Fantasy Fairies and other Mental Traps

To keep with my intrinsic value theme this year, I thought I’d take a different approach in this month’s newsletter and discuss one of the major obstacles to focusing on the things in our lives that bring infinite (intrinsic) value. What is this key barrier that keeps us from embracing principles, opportunities, and challenges? What continually sabotages us from engaging in life, connecting with people, creating value, and contributing to our world?

I like to call them “Fantasy Fairies”. These fantasy fairies fly around our minds creating images that draw us from reality to make-believe land.

Sometimes they are pleasant, kind, gentle. You may even view them as positive. These fairies may help you to build images of where you are going to be in 5 years… with increased wealth, happiness, joy, balance and lots of recreation. Oh, how wonderful your life will be ‘when’. The good fantasy fairy helps you to build castles in the sky. She can even help you to move in! She keeps telling you that if you keep imagining the wonderful thoughts that she has for you over and over again, you will soon have those amazingly wonderful things in your life.

You may also have fantasy fairies that flutter around your mind that aren’t so pleasant. These I call Dark Fairies. These fairies create images of doom and gloom. They give you feelings of frustration, discouragement, failure. They create visions of how people are out to get you. They ‘help’ you to ‘understand’ the intentions of others (even when you can’t possibly know these intentions). You know what I’m talking about… when someone writes you a short email or says a few short words to you. Your dark fantasy fairy helps you to believe that it is because they are mad at you or that they don’t like you. In reality, they may just be having a bad day and aren’t really thinking about you at all.

"Hope is for sissies."

Both of these fantasy fairies, the bright one and the night one, keep you from being you. When you live in your mind, you are not living in the world. This reminds me of a great line I heard on House the other night (5/5/08).

Do you watch House on FOX network? It’s a show about Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) who is devoid of bedside manner and wouldn’t even talk to his own patients if he could get away with it. Dealing with his own constant physical pain, his behavior can border on antisocial. House is, however, a brilliant diagnostician whose unconventional thinking and flawless instincts afford him a great deal of respect. So, the last episode had the following dialogue,

Patient addressing Dr. House: “So you’re afraid of change?”

Dr. House: “No, you’re afraid of change. You’d rather imagine that you can escape instead of actually try because if you fail then you’ve got nothing. So you give up the chance of something real so that you can hold onto hope. Thing is hope is for sissies.”

Patient: “When I get out of here, I’m not going to be afraid anymore.”

"Hope is for sissies." I loved that line the moment I heard it. (I even replayed it on DVR.) I know that line may be sound harsh to you, but let’s take a look at hope and other mental constructs a little further.

Imagination can be your road block

Studies have shown that only 1-3% of the population can use fantasy or imagination correctly to achieve their dreams and goals. These folks are able to learn principles and rehearse strategies that help them to be successful. For the other 97%, these same activities lead to frustration, discouragement and despair because they don't focus their mind on creating but rather escaping. (Hope is just one form of escaping.)

For the 97%, visualizations produced by your mind’s fantasy fairies are not simply seeing pictures, it is actually living the experience. If you are in this group, you may think that if you visualize it enough, the universe will manifest itself in reality. That’s simply NOT TRUE.

Imagination vs. Realization

Creation takes place in TWO (2) dimensions. In the systemic dimension, you imagine it, you envision it in your mind. The next step is critical to creation and it takes place in the extrinsic dimension of time and space. In this dimension, physical effort is required. Nothing happens without it.

So, what do you fantasize about?

Do you envision or speak about doom and despair? Do you hear yourself saying so-and-so is killing me? Do you hear yourself saying “I guarantee…” or “Everybody” or “Nobody” and “Everything” or “Nothing”. These are words that usually aren’t surrounded by good thoughts and are systemic in nature.

Do you imagine the great things that should be in your life? Do you hope for the best and spend time living there in your mind? What happens when you re-enter reality and life isn’t as you have imagined?

Your mind has a proclivity to take what it has imagined and turn it into an expectation. When these expectations aren’t met, you aren’t very happy. Your mind turns unmet expectations into physiological and emotional reactions. (Think about what happens when a person doesn’t do what your mind expected them to do… say, the driver next to you in rush hour that isn’t driving as you’d expect them to or the store clerk who isn’t paying as much attention to you as you’d expect of them.)

If you aren’t policing your fantasy fairies, they can really mess up your life and inhibit you from focusing on the intrinsic things in your life… like your friends and family, wisdom and knowledge, honesty and integrity. Think about the times when you’ve not wanted to be or have not been honest, in most cases it was simply an expectation that got in the way.

Your mind is the most powerful gift you will ever be given. Are you using it for your good or are you being a "sissy" and just hoping? If you’re living in a world of fantasy, imagination, escape, and expectations, the answer is you’re a sissy!

Learn to:

• focus on the precious present…

• focus on what truly “is”...

• focus on creating!

Your life will be much less stressful and you will begin to enjoy your incredible journey.

Learn More

Want to see if your brain has a proclivity to over imagine and form expectations?

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When you review your results, you'll see areas of balance - indicated by green bars. You'll also see areas or thought habits that are out of balance - indicated by yellow, orange/red bars. The green bars will support your efforts... the others are some of the thoughts that are hindering or sabotaging your ability to create.

As you look at the graphs for your Systems Thinking and Self-Direction advisors, do the 3rd bars go to the right?  How about the 4th & 5th bars on Self-Direction or 1st and 2nd bars in Systems Thinking, are they out of balance too?  If one of these 2 advisors are your most challenged, you may have difficulties with expectations and fantasy fairies.

Give me a call to discuss what we can do to put you back in control of your life's expectations, dreams and goals!

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