Phrase cards

Years ago, when I was first learning to coach, I was taught a coaching technique using metaphors. Metaphors help people remember and internalize complicated concepts.

For example, a client of mine wanted to slow down and relax when she was on the phone making business calls. Part of relaxing for her had to do with letting go of the outcome and letting things happen naturally. So we talked about what could remind her and help make her feel that way. She decided that a melting ice cube was slow and inevitable and comforting (it was summertime). She literally put a plate of ice cubes on her desk before making her calls.

I was taught to have my clients come up with their own metaphors. But some of my clients really struggled with that. So I sometimes would suggest random metaphors to them, and see if they resonated with any of them. (Deep roots of a tree. A race car. A thunderstorm.) I wrote metaphors on cards to use when I was coaching.

After awhile I started playing with the cards with Laura, who was a teenager living with me at the time. Pretty soon she was helping me write them. After I married John, he enjoyed the phrase cards too, and has contributed a lot of good ones over the years.

We now have a personal deck of about 250 of them. A lot of the metaphors wouldn’t make much sense to anyone else. They are inside jokes about things that happened to us. (A puppy with a hairbrush caught in her tail) Some of them are serious (Just because things are getting worse, does not mean you are making wrong choices) Some of them are funny things someone once said, (I love you more than chocolate cake) Most of them can be taken in different ways, which is why metaphors are so useful. For example, does “watering a lake” mean undertaking a useless and ineffective endeavor, or does it mean taking a pee in the wilderness? And what does that mean to you?

We play with the deck by asking a question and pulling a card, and trying to relate the card to the question somehow.

For example, let’s imagine I asked the question, “Should I buy another rental?” And then I draw a card that says, “I wasn’t growing my hair out, I just quit cutting it.” At first glance, what does buying a rental have to do with personal hygiene? But then I got to thinking about how I never actually intended to be a landlord, any more than I intended to grow long hair when I got lazy and quit cutting it.

How did I get into the rental business to start with? I honestly can’t remember why I rented my house in Olympia instead of selling it when I moved. This would have been about 1998. I wonder if I subconsciously knew that the relationship I was in at the time was iffy and I wanted to keep my house just in case? (That relationship lasted about 3 years.)

Then when I moved to California the time before last, in 2002 or so, I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford to buy in California with the meager proceeds of a 80-year-old, 850 square foot house in Olympia, and I didn’t know if I was going to stay in California, and it was already rented by that time anyway, so I just left it rented. Then the second time I moved to California the housing market had crashed and John and I totally couldn’t sell the house we bought together when we got married or John’s original house either (bla…bla…bla) you already know (or don’t care) about the details.

My point is, we sort of just stumbled into being landlords. Even the 3 rentals we bought last year in Albuquerque were really just an attempt to avoid a huge tax bill from the first one we bought in California (which we had never intended to be a rental. We had bought it to live in it – except then I totally hated it, so we bought a different one, but it was too soon to sell the first one without losing money on it, so we just rented it for awhile…) So no, I don’t actually want more rentals – or do I?

I’ve basically had rentals off and on (mostly on) for an entire 20 years now, so I’m thinking I can’t claim to dislike owning rentals (either that or I’m doing a very bad job of living the life I want to live!)

Anyway, I was talking about metaphors. Recently Laura showed me some really cool photos she’s using for screensavers at work, to help her remember the things we all need to remember at work – like patience! She has different photos for different concepts, and they cycle on her computer to help her remember.

So today, I had a great idea. I think it would be really cool to make metaphor picture cards like our phrase cards. I could have a deck of photos, and the game would be the same, ask a question and draw a photo and try to relate the photo to the question.

For example, let’s say I ask myself, “Do I want the promotion at work?” Then I draw a card, Since I don’t have a deck of photos built yet, to be random, I’m going to now post the absolute most recent picture I happen to have taken…

Oh, ouch. My first thought is “fenced in.” A tall, New Mexican style latilla fence. Will I feel fenced in with this job? Do I already feel fenced in with this job?

Yet also I know that there is a quaint gravel trail along this fence, that leads to a really neat old Spanish style neighborhood (if you turn right. If you turn left, it’s sort of industrial-run-down). You can almost, but not quite see that trail on the left edge of the picture. Does that mean that I shouldn’t concentrate on the “fenced in” aspect of my job, and instead I should focus more on the trail along side it and where that trail is going?

See how cool that is?

Now your turn. Ask a question about your life, and I’ll post the second-most-recent picture I’ve taken lately.

Ready?

Do you have a question?

Don’t peek until you do.

Ok, here’s the photo…

Ok, this is a good one. There’s a lot of directions you can take this. The first, obvious one, is the transition from winter to spring. Is there a transition in your question? How do you feel about that transition?

Another aspect of this photo is the planning and faith involved. Someone planted bulbs – someone stuck ugly, shriveled little roots into the dirt many months (or years) ago and those bulbs have been blooming and multiplying ever since. How does planning ahead, or faith relate to your question?

There’s also a sense of knowing the future – sort of. I know those are flowering bulbs. I’m not quite sure what type, or what color they will be. But I know they will be beautiful.

There’s also a combination of “natural” and “constructed” in this photo. That’s a real rock, real snow, real flower bulbs. But it’s not a fully natural scene. Someone set the stone there and planted the bulbs in front of it. How does the combination of natural and designed relate to your question?

Also that rock is sheltering those bulbs from the harsh dry weather in the desert, holding the scant moisture in the soil around it. If your question has something to do with a goal or dream or something you are trying to grow or develop in your life, have you supplied a rock to shelter your goals from the harsh environment?

So wow, that was a great one.

You think that photo was rigged. No, truly. Here’s why those happen to be the most recent two photos I’ve taken this week. I talked to Darren and mentioned that I wasn’t making friends at work because I was working too hard. He said, “Aren’t you going for walks on your breaks?” He regularly walks with his coworkers. So I took that on as a goal, and I’ve asked a couple different coworkers to walk with me this week. These photos are just two I randomly shot within a block or so of where I work, while out walking, because we had a bit of snow this week and I thought it was pretty.

So if you’re thinking, fine, but what if the photo had been my grocery list? (Yeah, I do that). Well, a grocery list is a great metaphor! Think of how important food is! We can’t live without it. Yet we all constantly obsess about how much and what kind of food we are eating, and whether it is healthy and whether we are eating too much and gaining weight. A grocery list is a poignant thing. It’s about our hopes for ourselves and our families. It’s about one of the most basic endeavors in life – to find good food to eat. So even if the picture had been a grocery list, you can still figure out how to relate that to whatever your question was.

It’s a very good game! And I’m totally going to make picture cards to augment our phrase cards.