03. Sweet Dreams (are made of this-a playful imagination!)

Are you dreaming YOUR big dreams...or are you tailoring your dreams to fit the boundaries of others? Join us for an exploration of WHY imagination matters, and how we are by our very nature, meant to be IMAGINATIVE and DREAMY!

Welcome to Plays Well With Others, the podcast where we discuss all things creative, from the silly to the sensitive, but most importantly, we will discuss PLAY!

Brought to you by Podcast Host and Rec Center Founder, Alex B. Arnopol

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Edits in process- please pardon any strange interpretations!

15:19:29 hi friends welcome to Plays Well With Others, a podcast for creative community to discuss everything from the sensitive to the silly, but most importantly, to explore play …come play with us!
15:19:43 I'm your podcast host, wiggly dancer lover of ducks in hats, Alex B Arnopol.

15:19:52 Let's dive in, shall we.

15:20:03 Hi friend.

15:20:04 Welcome to Plays Well With Others. I'm delighted to see you.

15:20:08 We have a lot of juicy goodness in store for you today. But before we jump all the way in, into stories of the imagination and the cosmos.

15:20:21 Let's start with an announcement.

15:20:24 All right.

15:20:25 I know you've heard it from me already. But we have a super special big announcement coming your way, this coming Monday, November, 1, what is this super special announcement you might ask, well that'll ruin the fun of it is the surprise.

15:20:44 Suffice it to say though, this surprise is for you. Consider it a gift.

15:20:50 We're really excited about it. So, if you are someone that loves community, and being together, and creativity. Justice liberation, finding your own authenticity so you can serve self and others do the inner work and serve the outside world.

15:21:11 I would recommend you stay connected with us follow along. whether you're following us on Instagram.

15:21:18 On our newsletter or through our podcast here.

15:21:22 Stay connected. I will let you know that we are going to announce this news over our newsletter and podcast. First, before it hits, Instagram, So it's worthwhile to follow us on our podcast whether you are subscribed on Spotify or Apple podcast or really

15:21:41 wherever you get your podcasts these days. Connect with us. We don't want you to miss out on this super cool opportunity.

15:21:49 I have to be honest on a personal level.

15:21:54 I am so excited about this announcement.

15:21:56 It's really the culmination of the past two years of work of collaborating with other creative individuals out in the world that have some big dreams and big ideas about what it means to come together in community.

15:22:11 And I think there's a lot of reasons that we do seek community that we seek support that we asked to be bolstered in our creative endeavors.

15:22:21 Sometimes I feel like rec center is really built around my own needs, but something that I tell my clients regularly, is that if you need it. Nine times out of 10 someone else needs it to.

15:22:35 So as we continue to build this space create this beautiful offering for you.

15:22:42 It's also something that's for me, because I have a lot of big questions I have a lot of desires, as a creative that I want to fulfill.

15:22:52 And I just wasn't seeing anywhere out there in the world that had what I needed.

15:22:58 So I guess I created my own.

15:23:00 We hear these stories a lot, right.

15:23:03 I didn't see it so I made it happen.

15:23:06 But I think there is a deeper need a deeper want that many of us don't talk about but a lot of my clients come to me for.

15:23:17 And that is, how do I know what to aim for. What is my goal.

15:23:23 How do I dream the big dreams when I don't feel like I can't even trust myself right now.

15:23:30 It seems weird to say, I don't know how to dream but this is so pervasive in our culture these days that we forgotten how to project forward to think about the future in a way that isn't self destructive.

15:23:47 And honestly, most of the time when we're thinking about dreams.

15:23:52 We inhibit ourselves and create barriers of what our dreams can fit in and what we're allowed to think and want out in the world.

15:24:02 It's almost as if our dreams get categorized into acceptable and feasible dreams and unacceptable unrealistic dreams that you should just trash because hey, that doesn't work out for anybody.

15:24:20 Have you found this has been true for you.

15:24:22 This way of thinking of categorizing acceptable and unacceptable dreams, really comes from two perspectives.

15:24:34 One is the idea that our brain works on the known.

15:24:41 It doesn't like uncertainty. It doesn't like projecting past what we already have and no second way.

15:24:50 And I really think that this one is the major culprit here.

15:24:55 We are really afraid to fail.

15:24:57 I mean, I cannot think of the amount of times that I have inhibited myself because I was so worried about making a fool of myself but more importantly, of disappointing, my own heart.

