Find out how “a pawn to technology” metaphor reveals your current emotions, and get tips on transforming this feeling into positive action.
Overview of The "Pawn" Metaphor
NOTE: The introduction is the same for each of the four intensities of the Pawn Metaphor. If you have already read it, you may want to click to skip.
You’ve just described yourself as a pawn, but what imagery comes to mind when you say that?
Four Emotion Intensities with Four Pawn Metaphor Images
- Are you in a battle, a war where somebody is sacrificing you, like in this extreme intensity video?
- Maybe you feel it’s more politics – like in the high intensity video, where the king crashes down, and all the pawns go flying – that you don’t really have any power; you don’t have a say.
- Maybe it’s more corporate, like in the medium intensity video – you feel like you’re a pawn in the workplace and don’t have a voice.
- Or maybe you feel like a pawn in this low intensity video: You’re making moves based on technology, based on the information you’re receiving, but in reality, technology has algorithms that are only giving you part of the story.
Emotions Awareness & Transformation™
Hello, my name is Karen, and this series grows out of my book, 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 new imagery, always looking at it from four different intensities: extreme, high, medium, and low. This week, we’re working with the metaphor, feeling like a pawn.
A Pawn To Technology: Low Intensity Emotions
The imagery I’ve chosen for the low intensity emotions could honestly be extreme intensity, and I’ll explain why. We see a person with the game goggles on, playing a game of chess against the digital world. It could be extreme intensity because you’re actually being controlled by that world.
We see him moving his hand as he moves the playing piece that doesn’t even exist in the real world. And while he’s feeling a sense of connection to something or someone, an outsider looking at him is just see somebody being controlled. While he might be moving a power figure on the chess board – a king or queen – he might also just be a pawn to technology.
So you’ve come up with the metaphor – you’re feeling like a pawn – and you’ve come up with this image. That means something’s not feeling quite healthy for you.
It’s low intensity, so you’re keeping things at bay. You just want to make sure it stays that way. Unlike the extreme intensity with its historic image, the low intensity imagery speaks to something extremely modern. And because you’re keeping things at bay, it’s something that might be coming into your life, but isn’t necessarily present in this moment.
A Pawn To Technology: Transformation Example
For me, it’s a simple transformation: I take off the goggles. I might even relate this to another metaphor of taking off the rose-coloured glasses. I want to see clearly, in the present day, what my issues are, what potential danger is coming my way, and what I need to address.
I also take this imagery as a warning that I could be a pawn to technology; I could focus too much on the technical world and the good things that it can bring me, and not focus on real life.
Living In the Present: No Longer A Pawn
It could speak to:
- using your phone too much instead of talking to the people around you
- taking photos of your kids instead of playing with your kids – that sort of thing.
When I imagine taking off the goggles and putting them down, I don’t imagine throwing them out. I don’t imagine putting them far away, locking them in a closet. I simply put them down beside me.
I’m not trying to hold back technology; I just want to make sure that I’m living in the present world as well.
At the end of my transformation, I stand up; I walk into another room; and, because it’s at home, I spend time with my family.
Your transformations can be completely different. Follow your transformations to keep them healthy in your body. It may well be that you keep on playing the game.
A Pawn: Closing
If you’ve described yourself as feeling like a pawn, then you’re not feeling healthy in the relationship that you’re in. So describe your imagery: Make it as detailed as possible. And as you start to transform your imagery, you’ll get a sense of what your real world step is that you can take to remove yourself from that powerless position.
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 Locate, Describe & Transform™ process, check out theEATprogram.com.