How do YOU Fantasize?
And What Does This Say About How You Can Approach This New Year?
I’ve never been a big fan of New Years’ Resolutions. It doesn’t really resonate with me to take an arbitrary date on the Gregorian Calendar and use it to decide that on this day and this year something is going to change about your life in a meaningful way. Without really being willing to look deeper into any desired shift, we are setting ourselves up for the inevitable conclusion of failure. If you are someone who enjoys the time honored tradition of making resolutions, ask yourself how long the resolution you set for yourself normally lasts. Days? Weeks? Months? Have you gone a whole year effectively creating a container of change inside yourself? Has this cascaded into the lifetime/lifestyle type of change that you are seeking?
Change made without the depth of facing the self is ineffective.
I have noticed this year that there are a lot of “challenges” being pushed. It makes me wonder if society itself is changing to embrace the inevitable return to habits that comes with New Year’s Resolutions. Taking on a 21-day fast or a 45-day detox feels more possible than promising to let something go for a whole year, right? It also points to the limited attention span we tend to have towards our own actual transformation. Is this because we do not believe true change is possible? Is this perhaps because we recognize that enduring our own being’s shift requires making a commitment to living and thriving instead of surviving and dying. The ability to truly thrive requires a change in tradition, a shift of self.
This new year, maybe rather than making a RESOLUTION you can spend some time having a REVELATION instead.
Revelation versus Resolution
Awareness is always the first step to changing any pattern. Calling yourself out on a behavior or way of being that hurts your in your life or holds you back may create a larger container for change than setting yourself up for the inevitable or probable failure of any resolution. Revelations invite the self into honesty. They aren’t negative or positive, but accepting. Revelations enable the self to flow into being instead of comfortably resist change. Revelations are deeper than awareness. They are an insight where we truly can not go back to an old way of holding or seeing the self. Revelations invite something new to arise.
I read a quote lately that said, paraphrasing here, it is easier to make changes through avoidance than changes through moderation. This quote made me thinks about how easy it is to fanatsize ourselves into change through the practice of avoidance rather than challenge ourself with the moderation. Moderation requires slowing down and taking responsibility for the change we want in our lives. Moderation requires revelations to arise toward our "bad” habits and negative thought patterns.
It strikes me that resolutions and avoidance are easier to face because they allow a certain space for magical thinking. Sure IF we exercise more, change our diet, stop eating sugar, or give up drinking/smoking, THEN we are going to not be so angry, lonely, dissatisfied, hungry, frustrated, sad, etc. Wow. That gives a habit a lot of power without looking deeper. It also smacks of something deeper at play. If, then statements equal images. Images mean that there are a cascade of limiting beliefs at play. It means there is a place for self work here that goes beyond changing a habit or making a false promise to yourself. Emotions need to be faced and released in relationship for images to resolve themselves. This is not something to be processed alone. Avoidance patterns need to be faced with another to create actual change.
Magical Thinking
Let’s stop for a second and define the term magical thinking. What is magical thinking? Magical thinking stems from an inability to face the self or a certain reality. Instead of actually equating what is real to what is happening, we magically think ourselves through it. A great example of this is when someone is not religious at all but suddenly magically thinks that a divine intervention may help them out of a problem. Anyone reading this fantasize about winning the lottery?
When I hear a magical thought inside myself or another, I am not hearing what is traditionally defined as magical thinking. I do believe that events can occur outside our control and everything can come together and align. I believe prayer can work. I believe magic and interconnectedness are a part of the world we live in. What I don’t believe is that we can magically think ourself out of a situation without being present in the experience of the magic or the circumstance.
Magical thinking is a way of thinking that takes something really important out of a situation (you) and puts a desire into reality (magic) in a way that does not actually account for the self, the unknown, and interconnectedness itself as a force in the universe.
Let me give a more extreme example. Someone who wants to accomplish something in life is magically thinking when they believe that they can accomplish whatever it is they want without putting any work towards it. Artists need to create art, not just think about or imagine art, to call themselves an artist. People who find themselves in a difficult situation may rather wish that the situation goes away than face it head on. Magical thinking can be incredibly obvious. It can also be very subtle.
