Red In A Blue World by Bob and Donna Sellers

The meaning of the stories in our art can be both direct and indirect. Those persons viewing the art might realize that the story represents a particular issue in their real life or might be a metaphor, indirectly representing an issue in their life.

Research suggests that people who engage their imagination in some creative way may have a more positive and hopeful mood state than people who don’t use their imagination. Imagination is stimulated by our story art creating enjoyment and can lead to understanding of self and others.

An important variable is what you do with your imagination. Imagination when used to think of, or foresee the future, projects creative energy forward resulting in a positive outcome. Your positive perception of the future attracts that future to happen. Imagining the future is a form of fiction. Allow your imagination to create a story you want for yourself, one you believe will work for you, a story that contains elements of life that please you, a story that will put juice into your daily existence.

Everyone loves a story. Our personal story, conscious or unconscious, is determinative. Our story defines who we are and who we are not. Our personal story is like a corral in which we live. Beliefs and behaviors that appear outside of our corral are not believed to be who we are and therefore are often rejected as untrue. If your life needs something, someone, or an adaptation that is not you, then enlarge and expand your story to include the characteristics that you want or need.

My practice as a therapist involved guiding people to use their imagination to create a new story more useful to them than the one they came in with. I called my work, “Imaginal Therapy.” In practice, it ignored everyday reality in favor of a parallel metaphor that symbolically represented their reality. Symbolic Parallel Metaphors are easier to shape and evolve with fiction than the reality that people believe they are stuck with. It was what you would call an oblique approach to help people get to where they wanted to be. This approach was a very creative and enjoyable experience for both myself and the client.

Imagination and Self-Discovery

Choosing a particular character in an art image to role-play or write about, while letting your imagination loose, may bring about a change in self-definition, and create an adaption in behavior that they may not have used in their past. Bring your characters alive as you write, give them feelings, thoughts, perceptions, prejudices, fears, strengths, etc., and include all the characteristics you want them to have. Your imagination may lead to growth, conscious or unconscious, leading to a change in some future moment in time.

Suggestions are provided on how to get started to get the most from your writing. (See Creative Writing.)