Stress and Imagination

Combining the Eastern philosophy and Western culture definitions, stress is feeling out of control instead of inner peace. Most stress comes from thinking about the past or worrying about the future. In the stress community, we talk a lot about stress being a relationship between a person’s perceptions, needs, and abilities and the conditions of the environment. How we perceive control over our environment causes stress. So, we stress about things we can control and things we cannot.

When a stressful event occurs, it activates the “fight or flight” response. This response triggers the release of the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. If the trigger is perceived as eustress, the physiological responses and production of cortisol are short-term. If the trigger is perceived as distress, we are ready to react with quick instincts and thinking, but our systems do not return to normal until the perceived thought is eliminated. We process stimulus in three steps, perception, coping, and adapting. If we change how we perceive stress, we change our response to stressors.

One way to change the perception of stressors is through imagination. We have a potent tool that we forsake for “adulting.” Although we stop using our imagination for positive reasons, it doesn’t go away. Our imagination is a very powerful neutral source, and we can use it for you or against you. Using our imagination in positive ways that benefit us is called active visualization. The opposite is negative thinking.

When we were children, we spent hours and hours engaging in our imagination. We blended our imagination, senses, and perceptions to understand the reality around us. We used our imagination to change what is to what we thought it should be. 

As teens, we engage our imagination through our dreams and daydreams and visualize the career, house, mate, friends, and experiences we want. Then suddenly, the clock hit, and we stop using our imagination. As adults, we might stop dreaming altogether. Reality hit, and we lose faith.

It is irresponsible to dream. Or we don’t have time to dream and turn off our imagination for action. But what is action if there isn’t a destination? As professionals, we wake up daily projecting negative experiences by expecting and visualizing the day’s events.

Don’t succumb to the child or adult duality. In America, a strong work ethic is valued, but over 2/3 of the population is unhappy. Nations with less are happier. Looking around today, we can see many examples of miserable adults who don’t play. Play is the cure for misery. Our imaginations are so powerful that we can go anywhere, do anything, be any person, from the seat of our minds. It is not childish to use our imagination; it is vital to our well-being and satisfaction.

The world we live in came from the imagination. Thought is the first creation, and form is the second creation. Therefore, everything we see was born in the imagination first and came to fruition through play. Play is very critical in our society, not work.

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his reactions, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellent at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.

-James Michener

Imaginative play: imagination is perhaps the most powerful human ability, and it allows us to create simulated realities that we can explore without giving up access to the real world. Throughout life, imagination remains a key to emotional resilience and creativity. Depravation studies demonstrate that fantasizing-imaging the inner life of others and comparing it to one’s own is one of the keys to developing empathy, understanding, and trust of others and personal coping skills.

Takeaway

Use your imagination for your benefit. It is one of the essential tools you have to design your ideal future. You have the power to BE! who you want to be. You are the created with the power to create. Create an authentic experience.

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A Powerful Tool: Active Visualization