Worry Is A Misuse Of Imagination

Towards the end of last year, I looked through a booked called ‘The Art Of Peace’ by Philip Dunn. This book was full of great advice, and there were two things that I ended up noting down.

The first thing I made a note of was what he said in regards to the education system. He said that, ‘we are not taught to concentrate on our inner wealth of knowledge – on how our emotions work, how our instinct works, how our soul functions’.

An Important Point

In general, the education system is not interested in bringing out what is already inside someone; they are only interested in making them memorise different things. It is as though human beings are blank slates that need to be taught absolutely everything.

And as they have no wisdom or guidance inside them, they will need to be ‘educated’ by others. As a result of this, someone can end up being totally out of touch with themselves by the time that they are a teenager, let alone an adult.

A Big Challenge

If the education system did educate people on how their emotions worked, for instance, there is a strong chance that the world would be very different. For example, it has become clear that so many people are suffering because they don’t know how to handle their emotions.

For people like this, they most likely didn’t get the type of care that they needed during their early years to develop a healthy relationship with their emotions and their time in the education system wouldn’t have helped them either. It is then going to be perfectly normal for them to struggle with their emotions as an adult and to even be hooked on different things to manage how they feel.

Not a Shock

Therefore, while it is not good that so many people are suffering, it is not exactly a surprise. There are, of course, many other reasons as to why so many people are not in a good way.

Not only can childhood trauma be the reason why someone is unable to handle their emotions as an adult, trauma in general could be put forward as the main reason why there is so much suffering on this planet. Humanity has been through a lot and, even if someone hasn’t experienced much trauma in their own life, it doesn’t mean that trauma from their ancestors hasn’t been passed down to them.

The Other Thing

What also caught my eye in this book was, ‘worry is a misuse of imagination brought about by our addiction to fear’. Hearing this made me think about how powerful our imagination is and how it can be used to imagine good or bad things.

However, even though our mind can come up with all kinds of negative scenarios, it can seem as though these scenarios are real. We can then fuel what is going on in our head with emotion, thereby increasing the likelihood of what we imagine actually becoming a reality

A Closer Look

When it comes to worry, it would be easy to say that someone just needs to detach from their mind when this happens and to imagine something else. This can certainly work but it might not always be the best approach to take.

The reason for this is that if someone finds that they have the tendency to worry about things, it could show that they are carrying trauma. Consciously, they might not remember what took place but, unconsciously, they will remember what took place.

For Example

Let’s say that someone constantly worries about losing their job, even though there is no reason for them to be this way. They could be extremely competent at what they do and greatly appreciated too.

Now, the concern that they have about losing their job could be seen as being irrational; however, if they were to go deeper, they may find that they have a fear of being abandoned. They may also find that they believe that they are worthless, which is why they believe that they would be left.

Early Neglect

During the beginning of their life, they may have been brought up by caregivers that were unable to truly be there for them. This would then have been a time when they were abandoned and they would have taken it personally.

The years would have passed and their conscious mind would have forgotten all about what happened, but their unconscious mind will remember what took place. This part of them will be living in the past and, as this pain will have been pushed out of their awareness and is unable to get through to them directly, it will be normal for them to only be aware of a general sense of angst.

Final Thoughts

The key will be for them to go under this surface level experience (the effect) and to acknowledge what is taking place below (the cause). If this doesn’t happen, they will most likely continue to use their imagination badly.

Ultimately, what they fear will happen, will have already happened. Yet, until they resolve their inner wounds, the part of their being that is concerned with their survival will continue to be overactive.
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This is something that can take place with the assistance of a therapist or a healer. Lastly, the mind is incredibly powerful and what is clear is that if one doesn’t run their mind, their mind will run them.