15:25:13 Because if you're dreaming.

15:25:15 And you start to feel it.

15:25:19 Then the disappointment of not reaching that dream is just that much greater.

15:25:26 So what do we do instead.

15:25:29 We corral our dreams, we start to create known dreams acceptable dreams, or we work inside of someone else's prescribed idea or dream.

15:25:43 For instance, I have a client that's a painter, beautiful work, absolutely stunning.

15:25:48 And she has a very embodied approach to what she does.

15:25:52 When she works through her portraiture, she actually has a meditative state that she reaches and she wants her clients to reach before she even begins the painting in her ideal world, she would be working with some massive clients out there, that's really

15:26:11 where the money's at, but she's telling herself the narrative that, that isn't feasible to work in that way when money is on the line.

15:26:24 So what she does instead.

15:26:42 Is she works how they want her to. She prescribes to their ideas, regulations, and she won't let herself Dream Big of, you know, landing that massive client and being able to be the meditative portrait artist of her dreams.

15:26:44 I think a lot of us can relate to this story.

15:26:48 When we're too afraid to shoot for our own dreams because. Should we fail.

15:26:53 the false just going to be that much harder.

15:26:56 If we only jump a couple inches off the ground landing doesn't hurt as much if we leap and jump off a canyon hoping to fly, and suddenly we're on our knees, and we feel broken.

15:27:10 And we don't know how to get up again.

15:27:12 So we set our goals really small.

15:27:15 We dream small, we stay within the known and worse.

15:27:21 Please stay within someone else's known by.

15:27:36 I have a secret. Do I always have a secret on these episodes, maybe it doesn't have to be that way. And it's actually not our natural tendency, as human beings to stay within the known.

15:27:46 We are naturally future thinking, imaginative creatures.

15:27:54 Yes, we are talking about imagination here, but not just any old imagination, but how imagination plays a role in neuroscience and positive psychology.

15:28:07 Let's start with a scientific example.

15:28:10 Let's start with an experiment that was conducted by Dr. Martin Seligman.

15:28:16 So what they did was they took a number of individuals they had both a test group, and a control group.

15:28:23 And they put them into brain scanners.

15:28:27 Once inside the brain scanner. The test group was asked to solve some arithmetic problems. They were given math, they would do the math problems we would scan the brain.

15:28:39 And then in between equations, they would ask the participants to stop thinking of math, and to let your brain, go blank.

15:28:50 Let me ask you a question.

15:28:52 When was the last time you let your brain go blank.

15:28:56 Think about it for a second. In fact, Let's try it right now. We'll do it together.

15:29:00 On the count of three, you're going to let your brain, go blank. Nothing, not a ready.

15:29:13 123.

15:29:17 You still with me.

15:29:21 headline because your brain right now.

15:29:25 I'm thinking about the dishes and feeding the dog.

15:29:31 Maybe what I'm going to have for dinner.

15:29:33 What about you, it's pretty hard to force your brain to go blank.

15:29:41 And this is what they found in participants that in the study, and against the control group that when not solving math problems and being told to hey don't think of anything.

15:29:55 Our brains automatically start going towards the future, thinking about what's going to happen next, from an evolutionary standpoint that makes a lot of sense we need to anticipate.

15:30:06 When is the next thing that's going to happen where is the tiger that's going to attack me.

15:30:11 We need to be able to participate in our own future.

15:30:15 We are by nature future thinking beings.

15:30:22 And what this truly means, if the future has not occurred yet, but we're already thinking about it and constructing what could happen next.

15:30:31 We are imagining.

15:30:33 We are constantly in our imagination. We are the most imaginative creatures on earth.

15:30:40 But sometimes that imagination doesn't work in our favor.

15:30:45 Take for instance, anxiety, when we are in an anxious mindset. We are future projecting.

15:30:56 We are creating a potential timeline for what could happen in our lives but in this case, it's more like a negative dwelling, or a negative prayer for what could happen in our lives, the positive side of this.

15:31:16 If we are already so prone towards anxiety and forward thinking.

15:31:23 It's a wonderful reminder that we are in our imaginations, all the time.

15:31:29 It's just about how we use it. Or rather, how we play with it.

15:31:37 Albert Einstein is famously quoted saying to stimulate creativity, one must develop the childlike inclination for play really play dreams imagination.

