You’re leaning toward someone else’s opinions. Is it really what you believe, or are you being pulled by strings you aren’t aware of? It’s time to find out.
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.
Overview of The Emotions Metaphor "The Leaning Tower"
NOTE: The introduction is the same for each of the four intensities of the The Leaning Tower 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, always looking at it at four levels of emotional intensity: Extreme; High; Medium; and Low.
If you want more information on the process I use, you can check out the short overview video.
This week’s metaphor is THE LEANING TOWER.
Four Emotion Intensities with Four Leaning Tower of Pisa Images
I’m focusing on the Leaning Tower of Pisa, looking specifically about things that you might be leaning toward or leaning away from, and how stable you are. We’re working with four different views of the same tower, and from four different distances.
- You are the tower, but in extreme intensity, your perspective is right up beside it. So your perspective might be leaning one way or another because you don’t have a big picture.
- In high intensity, there’s a bit more space. You’re seeing yourself a bit more objectively, and you’re very clearly seeing the lean that exists in your thinking or in your behaviours.
- In medium intensity, we have a more distant view still, and you can’t quite see the lean from a distance. It doesn’t seem like it’s quite so bad whatever direction you’re leaning in.
- From low intensity, there barely seems to be any lean at all, and you have a pretty faraway view of yourself and your circumstances to the emotional intensity.
The Complexity Cards
We add a complexity card, so
- The extreme intensity comes with a complexity of six.
- The high intensity comes with the complexity of seven.
- The medium intensity comes with the complexity of eight.
- The low intensity comes with the complexity of six.
Pinocchio: The Character from The Whimsical Tarot Deck
The randomly chosen whimsical tarot card is the Devil, and this is a fairy tale, Pinocchio, and the puppet master who’s controlling Pinocchio’s strings. Pinocchio is a living, breathing puppet made from wood that wants to become a real child. He often gets carried away by bad company. He’s prone to lying, and when he lies, his nose becomes longer. Pinocchio wants to have fun and is constantly rejecting any sense of responsibility.
So the puppet master controls the strings that move Pinocchio, and the Devil in tarot cards represents the limits we set for ourselves: the chains that we bind ourselves with; the mental weapons we use against ourselves to keep from getting ahead. So we’re basically holding ourselves hostage. We’re refusing to let go of fear. We’re holding on to desires. We’re showing a lack of initiative.
So we’re the puppet masters of ourselves. We’re the ones keeping our strings attached to limitation. So as we explore the scenes and the complexity cards, ask yourself, what have you bound yourself to? What are you leaning toward or leaning away from out of fear or negative emotions? And what’s the healthiest way to free yourself?
Leaning Toward: Medium Intensity Emotions
The video I’ve chosen for medium intensity is a bit further back, and we can see the large structure next to the leaning tower. The tower doesn’t seem to be leaning so much from the foundation as it does curve upward as you get closer to the top.
When I see this video right beside the puppet strings card, it really feels to me like the tower is being controlled by the larger building.
The high complexity is shown, in some ways, by the crowds milling around, but it also can represent the long term attachment between the tower and the other structure, and the history that you have to deal with. In the situation you want to Locate, Describe & Transform™ your emotions, all within your body.
If this metaphor speaks to you, go with what feels right to you. I’ll just be giving you one example for me.
Transformation Example
When I look at this imagery, I’m leaning toward this larger building, and that’s the puppet strings that need to be cut. But unlike the high intensity video, I don’t feel that I’m rooted in the wrong place and I need to move away. I feel that I just need to stand on my own independently, without leaning toward this other traditional structure.
- I would locate the biggest tension in my stomach.
- I would describe it as stomach knots, but those knots actually look like wires that are pulling me at the top of the tower toward this traditional structure.
As I talk about that, I’m actually feeling like there’s somebody standing at the top of that traditional structure and pulling me toward them. They, or that issue, represents the puppet master controlling me. Somebody or something is trying to have me lean toward their beliefs, their values, their way of doing things, instead of freeing myself.
You can liken this, if it was in a personal situation, to parents who have specific ideas for what their child might want to do, or you could see it as you are the person holding yourself back, convincing yourself that you should be doing something more traditionally or more the way somebody else likes it done, rather than pick a new direction or stand on your own.
For my transformation: I’ve located it in my stomach; I’ve described it as cables. To transform it, I have two options: cut the cables; or release the cable from me, because there’s a hook there. And I’m going to choose that option. I just want to simply unhook myself.
So I unhook the cable – it’s not so tense that I can’t do that. I let go of the hook, and I let it gently fall to the ground.
I’m only seeing one cable: that did the trick for me. My emotions are feeling better, and I’m feeling that I am going to gradually stand up on my own.
The fact that I don’t want to move away says I still want association with this entity, this person, this group, this home, but I want my own independence within it.
In a nutshell, I don’t need to change my life that drastically. I just need to cut the ties that are being controlled by this part of my past.
Closing
I’m using the Leaning Tower of Pisa for all emotional intensities; your imagery could be completely different. If you find yourself leaning towards something or leaning away from something, look to:
- Locate in your body where your strongest emotion is.
- Describe it with your own imagery
- Transform that imagery so that you can straighten out that lean and make your healthiest decisions.