Not every trail is new, even if it’s new to you. When navigating trails from the pack, transform your fears and exhaustion, and trust those who came before you.
Overview of The Emotions Metaphor "Navigating Trails and Landmarks"
NOTE: The introduction is the same for each of the four intensities of the Navigating Trails and Landmarks metaphor. If you have already read it, you may want to click to skip.
Hi, my name is Karen, and in this series I help you to Locate, Describe & Transform™ (LDT™) the emotions that you have that interfere with your best decisions.
Your emotions present as images and metaphors, so each week I explore new imagery, always looking at it from four levels of emotional intensity: extreme, high, medium, and low.
This week’s metaphor is NAVIGATING TRAILS AND LANDMARKS, and while I was looking for imagery for this video, I found myself drawn to winter scenes, which is unlike me, because I’m not really a winter person. I’d much prefer it was warm and sunny all year round.
Four Emotion Intensities with Four Navigating Trails Images
- For extreme intensity, I’ve chosen an image of people impossibly trying to cross a frozen lake with the wind so strong that it’s pushing them back; they can barely even hold on to where they’re at.
- For high intensity, I’ve chosen a group of hikers in the winter on very frozen land with no particular path, but just following one in front of the other.
- For medium intensity, the navigation is happening by following footsteps.
- And for low intensity, I’ve chosen a clear blue sky, sunny day, following a trail that is well marked.
As we explore the four scenes, focus on transforming emotions that make your path more treacherous or challenging. Look for the positive landmarks, the simplest trails, and consider how, metaphorically or in reality, you might improve the trail to help guide other hikers.
In past videos, the focus has been transforming the image in order to transform your emotions [and leave or change the situation]. But it’s going to be about recognizing, with this video series, how you can transform your emotions while staying in the situation.
Navigating Trails and Landmarks: High Intensity Emotions
The high intensity image that I’ve chosen is a group of people hiking across a snowy tundra. The sun is shining, but the wind is blowing, so for every footprint they put down, it’s probably quickly being covered up. I find myself drawn to the last person in line who’s taking up the rear and making sure that nobody is left behind.
If you can relate to navigating trails and landmarks as a metaphor, and relate to this image as something that represents high intensity emotions for you, where are you in this pack? What are you feeling in your body?
Navigating Trails: Your Position In The Pack Matters
As the person taking up the rear, I’m feeling concerned for other people. They’re all doing well, so I don’t have a stress about that, but as I consider this image, I’m aware that I have a stress in my body about how much longer, and not knowing where I’m going.
It’s telling me that whatever journey I’m on, whatever path I’m navigating, I’m relying on someone – or, if you believe in universal energies and guides and so forth, some intuitive guide – to take me somewhere that I’m not exactly sure of.
So the emotions that I need to transform are the fears of letting go of control, and just trusting that if I follow what’s in front of me, if I put one foot in front of the other, I will get to where I want to go.
And so it’s about releasing my negative emotions, not having fear. Not just sitting down and saying, “Oh, I can’t go on anymore,” but releasing anything negative that’s going to prevent me from putting one foot in front of the other.
Navigating Trails: Transformation Example
For me, the transformation is fairly simple. The wind, the cold, is making my body stiff; the extra equipment that I’m carrying and the heavier clothing is making it harder to move.
I focus on just taking a very deep breath as I keep moving, and slowly release it; I get myself into a calming rhythm where I just match my breath to moving my feet and planting one foot in front of the other.
For you, the metaphor, the transformation, could be completely different. Explore yours to Locate, Describe & Transform™ the high intensity emotions you feel when thinking about navigating your current trails or landmarks.
Navigating Trails and Landmarks: Closing
In this instance, Navigating Trails and Landmarks has been focused on trails that you’ve chosen to be on. Your imagery, your emotions, can be quite different if you’re someplace that you haven’t chosen to be. But the point here is that even if you’ve chosen it, you can still have intense emotions that need transformation, for you to continue on your healthiest path and make your healthiest decisions.
Stay positive as you keep going forward, and trust that your decisions will be healthy, will be positive, will be productive, will get you to where you’re going.
I respectfully acknowledge that this video was recorded on the traditional territory of Mi’kmaq people.
If you want more information on transforming negative emotions and the LDT™ – Locate, Describe & Transform™ – process, check out the books at theEATprogram.com.