The orange metaphor states that the worst and best emotions and moments, such as anger, fear, or love, usually reveal what's inside you. What do you think will happen if you get bored hard by life, as if you were an orange that someone tried to extract its juice from.

Let's say someone annoys you, teases you, and, figuratively speaking, tries to get your water out or your fruit pulp. If they succeed, what will come out of you? Is it anger, joy or rage? Proposed by the psychologist, teacher, and author Wayne Dyer, the orange metaphor is a great tool to understand why it is so important to know why these things are done.

Wayne Dyer was recognized and gained worldwide success after his book Your Erroneous Zones was published. The orange metaphor first appeared at one of the author's conferences in Toronto, Canada. An interesting point about this metaphor is that he mentioned it just one day before his death.

His speech surprised everyone who was there. Wayne used the orange as a support for a metaphor to use in this speech. Then, he started a dialogue with a brilliant 12-year-old boy sitting in the front row.

“How people treat you is their karma; How you react is yours. "

- Wayne W. Dyer

Orange metaphor dialogue

Wayne said to the boy, "If I squeeze this orange as best as I can, what will come out?" said.

The boy looked at Dyer a little crazy and said, "Of course, juice."

"Do you think apple juice can come out?"

"No!" he said and laughed.

"Well, can it be grapefruit juice?"

"No!"

"So what comes out of this?"

"Of course orange juice."

"Why is that? Why does orange juice come out when you squeeze an orange? "

"This is an orange and this is inside."

What comes out when life bothering you?

Dyer shook his head and said, “What if this orange is not an orange, but you are. Someone starts to squeeze you, pressure you, say things you don't like, and bother you. Therefore, anger, hatred, pain and fear emerge from you. Why is that? The answer is, as our young friend said, that's what's inside. "

This is one of the biggest lessons in life. If anger, pain, and fear come from you in response when someone disturbs you, it's because of what's inside you. It doesn't matter who does this squeezing behavior - be it your mother, your brother, your children, your boss, or the government, anyone. If someone says something about you that you don't like, what comes out of you is entirely within you. And what's inside of you is up to you, which will be entirely your own choice. ”

“When someone puts pressure on you and something other than a love-like feeling comes out of you, it's because you allowed this other thing to be inside. When you remove all the unwanted negative aspects in your life and replace them with love, you will find yourself living a highly functional life. "

"Thanks, young friend, and here is an orange for you!"

The orange metaphor is a concept related to endurance

Let's continue with another lesson on the orange metaphor. Surely you have heard the phrase "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade". Have you ever stopped at any point to think what it really means? This statement is far from being about conformism and one of the simplest ways to define resilience.

This term, which is used as resistance, and even as resistance in our language, comes from the Latin words resilio and resilire, meaning "to return". When this definition is applied to psychology, it refers to the human ability to overcome difficulties. So resilient people manage to make lemonade (cope best) from the lemons (losses and disappointments) they've had in their lives.

Some people believe that resistance is something innate for a person, a genetic trait. However, subsequent research has revealed that one can adopt and develop this ability.

For example, by assuming that change is part of life, you can build your resilience by trusting yourself, building interpersonal relationships, focusing on the positive, taking challenges as opportunities, and being flexible and realistic in your goals.

Improve yourself

As a result, it is important to improve your inner world. If you fill your garden with unfertile soil, you will only encounter weeds. But if you use fertile soil and water it often, you will plant the seeds of your best life with your own hands.

Filling yourself with toxic thoughts or emotions will not do you any good. In the end, you will be the only person you influence. You are the only person who will bear the consequences of inflating negative emotions within you.