Metaphors are powerful ways to make key points - if you're in therapy!
Ty to think of a metaphor that tells another powerful story: There was a little boy whose God-fearing parents taught him to be afraid of dogs. So he spent his younger years lving in fear of dogs. He was repeatedly warned by his well-meaning but not-so-knowledgeable parents that, despite what other people told him, all dogs were dangerous and to be avoided.
So he avoided dogs like the plague.However, to keep avoiding dogs he had to increasingly restrict his life. Soon his life revolved around fear-based strategies to avoid dogs. Despite this fear-based avoidance, he couldn't help but sometimes notice little children playing with dogs of all shapes and sizes. "How can this be?" he asked his loving mother. "Because Satan is trying to trick you into believing dogs are okay". "Wow!" he thought, "t's a good thing mother put me right!"
Yet as the years past and his hair thinned, his busy brain cells couldn't quite let go of the evidence before his eyes: Sure, he read the occasional article about a young child who was savaged by a rottweiler. But he read even more articles - and even saw firsthand - how loyal and friendly dogs were.
One day whilst walking to a meeting, he slipped and fell into a swamp. His parents had left for the meeting earlier so didn't know this had happened. He felt himself getting sucked deeper and deepr into the swamp and began screaming for help. But no one answered his cries for help. And then suddenly out of nowhere along came a St Bernard terrier. It bounded right into the swamp, swam furoiusly up to the drowning boy, grapped his sweater in his mouth and with the might of a pack of rage-driven dogs, pulled the limp boy out of the water. The boy was saved but confused...and frightened. The animal that was supposed to kill him had saved him. He now knew something disturbing that his parents had kept from him: Not only are most dogs perfectly safe, but they're man's best friend as well. He knew if he told his parents "who" saved him, they'd become angry with him. "You shouldn't have let the dog save you - now you're under Satan's influence" they'd say.He'd just tell them he slipped into the swamp and managed to get out himself. "Thank Jehovah!" they'd say as they held his cold wet body close to theirs.
The little boy also knew something frighteningly true but so liberating:
Sometimes those who love you the most would rather see you die than live a happy life in the here and now.
One day he knew in his chastened heart what he would do: He'd save up all his money, leave home for some place miles away, go to an animal shelter, find a St Bernard terrier to look after and love - and for the very first time ever, have a life worth living - free of superstitious fear and loathing. This hope kept him going until years later he rushed into the store, and to his utter astonishement, spied the very St Bernard that had saved him. Life would never be the same again; it would be a happy life!
