What do you think when you hear “its just your imagination”?
I believed that my imagination was something to be left behind in childhood - because my teachers told me to stop day dreaming and my parents told me that it was “just my imagination”. This gave me the belief that imagination was not important, that it could be used for my “hobbies” but didn’t have a practical place in “real life”.
Enter Albert Einstein, who said: “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. Imagination will take you everywhere, and is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand." This is the quote that got me interested in exploring how the way we use our imagination affects the life we live.
Science Supports Your Imagination
You know when you get scared or cry in a movie - your feelings are coming directly from your imagination. You are not in that movie, so the only thing that makes you feel it is your imagination. Are you worrying about something that hasn’t happened? It is in your imagination only. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! (If you ever watched The Bob Newhart Show please imagine him saying this to you!)
Use your imagination to create your desires rather than worry about your life. Feel into your desired life. Direct your imagination several times each day to your desires and how they feel (not how they will feel, how they do feel as if you are there right now). Remember what it was like to imagine what you saw in the shapes of the clouds or the northern lights? Do more of this to activate your imagination.
And here is some science to help you picture this in action: You have a bundle of nerves in your brainstem called the Reticular Activating System, which take instructions from your conscious mind, and passes them on to your subconscious mind. This biological function, takes what you spend the most time focusing upon into your subconscious mind.
The RAS is the reason you learn a new word and then start hearing it everywhere. It is why when I told my friends and family I was moving to Indonesia, they started seeing news about Indonesia all the time. Your RAS creates a filter for what you focus on, and shows you the pieces that are important to you. All of this happens without you noticing, as it seeks information that validates your beliefs. It filters the world through the limitations you give it, and your beliefs shape those limitations. If you think you are bad at math, you probably will be. Your RAS is helping you see what you want to see and in doing so, it influences your actions. Direct your imagination to prepare your RAS for the kind of journey that you will have while achieving your desires. Make it enjoyable!
You are always creating your future
The RAS activity fuels both the law of vibration and the law of attraction to help you create your life. You are influencing the greater system of life around you with your imagination. Before I understood this, I believed life just happened to me. Now I understand that I am the creator of my life. When I imagine that everyone has a beautiful soul hidden in their heart, waiting to be seen, the things that used to hurt me or annoy me have much less impact. My imagination helps raise the vibration between us - it doesn’t change them - but it changes my experience of them.
You are always creating your future. You bring it forth through what you imagine, what you think, and what you feel. When you set your intention and imagine it with feeling you are sending your Reticular Activating System a message that you are “expecting” this to happen, and there is absolutely no room for uncertainty.
So do it. Imagine as often as possible each day the life you wish to lead, the health you wish to have, and the experiences you desire. When you see, feel or hear guidance that feels light and right take the small steps that appear to you. When you are actively co creating with the universe, it will show you each step. You don’t have to know how you are getting your desires but you do have to know what you desire, and why you desire it.
Your Reticular Activating System (RAS) can be trained. It’s about visualizing what you want with your imagination and getting into how it feels. Take time each day to train your RAS to get what you want:
Think of your desired outcome or a situation that you would like to influence.
Imagine yourself inside of this experience, the situation, and along the path to achieving your desire.
Are there other people involved? Imagine the kinds of interactions that you would like to have with them. Are you having some fun, learning something new, creating something together, being in a loving relationship?
Bring it to life with your imagination. What are you seeing and what are you feeling?Include the the sounds, conversations and details of your desires. Replay it often, especially as you go to sleep every night.
Tune yourself to focus and attract the things that matter to you. Keep your dreams at the forefront of your RAS. You can do this by writing them down and reading them out loud to yourself, imagining the feeling of having them as if you already have them, or recording yourself speaking about all your desires as if you already have them. Start with the sentence “I am so happy and grateful now that I am / have / do ____” to remind yourself daily about what matters!
Journaling is a great way to bring your dreams to the forefront of your imagination. Write about how it feels to live the life you desire. Write lists. Read them. Repeat.
XO
Celia