One of your most valuable sources of guidance in your business is one of the most disregarded, ridiculed and misunderstood phenomenon in western culture.
That source is your imagination.
The images you see when you’re meditating, or in the liminal state of deep rest and relaxation, are guidance from soul and from your somatic unconscious.
Of course this guidance is not clear instructions on a to do-list, all though that happens too, it is more symbolic and it wants to be explored and experienced.
Imagination in the form of images is soul laying pearls on your path for you to pick up, touch, smell, get really curious about.
How to work with imagination & image in your business
Let’s imagine that a little hedgehog wanders into your imagination during meditation. Not a loud hedgehog but a persistent one, a hedgehog that really wants you to notice it. Obviously you can replace hedgehog with any recent image you’ve received through imagination.
The first thing to do is to notice it. Acknowledge that it is there and that it has something to offer for you.
Ask questions, ask it why it’s here and what it wants to share with you. Listen…either in silence of through stream of consciousness writing in your journal.
Once you’ve listened to the hedgehog, take some time to reflect upon what a hedgehog symbolizes for you. What do you think of when you hear the word hedgehog, or see an image of a hedgehog? Maybe you think of your grandmother placing plates of food in the garden in springtime, or maybe you think of it’s well-developed protection that doesn’t do any good when its crossing a busy road, or the fact that it’s a nocturnal being that is partly immune to snake venom.
Reflect upon what has been active within you in the past couple of days. What have you been working on, or trying to figure out? What have you been thinking about? What thoughts and emotions have been present in relationship with your business? By doing this you bridge and connect the image you recive with your day-to-day life, so that it’s not just a random image, it is a response from soul.
To further deepen into the image you can draw or paint it, read stories or myths where the hedgehog appears, talk with people about hedgehogs.
You can even play pretend, pretend to be a hedgehog. How does a hedgehog move, how does it feel to be a hedgehog in the world, where does it go, what does it know that you don’t yet know?
I am aware that this isn’t what most business and self leadership coaches teach you, but I am not your average leadership coach. I am the one who wants to support you to tap into the really potent sources of guidance on your journey so that you can truly lead yourself and your work.
And your imagination is one of those sources.
What if I don’t see images?
If you’re someone who doesn’t see images, don’t worry, imagination is more than images.
The guidance that comes from soul through imagination also comes in the form of words that are experienced as having a more subtle quality than everyday thinking. It comes in the form of bodily sensations, atmospheric shifts, even smells and sounds.
So if images are not as available to you, imagination can flow to and through you in many other ways.
Why is it important to work with imagination?
When the importance of your imagination is disregarded what you are left with is guidance and advice coming from outside of yourself, as in other people with other interests telling you what you should want and do. Hello patriarchy and capitalism!
By embracing and receiving both the weirdness and the wisdom of your imagination you break the spell of patriarchy and reclaim your most valuable source of guidance. Bye, bye patriarchy and capitalism!
To support you along the way I have recorded a free guided meditation for you ‘Meet the Soul of Your Work’.
‘Meet the Soul of Your Work’ is a guided imagination journey where you get to meet the energy that you are co-creating your work, your business and creative practice with, so that you can receive exactly the guidance that you need today.
Download the meditation below and make it a weekly or even daily ritual to commune with the soul of you work.