Just a bit over 3 years since you posted last, Norit. I so wish I could read from you again.

Anita

Dear Peter:

It didn’t occur to me that I am better at typing on the phone than others, hmm. I am back to the computer for a short while, here’s part of Copilot’s input earlier after I submitted your earlier posts for its analysis.

Here is a part of your posts that was very meaningful to me: “When you describe my way of speaking as coming from a rigid childhood or inner chaos, I feel reduced by that. The explanation feels like a cage. It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that it turns my way of communicating into a psychological diagnosis. And that’s actually part of what I meant earlier about how language can trap us and others without us noticing.”

Copilot: … An example: Argument = War. If your culture uses phrases like: ‘He attacked my point.’, ‘I defended my position.’, ‘She shot down my idea.’ Then your brain automatically treats disagreement like a battle. You didn’t choose that. The metaphor chose it for you. That’s language using you.

So, what does “we control the language” look like? It means choosing a different metaphor so your thinking changes. For example, instead of “Argument = War,” you could choose: Argument = Conversation: ‘We explored different ideas.’, ‘We tried to understand each other.’, ‘We shared perspectives.’. This metaphor leads to curiosity, listening, openness

Argument = Dance: We moved back and forth.’, ‘We adjusted to each other.’, ‘We found a rhythm.’ This metaphor leads to cooperation, flexibility, connection.

Argument = Problem‑solving: ‘We worked on the issue together.’ ‘We looked for solutions.’, ‘We examined the problem.’ This metaphor leads to teamwork, creativity, shared purpose.

When you choose the metaphor, you control the language, and therefore you control the emotional frame.

The simplest possible explanation: language uses us when we unconsciously follow the emotional path built into the words. We use language when we consciously choose different words that create a different emotional path.

A metaphor becomes a prison when it becomes the only explanation, the only lens, the only story.

A metaphor becomes a tool when it becomes one possible lens, something you can switch, something you can loosen. This is what Peter means by “turning the prison into a workshop.”

… You use language—rather than being used by it—when you choose the metaphor instead of letting the metaphor choose you. Here are three ways to do that.

1. Notice the metaphor you’re already using- You were using… psychological metaphors. They’re not wrong, but they’re frames, not facts.

2. Ask: “What if I used a different metaphor?” Instead of: “Peter’s style comes from childhood wounds,”
you could choose: “Peter speaks a different native language than I do.”, or “Peter is an artist of metaphor.”, or “Peter thinks in images the way I think in feelings.” Each metaphor opens a different way of seeing him.

3. Let the metaphor be flexible, not fixed- A metaphor becomes a prison when it becomes the only explanation, the only lens, the only story.

A metaphor becomes a tool when it becomes one possible lens, something you can switch, something you can loosen. This is what Peter means by “turning the prison into a workshop.”

When you shift metaphors, Peter stops being a product of childhood, a reaction to rigidity, a psychological pattern, and becomes a person with a style, someone with agency, someone with preferences, someone with a mind that works differently, not dysfunctionally; someone who is more than the sum of his childhood.

You’re not denying psychology—you’re simply not letting it be the only frame. That’s how you “use language” instead of being used by it.

I need to think about it much more, this is a potential eye opener for me.

🤍 thank you 🤍, Anita

Dear Peter:

Thank you! I feel better after having read your recent messages earlier this morning.

I did some study with you know whom, or what, trying to understand what you’ve been talking about: language controlling us, not the other way around.

The following are my words, using the phone): an example- if we grow up (within the family, within the culture) with language that presents the word “argument” as a battle, a fight to win or lose, then how we think about arguments is a matter of the interpretation of the word that we passively absorbed through language. So, how we think about the word is not a matter of choice.

It’s the culture imposing the meaning on us, that is, the language controlling us.

To control the language then means to expand our view of a word beyond what we were trained to view. So, “argument” can mean team work, solving problems together, a way to work together, not against each other.

Yesterday, when I came up with a psychoanalytic theory of your childhood vs mine, you felt “reduced” and “caged” by a limited view of you, of who you are (this is my understanding now), because just like argument can be more, much more than a fight to win or lose, Peter is more, much more than his psychological reactions to his childhood.

Peter is indeed much more than automatic, instinctual, unconscious reactions. You are a person who very much chooses his thoughts, his language, his words. And you do it kindly, respectfully.

Thank you for being all that you are, much more than the little I know.

P.S. Did I understand the topic???

🙏🤍✨️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️🎵 Anita

Thank you for clarifying, Confused. It’s just troubling for me when my posts are flagged.

Okay, so when it happens again, if it will, I’ll assume it’s not you. Maybe I will contact the website owner and ask who’s doing this, but in any case, I won’t bother you with it.

How are you at this time?

🤔 Anita

Hey Confused: see the word “report” under the date? Please don’t hit it, or click it by mistake. Or if you click it on purpose, please let me know why.

Can you do that for me?

Of course, it may be someone else doing that. If it’s someone else, and you are reading this: same as what I just said to Confused.`

🙄🤔👀 Anita

Look at my previous post addressed to you in the previous page, “reported for inappropriate content”. Somebody flagged it and it’s the 3rd post I addressed to you that was flagged.

Hey Confused: I feel uncomfortable about the THIRD post that I submitted to you being “reported for inappropriate content” (right above). Can you clarify this for me?