I love working with visualizations. Personally, I have recently been exploring the imagery of mermaids, unicorns, fairies and the bodhisatva Kuan Yin. In playful ways, thinking about the energies of these magical and powerful beings and looking at the imagery that humanity has developed around these ideas. I recently took an absolutely delicious yoga class with Brooke Smokelin here in Pittsburgh where she guided us through a considerable amount of stretching and opening in the feet and ankles. She suggested in the class that we simply don’t play enough, aren’t curious enough about what we can do and what our bodies can experience. I felt like this was in alignment with my recent play with visualization and magical beasts and beings and deities.
Imagination is an important element of working with the power of mind to heal and inspire. Yet, sometimes it can be so hard as adults to really let go and visualize the magic fully because we get all caught up in what is real vs. imaginary. We fear that if we really let go and get in touch with our capacity to imagine and play with magical ideas and concepts deeply that we might fall into a permanent state of illusion or delusion. How can we be responsible and functioning adults if we let ourselves play with nonsense like that? We give so much power to our thoughts that it can be terrifying to allow ourselves to think freely.
And yet, we create fantasy thoughts all the time that are just as non-real as unicorns and mermaids! For example, you get a voicemail at the end of the day on a Friday from your boss—-Please come to see them first thing on Monday morning. All weekend long you can’t sleep, nothing tastes good, you can’t pay attention to your child’s softball game. You are worried about this meeting. Why would your boss call you? Are you going to be fired? Was it that typo in the report you filed? Did someone else complain? Maybe a client saw that inappropriate meme you posted on your personal Facebook page? No matter what you do, for two days you are completely consumed with worry and fear about what is going to happen on Monday. Then, Monday morning comes and you go to your boss’ office and there are some of your colleagues from an account that you work on and everyone is having doughnuts. Your boss said that she was especially proud of this team and the work that they did on the account and wanted to have a little surprise celebratory gathering to acknowledge the work and a new contract that was being signed that day. You are relieved, but the tension and worry you experienced all weekend make it near impossible to actually enjoy the surprise party and acknowledgment of your work. Basically, your made-up negative narratives made it hard for you to enjoy the present moment.
Our thoughts are just thoughts. No more. No less. Thoughts. When we explore a regular meditation practice, we find that we can connect with the fact of the flood of ideas, feelings, thoughts, narratives, fantasies and more that come and go, one after the other with no end through our mind movement. The mind thinks. Our task in meditation is to relieve ourselves of the illusion that any one of those thoughts is more “real” or more “important” than any other. Just as we can “color” our experiences in this moment with thinking that poisons the well of our experience, as in the example I provided above, we can also “color” our experiences in this moment with visualizations that are positive and magical. What if we only focused on magical and positive things all weekend? Showing up and finding doughnuts would merely support our vision of good. But, if our boss did fire us, we would not have wasted two days getting sick about it and we could respond to the reality of that news with all our energy and an open mind.
I invite you to think about the ways that you may have convinced yourself that being negative or creating fear or worry in your mental mind space movement is the “adult” thing to do or the “realistic” way to think about the world. How can you play a little bit and find some space to be present in this moment? Maybe take a walk in a beautiful natural setting and listen to the sounds of wind and crickets and your own footsteps on the earth. Maybe go and look at some art or dance or listen to music or play some music. Maybe buy a new box of Crayons and see what happens when you sit down and give yourself time to color and draw without judgement. Maybe close your eyes and daydream about unicorns playing and rainbows and mermaids and fairies and compassionate deities bestowing great wishes upon you. There is nothing more real than this present moment and doing what you can to make sure you show up for it 100% with all of your being is an act of courage and authenticity.
Have fun!
Written by Sharon Fennimore, MA a spiritual teacher and healer specializing in working with women around transformation and change, pregnancy, birth and beyond. She offers teacher training programs, meditation instruction and coaching programs for women all over the world.
