Dedramatization using allegory - the story of the 3 ants

To do this type of peace reflex effectively, aim to describe or act out a scene that helps the distressed person dedramatize the event. Of course This doesn't mean you should brush up on your acting skills. What it means is that you should find a way to illustrate the situation indirectly so the person in the emotional state can digest it and move past the emotion.

For instance: Say you are facing a person that has been lied to, and he found out about that lie. This person is very upset and does not respond to your attempts to calm him down. In such a situation, you can catch the person's attention by telling him a story which addresses the situation indirectly.

A good story to help calm a person who is suffering from discovering he has been lied to is the one about the three ants walking in the desert. One ant says: "There's a desert in front of me and an ant behind me". Another ant says: "There's an ant in front of me and an ant behind me". The third ant says: "There's an ant in front of me and an ant behind me".  Then, ask the person how that can be. The simple solution of course is that one of the ants is lying, but which one? The hurt person is now focusing on these ants and not on his own pain.

The use of an allegory to illustrate the situation will allow the person to gain an outsider's perspective on being lied to. Suddenly, he's not the one being lied to and is an outsider to the situation (unless you are telling this story to three ants in the desert...). This fresh perspective allows the person to digest the situation without being involved and move past his emotion of being hurt after being lied to. The person will calm down and will be able to dismiss the situation of being lied to thanks to the use of ants – regarded as insignificant – rather than people.

Allegories allow you to take a neutral position and even better, it allows the person in emotional distress to join that neutral position and analyze the situation rationally. Hopefully, this will help the person move past his emotion and even smile.

Source: This article has been proposed by one of our members, who was himself very upset following a lie by a key customer. His boss successfully calmed him with this ant story.