As much as I have talked about the limitless power of imagination, it is important to recognize that there is a dark side to how our mind operates. Because the power of imagination is so strong, it can also work in a negative way. When it works in a negative way it can really throw off our peace of mind. The only reason I know this is I realized I’ve been doing this every day for the last month.
Have you ever had an experience where you thought something horrible was going to happen:
You lost 100 bucks and thought you weren’t going to find it (and you did)
You lost your credit card and you thought somebody was going to clean you out (and they didn’t)
You think you’re going to get in trouble for something at work (but you don’t)
You think you might have to move home to your parents house (my current situation)
Let’s say that one of these horrible things actually does happen. It’s almost better if it does because then it only happens once. But, when we play this horrible movie over and over and over in our head, it’s almost worse because it’s as if the event is happening over and over and over again. Our mind has no way of distinguishing between what’s real and what’s imagined. So, if you imagine these circumstances over and over again, it’s almost worse than if it actually happened. Talk about a perfect way to destroy your peace of mind.
I’ll share an example from my personal life. Last year at the end of my first year of business school, I was struggling to find a summer internship that was decent. I was going so crazy, playing these scenarios over and over in my head, that I even wrote a seven page letter to the dean which was quite angry. Sure , the points in it were valid. But my energy was being directed to something very negative. About a week and a half later, I found myself with three job offers, two of which were very high paying and for big brand names. So, basically, I had put myself through 3 weeks of self-torture because of my limitless power of imagination.
If we start to examine our lives, we’ll start to notice patterns of this behavior throughout our lives. If you have trust issues, you will imagine somebody cheating on your over and over and eventually you’ll destroy the relationship. If you have self-esteem issues then you will imagine that people are saying all of the worst things about you, when for all you know they may be talking about how cool you are. If you find almost any limiting beliefs, then most of those will enable you to imagine some of the worst things. Unfortunately, we have grown up in a world where the dare to dream mentality is shut down at an early age. You learn really horrible things like “Don’t get your hopes up, that way when it does happen, you’ll be happy.” This is really just attachment disguised as detachment. To add that it’s lousy advice.
If kids tell their parents something like I’m going to have 10 million dollars when I get older, so many parents respond with limitation rather than encouragement. If you share your dreams with others and your dreams seem lofty, they’ll respond with criticism. The byproduct of that is you imagine failing over and over again. When you start to see this pattern, it’s no wonder we’ve developed this vicious little habit of imagining the things that bring us down over and over again. We’ve learned it from the world around us. If we can break the habit and imagine the good, we bring ourselves to a place of peace, and can reach for the stars.
Tags: energy, imagination, visualization, personal story
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