Why use Metaphors?

A metaphor is a way of communicating an idea in an imaginative rather than a literal way, it harnesses the power of our imagination to pass the message from one mind to another, perhaps a very different mind, but no matter how different we are, the metaphors reach through the difference and deliver.

Metaphor in daily life

I wonder if you have noticed how often we use metaphors in our daily speech. When you do you start to notice it, it is amazing just how littered our daily communications are with metaphors. It is something we are familiar with and use to give greater emphasis to a statement. We might say, “you can see the light at the end of the tunnel” instead of things are going to get better. We say it because it is more powerful, more intense in meaning, it creates resonance and depth, the phrase gives that sudden moment of deep understanding to which everyone can relate, the picture language within the statement is empowering. Let’s just look at a few metaphors from current daily speech:

•  Let sleeping dogs lie

•  You cannot see the wood for the trees

•  Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

•  Swimming against the tide

•  Hit the nail on the head

•  A level playing field

•  Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth

•  Long in the tooth

•  Sailing too close to the wind

•  Fallen off the wagon

•  Putting your foot in it

•  Having several irons in the fire

All of these metaphors speak to us directly and accurately, there is no room for misunderstanding, they are concise and direct, whilst in another sense they are veiled. Each language has it’s own metaphors, poetic stories that communicate meaning in an empowered way and often those metaphors are similar, perhaps they could be coming up from the universal unconscious. It is interesting to note that the origins of most of our common metaphors come from way back in time; these sayings are a historical footnote that stays resonant in our language from generation to generation, we hand them down, like hand me down clothes, to enrich our communication and understanding.

A metaphor often builds around it a story. We humans love stories, they are the oldest kind of entertainment, such as in ancient times when people came together around a roaring fire, gathering to listen to the roaming story teller. We then evolved into telling the stories in theatres and we put stories in print to read and then came film and TV, often these stories entertain us educate us, inform us and change us. The old story tellers of past times who walked the land were not just tale tellers but educators and healers, they understood the power of story and the language that painted the pictur