The pawns of the world don’t appear to have much power. But when a leader shouts out nonsense and abuse, you absolutely hold the power to turn off the sound.
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.
The Pawns: High Intensity Emotions
For the high intensity imagery. I’ve picked a king crashing down on a chessboard, throwing all the pawns out of place. This speaks to me about a political situation, where the leader is not really paying attention to the needs of the people. I’m one of the people, and we’re all feeling like pawns.
The focus here is:
- How can you stay healthy when you don’t have control?
- And when the control somebody else has is being abused, what’s your healthiest transformation?
Because how you transform this image will give you insights into how you have healthy emotions, and take healthy actions going forward.
The Pawns: Transformation Example
One possibility for transforming this image is for all of the pawns to gather together and take over the king. That doesn’t feel like a healthy transformation for me, but interestingly, it doesn’t feel unhealthy because it’s not possible; it feels unhealthy because I can’t be bothered.
I’m not talking about apathy and not caring. I’m talking about not giving it more attention than it deserves. This person might be in control, but there’s not going to be anything that I can do – individually or as part of this group of pawns – to stop it. So I need to take healthy action to protect myself.
Two options come to mind:
- Stand on squares that are further away from where this king can impact.
- Get off the game board altogether.
For me, I feel the healthiest action is to stand by, but stay further away. That means there’s no apathy of walking away – I’m nearby for when things change and I can do something about it – and I’m emotionally safe. I’m not trying to be too close to a power that’s being abusive, and I can’t do anything about it, anyway.
Transforming The Pawns: The Power Is In Your Hands
So how do I translate into the real world?
- I stop reading the news so much.
- I don’t look at what’s the news of the day, which is always looking for the worst possible story.
- And I stay in more of a protected bubble.
I’m not ignoring the world, I’m just not grabbing on to the fake news; the popular statements, left or right; the doomsday types of clickbait that wants to keep us in a place of dread.
With my transformation complete, with knowing my next steps – don’t keep searching all of the social media and the news – then I feel healthy, and I’m ready to get on with my day.
Maybe Your Pawns Rise Up
You might feel completely different with this image. You might interpret the pawns as actually having power, and the ability to group together under the king, so that it can’t crash down onto the chessboard.
If that’s the case, work with your transformation. And from that transformation, you’ll know your next real world steps, which would probably include getting together as a group and making a statement for change.
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.