Nobody likes being between a rock and a hard place. Whether you put yourself there, or someone else jammed you up, finding new ground starts with your emotions.
Overview of The Metaphor "Between A Rock and A Hard Place"
NOTE: The introduction is the same for each of the four intensities of the Between A Rock and A Hard Place metaphor. If you have already read it, you may want to click to skip.
So you finding yourself between a rock and a hard place. But what does that imagery actually look like for you, and how might you transform it to get yourself out of that situation?
Hello and welcome! My name is Karen, and this series is sponsored by Emotion Commotion and The EAT Program™. In these videos, I help you Locate, Describe & Transform™ the emotions that interfere with you making your best decisions.
Your emotions present as images and metaphors, so each week, I explore a new metaphor. always looking at it from four levels of emotional intensity: extreme, high, medium, and low. This week you’re between a rock and a hard place.
Between A Rock and A Hard Place: Four Emotion Intensities with Four Metaphor Images
- For the extreme intensity video, I’ve chosen a sketch of somebody being squished between a rock and a hard place.
- For high intensity emotions, I’ve chosen a video of somebody climbing a ladder that is secured to rocks within a narrow space, but going up through a waterfall that’s crushing down on them.
- For medium intensity emotions, you’re walking at the base of a canyon that’s quite narrow, and the canyon walls are quite tall.
- And for low intensity emotions, you’re on a path with the walls closing in, heading into a narrow crevice.
If we make the assumption that the high, medium, and low intensity images are not fun activities for you – they’re actually metaphors describing negative emotions – let’s see how we can transform them into something positive.
Between A Rock and A Hard Place: Extreme Intensity Emotions
Most often, when we hear between a rock and a hard place, we probably imagine this extreme intensity illustration:
- You’re squished
- You can’t move
- You’re not happy
- You’re distressed
While the image could certainly be put under high intensity, I’ve chosen extreme intensity because of the look on the person and the sweat that’s pouring off of them. Let’s go through the process.
You’ve just said that you’re between a rock and a hard place, and you’re locating the distress all throughout your body. You’re feeling tense everywhere with extreme intensity emotions. You’re going to need to take a timeout somewhere, a private space where you can work through your emotions safely. Low intensity or medium intensity emotions, you could probably transform them on the fly, at least temporarily. But for extreme intensity, you’re really going to want to take some time.
Having said that, this particular illustration might be a simple transformation. That’s because everything in your image means something, and in this particular case, it was a hand-drawn illustration.
Between A Rock and A Hard Place: Transformation Example
The first question to ask yourself whose hand is it? Is it you that drew yourself into a rock and a hard place, or did somebody else put you there? That will give you insight into how you might need to transform the situation in reality. But for the illustration, I see one of two simple options.
- First, you can imagine the sketch going in reverse so that you are actually undoing the drawing.
- Second, you can imagine that it’s your hand erasing the drawing.
- If the healthiest choice for you feels like reversing the drawing so it never existed, then you’re starting with a blank slate, something that’s never been written on before.
- If your healthiest transformation is to erase the drawing, then that means you’re starting with a clean slate: You’re cleaning up your emotions, your transforming your negative emotions, but you still need to deal with the situation.
Between A Rock and A Hard Place: Who's In Control?
Both of those transformations speak to you being in control and able to get yourself out from between a rock and a hard place. If your transformation has that hand – and that hand not being you – still being in charge, that would speak more to somebody else having put you in that situation, and you’re needing their assistance to get out. Alternatively, it could be a situation that you need to walk away from that you realize this person is always putting you in predicaments that you don’t need to be a part of.
Now That You're Free, What's Your Next Step?
If your transformations have worked, and you’re feeling the stress is released enough that you can go back and deal with the situation, then ask yourself, what’s your next real world step that you need to take to move on in a healthy direction?
If your transformation has worked a little bit, but there’s still stress or tension in your body, look for another metaphor. Maybe it’s shifted from between a rock and a hard place to simply feeling stuck. Then work with the imagery that comes up with that metaphor. Keep going through transformations until your body feels relaxed and you know you can make healthy decisions.
Between A Rock and A Hard Place: Closing
I’ve just presented four different scenes that represent four different intensities of emotion, but there’s another aspect you can look at as well. Once you describe your scene, it can also tell you how complex your emotions or the situation is.
Our extreme intensity image: If that represents our emotions, there’s no complexity at all to it. It’s one person squished in the rocks. Potential complexity comes with the hand that was drawing it if it wasn’t yours.
For the high intensity image, the complexity comes from the waterfall. And that complexity increases whether that waterfall represents one person or a group of people. Complexity [also] comes from the ladder, and complexity comes from the various rocks in the narrow path you have to climb out of. So this could be a high to extreme complexity situation that you have to manoeuvre.
In the medium intensity image, the complexity is probably in that medium zone: There doesn’t seem to be anything else but the rocks, and there is a way out. When I’m in there, I’m feeling like I’m alone, so complexity would be low [unless I needed assistance to get out].
And in the low intensity image, that’s probably a higher complexity. You can divide your complexity into low, medium, high, and extreme: Because the rocks are jagged; because it’s one path with rocks on it; because you’re going into a cave that you can’t see anything – that would increase the complexity.
The reason complexity can matter for you is it helps you to see how many different issues, how many different people, are involved in the situation that you need to transform.
So as you transform your image – you transform one aspect – it might actually represent a way for you to transform one particular aspect of your situation. For between a rock and a hard place, I’ve given you four examples of imagery.
Take a breath yourself when you’re feeling emotions. Locate the stress or tension in your body. Describe your metaphor as detailed as you can, and Transform that imagery to get yourself out from being between a rock and a hard place.
I respectfully acknowledge that this video was recorded on the traditional territory of Mi’kmaq people.
For more information on transforming negative emotions with Locate, Describe & Transform™ – LDT™ – go to theEATprogram.com.