15:31:54 They're not dissimilar at all.

15:31:57 What we're doing here is creating new neural pathways. We are creating cognitive connections that do not exist yet.

15:32:08 The beautiful thing about imagination is that we can envision circumstances that have yet to occur.

15:32:16 And then we can act on it in the present moment. Let's think about all the beautiful, wonderful things that have been made on this earth.

15:32:28 All of the creative visions.

15:32:30 All of the dreams that have been realized, you have to imagine it. First, you have to be able to feel into those larger dreams, dreams that are bigger than anything that your peers your boss.

15:32:45 Anyone could imagine.

15:32:47 It has to come from you.

15:32:58 It has to come from your authenticity, otherwise you're just repeating something else that someone has done before the world wouldn't develop. If we didn't act on our own authentic, big, big heart dreams.

15:33:05 Thinking back to when I started rec center.

15:33:09 It really stemmed from a dream.

15:33:12 Something nebulous, an idea, a concept community support, creativity, play.

15:33:21 It wasn't really fully formed but I had an idea of what I wanted it to feel like I didn't know how I was going to do it.

15:33:31 I didn't base it off of anything else I'd seen before.

15:33:34 But I knew how I want it to feel.

15:33:37 And I knew I wanted others to feel.

15:33:39 I had to let myself dream beyond what I seen in order to create the structure to fill in.

15:33:49 It's almost like building a tunnel.

15:33:52 If we're on one side of a mountain. And we know that there is an ocean on the other side and we just need to get to it.

15:34:01 All we have to do is build the tunnel through the mountain to get there.

15:34:06 We have our starting point.

15:34:08 We have our ending point.

15:34:10 We just have to create the path through, in a way.

15:34:15 This is so liberating.

15:34:17 To have the endpoint already, but to know that you have the flexibility to change it if need be.

15:34:24 It almost reminds me of this time I saw a psychic. I know you're probably hearing this and you're thinking, I don't know about psychics Alex are actually you know if you're listening to this podcast the very good reality is that you probably love psychics

15:34:40 you probably have Taro, you're probably got your crystals out, it's cool so we're on the same page here right.

15:34:47 So I saw psychic.

15:34:49 When I was talking to her. And this was back in 2019.

15:34:53 She mentioned to me that by 2021.

15:34:57 You are going to be running your own business.

15:35:01 I heard that in the first that was really the first thing I thought was two years, are you serious that's a really long time to wait and kind of an arbitrary date but OK, I'll go with you there.

15:35:13 I'll go with you there. But the second thing that I thought was, oh, if I already know where I'm headed. All I have to do is create the path to get there.

15:35:24 When we imagine.

15:35:27 We have our destination.

15:35:29 And all we need to do is create the path to get there.

15:35:35 This also very closely mimics a model used in coaching psychology.

15:35:44 Positive Psychology.

15:35:46 It could either be called T, there's a bunch of other examples of it but basically it works that we have a thought that creates an emotion.

15:35:54 And then we take an action.

15:35:57 So, if the thought is our dreams, our imagination.

15:36:03 What is the emotion that's caused by it.

15:36:08 And why does the emotion matter. Well, let's consider the emotion like the fuel that we need to take the action, or if the action is the vehicle, then thought in action, or the drivers of the vehicle.

15:36:26 So we need a motion to get things started emotions motivate us.

15:36:32 We feel something so we do something. I'm motivated because I'm angry or excited or nervous. It's the emotion that creates the action dots alone or nothing.

15:36:45 I can think that someone is a jerk but unless it makes me feel angry.

15:36:51 I might not take action on it.

15:36:54 Which is why it is so important that our dreams and our imaginations are fueled by feeling that they create big feelings. It's one thing to just create an abstract idea but unless it makes us feel something really big in our bodies.

15:37:12 It's not going to be the fuel or the driver to create the action.

15:37:19 So how do we create these feelings.

15:37:21 How do we tap into them.

15:37:23 How do we feel are most joyful joy, so that we actually make that tunnel through the mountain, you probably guessed it by this point.

15:37:34 Uh huh.

15:37:35 We play.

15:37:37 So, shall we play a game right now.

15:37:40 Are you ready.

15:37:42 No worries, you don't need anything. No pen no paper just your beautiful a little brain.

15:37:49 Ready to get started.

15:37:52 Perfect.

