You’ve been leaning away from someone or something. As the pain grows, it may become healthier to cut ties and move on. Here’s how you might start.
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 Away: High Intensity Emotions
In this high intensity image that I’ve chosen for the Leaning Tower of Pisa, we have a bit more distance than we did in the extreme intensity. We can still see a fairly strong lean, made more obvious because the building beside it is upright. Applying this to the real world [situation], I’m seeing myself from a bit of a distance. I’ve given myself a little space to look at myself and my behaviours, and I see that I’m leaning away from something.
So the question I have to ask myself is, am I leaning away from something that is healthy and I should be making myself more upright and bring myself closer to alignment with it? Or am I leaning away because it’s an unhealthy group or person or workplace or situation? And that to cut the puppet strings means to actually walk away?
Transformation Example
Since I can’t tell at a glance – if I could, I wouldn’t be leaning, would I? – then I want to get myself into a quiet place, take a deep breath, relax and feel it in my body. My body wants to keep leaning; your body might want to straighten out. The extreme intensity video, I straightened out; here, I want to keep leaning, but I want to move away from whatever this structure is.
So I’m locating my emotions in my feet. My feet are “planted to the floor,” rooting me there. So what’s preventing me from moving on, cutting the puppet strings and taking this opportunity?
The high complexity, to me, speaks to this other building that is large, old and represents tradition, and I’m trying to move into something that’s slightly different, more modern. That speaks to me more, but it’s in a situation where tradition seems to rule.
So my fear is that if I cut the puppet strings, I won’t have the support to move forward into something that’s more modern, different from tradition.
So:
- LOCATE I’ve located the emotions in my feet.
- DESCRIBE I feel like they’re rooted to the ground. If I look specifically at the metaphor, I’m drawn more to roots than cement.
- TRANSFORM I feel like the transformation that I need, to get rid of the negative emotions and move in the direction I want to, is simply to imagine some root cutter that comes parallel to the ground, and then just severs my roots right across the ground.
[NOTE: Notice how my original metaphor of puppet strings became one of roots. You can expect your own imagery to shift as your understanding of your situation unfolds.]
I’m not feeling the need to dig up my roots; I want my roots gone in this particular situation, and to start fresh without feeling rooted to anything. I want to find my own path, free from anything historic, and plant new roots.
When I get there, I know that my transformation is complete because I feel healthy. I can lift my feet and not feel like they’re stuck to anything, and I feel like I can move on as I take my first steps.
[Now] I feel fear in my chest, that feeling of “oh no, I’m free, now what?” Once I feel that, then it’s time for that next transformation. Stop, take a breath and work on transforming that stress in my heart.
Locate, Describe, & Transform™... and Repeat
So when you’re working with your own emotions, if you’re feeling an extreme intensity, a high intensity, there’s a strong likelihood that you’ll be doing several transformations, one after the other. Sometimes you might have some space in between. Sometimes the imagery might come to you right away, and you just work through one, then the next, then the next, until you get to a place where, in that moment, you feel calm, at your healthiest to make your next best decision.
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.