Published by Bert Meert on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 |
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Between birth and death, all we have ever created and believed in, is the result of using our imagination. So if everything is made up, you may just as well learn a little something about it and begin to put it to good use.
The Mental Landscape.
At the moment, almost every one of us is not satisfied with state one or more aspects of our lives are in. But it could be worse. You could also feel completely stuck, and not see a way out of your current situation at all. Luckily, this is where your imagination makes all the difference. It allows you to redefine your reality as you currently know it, regardless of the way it is.
To understand your powers of imagination better, think of your mind as a vast and infinite landscape. You can't see its edges because there aren't any. What you do see in that landscape, is a fence or an enclosure. The enclosure seals off a tiny section of the entire landscape. That small piece represents your current knowledge of the world and encapsulates everything your are currently aware off. What lies outside the enclosure, is possibilities. You cannot escape the landscape, but you can do something with the enclosure inside the landscape. You can make it wider, by increasing your knowledge, or you can move it, by emerging yourself in new experiences.
When you "feel stuck", it means you're giving away your power to the idea that you can't do anything with the fence. It also means you're convincing yourself that you are destined to live your current life over and over again, because you have no control. It also means you have resorted to the idea that if something can change, it will have to come from outside yourself, from outside the fence. You're basically in a state in which you believe that the outcome of your life is determined by luck.
But you don't really believe that's true, do you?
The truth is, you can always shift the fence and therefore decide what you wish to experience in this life. Your imagination is simply there to remind you of what lies beyond the enclosure. It brings to your attention that there is an infinite amount of options out there and that you don't have to wait for other people to create opportunities for you. You have the ability to move the fence how you please and hereby alter your life. In other words, you can create those opportunities yourself.
What you know at the moment is the content of the piece of mental landscape you have conquered in the past. So if you're tired of experiencing the same things, then challenge yourself. Is your current way of living all there really is? Is it the only solution to your problem? Or is it the only solution you can come up with, right now?
Don't spend too much time wandering around on the same patch of mental landscape over and over again, unless you want your life to become predictable, boring, unfulfilling and deprived of purpose.
Towards Reality.
I often ask myself, "what would a different life feel like for me?" The more I do this, the more change seems to creep into my life. By doing this regularly, I continue to point my focus, my imagination, towards what I want to experience, instead of what I don't want. And by being very specific, the target I'm trying to hit has become more and more defined.
Most people however don't use this mindset. They focus on what they don't want. They imagine the worst and therefore get the worst. Now, what if those people were to imagine the best and condition themselves to think of nothing else?
So why do we primarily focus on what we don't want? Does repeating it truly make a difference? Obviously, the answer is no. The opposite is true, we should remind ourselves of what we want, until we can't remember the alternative: the state of mind we are trying to free ourselves from.
There is however a valid explanation for this type of behavior. When it comes to achieving our dreams, we are often discouraged by the massive amount of action and discipline it requires to attain what we want. We would love to stand on top of the mountain, but we don't want to climb it. So most of the time, we just settle for the idea, and not for the actual thing. Or we decide to fight against what we don't want, because then we don't have to go through the process of making our dreams a reality.
So what makes the difference, is imagining how we can achieve our goals, instead of eternally envisioning the goal itself. Think about this for a moment: when was the last time you decided to pile up a bunch of options in front of you and decided to pick out a few that have the potential to make a difference? Options you can believe in.
Imagination can only give you the escape routes, never the actual results. So don't just use your imagination to picture what you want, also use it consistently to imagine solutions as to how something can become a reality.
Everything Can Be Anything.
Your perspective determines what you believe to be true about what you experience on a day to day basis. For example, think about the famous Rorschach test. During this test, you are presented with a big blob of ink on a piece of paper and you are asked: "what do you see?" There is not one true answer to the question, but the answer you give will be affected by your past experiences and it will reveal how you perceive the blob of ink. It tells you how you experience this life and how you label, not only things, but also yourself. In truth however, you're not the label you assign to yourself. You are not what you did in the past because tomorrow you can change your mind about who you are and grow into somebody completely different.
Your real identity is formless and undefined. The fact that your default shape has no identity of its own, is one of the most beautiful gifts you have been given. Instead of being defined, you can do with your body and mind as you please. Because of that, you are either at the mercy or at the good will of your own imagination. The formless shape of yourself is also what forces you to act responsibly. You cannot allow yourself to not take full responsibility for who you are, because in order to be happy, you always have to learn to master the shape you are in.
So are you the person you imagined you should be? What do you want to change, without thinking about the fact that you may or may not be able to change it right away? Do you have a notion of a different you in mind? Are you consciously reshaping yourself into the person you want to be?
When the answer is no and you feel dissatisfied about your life, then your imagination simply needs an upgrade. If you can imagine a different you, then you can enable a new vision of yourself to become a reality. I always consider my thoughts about myself to be like a blueprint. And my imagination can reshape that blueprint. Each time I take action in life, that blueprint is used to shape me in reality. That includes how my body looks, what I do, how I behave, what my goals are, everything... Everything is shaped in your mind first in the form of that blueprint. If, for example, you want to become more muscular in reality, you have to see yourself more muscular in your mind first. You have to determine what you want and picture it in your mind's eye. First you transform the mental model of yourself on the inside, then you move on the next step: taking action. Health, happiness, beauty, wealth,... all the good things (and unfortunately also all the bad things) in your life are the result of how you define yourself. How you imagined yourself.
Theory Schmeory... Time For Action!
Now how do you do this? How do you stimulate your ability to imagine change? Where do you start? How do you break the rules of your own mind and begin replacing them with new ones? The following exercise is something I learned from handling databases. I've been dealing with them for about 10 years now and they are fairly basic creatures. There are 3 basic things you can with the information inside a database: add something, remove something OR change something.
Now take a moment to apply these 3 actions to your own life. Ask yourself the following questions:
What would happen if you removed something from your life? A bad habit, a job you hate, a friendship that no longer benefits you...
What would happen if you added something to your life? Start a diet or exercise routine, develop a new interest, meet new people...
What would happen if you changed something you don't want to remove or can't remove? Change your diet, change how you spend money, change the way you interact with others...
Now take a moment for yourself to picture and imagine the results.
There are many things I can think of that I can add to my life at the moment, but I always keep in mind whether or not they will distract me from reaching my current goals or help me to achieve them. If they can help me grow, I will add them. If not, I put it on hold. There are also moments when I feel I should remove something from my life, but eventually come to the conclusion there are still possibilities for growth in it, so a better option is to make changes.
These simple questions are the fuel for your imagination to start kicking in. They question the boundaries you're currently experiencing and allow a purposeful action plan to appear. They can help you to open up to a possible better future for yourself. The only thing that can stop you from experiencing what you imagined during this self-questioning exercise is a lack of discipline and the courage to turn it into a reality.
Don't be fooled by the silent nature of imagination. Learn to master it. It is what enables everything to become real.
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