Over the years, I have researched conceptual metaphor theory extensively and used it consciously and subconsciously in my own writing. I am fascinated by the way that we all use metaphor, every single day of our lives, to describe our experiences.

We have spatial metaphors: I feel so down today.

We have metaphors that suggest that we experience our body as a sort of container for our emotions: I was seething with anger. I thought I might explode.

These metaphors seem convincingly universal, across languages and cultures (Kovesces has done some fabulous research on this).

And then we have those personal metaphors that mean something particular to us alone, like a special kind of secret language.

When we become more consciously aware of the metaphoric language we are using to describe a feeling or a situation, we often realise that our metaphor is limiting in some way. And as we become more consciously aware of it, we can change it.

And so to the story of my new bed.

Yes, my new bed is a kind of metaphor for some of the changes I’m experiencing in my life. Or at least, that’s how I have come to understand it over the last few days.

We bought a new bed. In fact, it was a Christmas present from my partner’s parents and we looked forward to the arrival of this new bed with eagerness. It was delivered at the beginning of last week, I made it up with our new, specially-purchased king-size bedding. We lay down on our new bed together and… yes, dear readers… I am a little embarrassed to tell you on a public blog about hypnotherapy exactly what happened next.

What happened next was that we both shouted at once, ‘Oh, no! This bed is so hard. This is not the bed we tried in the shop! Surely?’

It seems (because after several very uncomfortable nights on the new bed, I called the shop to ask them about it) that it takes time to get used to a new bed.

It seems that it takes time for a new bed to, erm, bed in (for that is the technical term used by the manager of the bed department to whom I spoke).

It seems that I have been given a metaphor for the way that we can experience change. I don’t like this new bed but I will have to get used to it. It doesn’t feel like the old bed. I want the old bed back. But now that I know that it is just a matter of time and everything will be OK and we haven’t wasted our money, it already feels so much better.

Yes, I even think the bed feels a teensy bit more comfortable now that I know that it can take about a month for a bed with 1200 pocket-springs to soften. Suddenly, it is not that I have ‘made my bed and now I have to lie in it.’ Suddenly it is that this is just a metaphor for change. It takes cognitive effort to make changes. And already this bed is feeling a little more familiar. Pretty soon, I know that I won’t even notice that it’s new at all.