Great Examples Of Life Metaphors

Some of the best examples of life metaphors that are powerful and even transformative are those used by the author and self-realization teacher Guy Finley. Consider this one:

Trying to change ourselves in order to please others - so that we can feel temporarily whole for having won their approval - is like cutting a flower into pieces so that it will fit into a vase. - Guy Finley

Okay, I know that it is technically a simile rather than a metaphor, but what a wonderful way to make the point! Many of Guy's life lessons are expressed in "life metaphors" like this. Here are some more great examples:

Most of us have found ourselves washed away, overcome by a flood of punishing thoughts and feelings. Picture a desperate man being swept down a river, grabbing on to whatever comes along, and it's easy to see how we end up clinging to things that - rather than saving us - actually serve to further sink us.

Our life experience confirms that we cling to thoughts and feelings which only drag us down, thinking they will save us. A powerful metaphor of a the man swept away in a river grabbing at everything gives this insight more impact.

Your true nature is something already greater than any self compromising state, much in the same way as the ocean shoreline is greater than the waves that pound it. Your True Self is the unshakable Ground over which all "waves" of thought and feelings both move and break.

Guy has also used the wonderful metaphor of True Self being the sky, which remains there even when we cannot see it behind all the clouds which pass through it. Life metaphors like these really make it possible to understand important lessons on a more than just an intellectual level.

Never believe in any negative thought or feeling that would have you believe, "There is no way!" Always remember instead that real life is a secret and vital flux of possibilities rising up from the Ground of what seems improbable, much as a spring flower manages to bloom in a once-frozen field.

Count the number of ways in which we have acted to protect a fear - as in fawning before others for fear of falling out of their good graces - and we also know the exact number of times we have been a fool of fear.

Fear and anger - as is true of all negative states - are "undercover agents." Their "soul" task, in any moment of conflict with life, is to rush in and cover up any possible impression that would otherwise reveal we don't possess the "powers" we pretend to.

Perhaps these short quotes are easier to understand in the contexts in which they appear in Finley's works, but they are powerful life metaphors. Our interior dramas come to life in his writing. Fear as an "undercover agent," or being a "fool of fear," or the very idea of negative states trying to convince us of something - as though they are independent actors - these metaphorical understandings sink in. They show us something we may have suspected, and can verify if we watch: Our own thoughts are not our "self," nor do they necessarily look out for our best interest.