The magic of imagination for emotional regulation
Our feelings matter
When I was growing up, we had a box of magic. A little black box, containing little square tiles – each tile a different colour (sample tiles from somewhere or other). My friend and I discovered that they could be arranged on the floor, in different patterns, to open portals – to summon spirits.
We would take turns summoning spirits: only the person who summoned the spirit could see it and so that person would have to describe it to the other, what it looked like, how it moved around the room, whether it was good or bad. It was fun when it was good but even now there’s a bit of me that’s still scared of those bad ones.
We were just children but we had access to something powerful with the potential for good or evil. We were learning how to access the imaginal realm to cause a change in one another. That might sound ‘dramatic’ but I think we dismiss such things too readily as ‘childish’.
Being able to control your emotions is seen as a sign of maturity but what this really means is being able to control behaviour in response to how we’re feeling – it’s learning to be ‘civilised’ which is important. For one thing, we’re social beings and need to be able to get along and function well together. Learning how to manage our behaviour is a sign of maturity, then. But it is possible to keep our behaviour in check without developing awareness of our emotional life - this can be detrimental.
To my mind, emotions are not just abstract concepts that can be explained away with logical reasoning. They are actual physical phenomenon as much as any other force. They produce physical sensations in us. We feel tension in our chest when we’re angry, have palpitations when we’re scared, our eyes tear up when we’re sad or sometimes happy, muscles relax when we’re calm and peaceful, we fill with warmth when we feel grateful, excitement and enthusiasm send energy surging through us. Pathetic fallacy works because different forms of emotion are as much a force as other forms of natural phenomenon, like wind or waves or sunshine.
It used to be more common to talk of feelings as being located outside of the self – for example, in the middle-ages, people would speak of happy or fearful days or happenings, rather than the feeling being located within themselves, it was a quality of the world in which they found themselves. So, it makes sense that we would try to change our feelings by trying to change our outer world, but does it work?
When we try to change how we feel by trying to change external things, it might lead to a temporary change, but it might not be sustainable and in some circumstances can even lead to harm. Some examples might be:
- Having a warm bath to relieve the physical feeling of cold or tension and/or to ease mental tension
- Getting a new hair cut or outfit to feel more confident or upbeat.
- Asking the people you live with to clean up more so that you can feel more comfortable.
Now, all of these examples, are fairly reasonable measures, that can be of benefit and might well contribute to longer lasting changes, but on their own they are only temporary. Other more extreme examples are:
- Self-harming to relieve mental pain
- Having radical plastic surgery to improve self-esteem
- Telling your partner when and who they are allowed to socialise with so you can worry less about the possibility of them being unfaithful.
These examples offer a clearer picture of how trying to control emotions by trying to control external factors can be dangerous to ourselves and others.
Now let’s consider trying to change emotions internally. After a long day or week at work, a lot of people like to unwind with an alcoholic beverage because one or two drinks can have a relaxing effect but we know what happens when we drink too much… and in extreme cases using alcohol or other drugs to change how you feel can lead to addiction. Some people might think they are in control of their emotions because they have learnt to distract themselves with other things such as exercise or work but again, these distractions are only temporary, and in extreme cases can lead to addiction. Some people believe that they don’t experience emotions because they’ve learnt to supress them but one way or another emotions tend to find a way of showing themselves – it might be that undealt with stress leads to headaches, or some other physical problem, or it might be that you end up taking your anger out on the wrong people.
The problem is emotions are not ‘things’ that can be found either outside or inside of us. They are forces in and between our internal and external experience of the world. They are part of us. We cannot separate ourselves from them any more than we can separate ourselves from the air that we breathe.
Neither are they static, they take on temporary forms, but they are in constant flux. The motion of emotion is a vital aspect of life, as can be seen in practices such as qigong, which use movement, to restore emotional balance.
It’s important to recognise emotions, move with them, and through them. Imagination can help us do this, through techniques such as visualisation, but also, I suspect imagination works it’s magic at more subtle and subconscious levels too.
Those spirits that we summoned as children were visions of active forces in the universe, cosmos, nature, in us – imagination was teaching us how to recognise them. Imagination realises our feelings (as opposed to rationalising them). That awareness is key in becoming actualised, co-creative, compassionate life.
Learning how to treat our emotional experiences with playfulness and reverence is a good way to keep ourselves sane. I think it’s also important to remember, just how much of an affect we can have on each other. Learning to be responsible with our feelings is how we mature.
I would like you to imagine that I am summoning a spirit for you now:
The spirit seems to have a soft, expansive outline. Though it has no facial features you can feel a smile. It is moving lightly towards you. As it gets closer you begin to feel the warmth of a summer evening – a summer evening filled with relaxation, good company, and iridescent wings. There is enjoyment in the dance of a gentle breeze brushing against flowers… You realise you are being hugged…