Healing Is Not A Metaphor

There’s a verse in the Qur’an (26:224-226) that says: “Have you seen the poets who lead people astray? They wander distracted in every valley and say what they do not do.” The verse doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your Rumi or Shakespeare. It means: we’re often hypnotized by beautiful language and mistake it for the truth.

I’ve noticed that when my clients are most afraid of change, they often start speaking in metaphor. “I’m honoring my journey.” “I’m shedding an old skin.” “I’m rising like a phoenix.” Metaphors can be powerful, but they can also be ways of stalling, rebranding avoidance, and protecting the status quo.

The Buddha warned against clinging to perceptions, even spiritual ones. As the Zen saying goes, “The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.” Poetic language can feel like progress, but real transformation isn’t necessarily poetic. It’s often practical, grounded, and painfully ordinary: refusing to lie, not sending that text, showing up for the “boring” things, or letting a dream die without replacing it with a new one.

When we stop needing transformation to look beautiful, we become more free. The work isn’t to find the perfect metaphor. It’s to feel the moment — to feel the pain in the urge to narrate, explain, or justify. Sometimes change begins not with insight, but with silence. In silence, you start to see what you’re clinging to and how you might let go.

Ajaan Chah said: “The only book worth reading is the book of the heart.” He wasn’t glorifying ignorance. He meant that wisdom comes from knowing things in your body. Waking at 4 a.m. with dread, for example, and not analyzing it. Noticing your shoulders tense as you reach for a distraction. Feeling the pain of having hurt someone without explaining it away.

These are the little moments that change us. Not as symbols. Not as stories. But in reality, as it is.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, “A Reading from Homer” (1885)