{"id":1303,"date":"2015-03-09T19:35:38","date_gmt":"2015-03-10T00:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=1303"},"modified":"2015-03-12T15:52:04","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T20:52:04","slug":"imagination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=1303","title":{"rendered":"Imagination"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0\"imagine<\/a><\/div>\n
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“I just can’t imagine …”<\/div>\n
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That, my friends, is the problem. \u00a0We don’t imagine, and when we don’t imagine, we don’t do.\u00a0\u00a0Imagining and imagination are a critical first step to change. \u00a0Imagination\u00a0is what enables us to make something that is foreign or non-existent relevant in our lives. \u00a0It is through imagination that we are able to “see” what is possible and in internalizing possibilities, we make new things happen, both in ourselves and in others.<\/div>\n
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I won’t do the obvious. \u00a0That is, I\u2019m not going to quote that song by John Lennon. \u00a0(And BTW, I don’t think all the things he wanted us to imagine would be necessarily a good thing.) But\u00a0I do think he hit on something that many great people have in common. And I’m talking about everyday great people, not just the famous ones. They have an imagination. \u00a0In fact, I suspect that it might even be impossible to do great things, unless one submits, indulges or engages the imagination.<\/div>\n
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I was reminded of the power of imagination at a recent lecture on hypnotherapy. \u00a0(My wife is a therapist and this was part of her continuing education classes.) The instructors had studied under Milton Erickson<\/a>,\u00a0considered one of the godfathers of medical hypnosis and therapy. They noted that hypnosis is typically used in therapy is to help someone change some behavioral challenge, often an addiction, disorder of fear.<\/div>\n

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They noted that the reason hypnosis can promote behavior in individuals lies in the simple fact that \u201cimagination is more powerful than will.” \u00a0In many respects, that is what hypnotherapy is all about: enabling people to imagine themselves or others differently.<\/div>\n
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People set goals. They muster will power. \u00a0They make resolutions. \u00a0They join support groups. They\u00a0feel they can \u201cmuscle\u201d their way through.\u00a0\u00a0But then they find they\u00a0can\u2019t. \u00a0Why?<\/div>\n
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Because despite all of our willpower (or lack thereof), somewhere deep in our subconscious we are not able to muster up the idea that we can actually do things like quitting smoking or over-eating or easing anxiety. \u00a0Too often we lack the idea of the possible. \u00a0We lack the ability to truly imagine and believe that life could be other\u00a0than what it is.\u00a0\u00a0And so we end up back in the life they’ve learned to expect for ourselves.<\/div>\n

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Great things, great accomplishments, require imagining they can be. It is not just thinking big. \u00a0It is the ability to see, and see clearly, a different path. I believe that was what Rev. Martin Luther King, meant when he said he had a dream. Because in imagining and dreaming he was able to take those first steps to change.<\/div>\n
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But let’s not just use our imagination to simply help ourselves accomplish the things willpower can’t.<\/div>\n
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Let’s help others imagine those things that willpower alone won’t allow them to do.<\/div>\n
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Imagination can be contagious. \u00a0And liberating. \u00a0And when it spreads, everyone is better for it.<\/div>\n
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Imagine via flickr under cc 2.0<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 “I just can’t imagine …”   That, my friends, is the problem. \u00a0We don’t imagine, and when we don’t imagine, we don’t do.\u00a0\u00a0Imagining and imagination are a critical first step to change. \u00a0Imagination\u00a0is what enables us to make something that is foreign or non-existent relevant in our lives. \u00a0It is through imagination that we…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[31,142,6,141,140],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1303"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1315,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions\/1315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}