Today a friend told me about a quote that is widely attributed to Michelangelo in response to a question about how he made the famous sculpture David:

“It is easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn’t look like David.”

A quick Google search called into question the authenticity of the quotation, but whether Michelangelo ever actually said this or not, I think it has wonderful metaphorical implications.

From the moment you’re born, you are told who you’re supposed to be. This varies, of course, depending on who your parents are, who your social group is, and how susceptible you are to taking on the expectations of others, but it’s true to varying degrees for everyone.

One day, you wake up and realize that you’re carrying around a lot of extra rules and roles that don’t really fit the person you know yourself to be. Maybe you find that you’ve built up a defense of sarcasm when you yearn to show the love and kindness in your heart. Maybe you find that you’re shoving down feelings of anger and pain and masking it with false happiness rather than addressing the things that make you unhappy. Whatever it is, something doesn’t feel real or right. You feel like you’re not letting yourself tap into the strengths and positive qualities inside yourself.

But you’re in there somewhere.

Coming back to David, we all walk around with extra bits of stone that aren’t us. Maybe they’re messages we’re given when we were very young, expectations thrust upon us by a workplace, or social mores of a peer group. And when you come to therapy, our task is to work together to chisel away all the stone that doesn’t look like you.

This reminds me of a metaphor I often reference made by Irvin Yalom, a truly spectacular existential psychotherapist and author. In The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients, Yalom describes the process of therapy as being the work of pushing aside barriers to find the true, genuine, and strength-filled self within.

I often put forth this idea to clients with the question, “If you, sitting where you are now, are present-day you, and in this empty chair next to me is a post-therapy, feeling-better, healed version of you, I want you to imagine there are several boulders in the middle of the room between the two of you. Now I want you to imagine that our task is to push aside the boulders to get to this version of you that’s sitting right here, that already exists. What would you say are the boulders?” It often elicits responses that really surprise the clients giving them.

So if this is so easy, why doesn’t everyone do it? Well, here’s the thing: it isn’t easy. In fact, it’s incredibly challenging. It takes strength and courage, overcoming fear of loss, weighing costs and benefits. Brene Brown speaks beautifully about this in her TED talk, “The Power of Vulnerability.” She says that vulnerability is both incredibly scary and vital to wholehearted living. It’s not a destination, but rather an ongoing process, and sometimes it can be disastrous and painful. So what’s to be gained?

Well, if the apocryphal story of David is true… just ask Michelangelo.

Featured photo courtesy of Dennis Hill – CC 2.0