Improv Comedy, Metaphors & Emotional Resilience

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Unless you are a poet or a writer, blogger you’d probably haven’t looked into metaphor and how to use it better.

Having read this article in the British Psychological Society by Dr. Alex Fradera about a recent research on emotions and use of metaphors, I am exploring ways that I can use metaphors more often. It appears that metaphors may help us cope better with our emotions.

While we do use metaphors as part of sayings, intentional practice and use may help us deal with anxiety, uncertainty, frustration and depression. Explaining how you feel with a metaphor may help you to become more empathetic toward oneself and others.

For example, instead of saying I feel terrible this morning, consider an alternative way of explaining how you feel. You could say, this morning I feel like a bear waking up from a six months of hibernation. Another alternative, I feel like I’ve just been knocked out in a boxing match!

Using a metaphor also lends itself well in turning your tragedy into a comedy. John Freund in his book ‘Fake It With Confidence: How To Use Improv Comedy To Be More Confident In Social Situations’ suggests a simple method from improv comedy. John Freund called it ‘HPM’ (history, philosophy and metaphor).

Here is an example on how to use this method:

History is the story of what happened, could be an incident or an experience: ‘I was on the underground, Victoria Line, a late afternoon and I was mugged by a group of teenagers.’

Philosophy is your philosophical take on what happened: ‘Man, London underground it ain’t safe. Every time I take the tube I make sure that I get on the carriages with people on it. I also started taking self defence classes, better to be safe than sorry.’

Metaphor is something unrelated yet may help to explain or give more emotional depth: ‘Man, this is like a bunch of hungry wolfs attacking a rat who is in a rat race. This time the rat was stuck in the underground rat trap with nowhere to run.

Everyday present so many opportunities to put metaphor into good use. The language we use and stories we tell have deep impact on how we feel and on how we relate to others.

Nat Tsolak

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