Using Metaphors to Enable the Unconscious to Become Conscious

The saying “Words Create Worlds” illustrates the importance of language choice in representing an individual’s opportunities or challenges they may be experiencing, whether it be at the conscious or subconscious level. And our role as a coach is to support clients to create greater conscious awareness of their current reality and open up new perspectives, and therefore more and new choices to move forward.
 
Metaphors are words, phrases, pictures, or gestures often used unconsciously by people to symbolise much greater meaning versus using lots of words to communicate their current experience. They can also act as a trigger for much greater conscious awareness and choices when they are explored to find out the underlying and greater meaning of a symbol or language or physiology.
 
Getting curious about metaphors with our client allows access to deeper information in the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind, body and emotions. It can lead to the discovery of deeper reasons for struggles or limiting beliefs as well as possibilities so the client can then identify new perspectives, ideas and truths to change behaviours and outcomes.
 
Lily Seto, a coach and mentor coach for credentialing purposes, emphasises the importance of coaches working with metaphors with clients to support them to atten their goal. She uses symbolic modelling where the client chooses items to represent certain people, challenges or opportunities in their life and they work together to unpack what it is about these specific symbols which represent a particular idea or beliefs.
 
By inviting her client to think deeper about their choices which may reveal things they might not have been consciously aware of, Lily supports clients to open up their ‘world’. She makes a point of using symbolic metaphors without naming what the client has chosen. If they pick up an owl, for example, after being asked to choose something which represents themselves, she will query why they have chosen that particular symbol. 
 
By actively avoiding influencing the system and not naming the object herself, this allows expression and interpretation of their own relevance to the object. In this case, they may not say “owl”, they may say name the symbol something like “elegance”, because that’s what it represents to them. Lily then explains the coach can support the client to explore what 'elegance' means to them.
 
Clients must lead these discussions while the coach acts as a facilitator asking the necessary questions to encourage the client's deeper interpretation and understanding what the symbol means to them from their own unique perspective. Lily explains “they will reveal things that they weren't aware of. And I'm always amazed at the power”.
 
To start using metaphors in coaching, coaches can potentially ask clients about their own unconscious metaphors or ask them to form a new one by asking a question like: “if you were to use something, a symbol, a picture, a word, a song to represent what you're thinking, what might that be?” Then once they identify that for themselves, then as a coach, you could ask: “how does this represent your thoughts?” And then continue to explore the meanings with the client to open up their awareness.
 

 
A good coach will also explore the external, observable behaviours such as the language, for example, or a saying, or common word/s they use, or gestures and body language they display. When we reflect back our client’s metaphors to them, it gives them a sense of control and power over their thoughts and behaviours, encouraging them to make different choices about who they want to be, and question how these choices align with their personal goals.
 
Using metaphors and symbols can also provide a safe space for the client to discuss their feelings or issues by projecting it onto an object and creating a distance from what triggers a client to feel unsafe. By supporting them to explore their world from a distance, they can start to build their courage until they feel as though they are ready to claim their truth for themselves.
 
At the ‘end of the day’, coaching is about assisting our clients in making the choices for themselves by asking questions about the underlying meaning of what’s really going on in their unconscious world using their language or physical manifestations to access their inner world. This creates greater conscious awareness and opens up new choices: actions, thoughts, focus, emotions, experiences. 

We encourage you to listen to the deeper language of the people you work with: to be really curious about their potential powerful significance in support of your client's goals and aspirations.

Be empowered.