View this post on Instagram

I think I inherited my unfortunate habit of worrying from my mom.

I remember many times when she would bring up dire possibilities and furious arguments with my dad who, for all intents and purposes, was just about the opposite of a worrywart.

This alarmed Mom, so reaching back into her upbringing as the middle daughter of a small-town insurance agent, I think she felt it a demonstration of responsibility to worry about things. My dad, on the other hand, saw worry as a demonstration of weakness and vulnerability, which Mom in turn interpreted as irresponsible. Obviously, they were destined for divorce, which inevitably happened.

In my weaker and unmindful moments, I find myself careening off into scenarios of poverty and lack, all fueled by life experiences of homelessness and hopelessness. I’ll then snap out of it by reminding myself that, as the ancient Chinese mystic Wei Po Yang said, worry is preposterous.

I think the reason Mr. Yang came to that conclusion is that life here in the opposite world of polarities runs in cycles and spirals. There are the peaks and valleys in relationships and spiraling reoccurrences of unresolved issues all meant to keep us staring at our karma. When things are going great, worries fade, and as things don’t meet expectations, the worrywart emerges to feed us a steady stream of “what ifs” and “oh sh*ts.”

Of course, in the end, as we flash back over a lifetime of existential roller coastering, it all makes sense, and the perfection of it allows our journey to the other side.

As consciousness raconteur, Terence McKenna, said, “Don’t worry. You don’t know enough to worry. That’s God’s truth. Who do you think you are that you should worry, for cryin’ out loud. It’s a total waste of time. Worry is praying to the devil. Worry is betting against yourself.” And, I would add, worry is a misuse of the imagination.

As with any power, the imagination can be used for good or ill, and yet we seem to take that fact for granted when in reality it is the crux of the matter when it comes to quantum living. Nightmare scenarios of death and destruction are truly “praying to the devil.” And with the lifelong campaign to disempower the imagination and relegate it to some form of insanity waged by social controllers, we seriously undervalue the imagination’s potential for life-changing vision.

The imagination directly engages the physical and emotional bodies, so that by worrying, all the stress responses are triggered. The more stress, the more fear; the more fear, the more worry, and soon we’re circling down the drain of disempowerment and depravity.

In scientific research, it was found that the body doesn’t know the difference between imagined scenarios and “real” ones. This is because there really is no difference. All experience is subjective because there is no “out there”—it’s all happening in here, right now. And we are creating it all through the imagination.

When we can, by either an act of desperation or compassion, drag the monkey mind off negative imagined scenarios, it is the imagination that provides welcome, safe harbor. We imagine positive circumstances and events, imagine receiving the power to change our situation, and imagine comfort and security regardless of our interpretations of apparent negativity and evil destinies.

When we can reaffirm the existence of compassion, love, peace, fulfillment, and happiness, we can then choose to apply the imagination to that reality. How can I be kinder, more loving, more peaceful, more fulfilled, and happy? Those are the right questions to ask, as they are the organizing principles around which the quantum particles and waves are forming to provide that reality. It is the imagination that is the engine driving our experiences borne from our choices.

Imagination is the creative power, and by minimizing this truth, we shut it down until the only time it really engages is when things turn negative and life-threatening and we succumb to worry and alarm. We don’t realize that things turned negative because we neglected the imagination’s divine creative power—letting “the devil” take over from our neglect.

The imagination is literally our portal to a higher life. By allowing the imagining of higher and more wonderful fulfilling experience, we build that ladder to those infinite possibilities. And when we imagine an entire civilization, planet, and universe of upliftment, love, and divine creations, we join with all other imaginations on that frequency, amplifying the effect, creating a true heaven of life experiences for all beings everywhere.

~