Imagination As Your Best Friend

For a lot of years I was a tor­tured soul. I had allowed my imag­i­na­tion to iso­late itself and believe all the neg­a­tives about me that had come my way. Men­tally beat­ing up on myself became a habit and then a nor­ma­tive inner state of mis­ery. I tried to com­pen­sate for that inner neg­a­tiv­ity by achiev­ing. At the end of the day, I still did not mea­sure up to my own inner crit­i­cisms. My spir­i­tual jour­ney has been one of the Spirit within mak­ing peace within my psy­che. I am about thirty-five years into that reunion and each day is bet­ter than the day before.

We get split away from our­selves early in life (The fall in the Gar­den of Eden revis­ited). Most of our lives are spent in an attempt to heal. All addic­tions are ways peo­ple act some­thing out about their inner losses and estrange­ment from them­selves. The world is a stage upon which we act out, inflict, and some­times even come to grips with the angst within.

Worry is a sign that you have not fully made friends with the most pow­er­ful gift you have — your imag­i­na­tion. Get to know it. Learn to respect it. Let it heal. Stop feed­ing it toxic ideas and images. The­ol­ogy is another way of depict­ing the “com­ing home” within but cast as the Grand Cos­mic Strug­gle Between Human­ity and Deity. The great redemp­tive sto­ries are mostly pro­jec­tions of our deep­est long­ings, strug­gles, and attempts to heal.

There is no way to stay ahead of an estranged imag­i­na­tion. It can­not be bribed or bought. It must be embraced and loved — flaws and all. Heal­ing is a trial-and-error jour­ney that lasts a life­time. Learn­ing to love God, neigh­bor, and self is grounded in the self. Start there and see if you don’t start treat­ing your neigh­bors a lit­tle bet­ter — and that you are less crit­i­cal of and fright­ened by the greater cre­ation and the Creator.