The Double-Edged Sword of Imagination

I've been spending some time learning about my Ennegram type. I am a Type Four: The Individualist. There's a lot to be learned from psychological evaluations of personality type, but today I'm going to talk about imagination.

I've always seen imagination as a pathway to endless marvels. I never really considered that imagination could also be a pathway to destruction until reading about Fours. There are pieces of my imagination that I have known are problematic without even realizing that they are, in fact, connected to imagination. 

Reading about my type and our overuse of imagination, I didn't really think I had that quality. Then, I suddenly realized that empathy is simply the ability to imagine deeply. I'm sure that sounds really obvious, but I had never really thought about it that way. Empathy is such an emotional and automatic response for me, it feels like more of a reaction than a cognitive process. Seeing empathy, something that I highly value and appreciate but also know to be problematic, as a process of imagination made me start to see that maybe I do have this over-active imagination problem.

Introspection is another double-edged sword that I hadn't ever recognized as a compartment of imagination. Knowing yourself and examining yourself is a good thing, but you can get lost in your mind, ruminating on all your flaws and problems. Being hyper-aware of your shortcomings is not a fun time, yet it's a trap I find myself in all too frequently, another trap of imagination.

Yet as I read about the concept of my "Fantasy Self", the idea that I build up an idealized self in my mind, I thought, "I don't do that." Oh, Chelsea. It's so cute when you blatantly lie to yourself. Of course I do this, and I think a lot of other people probably do this without necessarily realizing that they do, so that's why we're here talking about it today. 

The idea of Fantasy Self is closely linked with perfectionism, a trait I know myself to have and of which I am trying to break myself. I have been trying to break myself of a lot of things, actually. I have been trying to rebuild myself into a whole new person, a person I have a very clear image of, my Fantasy Self. Working towards a better you is a good thing, but imagining better is only a part of the process, and if you're not careful, you can find yourself imagining without working. Re-wiring yourself is a slow and painful process. There are going to be snags. Everyone makes bad decisions, falls into the habits they're trying to leave behind them. And that's where the Fantasy Self becomes dangerous. I have this idea of who I want to be, of who I "really am" and then I torture myself when I cannot live up to that. My brain throws every instance where I was not the person I wanted to be in my face, played over and over again with no stop button. I berate myself for not having done better, not having been a better person. When you get lost in shame spirals like that, you can't see clearly. It's hard to make any progress when you can't find your footing because you're too busy obsessing over mistakes. And when you do make progress, you tell yourself that it's not enough, you're not enough yet. And if you're not enough, you're not worthy of being loved. You start to think of yourself as a project, not a complete being.

I'm trying so hard to teach myself that I'm a person, not a partially built house that's unlivable before completion. It's hard to know that so much of me needs to change, feeling like I'm learning an endless string of things that are wrong with me. But it's easier when I learn to assess the individual problems. Seeing that my imagination has led to most of my problems in life, I can start the process of learning to hone it into something that's productive and filled with beauty. 

I would love to hear ideas from my fellow wakeful dreamers on how you deal with the self-destructive aspects of your imagination.