You are the lighthouse, standing strong in the ice cold winds. How do you warm up your connection to others?
I respectfully acknowledge that this video was recorded on the traditional territory of Mi’kmaq people.
If you’d like more information on the details of the process I use, and how you can transform your own emotions or help others to transform theirs, then please visit theEATprogram.com.
Overview of The Emotions Metaphor "Be The Lighthouse"
NOTE: The introduction is the same for each of the four intensities of the Be The Lighthouse 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.
Check out the short overview to get details of the process I use.
This week’s metaphor is BE THE LIGHTHOUSE.
Four Emotion Intensities with Four Lighthouse Images
- For extreme intensity,we see the waves are crashing over the lighthouse; they’re completely engulfing it.
- For high intensity, we see a lighthouse surrounded by frozen water and icicles. And that can connect us to other metaphors about being left out in the cold or feeling frozen.
- For medium intensity, I’ve picked a nighttime image. It’s a beautiful image of a lighthouse with the light shining, but there’s a sense of isolation to it.
- And for the low intensity image, I’ve chosen a lighthouse that is surrounded by farmland and has extra buildings at the lighthouse itself. It seems to be a nice day, and the lighthouse is up higher on the rocks.
Just as a reminder, even if you connect with the metaphor, the lighthouse, your imagery will possibly look completely different from mine. So you may even consider closing your eyes and keeping your imagery in mind as we work through the transformations.
The Complexity Cards
Next, we’ll look at the complexity cards. I have 11 complexity cards ranging from 0 to 10. They’ve been shuffled and randomly chosen, although in this particular spread it doesn’t look random because three of them are tens. Complexity means there are many people involved, many things that you have to consider in the situation that you have emotions about.
- The extreme intensity card has a complexity of ten.
- In the high intensity, we have a complexity of ten.
- In the medium intensity, we also have a complexity of ten.
- In the low intensity, we have a complexity of four.
The Character from The Whimsical Tarot Deck
In the centre, we have a tarot card. If you’ve watched the process video, you’ll know I do not read tarot cards. I’m using this particular deck, the Whimsical Tarot deck, because it uses characters based on myths and fairy tales. This particular card, the Ace of Pentacles, doesn’t have any link to a fairy tale, it’s just picture of a pentacle on it.
Aces are the start of a cycle and Pentacles are tangible opportunities in the material world: potential for financial success; new job; a home. The Ace of Pentacles asks you to take action and invest effort to grow your opportunity into something real and lasting. So we’ll be taking that point of view as we explore each of the intensities and the imagery that we have.
As we look at these scenes and complexity cards, focus on transforming the emotions that prevent you from taking your next healthy step toward your real world goal.
Be The Lighthouse: High Intensity Emotions
If you’re this lighthouse in the high intensity, extreme complexity video, you may be the one at the back with the larger building, or you may be the one right out at the point. Having two there does suggest metaphorically that you’re not alone: If you reach out, you might be able to get some help.
But this is a winter scene, and if you look, you can see icicles frozen all along the walkway that leads out to both lighthouses. I’ve actually visited this lighthouse on Lake Michigan in the winter time when the water closest to shore was also frozen. So this could be more extreme if the weather kept getting colder.
Nonetheless, we have extreme complexity, and certainly in the image we can see that an icy sidewalk or walkway makes it more difficult to go back and forth, or to have others join us in whatever this real world project is.
The Lighthouse: Out In The Cold But Not Alone
The waves are still crashing, and the water is certainly too deep to be able to get out there. The waves are too strong to take a small boat out there, and the water’s too shallow to take a larger boat out there, so there’s a sense of isolation, even as you have somebody close by that could help you.
So you’re a lighthouse, left out in the cold, freezing, with a partner that you’re connected to, but somewhat out of reach from. How do you transform the negativity, the negative emotions that are holding you back from grabbing on to this new real world opportunity?
Transformation Example
My focus is going to be transforming the image by warming up the scene.
I love the sun. I love the warmth you might love winter and have a completely different healthy transformation. But I’m going to focus on the warmth of the sun. I see myself as the larger lighthouse closer to shore – that’s intuitive, no particular reason. And so I want that sun to surround me.
I consider it like a bright light bubble. But from inside I am that lighthouse. So I’m pointing to my chest right now and imagining the sun starting within me and expanding out as far as possible around me to warm the situation, to melt the ice that’s on the walkway, and to reach as far as, but not yet including, the other lighthouse.
High Intensity Emotions: Invite But Don't Overtake
The reason for that is I want that connecting walkway to be melted, to be warm, to be inviting. I want to be able to reach out to that lighthouse, but I want then, for that lighthouse – that represents another person – I want them to then welcome me in. It’s not for me to say, “oh, you want to be part of this as well.”
You can’t make other people change. So the complexity here is that at least one other person is part of a problem and needs to choose to be part of the solution. So choose which lighthouse you are.
If this metaphor speaks to you, go to your body and locate where you’re feeling the ice cold the most. Make that the starting place for using imagery – I use the sun – to transform that cold and spread the warmth as far as you can.
Closing
I connect with the lighthouse metaphor for several reasons. One, I love lighthouses. I’ve lived on and travelled around coastal areas and visited a lot of lighthouses, so they speak to me. But lighthouses for me also represent those four aspects of who we are: physical component; emotional component; intellectual component; and spiritual component.
- The physical is that rock solid build and the rock formation – sometimes sand – that they’re built into: that solid foundation.
- The emotional is the waves crashing, the winds blowing, the birds flying around them.
- The intellectual is also part physical. The components that have to work together to make the lighthouse work. The inside of the lighthouse.
- And the spiritual is the light that’s flashing around that searching.
So for me, the lighthouse metaphor BE THE LIGHTHOUSE means be strong, be stable, be grounded. And be willing to help others in a way that’s healthy for yourself.
Next week we look at the Leaning Tower of Pisa.