It’s ancient history; nevertheless, you remain a pawn to someone else’s emotions. How might you transform your own emotions and fade out of the scene?
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: Extreme Intensity Emotions
In the extreme intensity video, remember, we’re talking metaphor, we’re not talking reality, so you’re not actually a soldier. You could be a soldier, but we’re not talking about real war: We’re talking about metaphor.
Somewhere in your life, if you relate to this video, you feel like a pawn [in a way] that’s going to be very costly for you. You’re feeling like you’re at the front of the line. You have absolutely no control. You’re doing what you’re told to do.
Your starting place is the metaphor. You feel like a pawn and you’re feeling this really extreme emotion inside of you. It’s taking over your body; it’s almost explosive. When asked, you come up with this image.
- The first thing it tells me is your problem is historic; otherwise, you’d have come up with modern warfare imagery.
- The next thing I notice is you’re not alone.
Now ask yourself, is that a positive or a negative?
- Are you part of a group movement that you can’t get out of?
- Or are you part of a group that could rise up and revolt?
Which feels healthiest in your body? Maybe there’s a third option:
- It’s a large enough group that you can walk away.
- Stop being in battle mode.
- Stop being somebody else’s pawn, and just leave the group – nobody’s going to notice.
Your transformations – the ones that feel healthy in your body – will end up directing you to what your real world solution will be in this situation.
Stop Being A Pawn In Someone Else's War: Transformation Example
If this is my metaphor, I’m actually drawn to dissolving myself and removing myself entirely, recognizing that I won’t be missed.
That tells me that I’m carrying some sort of an energy from an historic battle that I have no place in. I don’t want to be a pawn in somebody else’s war, and so I just dissolve myself.
That transformation feels completely healthy for me, and I’m relieved. But what does that mean, taking it out into the real world? How does my situation change?
A Pawn That Nobody Will Miss
And what I realize right away, is nobody’s even going to notice that I’ve stopped being a pawn in their game. I’ve kept myself there because it’s historic, because probably it has something to do with family, or something that I feel loyal to. But nobody’s going to miss me being gone.
So in my real world transformation, even though this has been extreme intensity, I don’t need to continue, and it’s not going to negatively harm any of my connections that I want to keep going forward.
Are You A More Entwined Pawn?
If your transformation can’t happen, you might be more entwined as a pawn. But you see, when I look at this image, I don’t see anybody tangled up. So I’m not feeling that sense of being entwined. I’m feeling like individuals going forward, each with their own ability to move on their own.
If that doesn’t speak to you:
- Locate the emotion in your body.
- Maybe it’s in your feet, kicking up all that dust.
- Maybe it’s in the hands and arms, carrying the armour.
- Maybe it’s in your face, not able to breathe with the mask on.
- Wherever it is located, describe the specifics for you, and
- transform it in a way that you can now make your next best decision.
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.