“Balancing your life” may be an overworked phrase. But are you so focused on financial stability that you’re missing out on the adventure of living?
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 Act: Medium Intensity Emotions
In this image for medium intensity, we see a child walking across moving logs. They’re only a couple of feet off the ground, and it’s a balancing act where there’s nothing to hang on to.
I actually feel more stressed imagining myself in this situation than I do in the high intensity, walking across a canyon! And that’s because, for my personality, this feels like I’m stuck, that I’m pretending I’m having an adventure when I’m not quite having an adventure.
Now, that’s not the intent of the image. The intent is that it’s medium intensity because you are doing a balancing act, but it’s safe if you fall; you’re not in any danger. It’s low complexity, which means you don’t even have a lot of issues that you have to try and bring into balance.
Start Balancing Your Life If You're Feeling the Pressure
If I’m transforming this emotion based on this imagery, I’m feeling it in my gut; I’m also feeling a pressure in my chest. But mostly I’m just feeling really stressed, a lot of tension in my stomach that says: I’m doing the wrong thing; I’m not going in the right direction; I’m not getting enough adventure; I don’t have enough balance in my life where finance is only a part of that balance.
LDT™: Locate, Describe & Transform™
Your interpretation could be completely different:
- Locate it in your body where you’re feeling the emotion.
- The description is what we’re looking at right now: logs that can move just a little bit that far off the ground.
- What’s your healthiest transformation?
Maybe for you, it’s to imagine continuing the walk and getting off the logs. For me, it’s to sit down right where I am. Take the time to breathe, get my feet on the ground, and focus on what I really want to be doing.
Balancing Your Life: Transformation Example
The imagery, for me, speaks to a pretend adventure: I want a real adventure. And I want to stop pretending that this limited adventure is all that I want.
So in my case, seeing this image – when I chose it, I have to tell you I didn’t feel this energy at all but now that I’m looking at it, and where I am at this point as I’m doing the video – I want to stop pretending that I’ve reached my goal, that I’m having all the fun that I want.
I’m going to sit down right in the middle of the walk across the logs and say, “No, I don’t want to play this game anymore. What do I need to do to make sure I can have bigger adventures?”
Just the very act of imagining myself sitting down has relaxed me. It’s telling me I’m paying attention to what my needs and desires are, and I’m going to make a plan to help it come true.
Obviously, as I keep saying, your transformations, your emotions, are going to be completely different from mine. In this case, it might even bring up some positive images – or negatives – of you being a child in school. If that’s the case, Locate, Describe & Transform™ those emotions, so that you can now take your healthiest steps to bring your life, especially your financial life, into balance.
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.