060 – Metaphors we die by
Thinking about the images we use to describe hard moments.
Welcome back! (Or welcome!)
Often when I come to you, I’m bringing some ideas to try, some actions that may be helpful.
Not this week.
I don’t yet have the well-researched essay that I want to write about the risks and the benefits of conceptual metaphors in grief and dying. But I think it’s worth planting a seed.
The power of the metaphors we use.
A generation ago, Mark Lakoff and George Johnson shaped the way some of us think by focusing on the metaphors embedded in our daily language, what they call conceptual metaphors. Their book was called Metaphors We Live By. They look at the verbal imagery we use and talk about how the pictures constrain how we view the world around us.
As examples, they use the phrases “argument as war” and “time is money”. There are many ways that time is not like money. But if we are constantly thinking about investing time rather than spending time or, horrors, wasting time, then we are familiar with the way a conceptual metaphor works.
After living alongside hospital conversations about illness and grief and death, I realized that I’d love to pursue a research and writing project called, “Metaphors we die by.” (It will be on the shelf next to another project called “Deathbed Speech Class”)
For example, a while back I started to write an explanation of “pulling the plug.” It’s a simple image used to describe a choice for terminally-ill patients. Someone walks over to the wall and pulls an electrical plug out of the wall. Machines fall silent. A person dies.
That simple image also unplugs conversations that could happen about what those machines, those medications are doing. People say, “do everything possible. Don’t let my mom die. We can’t kill her.”
And yet, rather than sustaining life, all of those machines and medications may be delaying death. Think for a moment about this phrase. Rather than unnatural breathing support, and meds that increase blood pressure, we allow natural death.
The image itself shapes the conversation, or the argument. Pulling vs allowing, a plug vs what happens to us all.
We talk about comfort care, about palliative care, about hospice. We are clear about not causing or hastening death.
No one really wants to pull the plug. Perhaps we would be more open to allowing natural death.
All of this is difficult. But because of the conceptual metaphors we have, the conversations can become impossible.
Here’s another example of the power of a conceptual metaphor.
I’ve read research about the risks of the metaphor of fighting when we talk about cancer, for example, in 'War on cancer' metaphors may do harm, research shows | Cancer | The Guardian.
We talk about people fighting hard, about how strong they are, about how brave they are. There are some people who feel like they are failing and letting people down because they aren’t fighting hard enough. If they were, they would be getting better, right?
One physician-writer said, “People who die from cancer have not died because they didn’t try hard enough. This research should give pause for thought to organizations who continue to use war terminology. The language we choose has profound consequences.”
And Mandy Mahoney wrote,
“You feel like you’re letting people down if you can’t manage permanent positivity or you have an emotionally wobbly day. It’s not constructive or helpful when you’re focusing on getting through the day-to-day living of a cancer diagnosis and treatment schedule. I prefer clear, factual language, so I describe myself as “living” with incurable cancer. I’m not brave or inspirational, I’m just trying to live the life I have left well.”
Instead, we could talk about treating cancer.
+++
Here’s my final example.
We’re familiar with the image of stages of grief. For many people, stages are something to complete and be done with. But that conceptual metaphor of stages doesn’t reflect the chaotic, non-linear process of grieving. In the Dual Process Model I’ve talked about, there is an image of oscillation, of bouncing back and forth.
Mary-Frances O’Conner suggests that grief is a learning process. Not like a skill a skill, though. “This type of learning,” she writes, “is like traveling to an alien planet and learning that the air cannot be breathed, and therefore you have to remember to wear oxygen all the time. … Grief changes the rules of the game, rules you thought you knew and had been using until this point. (209)” The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss.
But we learn how to breath, we learn how to move.
Clarissa Moll talks about grief as something that comes to live with us. We learn how to live with it, to adapt and adjust. (Beyond the Darkness: A Gentle Guide for Living with Grief and Thriving after Loss)
I’m pretty sure that there is much more to explore around metaphor as we are finding words in hard times. And maybe I will do that someday. Let me know if you would find that work helpful. In the meantime, I invite you to think about the metaphors that have helped you survive and thrive. (And you can support this writing and research through my coffee fund.)
+++
For more on the Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement, watch my video podcast episode, “104 - What grieving looks like: The Dual Process Model.”
+++
More on helpful stories and images from this newsletter.
019 - Try this (on offering rather than telling)
048 - Remind yourself of how you want to help
+++
None of this is easy. Right? In fact, this is hard. But we don’t need to make things harder on ourselves or on others.
Thanks for stopping by. Thanks for being helpful.
Jon