Imagine More

Transcript

I’d like to talk about imagining more.

Sometimes I like to ask people these questions, for example let’s say someone is getting very angry about someone on the internet like having an argument with them or someone in their family or circle of friends really gets the goat, they really get annoyed about these conversations.

They feel maybe like someone is diminishing them or disrespecting them. They have this perception of the situation and of course they get angry, annoyed and frustrated in these situations or a combination of these emotions and I say to them how about this, what is the ideal emotion that you could feel in that situation.

Maybe you could feel calm, or joy or delight, or amusement or good humor. How would you ideally feel in that situation?

And they say well I don’t know if I could ever feel joy or delight in that situation, that is out of the question. Maybe I could feel calm and that’s what will happen a lot of the time because people aren’t used to imagining.

They aren’t used to exercising their imagination about different situations. This is what we call in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy it’s called cognitive flexibility. The ability to imagine or start to think about things in a different way, look at things from a different perspective. When we start to exercise this cognitive flexibility it starts to loosen us up and enable us to look at situations differently, perhaps in multiple ways.

Perhaps in multiple ways at the same time and as a result we can get better results in our life because we have more access to more tools. So if I say “let’s try it, let’s imagine even though it seems impossible. Even though it seems so improbable that you can have someone arguing with you and you’re actually delighted at the conversation. What would that feel like if it did happen? What might it look like? What might you be thinking in that situation?”

There’s a classic problem in human beings that I’ve noticed many times and mentioned on this podcast auto-exigence, the feeling of obligation. To be demanding of oneself.

So what happens people believe that they need to maintain the habit or thought pattern and be demanding of themselves because it helps them be productive.

I ask them what does it look like to be productive without being hard on yourself? People will be very resistant to that idea but if you ask the question you start to find maybe there is a way to do that.

You close your eyes for five minutes and you start to imagine the scenario. What might that be like? What might that be like? What possibilities might be available to you if you just let go of your preconceptions and let go of what you thought you were.

Let go of what you thought had to be possible because we are highly flexible, adaptable. In fact that’s one of the greatest strengths of human beings is we can adapt to new situations.

We do have neuroplasticity where we can develop new habits, new thoughts and new ways of being. New personalities and new identities. We can be more than in fact than we ever imagined. More than we ever thought possible and it begins with our imagination with our thoughts.

Our thoughts become our habits, habits become our personality. Personality becomes destiny.

Maybe your destiny is entirely open if you just begin to think a little differently and imagine more. Imagine that you could have it all and be happy and productive. That you could face confrontation or criticism with a smile or with joy. That you could be more in this world.

Imagine more.

Thank you for examining your assumptions. Thank you for making your assumptions conscious so you could begin to ask these questions and begin to ask how you can at once be happy and productive and fulfilled to have those things that at once seemed contradictory to you but now seem that they in fact go together so well.