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Imagination: An Incredible Awakening Tool

• THeresa Marie

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Imagine treating reality like a canvas and your mind as the brush. That’s the spirit we bring to a deep dive on imagination—first as the brave lens that lets us face buried patterns, then as the practical engine that helps us design an authentic life. We unpack what “imaging in” really means and why knowledge alone rarely shifts behavior without the felt, rehearsed experience of a different future.

We start by reframing imagination as a tool for awakening. Instead of avoiding discomfort, we use it to mind trace the roots of old programs, sit with hard memories long enough to release them, and free the nervous system from loops that keep us stuck. You’ll hear a personal story about slipping back into an old coping habit, the honest consequences that followed, and the simple repair moves that build resilience: naming the trigger, feeling the emotion, and re-imagining the next decision. From there, we explore how to prototype change without blowing up your life—especially around work. If you’ve ever stayed in a role that drained you because it once won approval or safety, we walk through how to image a different day-to-day, take small safe steps, and let your body learn that change can be secure.

We also zoom out to the cultural cost of screen-heavy childhoods and what it takes to restore wonder, attention, and self-authorship in kids (and adults): device-free margins, open-ended play, boredom that breeds curiosity, and questions that don’t have tidy answers. Along the way, we share quotes that re-center hope as a discipline: disappointments are finite, courage grows in waves, and imagination keeps possibility vivid when willpower is tired.

If you’re ready to use imagination not as escape but as a craft—one boundary, one habit, one conversation at a time—this conversation will meet you where you are and nudge you forward. Listen, then tell us: what will you image in this week? If this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to help more people get free to just be.

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SPEAKER_00:

