six impossible things, a practice
Queen says, "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast".
A mentor once told me to dream bigger. For a moment in that moment, my mind blanked at the prospect of the invitation. I could feel my nervous system go into resistance, my breath becoming a touch more weighted, my eyes feeling big and watery. To delve into my already active and vivid imagination to dream even bigger, even wilder, even more boldly! It was a permission slip: to allow myself to dream into the imaginal realms that are embedded within the loci of the humanly impossible. Much like the Wright brothers convincing assistants to work for them because they believed humans could fly.
Shortly after that conversation, as my angels would arrange, I stumbled upon a series of lectures on the storybook Alice in Wonderland online, one of which pointed to this conversation between Alice and the Queen:
“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'
I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!”
-Lewis Carroll
For the next week, every morning before dawn and before only candle-light, I carved out the time to write down six impossible things. At first my list was reasonable, stretching my imagination but so far; not allowing myself to truly tap into the wells of imagination. By the final days, I was writing down what bordered on the outrageous. And so what? “Stranger things have happened”, as an old friend from years ago would say.
Might I add that this is not about an outcome. I was careful not to confuse this practice as some kind of manifestation exercise. This was not about a reward, or even a sense of fulfillment. I didn’t use this practice to call certain things into my experience. Not everything is to be done in the spirit of self-aggrandisement. This was a practice in currying my imagination, in opening up my sense perception. A practice in practicing that I can go there.
Six Impossible Things Practice to Curry the Imagination:
-Find a quiet moment. Ideally, this practice would take six minutes. The aim is not to over-think or rationalise. This is not a wish list. This is not a ‘maybe this could happen’ list. This is a list of impossible things.
-Employ the mind of a child, perhaps your inner child. The one who made up stories while pushing a curious finger deep into garden soil.
-Itemise the six impossible things you believe in before breakfast time. The mind-body connection in writing things down, rather than merely thinking about it, is well documented.
-Try it out for a few days. Allow it to become a ritual practice of expansion.
Allow in the outrageous.