Balancing finances isn’t only about the numbers; it’s about your emotions. If you’re feeling out on a high wire, LDT™ can help get you back onto solid ground.
Overview of The Emotions Metaphor "Balancing Act"
NOTE: The introduction is the same for each of the four intensities of the Balancing Act 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. If you want more details on my process, check out the short process video.
This week’s metaphor is BALANCING ACT, which I think is something we can all relate to.
Four Emotion Intensities with Four Balancing Act Images
- For extreme intensity emotions, I chose a very flexible wire high up on canyon walls with the person crossing, not holding on to anything with their hands, although they do have a security rope around them.
- For high intensity, I chose a more stable cable wire with somebody using their hands on other cables to walk across the chasm.
- For medium intensity, I chose a series of connected logs on a child’s playground that are only a couple of feet off the ground, but that move as you walk on them.
- And for low intensity, I chose a log that is solid right on the ground.
As always, a reminder: If you connect with the balancing act metaphor, but your imagery is completely different, consider closing your eyes, working with your own imagery to Locate, Describe & Transform™ your negative emotions.
The Complexity Cards
For each of the emotional intensities, there’s a complexity card:
- For extreme intensity, the complexity is zero. That means whatever the situation, whatever your emotions, it involves only you and only one particular aspect of something.
- For high intensity, it’s actually extreme complexity.
- For medium intensity, it’s a low complexity card.
- And for low intensity, it’s an extreme complexity card.
Tom Thumb: The Character from The Whimsical Tarot Deck
In the centre of the layout is a Whimsical Tarot card: the fairy tale is Tom Thumb; the tarot card itself is the Knight of Pentacles. Now, Tom Thumb is a bit before my time, but I do remember my grandparents telling me that story. Tom Thumb is shown riding on his mouse as part of King Arthur’s Knight of the Round Table on the tarot card, and the origin of the story is a wish from a fairy queen grants a poor couple a son as small as a thumb. The child is courageous, clever, and resourceful at overcoming real world limitations.
In Tom’s case, it’s physical; the Knight of Pentacles generally is speaking toward your finances. So we’re going to be looking at the balancing act with respect to your financial situation, looking towards balancing well-researched plans to get the results that you desire; taking a moment to look at the big picture, but then carefully checking every detail. That’s what’s going to bring you into balance.
So, as we explore the imagery and the complexity cards, consider a practical plan for bringing balance to your finances and or specific projects you might have in mind.
Balancing Finances: Extreme Intensity Emotions
The video for the extreme intensity emotion is something I love. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t do it, but we see somebody not hanging on to anything, balancing on a fairly loose rope. Thankfully, they are connected around the waist because they do fall.
We can look at this imagery from two perspectives:
1. It’s extreme intensity because of the thrill of the activity.
2. It’s extreme intensity because we aren’t actually wanting the thrill of the activity; we are finding ourselves on this high wire without something to fall back on.
If it’s the former, if we love excitement, we love this activity, then it’s time to get ourselves back to solid ground and put a plan in place that allows us to continue doing this activity we love. If it’s the latter, and we find ourselves in extremely intense emotions because we can’t stand it anymore, this high wire balancing act, then we need to sit down at a table and take the time to do what, for some of us, is the hard work of putting together a plan. As usual, I’ll go through my transformations; you focus on yours if they aren’t the same.
Transformation Example
I can relate to this image because I am rather freewheeling; I’m not so focused on financial planning. I’m going to go with that first interpretation. Although I don’t want to actually walk across a high wire, I do love adventure, I love to travel, and I want to keep doing it. So I need to transform the extreme intensity emotions I’m feeling about my limitations to be able to continue doing that – so that I can continue with travelling for the rest of my life.
I look at myself in the middle of this high wire act, and I have to ask myself, should I continue going forward, or is it healthiest for me to go backward and make a plan from a few steps back from where I’m standing right now? And honestly, although I want to go forward, my body reaction is saying, “nah, get your butt backward and sit on the ground there and make a plan that allows you to keep doing this for as long as you wish.” Otherwise – because I can’t see where this wire ends – I could be going for much longer distance without a plan in place than if I backed up.
My emotions, I’m feeling them in my feet, where they’re actually doing the balancing act, and in my pounding chest, for fear that I might [financially] fall.
I want to make my way back, but you see that? That’s a sharp angle to get back up to where that line is attached to solid ground. Because my emotions are so intense here, I’m going to actually sit down, get myself onto my belly, wrap my legs around the rope so I don’t fall off and pull myself back up to solid ground.
Now, that might seem like a rather detailed image, but what you’re looking for with your transformations can certainly include humour, because I’m chuckling to myself as I imagine put my belly on this rope and pulling myself when I obviously have the ability to balance! But that visual is telling me to play the safe as possible, to get myself to solid ground where I can develop a solid plan.
The Emotions of Balancing Finances: More Than One Transformation Required
So I’ve located it, particularly in my heart, my negative emotions; I’ve managed to get myself backward because that felt the safest for me. But I’m still feeling an extreme intensity, and that’s because my fear is not about falling from doing the activity; it’s a fear about not being able to continue doing the activity.
So I need to take a moment and just breathe. And since my focus is on creating finances that allow me to continue to do these types of activities – the fun, adventurous, kind – then I need to focus my financial planning to include those activities. And when I do that, when I imagine actually writing out the adventures I want to go on, then I find myself breathing easier and saying, “okay, create a solid plan that allows you to accomplish that as your goal.”
Balancing Finances Depends On Where You Stand Now
Now, depending on what stage of life you’re at, you may need to put the fun activities aside and actually focus for a much longer time on creating the solid structure that allows you to continue those activities. And if your idea of a balancing act is extreme intensity because you’re not having fun doing it at all, then it’s going to be much less focused on transforming emotions so you can do activities, and much more on transforming emotions so you can create a plan that makes you feel healthy.
So if this is you doing a balancing act, extreme intensity, emotions, standing on this high wire, ask yourself, how are you going to imagine transforming this image to get yourself off the high wire? I did a belly crawl; maybe you do a back flip; maybe you just imagine yourself flying from one side to the other. Whatever it is, your goal is to get yourself to solid ground.
Closing
Last week, we looked at the leaning metaphor, and the caution within that was: Be careful, you might be leaning toward or away from something and not really noticing, and that the best position would be for you to straighten yourself up. This time, we’re looking at a balancing act metaphor, and I think the caution here is to recognize that balance does not mean equal distribution of everything all the time. Each of us finds our own balance.
So for me, surprisingly, once I started going through the process myself with each of these images as an example for you, I found that my healthiest balancing place was at the high intensity emotions. For you, it might not be: low intensity might be exactly where you want to be. But I found, for me, high intensity did not mean negative emotions, and that my healthy balance is a bit more toward adventure than it is toward security.
The focus, however, is still about being in balance, not putting one so far ahead of the other, so you’re clinging to security and not willing to go out and try anything new, versus you’re always flying by the seat of your pants, and you have zero security.
You will know that you are out of balance when you start to feel uneasy or discomfort in some part of your body.
I respectfully acknowledge that this video was recorded on the traditional territory of Mi’kmaq people.
For more information on transforming negative emotions with the LDT™ process – Locate, Describe & Transform™ – check out theEATprogram.com.