The Power of Physical Metaphors

There I was, 60 feet up on the side of a rock, totally stuck! I could not see anything to hold or to step onto; I saw nothing in front of me but the sheer face of the rock. Everyone on my team had already climbed to the top, even those who were not as strong or experienced as me. How had they been able to do this while I am helplessly stuck?

I was in the middle of a 21-day Outward Bound program which taught their philosophy of making personal changes by participating in outdoor challenges. My nine teammates included educators, therapists, and other professionals. I had trained for months to get ready for this experience. I never considered that the program would be too tough for me...until that moment.

I remember suddenly thinking of spending the night on the side of the rock - the humiliation, the cold, the pain of the harness cutting into my thighs. In desperation, I decided to grab any crack I could find, and if I fell, I would trust the rope would catch me. I gingerly moved my foot up to the next jut, which was almost invisible in the rock. Amazed as it held, I shifted my weight up. From that point on, each step became increasingly easier, all the way to the top.

Later that night, as our team discussed the day's activities around the campfire, our leader's first question was, "How did your experience of rock climbing resemble other parts of your life?" Examples flashed across my mind - from relationships, work, school. In nearly every part of my life, I had experienced being just as stuck as I had been on the side of that rock.

His next question led me to make the one of the most powerful changes I ever experienced: "How can you use what you got on that rock to improve other parts of your life?" I remember making an immediate decision to take the risks necessary to move toward the things I wanted in my life, rather than live motivated by comfort and security. That experience on the side of the rock wall made a fundamental and lasting difference in my life.

Prior to that summer some 28 years ago, Dr. Terry Henderson and I (both of us were therapists at Oklahoma State University) had been studying alternative approaches to psycho-therapy. We had previously studied with John Grinder and Richard Bandler, who founded NueroLinguistic Programming, and had the opportunity to spend time with Dr. Milton Erickson in Arizona before his death. That summer, we were experimenting with a new adventure program called "the ropes course" which is now more commonly referred to as a challenge course. We weren't sure why, but people going through the program were making remarkable changes in their personal lives.

We decided to investigate other such programs so we could design a new kind of physical challenge experience which would utilize the most beneficial aspects of "adventure programming." What we discovered (through programs such as the Colorado Outward Bound experience) was that these adventure programs were somewhat similar to the metaphors told by Erickson and others. We determined to