Greg stared out the window, looking at the cricket pitch and imagining himself playing his favourite game.
In his mind, he had just smashed the cricket ball high into the air across the oval, and he was running towards the other side of the pitch. Greg watched the ball as it kept flying through the air, making it possible for him to return to the starting wickets again, ready to receive the next ball being bowled up to him.
As Greg prepared himself to take another swing at the ball, he was suddenly interrupted by the intrusion of angry words being hurled at him.
“Greg, are you paying attention, or are you day-dreaming?” asked his teacher in a very disapproving tone.
Greg quickly jolted out of his wonderful day-dream and back into the classroom. He mumbled an apology and stared at the blackboard.
So begins our story of “stop day-dreaming”, and all the disapproval of imagination that comes with it.
We live in a society that honours busyness and frowns at idleness, so it should not come as any surprise that the activity of day-dreaming, or having idle thoughts, is considered a waste of time and a luxury that cannot be afforded.
But by having these beliefs, we have denied ourselves one of the greatest faculties of our minds—our imaginations. And with that denial, we lose the ability to visualise and create our future.
We have become disciples of the belief that our lives must be filled with “doing” and taking action. By focusing on accumulation and “having”, we have incorrectly trained our imagination to think of the worst-case scenarios if we don’t get our “to-do list” done.
This is one of the greatest tragedies of life.
We lose touch with our inborn ability to use our creativity and imagination to create pictures in our mind, without the boundaries of time and space, which in turn create our world and reality. Recent studies indicate the significance and importance of visualisation in achieving our goals and attaining success, which may be a reason why so many people struggle once they have lost touch with their imaginative selves.
Your challenge this week is to encourage day-dreaming and indulge in some much-deserved idleness. Allow yourself the space and the enjoyment of allowing your thoughts to take you on a journey. Just visualise in your mind’s eye the experience in all its fantastic detail.
This week, just surrender and let go. No rules, no restrictions, and no judgments. Just allow yourself to have free creative play with your thoughts.
Enjoy and delight in the playground of your imagination. You may be pleasantly surprised where it takes you and what may be revealed!
Deborah Ruth
Storyteller