Albert Einstein said Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination circles the world. Imagination is the language of the soul. Pay attention to your imagination, and you will discover all you need to be completely fulfilled. And I welcome you back to this fantastical Friday, the start of the weekend, and we're gonna kick it off with another episode of Free to Just Be, the podcast empowering humanity to courageously step out of old patterns, false beliefs, matrix programming, childhood traumas, and give big hugs to brand new ways of being. And I hope this finds us all in the greatest health with vibrant energy today because we have all chosen to accept the full responsibility for our bodies, mind, and souls. Here we will inspire each other to truly be who we came here to be. And that starts with authenticity and freedom and being aligned with our highest potential. So join me, Teresa Marie, on this transformative journey of awakening to learn how to rewrite our narratives and live lives of purpose and passion. And before we jump on into today's episode, I would be so very grateful if you would pause for a second and hit the like button because that'll raise the algorithm and get a lot more people to learn how to be free to just be. And I would be so incredibly happy if you were able to do that. And hit the subscribe button as well, whatever platform you're listening to, Free to Just Be. And I so appreciate you giving me some time today, and I hope I return the value back to you. So today we are continuing our series. We are on day eight of the series of authenticity. We have taken the word authenticity and created an acrostic, and so the word is vertically down on our page, and we have come through the A of appreciating your divinity, you unlocking your inner child, T, trusting your inner voice, H helping humanity by honoring yourself, E was for experience, N was for natural states, and yesterday we talked about truthful trends, and as you probably could tell, today we're going to talk about the power of imagination. And I want to kick us off by doing some defining of what imagination actually means. So imagination is the ability to form mental images, ideas, or concepts of things that are not present to our senses or have not been previously experienced in reality, and it often involves creative ability. Now what is a what is creative ability? It's the capacity to use your imagination to develop or produce new, original, and valuable ideas, works, or solutions to problems. What's a creator? A person or a thing that invents, produces or makes something, especially something new or original. A content creator is also another that's a new definition because that's what I am. I'm a content creator. Any podcaster, social media influencer would be considered a content creator. And my favorite definition of creator is creator with a capital C means a divine being or God who is believed to have created everything. So when we look at imagination and we take it to the realm of this awakening journey, this transformative journey that we're on, right? Learning to be free to be who we came to be, how do we apply imagination? Well, we are literally sparks of God, and we are creators as well. And on this journey of uh awakening, we really can utilize our imaginations in very incredible ways as we begin to leave our old self and walk the path inside to reunite with our higher self, right? And the way that we do that is through the process of imaging in. What does image in mean? It it is a visual representation of something that we wish to see, right? So let me just walk through some real-time uh examples from my life on this awakening journey. So first I used my imagination when I took the red pill, right? When I was first incredulous about what was it? It was um chemtrails in the sky. That's what got me going down the rabbit trail, which is what my what what began my awakening, my I mean, really began it. I was always a self-help queen, but it was then that I began to recognize that I was lied to because I actually found factual information that yes, we were having poison rain down on us in chemtrails. And I began imagining that horrible scenario. So that was the first thing, and I couldn't believe that anybody, as I imagined, some pilot getting in a plane and spraying this poison down. So see, I had this visual image that I could not compute. It was like there was no way. So my imagination was used to image in the darkness. Now I use that as a simple example because you're gonna use that as all of your own darkness. The dark night of the soul, as it starts pouring in, because that is exactly how we end up getting free. First, you have to see the darkness that you're sitting in. And what we begin to discover is that we have been covering that up, right? So that's generally the next step. You recognize that you cover up the uncomfortability of seeing all this darkness, right? You're frustrated, you're angry, um, you have these itches in internal itches that you just can't seem to scratch. You know, why do I hate my life right now? Why do I feel like I'm missing life? And and your imagination is at work because it is trying to ascertain the answers, the reasons for this, right? So it's a big stirring that's occurring in your life. And then maybe um the self-help part. You're you're trying to figure out how to get out of this feeling of frustration and and angst and and just discombuberation, right? And so you're using your imagination to all right, that's when you begin down the process of figuring out how to get out of it. And then you stumble upon, you use your imagination, and you're starting to say to yourself, Well, how can I um obtain peace? And your imagination starts sending things out. Well, maybe, maybe you know, you need to go outside, or um, maybe you need to Google it, and you google it, and then you start seeing more of it, and and then your imagination starts kicking into gear. Oh, you want to find out more about how to be peaceful, and thus you begin to go down that yellow brick road, that that place where we recognize, yes, imagination literally is the yellow brick road to everywhere, and it begins to open up this pathway before us. Then, as you're beginning to recognize certain things in your life that no longer serve you, all right, let's just take the concept of a job that you don't like, and you've been there for years, and and now your imagination is taking you back in time, and you're recognizing that it let's just use this as a random example. It was your mom or dad that suggested that you would make a good school teacher. So you took that idea and you ran with it. Oh, well, I'm gonna end up being a school teacher, and then you get in the classroom and you recognize that you are miserable, but you stayed and you stayed, and oh, now you have tenure, but you're in misery every day. You dread Monday, you look forward to Friday, you you cannot wait for the next fall break, right? And as you're awakening, you start imaging in what it would look like to not be at that job as a school teacher, right? And now your imagination is working both ways. It is bringing to your attention everything that you hate on a daily basis. I hate going, I hate preparing, I hate uh grading papers, and so your imagination is showing you all the bad. And then at the same time, it's it's showing you the liberation of what it would look like if you no longer had to be there. Now, here is a very important spot that people neglect using their imagination to their advantage. So now go back to the part about recognizing it was your parents that gave you the idea. Now, whatever it is that you're going through, when you mind trace back, and generally we mind trace back in our life because what we're doing is we're trying to discover what the root of that particular false belief or the program or the trauma, and we go back to the source, but here's where we neglect the use of our imagination. When we discover that sour source or that root, we don't allow ourselves time to sit with it, to image it in, especially if it's a painful um memory, if it's a trauma. And this is where imagination, because you see, unfortunately, in order to delete it from our neuroplasty pathways that we have in our brain, especially if it was before seven years old, we we have no choice but to recognize it, that moment or the that time frame or that event, and acknowledge it and literally relive it, even if it's just in our mind for five or ten minutes, right? Because in order to erase it from our memory bank, we have to feel it. Because feelings, emotions are nothing more than energy that wants to be in motion. And the traumas that we haven't dealt with, the reason that you're still in that teacher's position is because for some reason, and again, this is just an example, um, you know, for uh teaching purposes, you have to remember what it felt like to hear over and over again, oh, you're a natural-born