magical thinking and courting rapture back into your life.
– by jianda
I need to believe that something extraordinary is possible.”
– from (film version of) “A Beautiful Mind.”
I have a lot of friends who are magical thinkers. I may, perhaps, be the biggest one I know (to the delight and/or dismay of many).
Magical thinking. It’s an inborn trait. A child’s trait. Many of the lucky few never lose it, in its original intent. It’s a cocoon. A protective device to help us through the forest of our formative years.
Unfortunately, many pedagogical types and psychologists call it an inherently BAD thing to be a magical thinker. As if thoughts are not things. As if self-fulfilling prophecies, wishes and dreams fulfilled, etc., for better or worse, do not exist.
Some of the less-than-fun ideas around magical thinking have to do with loss of any kind: “it’s all my fault, because I was mad.” Or: “I did something wrong or bad, and that is why they are not coming back.” It’s okay. Children also have issues of depth perception and spatial orientation that change and evolve as they grow. Why would magical thinking be any different? You take the best of what’s magical and elevate to the next good thing. Add a degree of reason here, a touch of reality there, seeking balance. The next good thought. As best you can.
In exploration on the web, I’ve found other feedback regarding this:
Shannon Cochran, byte.com:
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Child psychologists use the term “magical thinking” to describe how young children understand the world. In this worldview, effects and their causes are not objectively determined, but mediated by the child’s own desires; for instance, “It is raining because I am sad,” or “My friend broke his leg because I was mad at him.”
Of course, even adults sometimes retreat into magical thinking. Take, for example, the U.S. Commerce Department Technology Adminstration workshop on “Digital Content and Rights Management,” where a room full of grown men and women discussed, very seriously, the possibility that wanting a thing badly might be enough to make it happen.
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Touché. The backbone of the Internet, believe it or not, is a bunch of ideas come to fruition through luck, blood, sweat, tears, and a healthy dose of magical thinking.
Magical thinking is also the lingua franca of religion, mythology, love, and lust. You can fall in love, and then come to your senses, and build a life with someone, or move on, etc., but there’s always a balance between the oceanic and being on firm ground. And I’m glad of it.
Often in psychological rhetoric, magical thinking is paired with egocentrism. Ex: “Everything in the world has to do with my thought process. I’m sad, so I’m crying. It’s raining. The sky is crying too.” Line up enough of those, and it’s a recipe for an anxiety attack. Enter, most hopefully, reason, and a sweet, safe, sound support system, not necessarily in that order.
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from drirene.com
“When one is wounded in a certain stage of emotional development, they get stuck there.. until they address the wounds. Magical thinking that another can/will fill the hole left by such wounds is the innocence [we may] speak about. (IMHO) One will either adapt the ‘overgiving mode’ or the ‘demand mode’ to fill that part of them that they feel incomplete about. “
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We can act out and re-enact dramas that have followed us around for our whole lives, for the rest of our lives, and that’s okay, too. When things show up in life, they are asking to be healed. But we must prioritize, and can’t heal everything at once. “Fake it ’till you make it,” (a great magic-thinkers’ phrase) works just fine in that case. Magical thinking also brings blood and fire to our bodies. In sexual and psychosocial development. (boy and girl parts, privacy, safe spaces, what feels comfortable and what doesn’t, etcetera).
Traipsing back to issues that can be healed, since we are born without words and our environments give us queues, many of the decisions we make are irrational, made before we had words to undo them or change them. Some culled from research are (source; trans4mind.com): “I mustn’t exist. Mustn’t be noticed. Mustn’t be myself. Mustn’t be wrong. Mustn’t demand. Mustn’t get close. Mustn’t say. Mustn’t feel. Trust. Play. Refuse. Take.” And so on. One can see the importance of shining a light on issues that appear to recur in your life.
Use a little bit of magic. You don’t have to use the big words. Use your feeling compass. Use your heart centers. Use a little bit of self-nurturance. Ask people around you for help. If you don’t feel you can trust anyone at the moment, go to things or ideas you love. Music. Art. Books. Fiction. Non-fiction. Meditation. Dreams. It’s working for me. (You want examples if you don’t believe me? I’ve got them in droves, kids.)
If you can’t trust anyone or anything, be willing to trust. Or be willing to learn to trust. We have feelings and faux pas and dreams–magical thinking for a reason. Let’s take what feels good and chuck the rest. Pedagogical and psychological theorists be damned. Sure, they do help us make sense of certain ways and means about us. But humans change shape as more often than the tree outside your window. Or the child in your arms. Or the child in your heart. Close eyes and listen to the smallest part of you. Walk forward from there. We’re all still working on paring down the less than comfy bits.
Yell “Marco Polo” when you’re stranded. There are lots of playmates out there who’ll help you find your way out of game and back home eventually.
peace.
ji
Wells of inspiration sources include:
sark.com
alice-miller.com
drwaynedyer.com
