The local lighthouse doesn’t stand in isolation; its daily presence offers support and comfort to its community. Here’s what you can do to be that support.
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.
The Local Lighthouse: Low Intensity Emotions
In this low intensity image, I’ve selected a lighthouse that is surrounded by buildings, and has a clean pathway to farmland and other buildings and neighbours behind it. There’s no sense of isolation here. It’s high up on the rocks. Right now, it’s calm water, but you can see by the dark coloured rocks that the water can crash pretty high. Nonetheless, the lighthouse stays safe and is not in danger of having crashing waves come over it.
It’s a very tranquil scene. There’s a beach area, and while there is definitely danger from the rocks, the lighthouse itself – and in this metaphor, we are the lighthouse – is removed from it. It’s keeping all of the negativity, the fears and negative emotions at bay.
Local Lighthouse Complexities
It’s a medium complexity situation. And intuitively when I look at this image, I imagine the complexity stems from shared space with the farm around it, with the neighbours, with the access to the beach, and that sort of thing. That comes from my own history, having lived in Nova Scotia, and the issues surrounding private property versus access to public lighthouses and so forth. Your interpretation is likely going to be completely different.
Keeping An Eye on the Horizon
But as it stands, you are that lighthouse. You’re not alone, and there’s an opportunity. The Ace of Pentacles represents that new potential for financial success – new job, new home, new relationships – but something that’s real-world grounded. Low intensity, because you’re keeping things at bay, because it may not even involve you.
Unlike the extreme intensity that’s wrapped up and the high intensity that’s a direct impact on you, low intensity is something that’s going on far away from you. You know, if you stretched your arm out as far as it can go with your hand at a stop sign, it’s not approached you yet. You’re doing a good job of keeping an eye on things while it’s away from you.
Transformation Example
Low intensity emotions might be something that you just want to keep track of, but not necessarily have to transform. And in this particular situation, I’m not feeling any strong negative emotions that I need to transform. I’m feeling a sense of alertness or awareness in being that lighthouse. So my goal is to stand strong, to be stable, and to be aware of my moods or how my emotions might shift, so that I can transform them when they happen and stay positively active instead of negatively reactive.
The Local Lighthouse: Cleansed By A Gentle Rain
But if this lighthouse in particular speaks to you and the metaphor speaks to you, you might have a completely different sense of the emotions that you’re feeling. If you’re feeling a low intensity emotion here, one transformation could be to imagine rain, and having clean rain come down and just wash the emotions off of you. You might even imagine opening your doors and letting that rain rinse everything inside and just make you feel clean and healthy.
A Helping Hand
Because the lighthouse as a metaphor means, in some ways, being there for others, when we’re talking about the low intensity imagery, we might be looking to how your neighbours may need help, and how maybe you don’t just stand there waiting for them to ask, but can reach out and offer assistance.
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.