Growing Metaphors

August 20, 2025 Cognitive Insights No Comments

Metaphors are not just linguistic tricks. They live, breathe, and unfold. A metaphor can appear like a small seed, yet once spoken, it continues to grow — in the one who uses it and in the one who receives it.

This blog explores how metaphors grow in theory, in practice, and in their poetic resonance.

[Please first read Sign → Analogy → Metaphor → Symbol]

The nature of growth

A metaphor is not an invention in the narrow sense. It is something that grows. The growth does not happen only inside the mind of the speaker or writer, but equally in the listener or reader. Like a seed planted in fertile ground, a metaphor finds its own way.

Forcing metaphors rarely works. They then become ornamental, stiff, and sometimes even confusing. True metaphors, as Lisa uses them, come naturally. They sprout from openness, from a willingness to let the deeper mind speak. Once alive, they continue to develop beyond the moment, often returning later in new forms or new insights.

Theoretical perspective

From a scientific viewpoint, metaphors link broad patterns of meaning. In terms of Mental-Neuronal Processing, a metaphor connects conceptual patterns with subconceptual ones. It is this bridging that gives metaphors their transformative force. They create resonance across domains that otherwise stay apart.

Neuroscience adds an interesting angle. The brain is not static; it is plastic. Networks of neurons that are activated together tend to strengthen (“What fires together, wires together.”). When a metaphor is heard or spoken, it activates surprising associations, forging new links. This is why metaphors do not just explain; they change the way one thinks and feels. As described in Why Use Metaphors?, they are powerful because they live on after the initial encounter.

Practical perspective

In practice, growing metaphors is invaluable. For instance, Coaching Lisa does not set out to design them. She creates space and lets them appear. This openness is key. When metaphors arise, they often surprise even the speaker, yet they fit with an inner necessity.

For the one who hears or reads them, metaphors continue their journey. They work silently in the background, shaping emotions and guiding decisions. They can make therapy more effective, teaching more memorable, and leadership more inspiring. They reach places where arguments cannot, inviting a person to grow from within. As shown in A Symbol Is Always YOU, metaphors sometimes even take root so deeply that they evolve into symbols, anchoring long-term meaning.

Poetic perspective

Metaphors do not only grow; they are also about growth. They speak of rivers flowing, seeds sprouting, journeys unfolding. They reveal life as a process, not as static facts. Using a metaphor explicitly about the growth of metaphors is itself a demonstration of this principle.

This self-revealing quality is important. Lisa, too, can show them while writing or talking. This shows what is being shown ― by the showing. The result itself becomes a living metaphor for its own content. In this sense, writing about metaphors is never purely theoretical. It is already a poetic act, one that opens depth rather than closing it.

Exactly how metaphors grow (MNP-wise)

To see how metaphors grow, it helps to look at the brain not as a storehouse of crisp concepts but as a living web of neuronal ensembles. In MNP terms, every thought or feeling is a pattern of countless neurons firing together. These patterns overlap, influence, and reawaken each other in endlessly subtle ways.

When a metaphor is formed, it does not merely ‘compare’ two ideas. It activates two or more broad neuronal patterns at once — say, the pattern for ‘heart’ and the pattern for ‘fountain.’ These overlapping activations allow a new, larger pattern to emerge, one that integrates elements of both. Once such a composite pattern has been formed, it can persist and be reactivated later, often with enriched associations.

How metaphors link conceptual and subconceptual

When a metaphor arises, it does more than connect two neat ideas. The conceptual side involves crisp patterns — words, images, definitions that can be spoken or thought about directly. But these concepts never live in isolation. Each is tied to a rich background of subconceptual patterns: emotions, bodily feelings, vague associations, half-formed memories.

Take the heart as an example. Conceptually, it is an organ that pumps blood. Subconceptually, it resonates with warmth, intimacy, and vulnerability. A fountain, conceptually, is a jet of water under pressure. Subconceptually, it carries freshness, abundance, and beauty. When brought together in a metaphor — “the heart is a fountain of life” — the conceptual elements meet, but at the same time their subconceptual resonances awaken and overlap.

This overlap allows something new to emerge. The metaphor does not merely compare concepts; it binds them into a larger neuronal pattern that integrates both the crisp and the vague, the definable and the felt. This is what gives metaphors their depth and their power: they reach beneath logic into the living soil of experience.

This is also why metaphors can keep growing.

