The architecture of inner worlds

How metaphors quietly shape the self

This piece launches a series on interiority design—a term I’ve coined to describe my autoethnographic research and writing that explores how we can inhabit, shape, and reclaim our inner worlds, especially through a neurodivergent lens. If this resonates, I’d love for you to subscribe and share your thoughts in the comments.

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In my recent post—a prelude to this series—I led you through a brief exploration of human connections and their challenges:

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On interiority and being human

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I likened each of us to vessels carrying “a little infinity”, a metaphor for the complex stuff our souls are made of.

As embodied beings, we exist within the limits of time and space. We live in the present, even as we mourn the finality of loss, and yearn for an eternity where love lives on.

This strange and beautiful dissonance makes deep connection difficult (perhaps even impossible) if we don’t even know our inner worlds, or feel safe within ourselves.

When we feel safe within ourselves, we can engage with the world from a secure base and form healthier relationships.

In this series, I’ll explore how getting to know our inner worlds can help us build a sense of safety—and how we’ve already been shaping them, consciously or not.

As we begin this journey, we’ll delve into the metaphors, imagery, and emotional landscapes that give form to our internal architecture. Further along, I’ll share how I’ve been (re)designing my inner world and transforming it into a place of refuge—and how you can, too.

Original photograph “The Architecture of Inner Worlds” (2022) by Rachel Elena Tng

But before we get into that, you might be wondering:
What exactly is a metaphor, and why should it matter to me?

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Table of Contents

• Meta-what-phor?

• Metaphors Shape Our Inner Worlds

• How Metaphors Work

• Making Sense of Your Self-Concept

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Meta-what-phor?

Originating from Ancient Greek, the term metaphor combines the verb, phero (to bear or carry a load), and the noun, metaphora (transference). Historically, metaphors are said to imply a resemblance or similarity between two things by ‘carrying’ or ‘transferring’ meaning from one to the other.¹

Here’s a simple definition:

A metaphor is a literary device that equates one thing with another (i.e. A is B) in a non-literal way to imply a resemblance.

We typically use metaphors to help us understand something abstract, new, or less familiar, by referencing something more concrete or familiar.

For example, when we say someone has their walls up, we don’t mean they’ve built physical walls around themselves. Rather, we mean that they are self-protective and resist emotional vulnerability. In this metaphor, emotional barriers (abstract, intangible) are figuratively represented by walls (concrete, tangible).

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

Metaphors are so frequently used in daily conversations that you’ve probably used them without even realising it!

Here are some commonly used metaphors that appeared in my previous piece:

• At a crossroads in a relationship (journey metaphor)

• A conversation turns sour (food metaphor)

• Holding the key to someone’s heart (lock/key metaphor)

• We are vessels carrying private thoughts and feelings (container metaphor)

I won’t be expanding on my personal favourites from my piece (yet)—the cipher, emotional terrain, and vulture metaphors—but I’d love to hear if any of them resonated with you.

Metaphors shape our inner worlds

If you think metaphors are fancy, poetic, and don’t serve a real purpose—you’re not alone.

Since the 1950s, the theory of metaphor has sparked lively debates across many disciplines, including philosophy, literary theory, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and cognitive science.²

Today, much of our contemporary understanding of metaphor has been shaped by the work of cognitive linguist George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson.

In Metaphors We Live By (1980), Lakoff and Johnson pioneered Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), which has become one of the dominant perspectives on metaphor.

Here’s a helpful video primer on the topic:

According to Lakoff and Johnson,

“[t]he concepts that govern our thought… govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people.”³

If this is true, knowing what shapes our conceptual understanding would help us gain awareness of how we exist in the world—and on a more personal level, help us to transform our self-concept.

This is where CMT offers a compelling case—it proposes that metaphors form the conceptual systems by which we think, reason, and understand the world.

Metaphors are fundamental to how we perceive, make sense of, and shape our realities.

In other words, the metaphors we internalise go on to shape our beliefs, actions, and cultural values in profound ways.

If metaphors shape how we understand the world—and ourselves—then knowing which ones shape our inner worlds becomes essential.

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How metaphors work

Now, let’s take a quick look at how metaphors function in our conceptual systems, according to CMT.

(Note: This will really be quick—I’m saving a deeper dive into the mechanics of metaphorical thinking for a future post)

In short, it’s about mapping conceptual meaning from a familiar/concrete source onto an unfamiliar/abstract target.

For example, we could understand a relationship (target) as a physical journey (source), and relational difficulties (target) as physical barriers or obstacles (source) on this journey:

Diagram: Source-target mapping for the metaphor “A relationship is a journey”

This proposed mechanism has been critiqued by various scholars, but there is a substantial body of empirical research that supports the key principles of CMT.⁴ These include multidisciplinary studies on embodied cognition, which posit that concepts are grounded in our sensory and motor systems.

Some researchers have examined accounts of embodied cognition and identified metaphor as playing a key role in helping us to develop abstract representations.⁵

By thinking metaphorically, we can tap on the sensory input from our bodily experiences to reason about abstract concepts, and then apply our learnings in new situations.

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Making sense of your self-concept

We’ve come to the crux of all this metaphor talk—what does your inner world look like?

Here are some examples of the metaphors that might shape your inner world:

• Expansive/constricted (spatial metaphor)

• Rich/poor in meaning (money metaphor)

• Fruitful/barren (fruit metaphor)

If our self-concept is our perception of who we are; an outward expression of our inner worlds, made up of internalised concepts, images, and past experiences, the metaphors that underpin it will shape how we see ourselves.

I invite you to hold space for self-discovery with this final question:

Which metaphors shape your inner world and your self-concept?

In my next post, I’ll be exploring my inner world through the metaphor of the self as a house, one of the most widely-known container metaphors. We’ll also be taking a look at visual metaphors and imagery, which will help us make sense of the images in our inner worlds.

As a neurodivergent individual who has lived through complex trauma, I’ve faced many challenges in navigating life, discovering my identity, and feeling safe in just being myself.

On this journey, I’ve (unconsciously) redesigned and reshaped my inner world with new metaphors, which have transformed my inner world into a sanctuary. This process has helped me heal and connect with myself and others from a place of greater safety and grace.

If you’re neurodivergent like me—or simply going through your own difficult seasons—I hope what I’m about to share can help you (re)design your inner world too.

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Thank you for reading this post! I’m Rachel Tng, a disability and neurodiversity researcher, advocate, and artist. If you'd like to follow this series on interiority design, I post every other Tuesday—I'd love for you to subscribe to Uninverted.

You can also read my first post, “How to translate a mind,” to learn more about why I started Uninverted.

1. Ted Peters, "Metaphor and the Horizon of the Unsaid," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 38, no. 3 (March 1978): 355-369.

2. Annamaria Contini, "Metaphor," International Lexicon of Aesthetics, Autumn 2018 Edition, (November 2018).

3. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003), 3.

4. Raymond W. Gibbs, "Why Do Some People Dislike Conceptual Metaphor Theory?," Cognitive Semiotics 5, no. 1-2 (December 2009): 14-36.

5. Anja Jamrozik et al. “Metaphor: bridging embodiment to abstraction,” Psychonomics Bulletin Review 23, no. 4 (August 2016): 1080-9.