Value and Limitations of Metaphors

Metaphors are a useful way to frame things that are hard to verbalize, for others and for ourselves. But they are just a tool and only work to a point. (We've all found ourselves mixing metaphors when the one we started out with didn't extend to the point we wanted to make.)

Metaphors are one of the key ways my brain and I communicate. We work best together when we find one we can agree on.

For example, a common tool for calming the mind is imagining sweeping the clutter up and tossing it out to the side of the road. That worked for me for many years until it occurred to me that was littering. If I dump bad energy alongside the road, some poor innocent bystander could walk through it and be hurt. I know it's just a metaphor, but the metaphor works because it points to something and from the instant on, I just couldn't do it any more. That image doesn't work for me.

So I had the clutter piling up in my brain, clogging things up for quite a while and I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't have a tool that worked and the clutter affected my thinking at work, in personal relationships, everywhere.

One day while it was bugging me, I happened into a conversation about composting. The two things collided and I realized I had a new metaphor that worked. I could send the clutter down into the earth where it would be composted into rich soil that could energize someone else. I had a tool again, was able to clear out my brain, and went back to clarity of thought.

Chapter two of Tara Mohr's Playing Big is about the inner mentor. She uses a visualization tool of meeting with our future self who tells us what's important, gives us advice, and has a gift she's excited to give to us. I went through it several times to get past analysis of the technique before I could actually experience it.

But even then, it didn't resonate. I certainly have no fears about who I will be in 20 years. I understand what the visualization is doing and why it works. I've done similar before. It just feels wrong this time.

I have come to the conclusion that it's the wrong metaphor for me. I don't need help to anchor to myself. I have been well anchored in my own identity, personality, and judgments for as long as I've been able to express a personality. My mother has stories of me as a pre-schooler with a strong self-identity and presence. "Being a Jeanne-Anne" has been a catch phrase with my family and friends for more years than this blog has existed.

I started this essay thinking it might become clear what the right metaphor would be. In writing the last paragraph, I realize I don't need a tool for a problem I don't have. So I don't need a metaphor and I can set the issue aside as completed. :)