Here’s a technique that I call “A Taste of Freedom”.
- Recall situations that make you feel powerful, free, limitless, boundless. (For me, a couple of examples are singing and driving fast on an open road)
- Think of some desired state of being, action, or thing that you’re passionate about.
- Now imagine that you’ve achieved your desire, and fill that scene with the feeling of freedom and power.
- Continue to imagine your future, and feel that your future actions are tools or extensions of you and your power. Feel as though you’re reaching out through your actions to reach, touch, and affect the world.
- Look for different images which express the idea of you reaching out and connecting with the world beyond your body. (For example, imagine that you’re projecting a web of energy and connecting with the world outside of yourself)
When you imagine yourself expanding, growing bigger, reaching out, you need to feel that it’s the achievement of your desired state of being, action, or thing that enables you to expand your reach. It allows you to reach out in a more free, more powerful way.
It’s all too easy to look at your actions and possessions as being external and irrelevant to who you are.
Instead, look at your actions and possession as part of you, as part of what enables you to reach out and affect your world.
Think of it like this.
In my life, I cast a net that connects with the world. The net is made up of whatever you think and feel you can use to affect the world. This could include your body, the things that you possess, the actions that you do, and the way that you are (thoughts/feelings/being).
Imagine that the net becomes larger and brighter when your desire is realized, and the state of being, action, or possession becomes part of your net. With that larger net, you can connect with a larger piece of the world around you. You can have a greater affect on the world around you.
If instead, I feel that my desire is irrelevant to this “net”, or even worse, a drain of the energy to reach outward, how can I go after this desire with all of my heart?
Some people when they imagine having a beautiful house, car, etc. see/feel that thing as a dead object that weighs them down, or merely a pleasant toy that is irrelevant to what they accomplish in life.
Think of yourself in your imagination as a flow of awareness and living strength reaching out to move through the world. Do you imagine your desires as dull, static objects – dead spots in your imagined river of energy?
A lot of this feeling comes from our programming that wealth and possessions are unspiritual/bad.
Some of this feeling comes from a world view which looks at existence as a collection of disjoint objects.
We could talk about Quantum Physics and how everything is connected.
We could talk about spiritual or religious principles which describe how everything is connected.
Instead, let’s take a psychological approach.
Do I think and feel that my possessions, my actions, and my being are irrelevant to what I can accomplish with my life?
Or do I look at every desired state of being, action, or thing as potential and possibility that I can connect with, and use to build a bigger future, a bigger me, a bigger taste of freedom.
Now, for a moment try again. Feel yourself reaching out through whatever you desire, your reach boosted, amplified, and strengthened by the object of your desire. (If you feel some resistance to relating to things in this positive light, take a deep breath and release the tension that arises)
Reach out through your “things” again and again until they glow in your mind as bright as the sun and extend your reach far beyond your self.
Does wanting to receive energy mean that I’m closed up?
If I feel energy coming toward me in my imagined future, does that mean that I relate to that future as being closed? What if I want to imagine a state of learning, or some other kind of receptive state?
Receiving isn’t the same as feeling closed.
I imagine those situations like this:
Imagine that you are there in the future with a net of energy surrounding you.
Now imagine that some external energy (for example, knowledge) flows toward you.
When that light/energy reaches your net, it disappears into your net, and your net grows larger and brighter, interacting with more of the world around you.
If you are imagining a receptive state extending in time, then imagine the light flowing toward you and washing over you as a great stream, and your net expanding larger and larger, brighter and brighter.
Is reaching out for something always a good thing? What if someone is just reaching out to take something by force, or to attack someone?
Reaching out to take action doesn’t always mean that I’m looking to connect with and expand my connections with the world. Sometimes a person just reaches out of his shell to take something from the world.
No, it’s the way I relate to the thing after I go to it, or it comes to me that is all important!
This way of imagining the future is extraordinarily powerful.
Let me know how it works for you.
Tags: imagination, inner.freedom, personal-development