Imagination and Criticism

Imagination and Criticism

“A journalist visited a town, famous for its rampant unhappiness, to see if he could understand its origin. Walking down the street, he noticed a man ahead of him. Suddenly, a tiny man, no more than a few inches high, appeared and ran up the man’s leg. He started sticking pins into the man and sewing things to him. Instantly, the man was covered by these tiny tailors, all sticking him with pins.  He looked completely miserable as he shuffled off. The journalist saw this happen to one person after another, until he was ready to give up and go home. The town was completely infested with tiny tailors; no wonder everyone was unhappy. Fortunately the journalist noticed one woman who apparently said something to her tiny tailors, and they just melted away. The journalist ran over to her. ‘What did you say to get free of them?!” he exclaimed. ‘Oh,’ she answered, ‘It was nothing. I just told them I’ve decided to stop measuring myself.’”  — Guy Finley

We feel deeply inadequate. Problems are growing faster than our ability to cope. We criticize. We are mad. It's a frustrating web of analysis. Who is to blame for this!?

Could it be the premise is wrong? Could it be that we are adequate? Even ok, maybe even extremely fortunate? Also possibly empowered beyond our wildest dreams? Could it be that there is no blame, that the issue is the blaming mind?

Imagine for a moment, (with your eyes closed); (a moment for our purposes is one whole slow deep breath cycle) that you can have everything you want, do anything you want, and be anything want to be, now and ever forward......(ok, start:)

Wow, did that spark anything in you? You might note that your imagination is a human superpower, that's pretty cool! And but also, welcome to the universe. In the medium of time and space, all things are possible. So it's true. Anything you can imagine can or is or was possible somewhere sometime on some level.. Astronomers estimate at least one planet is present with every star in the sky, that's a lot of space and time. Books and movies allow us to explore possibilities we can not for whatever reason do on the physical plane here and now on this planet, which brings us back to imagination. 

Imagination is the well spring of creativity. So let us protect our imagination from a constant barrage of self or other directed criticizing, and relax into a pace of life in harmony with the flow of beauty and love.

The key is to redirect all of that criticizing energy into creative energy by choosing which thoughts to entertain in our energy beam of attention. Starting with accepting you are ok. Change can only happen from a starting point of truly being where we are right now.