It’s an iconic lighthouse scene: Gentle waves, jagged rocks, and a rotating beacon lighting up the blue night sky. How do you welcome without rushing out to rescue?
I respectfully acknowledge that this video was recorded on the traditional territory of Mi’kmaq people.
If you’d like more information on the details of the process I use, and how you can transform your own emotions or help others to transform theirs, then please visit theEATprogram.com.
Overview of The Emotions Metaphor "Be The Lighthouse"
NOTE: The introduction is the same for each of the four intensities of the Be The Lighthouse metaphor. If you have already read it, you may want to click to skip.
Hello, my name is Karen and in this series I help you Locate, Describe & Transform™ (LDT™) the emotions that interfere with you making your best decisions. Each week I explore a new metaphor, always looking at it at four levels of emotional intensity: Extreme; High; Medium; and Low.
Check out the short overview to get details of the process I use.
This week’s metaphor is BE THE LIGHTHOUSE.
Four Emotion Intensities with Four Lighthouse Images
- For extreme intensity,we see the waves are crashing over the lighthouse; they’re completely engulfing it.
- For high intensity, we see a lighthouse surrounded by frozen water and icicles. And that can connect us to other metaphors about being left out in the cold or feeling frozen.
- For medium intensity, I’ve picked a nighttime image. It’s a beautiful image of a lighthouse with the light shining, but there’s a sense of isolation to it.
- And for the low intensity image, I’ve chosen a lighthouse that is surrounded by farmland and has extra buildings at the lighthouse itself. It seems to be a nice day, and the lighthouse is up higher on the rocks.
Just as a reminder, even if you connect with the metaphor, the lighthouse, your imagery will possibly look completely different from mine. So you may even consider closing your eyes and keeping your imagery in mind as we work through the transformations.
The Complexity Cards
Next, we’ll look at the complexity cards. I have 11 complexity cards ranging from 0 to 10. They’ve been shuffled and randomly chosen, although in this particular spread it doesn’t look random because three of them are tens. Complexity means there are many people involved, many things that you have to consider in the situation that you have emotions about.
- The extreme intensity card has a complexity of ten.
- In the high intensity, we have a complexity of ten.
- In the medium intensity, we also have a complexity of ten.
- In the low intensity, we have a complexity of four.
The Character from The Whimsical Tarot Deck
In the centre, we have a tarot card. If you’ve watched the process video, you’ll know I do not read tarot cards. I’m using this particular deck, the Whimsical Tarot deck, because it uses characters based on myths and fairy tales. This particular card, the Ace of Pentacles, doesn’t have any link to a fairy tale, it’s just picture of a pentacle on it.
Aces are the start of a cycle and Pentacles are tangible opportunities in the material world: potential for financial success; new job; a home. The Ace of Pentacles asks you to take action and invest effort to grow your opportunity into something real and lasting. So we’ll be taking that point of view as we explore each of the intensities and the imagery that we have.
As we look at these scenes and complexity cards, focus on transforming the emotions that prevent you from taking your next healthy step toward your real world goal.
The Iconic Lighthouse: Medium Intensity Emotions
I love the iconic lighthouse I’ve chosen for medium intensity. In fact, it makes me feel so peaceful, I actually originally chose it for low intensity.
The reason I moved it to medium, however, is because of that sense of isolation, and because we’re a certain distance from it, it seems like it’s on its own. It’s iconic in the large, ragged rocks around it, and the waves are lapping at those rocks, but they’re not high intensity, rolling onto the rocks. And I love the lights circling around on the night sky.
The Iconic Lighthouse: Looking Farther Afield
Medium intensity means you’re starting to feel the pressure. When I interpret that with this imagery, I see me, the lighthouse: as being strong; as being confident; knowing where I’m going; what I’m doing; what my job is; what that real world opportunity is from that Ace of Pentacles that I want to start doing. And my focus is on the light that is searching.
So I’m interpreting this image completely different than I did the extreme and the high intensity imagery. In those two, I wanted to start from the inside and warm myself or give myself a protective space to breathe. In this imagery, I’m truly focused on the extreme complexity aspect of what is out there.
What do I see outside of me that I need to be aware of, whether to avoid or partner with, or help in some way, since the lighthouse is that search light that is helping the ships at sea? So in extreme intensity, waves were crashing over me. In high intensity, the frozen ice was all around me. Here, it’s more distant.
Transformation Example
Now, once again, I want you to focus on what the metaphor means to you if you connect with this specific image. Where are you feeling it? I’m not feeling the emotions in my body; I’m feeling them in my head. My concern is that I’m going to be overthinking who’s out there. Who should I partner with? Who should I reach out to? Who should I save, if anybody?
So as the light spins around, I’m saying, “I’m skilled, qualified to tell you where it’s treacherous and where you should stay away from,” and sending out a beacon that says, “hey, land is here, and I can guide you.” But I want to make sure that I’m only guiding them, not rescuing them.
Now, my interpretation is based on my personality, I know that I could reach out and try and rescue people and not give them an opportunity to figure out what’s their healthiest next step. So, as I see myself as this iconic lighthouse, and I send that signal out and around, I find that I want to get out of my head, bring that energy back down into my chest, and again get myself to breathe.
Because what I’ve understood now, by locating it in my head to start with, and realizing that I was trying to push an issue, or push an agenda, or push people to join me, I want to now come back inside and bring myself to a calm space, because the only reason I would want to push something is because I have my own fears that there wouldn’t be success.
So this is an example of interpretation and how when you identify one emotion, it might release and now move to another part of my body within my chest. Now I’m feeling that pressure and what’s going to work. The easiest for me is simply a few deep breaths that calm me and make me be still. Be that lighthouse that stays stationary and invites others to join me by lighting the way to a healthier path for them.
Closing
I connect with the lighthouse metaphor for several reasons. One, I love lighthouses. I’ve lived on and travelled around coastal areas and visited a lot of lighthouses, so they speak to me. But lighthouses for me also represent those four aspects of who we are: physical component; emotional component; intellectual component; and spiritual component.
- The physical is that rock solid build and the rock formation – sometimes sand – that they’re built into: that solid foundation.
- The emotional is the waves crashing, the winds blowing, the birds flying around them.
- The intellectual is also part physical. The components that have to work together to make the lighthouse work. The inside of the lighthouse.
- And the spiritual is the light that’s flashing around that searching.
So for me, the lighthouse metaphor BE THE LIGHTHOUSE means be strong, be stable, be grounded. And be willing to help others in a way that’s healthy for yourself.
Next week we look at the Leaning Tower of Pisa.