Hello!
Have you noticed that this time of the year brings up as many gremlins as it does elves and hosts of angels?
As we get closer to the holidays, some of us will start to rush and hurry in preparation—becoming frazzled and overwhelmed, others will get anxious about expected time with relatives kept at a distance the rest of the year, and some of us will fret over finances as we spend more than we think we should.
While we were kids, many of us learned not to set our expectations high at Christmas – so our expectations wouldn’t get dashed and our feelings hurt. We may have taken this message into our internal, unconscious beliefs we operate from as adults, all year long—not just at the holidays!
Thinking about this I began to ponder how something full of potential awe and wonder often becomes downright hard for so many of us. And I realized that the story most of us learned as we got older was that the “grown up story” was nothing like the “pretend” fairy tale we believed as children. In order to “grow up,” we were told to put away these childish whims, any magical thinking and be realistic!
Yet, so much of what I have been studying tells me that my imagination and my expectations are dictating my experience. Whoa there! You mean to tell me that maybe I had it closer to the truth when I was a kid, before I allowed the beliefs of the adults around me to help me “grow up?”
Before you dismiss what I am studying as “new age” or some other label, let me give you some quotes of people you might give greater weight to.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” ~ Albert Einstein
“Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so?… And in the ages of imagination this firm persuasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a firm persuasion of anything.” ~ William Blake
“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” ~ Thomas Edison
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” ~ Mark Twain
“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go no where.” ~ Carl Sagan
“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
“I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing—that it was all started by a mouse.” ~ Walt Disney
“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
“You can’t do it unless you imagine it.” ~ George Lucas
“Live out of your imagination, not your history.” ~ Stephen Covey
“The world is but a canvas to our imagination.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” ~ Gloria Steinem
“The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.” ~ Napoleon Hill
“America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.” ~ Harry S. Truman
“All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination.” ~ Carl Jung
“The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
“Imagination rules the world.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
OK, so I think you get the picture. The top scientists, politicians, artists and thinkers of the world ALL agree that our imagination creates our world; yet the way we were raised taught us to put away imagination when we grew up.
Maybe if we brought our imagination back, we could create a holiday—for ourselves and those around us—truly filled with joy and good cheer, not just an imitation of it. We have just over a week to let our imagination take over. So try this simple exercise.
Write down everything about the holidays you do not enjoy and are dreading—financial issues, a certain relative, whatever it is for you. Then take another piece of paper and IMAGINE with lots of detail what it would look like if it were the exact opposite of what you wrote on that other sheet. Really put in tons of detail. Pretend you are Walt Disney creating something magical; add all the pieces in to make this vision feel real. What would it FEEL like if it was real? When you have written about your desired holiday, burn the paper with the “old reality.”
Now send a blessing to each person you will be involved with this holiday season. Bless the money you do have in your wallet and bank account and the sources that it comes through to you.
Read your imagined holiday each night before bed imagining what it would feel like if it were real, and send blessings, too. See what magic you can create…with a little childlike imagination!
I wish for you a magical and joy filled holiday season.
All my best,
Amy