Greetings!
There is an idea about imagination that keeps coming into my mental sight lines. The idea is that we need to experience a positive situation in our minds in order for it to happen in wider reality. This is great news, because there are a lot of positive things I would like to see happen. Yet this approach is not a well-worn path in my mind, so I find myself doing some serious learning about how to properly imagine.
Three consistent themes about imagining are emerging for me:
1) If I can’t imagine success, I won’t succeed. In fact, I’ll probably end up in the very situation I’m most worried about ending up in, since (surprise, surprise) that’s what I’m imagining.
2) For best effect, imagining isn’t so much describing or thinking about something. It is actually believing – even sensing – the desired state as if it is present and completely true.
3) If (okay, when) I have trouble imagining a new and better reality, there are teachings all around me – people, places and things. I need only to take in the lessons and decide to imagine.
I dive into the idea of the power of imagination, applying it in my work in regenerative economics, in a recent blog post: Imagine the future we want. I sometimes find even imagining imagining to be a challenge! Yet there are abundant resources and examples, a sampling of which I explore on the blog.
As a bonus, I can draw from amazing people even if they are far away from me, people who do things that defy – and then reshape – my imagination. For example, I am inspired by the work of South African blogger and distance runner, Karoline Hanks, who recently wrote about sea turtles and plastic in Mission Turtle – Trouble in Paradise. If cleaning up beaches and rescuing turtles aren’t enough to fire up the imagination, take note that shortly after her beach-combing adventure Karoline placed third in the Cape Wrath Ultra, a 400km (249 miles), 8-day race in the north of Scotland. Imagine that!
These and many more imaginative pathways all reach the same conclusion: imagination is an incredible force, and using it to lay the track that leads where we want to go might just get us there.
Yours in connectedness,
Lorraine