When magical thinking is subtle, it is more insidious and harder to get rid of. Magical thinking in which we may have a tendency to fantasize that the people we don’t like or who make us uncomfortable will magically change their behavior without us doing anything about it is a great example of this quieter magical thinking. A tendency to consistently believe that a conflict we feel towards another person will work itself out without communication may be another. My favorite form of magical thinking is the one in which people we love will automatically know what we need and give us what we need as a result. Calling the self out on magical thinking gives as clarity on what is being avoided.
Guess what? We all magically think. We magically think to AVOID.
Personal Fantasies
Fantasies are so soothing, aren’t they? I love a good fantasy to keep me from thinking about a problem in my life. I also love a good fantasy as a reality to turn to when I am stressed, tired, overwhelmed, or feeling anxious. Fantasies that we engage in with a conscious need to escape or recoup are actually healthy and inevitable - if we can metabolize their healing power. In our world of movies, youtube, tv series, and media scrolling, we have more than enough opportunity to engage in something that takes us completely out of reality and doesn’t necessarily give us any healing. Perhaps it is too easy to rely on the fantasies of others as a knee jerk reaction to pretty much anything we want to escape in life.
Making a fantasy personal may not be as easy as it once was because of the alluring distraction of other people’s fantastical creations. We may spend more time going into shut down than fantasy in the midst of difficulties in life. This means that we are one step further from what we need to understand. What is making us check out and why?
When fantasy is relational to an experience we are directly having in life, it is a response that highlights our unconscious desires and connects us directly to the experience itself.
Fantasy that is relational provides a bridge between a situation and your response to it. Fantasy enables questioning. A fantasy is our solution to a problem. Through it, we connect ourself to the relief of our desired outcome. We let go.
For me one of my more disturbing fantasies is the fantasy of my husband dying. When we are not getting along, I fantasize that he is going to die. I imagine how hard it will be to live without him…but I also can feel the thread of relief that I get. If he dies, I would not have to relate to him in this place that is hard. I would be able to avoid my wound and his.
When my husband and I are having a recurrent issue that feels insurmountable, the reality of living without him is a fantasy of avoidance. I get to feel the release in the fantasy of our problems solved without doing the work of figuring out why our problems exist and how I have to change to meet them head on. I am avoiding my need for him and my own hurt through fantasy.
The more interesting thing I notice about this fantasy is how it completely disappears when we are in a good space. When we are getting along, I think about the fantasy and allow myself to feel the maddening grief and fear I actually feel about living without him. I face loneliness and being alone without my best friend.
Death fantasies, whether they are your own death or someone else’s, are a result of not feeling like there is space for the self to grow or change in a given situation. We are putting our own demand for rigidity or habitual behaviour on what is happening. We are closing ourselves off to the possibility of something new happening. We are projecting an “us versus them” on whatever is happening and coming to the conclusion that something needs to die for our own life to continue. Exploring what we are killing off and why is going to yield a richness that only comes from allowing the death fantasy to play itself out.
Sexual fantasies are fantasies based in seeking acceptance or connection. The act of sex is one of connection. When we begin to sexually fantasize about a person or a situation, something that we desire is being hidden inside the sexual fantasy. We are cutting outself off from a deeper vitality of living. In very simplified terms, becoming curious about what brings you release in sexual fantasy provides the key to what the desire is that you are hiding from yourself. Whether you need to accept something about yourself or let go into acceptance of another is dependent on the flavor of your unique sexual fantasy. Connection happens when we can allow this aspect of ourself to be expressed or accept something about another person in order to acknoweldge the energy behind the desire.
From Fantasy to Revelation
This year, I invite you to take time to explore a recurrent fantasy in your life. Rather than use the fantasy to follow typical thought patterns, notice if you can give yourself space to face the fantasy differently. If you tend to cut the fantasy off, let it come to a conclusion. Feel the release that follows, however it shows up. Notice if you can allow what you are seeking in the fantasy to be a revelation - to change your energy and create a flow into something new.
You can use fantasy to let go of a situation. Let go of any negative self talk and let yourself discover an aspect of your self that you are seeking. Let yourself have desire. Let yourself have emotion. Open yourself to aliveness. Fantasy is your doorway into who you want to be. Let something new arise.
The following is a meditation to facilitate this process.
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