There Is Just No Comparison (A New Way Of Using the Power of Metaphor)

In my coaching practice I use the power of metaphor with my clients to help them unlock creativity by bringing together unusal ideas in unexpected ways. As taught in her coach training program by my mentor and sociologist Martha Beck, you can compare a pain point, or area of suffering in your life to anything that’s near you or dear to you. Don’t over think it. Just pick a sore spot and a random object and let your synapses fire and your brain re-wire.

For an example of this check out my recent post My Lack of Faith In Myself is Like Superhero Movies. Below is a poem inspired by the idea of comparison and extended metaphor as a way to explore our interior worlds.

There Is Just No Comparison

My relationship to myself is like a metaphor

Nothing has any meaning by itself 

Only one aspect in relationship to another 

A constant internal comparison 

My childhood weighed against the now moment

Or against your childhood 

Or against a childhood from the TV 

My choices weighed against my innocent dreams

Or against your choices 

Or against the choices they make on the TV 

My identity weighed against my actual impact 

My ego, slams like a meteor into my intentions and the resulting cataclysm is the end of all life on this planet. The planet is not earth 

but my old belief structures, as the impact causes ruptures 

Blinded by my possible futures, I end up needing sutures 

Distracted by all the features, forgetting we are natural creatures 

When I look in the mirror of reality is it like I’m staring back at myself, or am I there, staring back at myself?

I extend this metaphor, like a thief extends his fortunes at a jewelry store, 

Stealing images to compare and contrast, like a meaning blast 

So that maybe you’ll ignore, if it turns out my life is a mixed metaphor? 

And not as glamorous as I what I thought before 

When I drop all metaphors 

And the making of meaning softens into the bliss of experiencing 

And life starts living me, dispelling my notions that I am ever living it

And all becomes one

There is suddenly nothing to compare anything to

I am everything 

This resurgence of emergence with no urgency inside of me

And the metaphor becomes, well, it’s like, it’s like, it is so, well…it is just…