From the author: Many psychologists use stories in their work - metaphors for what is happening to the client and how he can cope with current difficulties. I came up with each of these stories for a specific client, and then told others, too often these problems are encountered in practice. Once upon a time there was a train. When they made it, they placed it at the main station. From the station the rails went in a variety of directions. The train liked several destinations; there was something along their route that he really liked. He had already traveled a little in one of them, tried the second, third, but then those who made it turned on the switch and moved it to a completely different direction, which the train had not even noticed before. The train slowed down and stopped, but those who made it kicked it into the last carriage many, many times and gave it the necessary acceleration. And the train moved, it drove and drove until the acceleration dried up. He began to stop, then braked, looked around, did not understand anything, drove a little again, braked again... He spent some time like this until he remembered that this was not his path and that he needed to go in a completely different direction. But during this time he had gone so far from his rails that he did not understand how to return. And he continued to “stomp around,” and his strength became less and less every day, until he finally realized that he urgently needed to reverse and get to some arrow, maybe more than once, so that these arrows would gradually lead him to one from the directions he initially chose. And he drove back, slowly, examining each arrow, deciding whether it brought him closer to his directions. And after some time, through trial and error, I found it. One day, a bulb of a rare and valuable flower was brought for the royal garden. It was known that its bulb and first shoots were very tender. Therefore, the gardener first allocated a place for the flower in a small garden. It was quiet there, there were no strangers, only a few more plants. The gardener watered the flower and fed it. And then a flower stem appeared, it gradually grew and became stronger. The first leaf appeared on the stem, then the second and third. The stem grew higher and higher, and branches appeared. After some time, the sprout turned into a small bush, and buds formed on the bush. Several more days passed and the first of them began to open, its petals turned out to be lilac. Soon other buds opened, they were of different colors: red, white, orange, blue, yellow. After this, the gardener transplanted the flower into the large royal garden, into the central flowerbed. The flower was so beautiful that all visitors admired it and wanted to touch it in order to better experience its beauty and aroma. But the flower was not used to people, so it did not allow itself to be touched. Somehow, magically, he instantly rolled his flowers into buds and collected all the branches, turning into either some kind of wrinkled semblance of a tree, or a broom. Therefore, a guard appeared next to the flower, warning that it was possible to touch the flower only with its permission. Not everyone wanted to do this. But the flower was able to trust those visitors who were ready to ask, to allow them to touch the most precious thing it had - its buds. After some time, the flower no longer needed guards, because it learned to distinguish between those who would not communicate with it respectfully, and learned to defend itself from them. And with others he felt so pleased that he himself began to reach out to them with his branches. And although the gardener continued to make sure that no harm was done to the flower for some time, he soon realized that his help was no longer required. Once upon a time there lived a hamster, he was very strong and skillful: he knew how to accumulate a lot of tasty supplies and how to choose the warmest and most comfortable hole, and how to build an impregnable protective wall around his hole and not allow himself to be offended. What he did not know was that the rampart he was building could not be climbed not only by his enemy, but also by his friend. And the hamster was very comfortable in his hole, but lonely, and soon he became too lazy to get out of the hole. He only did this.