Impactful Metaphors on Life

Over the past year, I have been collecting some inspiring bits, quotations from books, videos, movies and TV shows (mainly because I have the memory of a goldfish and I tend to forget about what really matters and tend to fixate on superficial, everyday stress as many of us do) and because I like contemplating over life and I try to form my own ethics and morals.

I was browsing over my collection of notes the other day, and I ended up realizing that the metaphor bits were really interesting to read.

Though it may seem like the other way around, metaphors and analogies help us get the point across, illustrate and comprehend the actual, complext subjects using different words. Comparing our mental state to, I don't know, a flower, a kitchen sink, helps us grasp something we need to learn about. And we get so a whole new perspective when I compare abstract things to real life objects.

So, here are some of them.

1-Dr. David Burns on Depression /Radio

In his book "Feeling Good" (which I cannot stop raving about, it delves into a lot of valuable topics related to our mental health and mainly focuses on our cognitive aka thought process and how our thoughts create our reality.) Burns compares depression/blue moods to a scratchy music coming from a radio that is not properly turned to the station. He continutes, "the problem is not that the tubes or transistors are blown out or defective, or that the signal from the radio station is distorted as a result of the bad weather. You just simply have to adjust the dials."

"When you learn to bring about this mental tuning, the music will come out clearly again."

2-Warren Buffett on Life/ Cars

When I was watching a video on life advices (that I will link below) this metaphor strike me quite hard and brought me to the moment. I'd like to tell you the story the way he did.

Imagine that tomorrow you will get the car of your dreams. The best car you can think of, any color, anything. It'll be right in front of of your house with a bow on it tomorrow morning. What's the catch, then? Well, it will be the only car you are ever going to get. So you have to take care of it, cherish it, use it wisely. As you probably know, you won't get 1 car, but you get only one mind and one body.

This really made me think "if I can care deeply about my materials and how I use them, why can't I do the same to myself?" Your body is your home. How you choose to treat it is up to you. There are a lot of things we cannot control in the world, but we can control how we treat ourselves.

3-Kati Morton on Grief/ Marathons

Kati Morton is an excellent therapist who creates content related to her field and provides us free guideline on many topics such as depression, eating disorder, anxiety and grief. I was watching one of her videos on grief, and as she was talking about this story I found it so relatable, and not just for grieving, but you can apply it to depression and sadness as well.

She says, in life, we run marathons -mentally.- Our lives are busy, we have a lot of tasks and chores to finish up so mostly we live very hectic lives. But when we grief, it is almost like we try to run with extra 70 pounds on our shoulders, so it gets really really hard and we still keep trying. This metaphor can really help you understand that what you're going through is not something to underestimate. It is very much real and heavy and you need to be gentle with yourself.

4-My therapist on Negative Thoughts/ Dumpster

I was in therapy a while back (totally, fully intentional act, I was not feeling well and therapy helps, I have absolutely no shame in that and I think more people should acknowledge the benefits of it)

I was nitpicking about all the negativity in my life and each problem and how they affected my mental state. She told me to think about each problem as a trashbag (heavy, smelly, gross trashbags you wouldn't want to keep in your house) lot of those. Unless I choose to take them and throw them out, they won't go anywhere. You can literally picture yourself taking the trash of your problems and throwing them out, cleansing your mind. It's quite nice to picture your mind as a clear, garbage-free area.

5-Woody Allen/ Annie Hall opening monologue

I don't think there is any need for further explanation and Woody Allen does the job within just couple of sentences.

“There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.”

It is quite a pessimistic way to look at life, but it's kind of true. But, if there is anything you can learn from this, is to never visit that restaurant again and be a Karen and complain about the food, so both you and other clients can end up happy the next time, right?

(I actually filmed a video talking about these metaphors as well)

*links*

Kati Morton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHmM1vlqVl8

Warren Buffett: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX5-XyBNi00

Woody Allen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsHwIBR6ivA