Active Imagination: A new way to navigate when things don’t go to plan
I didn’t plan for this to be my next blog post, and I didn’t plan to be writing this from an airport hotel room in Bangkok. I planned to be in Kathmandu preparing for my maiden hike in the mountains of Nepal, but hey, things don’t always go to plan and you can either resist it, get frustrated with it or you can go with the flow of it.
You see, I had been doing the thing we all do from time to time, where we set expectations for things to go a certain way - “my flights are going to go smoothly, there will be no hiccups and I’ll be in Kathmandu before I know it”, but after 17 hours of journeying, as the pilot did a few failed landing swoops and several loops around my final destination I realised things weren’t going to go that way. Then came the dreaded garbled intercom message about weather - the airstrip was mistier than a cheap horror flick, and having to make the three hour return trip back to Bangkok. I wanted a drink. Everyone did it seemed. I saw flustered passengers come back to their seats with cans of beers and glasses of whiskey, but I was in the midst of Feb Fast so was abstaining from alcohol (for the first month of my life since I started drinking) and wasn’t about to cave in now. To make things worse, my anxiety around flying was flaring up with every turbulent bump and failed landing. “Please God, just get me back on the fucking ground safely.” Well, we were going back and there was nothing we could do about it. My trip would have to wait another day at least. Or perhaps it had already started and this was part of it.
”When you begin to see your imagination for what it really is, you will realise that it reflects the inner world of your unconscious as faithfully as a highly polished mirror.” Robert A. Johnson
After the panic settled down, I picked up my ‘Inner Work’ book on dreams and active imagination and read a chapter about how we can use active imagination (as opposed to passive imagination) to counsel ourselves as to why we are feeling or acting a certain way unconsciously. We do this by starting up a dialogue with our unconscious, first by asking your unconscious (telepathically, not verbally) what you would like to know and then seeing how the imagination responds. If your consciousness is your awareness, your imagination is said to be a perfect visual representation of your unconscious; the parts of you that you are unaware of. Sometimes a particular anxiety or issue buried in your unconscious might manifest as an imaginary person or creature you can communicate with or sometimes as a small voice in your head. Another way to communicate with your unconscious is to write down a question and then write down the words that emerge in response - without thinking. This was the method I used to see if I could get to the bottom of this anxiety I was experiencing whilst flying. Here is what I transcribed.
> = Conscious ego mind
+ = Unconscious mind
> Who is this anxiety in me when I fly and why are you playing up?
> Is it lack of control?
> You know statistically the chances of a plane crash are incredibly low? So why be scared?
I am scared because I have something to live for.
> Yes, but everyone has something to live for, what makes you need to be scared?
I’m scared because I think its important and I will never be whole if I don’t complete this work.
> It sounds like you are placing your happiness and contentment on some idea in the future - something that may or may not happen. Are you going to be incomplete and unhappy if this doesn't happen?
Maybe. That is my fear.
> So you’re not actually afraid of flying, or even afraid of dying. You are afraid you won’t get to complete what you believe to be your life purpose?
Yes...I guess.
> Well that’s a separate issue that you have to deal with. Stop projecting it onto flying!
I was not consciously aware that this is where my anxiety around flying was stemming from, but it made sense to me. I was amazed that these words and personalities flowed out of me organically without thinking. And it was especially interesting how quickly my psyche split into two (my conscious ego mind and the anxiety in my unconscious) and how effortlessly I was able to communicate between these aspects of myself. You may be wondering how I knew it was my unconscious speaking and I’m not just talking to myself. Well you are talking with yourself, and that’s the whole point, but more specifically you are talking with your ‘selves’, the various fractured personalities of your psyche. Carl Jung states that our psyches are splintered into many different personalities that are often conflicting with one another and vying to be consciously expressed. This is why we often find it hard to make decisions. Do we go out and party or stay in and rest? This conflict can be torturous at times, but it is not because we don’t know what we want. It is because we want both things - one aspect of our psyche is concerned with looking after the self, so wants you to stay in and rest, whilst another part is interested in socialising and extroversion, so wants to go out and shindig with friends. The ultimate goal of Shadow Work such as dream work and active imagination is to bring your fractured psyche into a coherent whole where all aspects are in alignment and in clear communication with one another. He calls this the process of individuation. After processing this communication with my unconscious, I felt some weight of the anxiety had been lifted, but I decided to continue on to see if I could dig more into the route of the problem.
> Is my fear that some unfortunate circumstances (plane crash) may befall me, preventing me from completing my life's work justified?
No, because then that would not be your lifes work. Your life's work takes place within your life and is never cut short. What is done is done and it is beautiful.
> But this desire in me; to see this dream become a reality, is so strong. I can only imagine being incredibly disappointed with myself if I did not make it happen.
Is this pressure of disappointment with yourself justified?
> Oooh touche! Hmmm...No, I guess not. You can only do what you can within your means and if things don’t work out the way you hoped them to, perhaps then that it was by design in order to teach me something valuable or point me in a new more meaningful direction.
This was my conscious conclusion to the communication with my unconscious. The tone of voice that came through was much more stern compared to the meek anxiety I spoke with previously, so this time my ego took a backseat. The simple, direct messages this aspect of myself had for me were wise. They gave me peace. I was not concerned at all about having to return to Bangkok for a night and I didn’t even want a drink. I was sure that everything would work out as it was supposed to and I would be on a flight back to Kathmandu the next morning. And so it was, the airline put us up in a swanky ass airport hotel, which included a super comfy bed to sleep in and complimentary buffet dinner and breakfast the next morning. Before I knew it I was cracking crab claws and slurping down oysters with a couple of new friends I made who were also on the same journey - big up Juno from Japan and Faudzi from Indonesia! I’d ate well, slept well and learned the valuable skill of how to counsel myself when things don’t go to plan.
Over dinner, my new friend Juno said that our pilgrimage had begun, which I found interesting. I had been calling my it a hiking trip, but pilgrimage now seemed more fitting; A pilgrimage is a journey to an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about the self, others, nature or a higher good, through experience.
As I publish this article, I am now below the Annapurna Mountain Ranges in Pokhara, Nepal, after having endured a brilliantly bumpy 8 hour bus journey with incredible scenery including a bonus stop for a flat tire change. And so far, I wouldn't change a thing. Let pilgrimage continue!