15:37:53 Close your eyes and I invite you to jump in to your most joyous future doesn't have to be a specific date.

15:38:06 It could be in four weeks for months.

15:38:24 40 years.

15:38:15 Feel a memory is if you already have it.

15:38:21 This can be an insignificant moment, like buttering toast or something big like receiving an award in the not so distant future.

15:38:35 Where are you right now.

15:38:37 What are you doing, describe your environment.

15:38:42 Is there anyone with you right now.

15:38:44 I'm going to give you the next couple of seconds to simply explore this future memory.

15:39:20 As you begin to return to us from your future memory.

15:39:24 I want you to take a few things with you.

15:39:27 How did that circumstance make you feel, whether it was as simple as butter on your toast or receiving the award.

15:39:37 How do you feel, how did you feel in your future memory.

15:39:43 I would encourage you to repeat this exercise daily.

15:39:47 I call them daily imaginings as a way to wake up our brain and remind us that we have the power to dream, consider asking yourself a prompt each day.

15:40:00 Like, what is the truest version of my life.

15:40:05 Or, what is the joyful memory that I will have when you put it into the context of I have already I will have we speak of it as if it was certain and already is there.

15:40:22 But most importantly, latch on to that feeling.

15:40:24 The feeling that is already there.

15:40:26 The feeling that causes the action.

15:40:30 And just like the beach. On the other side of the mountain, reminding yourself that it is right there you only need to make the tunnel through.

15:40:43 I'd like to introduce you to a Buddhist philosophy that I used to navigate, much of my life.

15:40:52 So, in your big old imagination.

15:40:56 Imagine you are in a river, And you can feel the water moving past your ankles.

15:41:04 As the water reaches your ankles, it is now.

15:41:08 And it is now.

15:41:10 And it is now imagine that that river, are the actions and circumstances in anyone's life.

15:41:21 I'd like to remind you that the same actions, the same circumstances are already present at the beginning of the river that you are experiencing now.

15:41:36 You just weren't aware of it yet.

15:41:40 The water was already present.

15:41:43 It was just waiting to come to you.

15:41:47 And in this way.

15:41:48 When we use our imaginations. When we project into the future.

15:41:53 We are time travelers.

15:41:57 We get to travel forward and backward mapping the territory of where we want to be an already have.

15:42:05 And when we bring in playful action.

15:42:09 We create a testing ground for our dreams, a soft squishy malleable place for us to see does this work. What combinations feel right. How do I take actions towards my big dreams.

15:42:26 How do I strive and move forward towards this reality that I know is already there.

15:42:34 And for me, the best part is we don't have to plan anything.

15:42:39 We don't have to decide what steps. A through F, are we simply have to know where we are right now where we're going.

15:42:50 And what is the next easiest step that we can take the next playful, step we can take.

15:42:58 Because, and maybe this is going to get to where we'll to spiritual, but like I mentioned before, you're probably with me on that already.

15:43:10 But I think we live in a playful universe.

15:43:29 I'm deeply inspired by the writings of Dr Stuart Brown, who believes that evolution itself is a playful process that in order for evolution to occur. There have to be new thoughts, new imaginings new creations thrown into the mix to create survival of

15:43:38 the fittest.

15:43:40 We need variation in order to create evolution.

15:43:46 We need slight changes things that are different, that weren't planned to be able to say hey, I think this actually works better.

15:43:56 And maybe. This helps me survive.

15:44:01 And some people have been thinking that since the beginning.

15:44:05 In the Hindu tradition.

15:44:07 They see Leela as divine play that play and imagination, are the cause for our reality in this universe that everything created in this universe is a creative act and comes about from imagination and like that to build a world, to build a future to imagine

15:44:34 what could be is a playful pack.

15:44:40 So my little time travelers.

15:44:43 where are we traveling to today.

15:44:46 Where are you already blocked on the other side of your mountain, as we stand in the river and feel the future moving towards us what do we know it's already there, what can we imagine how can we actually do play.

15:45:03 How can we dream the biggest dreams because we know that our authentic self, our secret gift is so much bigger than anything that anyone else can imagine you possess so much dear one, but only you can imagine it.

15:45:36 and only you can get a spare.

15:45:37 This has been Plays Well With Others, and I'm your host, Alex Brennan on.

15:45:44 Until next time, be present.

15:45:50 feel good and play every day.