Curiosity speaks

Logic is good. It gets things done. It uses facts, and dispassionately applies them to achieve an outcome.

But as humans, we need more than this.

We have emotional needs that don’t just use cold hard facts, but take into account the complexity of human emotion. Emotions are not facts, but perceptions, chemical responses to external facts, filtered through the important human needs to feel safe, loved, valued.

Decision making for humans needs to include both facts and feelings. The thing is, I think our modern scientific world can sometimes teach us to value facts over feelings.

As a result, many of us can struggle to understand our feelings and subsequently find it hard to integrate our feelings into our decision making process. 

Metaphor can be a great way of tapping into our emotions.

It allows us to bypass the more logical brain, just for a few moments. A metaphor is a picture or object used to represent something else. We can use it as a way of representing something that we are thinking or feeling. Metaphors can  help us get a better grip on the abstract world of feelings.  

Many great thinkers, writers or teachers have used metaphors as a way of explaining things that would be otherwise hard to grasp. Films and popular songs use them as a way of explaining things similar things. Do you remember these?

So how could we use metaphor this week to help us tap into something deeper, more emotionally true?

TRY THIS..

Using an object or picture, take a few moments to take it in. Notice the details of it. 

Consider how it was made, what was happening in the person’s mind as they made it. 

Consider, what do you like about it? 

Consider, what would you want to change? 

Consider, how is the picture or object is like you or your situation at the moment? 

Consider what this awareness feels like? 

Now consider yourself as the expert. What would you say to someone who had the same new awareness that you just had?