If you can think it
Visualization is a great tool for guiding yourself along the path of the unknown, but it also works against you – a friend was visualizing a breakup recently and I said if you can see it, you can make it happen so is that what you want?
I think sometimes the visualization happens way before we realize it is happening. I remember when my father was at his most explosive to everyone in the family I wondered what would happen if he just dropped dead. And he did. In the biggest fight of my last marriage I feared that my husband’s lack of desire to have a child would manifest itself into my story, yet he might go on one day to happily have kids with someone else. And he did. He, meanwhile, visualized that I might turn bitter. And (unconsciously) I did. At the same time, for years, I wanted to move back home to New Orleans and get back to my own writing. And I did. But also, I believed my mother’s excess would lead her to a serious illness that I could do nothing about. And it did.
What’s interesting about Plan B is that I am consciously avoiding picturing anything about my future and things are happening left and right that are loosely formed around the “life” I want to live but none of it is bound to a predicated vision or framework. This is a much better way to live.
Today in the NYT there was a great article about how a framework colors your creativity and certainly narrows your choices.
Here’s to living large or larger than your own imagining.