Imagination

Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.
Albert Einstein

Where does fact end, and imagination begin? Where is the trail through the chaos (of life)? The trail is called science if we are talking about inanimate nature. But if we are talking about animate nature, about living things and their personal relations, then the trail is called literature, or drama, or cinema. What we get out of the film, or the book, is a series of landmarks which say: `Follow these steps and you will see that there is a hidden unity, – what I’ve called a trail, – in the variety of Nature.´ Now finding that requires imagination….
Jacob Bronowski

`Because fear kills everything,´ Mo had once told her. `Your mind, your heart, your imagination.´
Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

There is more to each of us than the conditioned personalities we present to the world, the supressed or untrammelled emotions we act out, and the behaviours we exhibit. Understanding this allows for what I call the compassion of possibility. I don’t mean possibility in the hypothetical, future-dwelling sense, as in `maybe someday,´ but as a present, alive, ever-available inherent quality. Possibility is connected to many of humanity’s greatest gifts: wonder, awe, mystery, and imagination – the qualities that allow us to remain connected to that which we can’t necessarily prove.
Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal, p. 388

As a child, I was never quite sure if the grown-ups considered `a great imagination´ – a trait often attributed to me – was a good thing or something that would eventually get me into deep trouble.

The Merriam Webster online dictionary entry for `image´ includes the following: Borrowed from Anglo-French, shortened from imagene, borrowed from Latin imāgin-, imāgō `representation, reflection, apparition, semblance, copy, visible form,´ probably from imārī with the same base as imitārī – „to follow as a pattern, copy“…

Patterns! Even as a very young child, they were visible to me everywhere. How come? It seems that my default supposition was that the entire universe was interconnected in a beautiful, sophisticated weaving of interlinked patterns. This gave me a feeling of safety and a sense of belonging. The scolding that regularly came my way due to my `daydreaming´ – it garnered me the nickname `Paddy Last´- was a price I was glad to pay for this sense of security my imagination provided me in those tender years.

They didn’t last, however. Growing up can be a brutal experience for those of a sensitive disposition. The innumerable conscious antennae pointing outwards – matched in number by seemingly-encrypted inward-pointing antennae – were often overwhelmed by the barrage of signals they continuously received.  The sheer volume could never be adequately processed.

Loud voices, cramped spaces, the physical danger of contact sports, tension in the air at home that could be cut through with a bread knife, – these poised challenges to me which were not easily overcome. Fear began to creep into the picture more and more. As Cornnelia Funke has one of her characters state, `fear kills your mind, your heart, and your imagination´. I would add that it also leads us to shut down our vulnerability.

Gabor Maté points out in one of his recent talks: `Vulnerability is essential for growth. The term comes from the Latin word to wound. So, vulnerability is our capacity to be wounded´.  It is very much part and parcel of the human condition, he continues, `but when we are hurt in childhood and this hurt is too painful to bear, we will try to shut down our vulnerability, for example, by being right. If I’m right, I am powerful, and I can’t be assailed any more. But when we do that, we stop growing´.

As the teenage years rolled by, I took up residence increasingly in my head. In the so-called `school of hard knocks´ of adolescence, the hyper-rational mind felt like a safer place to be. What seemed like unbearable knocks – the untimely death of my beloved father, the sudden unexplained rejection by my first high school sweetheart – were soon to follow, and the doors of my vulnerability slid shut. Thus began my phase of `being right,´ of tearing my adversaries to shreds with my sharp tongue, and retreating to a more constrained world view of ideas and occurrences which could be proven by an intellect as keen as mine. I stopped growing.

It took until my 42^nd year for my house of cards to come crashing down; family, home, career, and self-confidence all dashed on the unseen jagged rocks submerged in the shallows of my hubris. On the plus side, my encrusted heart was wrenched open, and growth could again resume. This on-going process is a painful one. It could not have borne as much fruit it has, without the loving help and guidance of others, many of whom were already a little further ahead on a similar journey.

Today I practice and coach a daily mental fitness programme called Positive Intelligence (PQ). In the PQ vernacular, we would say that my thinking and behaviour in the downward spiral described above, were both in the grip of my Saboteurs, principally the Judge, the Hyper-Rational, the Controller, and the Stickler. Suffering from a deeply ingrained perception disorder, denial, and a lack of imagination, I began to believe that the letters VIP stood for `Very Important Patrick´.

While the Saboteurs can be instrumental in achieving varying degrees of short-term worldly success, these will always be houses built on sand. In my twenties and thirties, my persona appeared to be that of a happy family man, successful international manager, and solid member of the community. In reality, I was living a `Jekyll and Hyde´ existence, dying on the vine.

PQ tells us that the Saboteurs, all fuelled by fear, reside in the left hemisphere of the so-called data or analytical brain. The higher-frequency Sage Powers (Empathy, Explore, Innovate, Navigate, and Activate), fuelled in contrast by love, are to be found in the right hemisphere. Our ability to switch from left to right hemisphere is referred to as `Mind Command´.

Thus, by training just three muscles (Saboteur Interceptor, Sage Enhancer, and Mind Command) we can become mentally fit. We can escape from the bondage of self (ego) and learn to deploy our mind, in ease and flow, to achieve the outcomes we desire, outcomes aligned with our deeply held values and aspirations. The paradox is that we are not attached to any particular outcome, knowing there is a gift in every situation. We trust the process. We are then operating from `Self´, as opposed to `self´.

My long-time dormant, – never extinguished – imagination began to come fully alive again in my forties. This led me into very interesting areas of work: organisational development,  process re-engineering, business transformation, and founding new business ventures in the NGO/Environmental and medical fields. In all these areas, leadership, the systems view, and imagination are critical factors for success.  The sequence of these steps has brought me to my current vocation of Transformation Coaching and Mental Fitness Training.

Imagination also fires my hobbies of dance, music, writing, photography, gardening, cooking, and hiking in Nature, to name but a few of my favourites.

By following our intuition, fuelled by wonder, awe, mystery, and imagination, by embracing our vulnerability as we learn to become true leaders, and by engaging in the daily practice of mental fitness, we will see that there is a hidden unity in the variety of the Universe. We can move from the alienation of being `apart from´ to becoming `a part of´.

`Now finding that´, said the 20<sup>th</sup> Century Polish-British mathematician and philosopher, Jacob Bronowsky, `requires imagination….´