), world view is called a “map.” Everyone understands that a map is not the actual territory. It is a representation.
What if our beliefs, even our religious beliefs, were also maps?
I received the following text message:
“OK. I have to ask you. Verge of war; earthquakes; Australia on fire. What’s happening?”
The next message continued:
“I’ve been sitting with a guy for days. He is a Seventh Day Adventist pastor. He is saying the Bible has told of these times.”
Well, there is a lot going on, that goes without question. What are you telling yourself about all of it?
(Some people would say the world is going to H-E-double-L in a hand basket. That is a metaphor.)
My response:
“Well, my teacher says as more light comes in, darkness also digs in. Like a dragon’s last roar. As we are able to be skillful with the darkness, we are helping the light to stabilize. Being skillful means not to collapse into fear or sorrow. It does not mean denial of those either.”
In the iconic book, Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson changed our understanding of metaphor. Our metaphors run our lives.
In SCS/NLP workshops we would say it is easier to convince someone who thinks there is an elephant in the kitchen that the zookeeper came and picked the elephant up than it is to get them to realize the elephant was a figment of imagination.
People’s model of the world dictates the world they live in, but it does not change the world.
Lakoff and Johnson clearly show that metaphor is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. But, metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions often do so without our ever noticing them.
They truly are “metaphors we live by.”
A good friend has a transgender grandson. She also has a very rigid brother—a pastor who preaches that the Bible is literal, and that God hates sin, and same-sex relations are wrong. She was sharing with me how sad it makes her to see his public proclamations of his version of TRUTH.
We all know and love people with differing points of view. What is helpful? What is happening in our world?
Think for a moment about the text message asking me what is happening in the world. A purely scientific view would address the fires in Australia, for example, like this: Australia’s deadly fires are a result of nature. Extreme heat, prolonged drought, and strong winds have fueled these fires. You can look at data about the record-breaking temperatures.
A person with a primitive belief system might give credit or blame to a supreme being.
Some maps are better than others, but even the best map is still not the territory.
When you think about what you think, pay attention to the way you hold your map. Notice anywhere you demand (even in your own mind) that others agree with the way you see things. Richard Bandler and John Grinder, who developed NLP, describe a specific type of questioning called “Meta Model” questions in The Structure of Magic, Volume 1 in 1975.
This information has been available to us for almost 50 years!
We can certainly all get better at questioning our our world view, and learning more about anothers.
I had an uncomfortable exchange with my husband. His response to an unskillful comment I made was, “YOU are disrespectful.”
I clarified, “I am not disrespectful, but that was an unskillful thing for me to have said. I am sorry about that.”
He was not willing to let it go.
I offered another model of the world.
He rejected it.
Choosing not to ride along in stony silence, I said, “I am going to head home.” I turned left at the next intersection and headed back. Intending to go straight home, instead I passed our road and continued to ride in our neighborhood.
A couple of streets over I came upon a free patio table and 2 chairs. Perfect for friends of ours in a rental without furniture on their dock! Immediately I saw how the uncomfortable exchange had put me on that street at that moment allowing me to be the benefactor for our friends.
I rode my bike straight home to take the van and pick up the table and chairs. Pulling out of the carport, I saw my husband heading home on his bike. I waited, and asked him if he wanted to go with me to pick up some furniture for our friends. He agreed to go.
Everything changes with your model of the world. Nothing is operating in a vacuum. Scientists have discovered 300,000 new galaxies, discovered as part of a study involving 200 scientists from 18 countries, using a Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope in the Netherlands.
If there is that much we don’t know about the physical territory, imagine how much is missing from our maps.
Let just the mere idea of all of this enable us to change the metaphors we live by. Perhaps we might truly live happily ever after….