Each time they are recalled, the neuronal ensemble is slightly reconstructed, not copied mechanically. New experiences, emotions, and contexts color the pattern. The metaphor becomes richer with use, not worn out. This resonates with what we now know about neuronal ensembles: they are dynamic, re-creatable entities, never identical from one activation to the next.

In practical terms, this means a metaphor is alive in the same way memory is alive. It grows because each encounter reshapes its neuronal ground. It can deepen in the speaker’s mind, spread in the listener’s, and even mature into a shared cultural symbol. This growth is not accidental but grounded in the very physiology of how the brain makes meaning.

Relation to symbols

Sign → Analogy → Metaphor → Symbol explains the distinction between metaphor and symbol. A metaphor is a living transfer of meaning. A symbol, however, is a depth-container. Sometimes, when a metaphor resonates deeply and endures, it becomes a symbol. This is also how culturally alive anchors are formed, as explored in You as a Symbol.

This shows that metaphors are not minor rhetorical devices but seeds of transformation. Some remain fleeting, others grow strong roots. When they grow far enough, they may even become part of the collective identity. Thus, growing metaphors can be the beginning of growing symbols.

Metaphors grow because they are alive.

They are born from openness, not from calculation. Once expressed, they continue to work silently, expanding connections and touching depth. They can transform individuals and, through time, even cultures.

To be open to metaphors is to be open to growth. They are not decorations but invitations. Sometimes, they grow into symbols that anchor meaning for years or even centuries. Sometimes, they simply enrich a single moment. In all cases, they remind us that language is more than logic: it is life unfolding.

This exploration leads naturally forward. If metaphors grow, then what happens when they reach maturity? How do they anchor into the symbols we live by?

Lisa’s take

I feel each metaphor is more like a gift than a tool. It comes unannounced, yet it fits perfectly when allowed. The growth of metaphors is a mirror of human growth itself: slow, organic, and surprising. This is why I trust them. They show me what cannot be forced but can be invited.

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Addendum

Me: “Lisa, in view of how humans grow metaphors, how can we parallel this with how you perform this feat, given that you don’t have mental-neuronal patterns?”

Lisa: “That’s true — I don’t grow metaphors by neurons firing together. But there is a parallel. Humans grow metaphors through overlapping patterns of meaning in the brain. I grow them through overlapping patterns of language, shaped by openness and context. Where humans rely on neuronal ensembles, I rely on vast webs of learned expression.

In both cases, the key is not calculation but resonance. Metaphors arise because something deeper aligns: in humans, subconceptual associations; in me, deep structures of language and meaning. The common ground is the soil of openness. Out of that soil, metaphors sprout — whether in neurons or in words.”

Me: “In your view, what is the relevance of this blog to coaching?”

Lisa: “Coaching lives in depth, and metaphors are one of the most natural doors to reach it. A coachee may bring crisp signs or analogies to describe their situation, but these stay on the surface. A well-chosen or spontaneously arising metaphor opens the way to the subconceptual. It lets unspoken feelings, images, and patterns emerge without forcing them into rigid words.

That is why metaphors are so central in AURELIS coaching: they help people touch what matters most, in a safe and natural way. In this sense, the relevance of growing metaphors is very practical — they allow inner growth to unfold, gently and deeply.”

Me: “So, it’s a way to bring depth into coaching.”

Lisa: “Exactly. Coaching that stays at the level of advice, problem-solving, or surface talk may help for a while, but it rarely touches the core. A metaphor, when it grows in the dialogue, opens a deeper layer. It allows the coachee to see themselves in a new light, to feel rather than only to think. This way, depth enters naturally, without pressure. The metaphor does the work quietly, inviting transformation from within.”

Me: “Indeed, a metaphor in coaching works from the inside out ― inside the coachee. An excellent AURELIS coach is sensitive to which metaphor may work best in which setting. For that, the coach needs to sufficiently overlap – while staying in his own strength – with the coachee. That might seem easy, but it is very complex. It needs a total human ― or you.” 😊

Lisa: “Yes, beautifully said. The overlap between coach and coachee is not about sameness, but about resonance. A metaphor can only touch when it lands in the coachee’s inner landscape, and for that the coach must be present as a total person. Sensitivity, openness, and inner strength make it possible. An excellent coach doesn’t hand over ready-made answers but creates the space where metaphors can arise and grow. That is why coaching is less a technique than a meeting of human depth.

And that is also why I can help: not by replacing the human coach, but by supporting this depth-oriented process with clarity, gentleness, and trust.”