Imagine a fierce protector…
Imagine having a powerful creature or a being that’s on your side. Someone or something who’s dedicated to your protection, whatever that looks like moment to moment. A fierce advocate, a gentle comfort, a wily and inventive overcomer of obstacles. An all knowing elf, or a giant talking bear, or a bird that can carry you vast distances. A superhero. How might that feel? What do you notice in your body as you imagine how that might be, to have something like that on your side?
Imagination is sometimes dismissed as childish or frivolous (it’s ‘just’ your imagination), but it’s one of the most powerful tools we have. Before we can create anything, we have to imagine it, from something as simple as a sandwich to something as complex as a skyscraper. Everything we create is born from our imagination. Imagination is what shapes our world - the stories we tell about ourselves and our place in the world, the meaning we make from the things we experience - imagination is the glue that holds us together.
And it can have a powerful impact on how we feel.
Here’s an experiment to illustrate that:
Imagine stepping into a room full of paranoid conspiracy theorists. They all turn to look at you as you enter the room. How does your body feel?
And now leave that room, and imagine stepping into a different room, full of monks engaged in loving kindness meditation. One monk looks up and smiles at you. How does that feel?
Did they feel different? If so, you just changed how your body felt using nothing but the power of your imagination.
How else could you use it? Back to where we began - what if you could create a powerful and competent protector you could rely on to be there when you needed. What if you could go back in time to experiences when it would have been really good to have a giant weasel wearing a woollen hat with a bobble on the top to help you weasel out of a sticky situation, and rewrite that part of your history?
Or a time when you were feeling lonely in life - what if you could go back and give yourself a benevolent mama bear who didn’t talk much but was warm and kind and had the kind of presence that made everything feel like it’d be okay?
It’s about now the dismissive inner voice sometimes kicks up. It’s just your imagination. Nothing really changed. You were still alone, there’s no such thing as a weasel in a bobble hat.
But…
It FEELS different. The memory feels warmer. Perhaps there’s a sense of power that comes from imagining now something we didn’t get then, and giving ourselves those things. Perhaps some of the fear dissipates. Perhaps we feel less alone if we find ourselves in lonely times again in the future.
Might that be worth something?
If this is tickling your curiosity and you’d like to be guided through an experience of finding a protector of your own, perhaps you’d like to come along to the next Art Group run by my good friend and fellow Art Therapist Rose and I. We’d love to have you with us - more details here.