teacher, you're a natural-born teacher. This is, you know, I was a teacher, your grandma was a teacher, your father's a teacher, oh, it's it's a shoe, and you're gonna be a teacher. And you hear that over and over again, and maybe the part of imaging in your mind trace moments is the recollection that even as a first grade child, you thought to yourself, oh, I don't want to be a teacher. And that's where the imagination has to take you back to that moment. And the next moment where you said, Maybe mom and dad would give me more attention, or approve of me more, or love me more, or support me more if I did what they want me to do and become a teacher. Do you see what I'm saying? This is the part of the awakening journey that we avoid, like the plague. We don't want to sit with our pile of shite. And unfortunately, if we really want to get to the bottom of all of the things that don't serve us, that's what we have to do. That that is where the dark night of the soul comes. And thankfully, it will come in waves. And it is very true that um I it's not anywhere written in the Word of God, but the concept of not being given more than you can handle. Now, in the midst of it, you're saying, I can't handle this, I can't handle this, but truly, this is where true strength and courage is forged when you sit in that pile and you allow it to wash over you, and you let the tears come and you let the memories come, and you remind yourself this is just a memory, this is not who I am, and in five or ten minutes it's going to be through my body, and I am not leaving until it passes through, right? That is a very good use of your imagination taking you back to the very pain that caused whatever it is that you're sitting in now as an adult. Then, of course, the fun part of the imagination is imaging in those things that you wish to have in your life. So as I sat and thought about this, I, of course, you know, I'm the quote gal. I love, I love, love, love the quotes. And Albert Einstein, who, by the way, you know, had off the charts genius intelligence, he's the one that said knowledge wasn't the most important. Imagination is. Now I want to just turn the page to a different direction of the imagination. Why is the imagination under such attack? What attack is the imagination under, you say? Well, think about what Eleanor Roosevelt said. Excuse me. She said that children's imagination is the most powerful tool they possess. It's the key to unlock their dreams and creativity. The greatest gift you can give a child is an imagination. Now, when I was growing up, when I was a kid, we spent a lot of time outside. And I've spoken about things that I did as a kid, like for example, um in the snow. I lived in New York City in Richmond Hill, Queens, and we had um, you know, I look back and it looks like a postage size uh stamp of a yard. But to me as a child, you know, preschool up till first or second grade, the yard was huge, and we had gardens, and my dad was an avid gardener. And when it snowed, I can remember taking a sled and picking up sheets of ice and pretending that I was an Eskimo and I was on a fishing expedition. I remember this. Now what happens? We sit our children in front of screens, and when the screen is taken away, they throw a tantrum because they need constant stimulation. Why do they need constant stimulation? Because they are being fed things that hit their dopamine, and it's it's like an addict. They need constant stimulation. They do not, they are losing the capacity of their imagination. And when you see kids that have their tablets taken away, for example, sit and just brood, and it's like literally they don't know what to do. We are gonna be responsible for a generation that is lacking in the ability to image in new concepts. It's gonna be very interesting to see what the next generation's coming up, um, you know, but at the same time, you notice that the 30-something generation, I don't like labels, so I'm just saying the people that are about between 30 and 40 are now recognizing and have this big push to get back to nature and back to imagination because it's that important. So um Shakespeare also um said, We know what we are, but know not where we may be. And why is that? I mean, Shakespeare's, you know, quite a time back in the past, but yet back then we knew that we were creations of God, but they struggled, they struggled to imagine what it would be like today, right? Imagination literally, according to Napoleon Hill, is the most marvelous, miraculous, and inconceivably powerful force that the world has ever known. That's where things come into being. We are creators, we are just like our Father God, our Creator. We are sparks of Him, we are pure energy, and imagination is very, very important. It's where all the important answers live, and we need to learn to use it to our advantage. You see, here's also where the awakening journey begins, because people truly do wish to be settled. And what does settled mean? At peace, balanced, happy, right? Everybody wishes to be settled, but only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them, is what R. E. Emerson said. Literally, we have to have our carts upset in order to imagine how we got to where we are, right? We have to look back and we have to image in the and and recognize, acknowledge, and reckon with how we got to where we are today, miserable, right? In order to image in where we want to go tomorrow, right? And it it it's very true. And uh MLK, Martin Luther King, had he knew it, and he said that we must accept finite disappointments. What it does finite mean? Finite has bounds, it it has limits in size or extent or duration, right? So we must accept finite disappointments, but we must never lose infinite hope. Infinite is the the absolute opposite of finite, it's boundless, limitless, never-ending. That's what hope is. And what is hope? Optimistic states of mind on an expectation of positive outcomes. But what does that mean to us on this awakening journey? Finite disappointments. So you begin down the path, and this is where we have to remind ourselves that we are gonna go through this period of time. There's a time limit, it's a it's a certain extent or duration. In other words, it will end. Dark nights of the soul do not go on in infinity. Do you understand what I'm saying? It it doesn't just, it never ends. That's not the truth. Dark nights of the soul always have a duration, uh an end point. It will, you will come out of that tunnel. You feel like you're not gonna, but eventually what you are able to finally recognize is I've been through this tunnel. Oh, okay, here comes another tunnel. Well, I've been through these two tunnels. Do you understand what I'm saying? You begin to understand that you have the capacity to go through dark night of the soul because they are finite. They begin and they end. Now they may be two days, two hours, two weeks, two months. Nobody knows. It depends on how deep and how embedded these programs, these false beliefs, these traumas are. Some take much longer than others. That's why I always suggest that you begin small. Start attacking those things that are not of you, little things that nobody's even going to notice, like food choices or the choice of the color that you wear or the way you style your hair, little things that you begin to build up a muscle of change, right? So Martin Luther King understood that disappointments come, growth spurts come, and some of them are very, very difficult, but they will end. And in the in the meantime, when you're going through these hard times, when the change is and and and you know, all of your programs are stuck to you like glue, and you and you understand that you were lied to, but oh, it's so hard to get out of it. I'll give you a real-time example. I am struggling through um several things that will eventually become episodes. And in the last couple of weeks, what has occurred? Oh, the old hippie freak of the south has been out and about and working on my um, you know, my daily. And last night it it won. It won. I I just uh had such heaviness and I just felt on the verge of crying all day long, and I really wasn't sure where it was coming from. And that old Terry, she was right there, and she kept saying, you know, it's a twisted tea night, it's a twisted tea night. And I I fought it for a while, and then finally I I just, you know, I texted my husband and I said, I just he, you know, he said, How how's your day going, babe? And I said, Well, I just I need a good cry. And he said, Oh, I'm sorry you need a good cry. And then I said, I, you know, uh a good cry and some teas. And he said, Well, stop and get you some teas, then. And so, see, that was my permission. But see, at that moment, when I I picked out the spot on my way home that I was gonna pull in and get the dirty goods, this is what the Holy Spirit said to me. You know you're not that person anymore. And I I, you know, I just had it on ignore. You know your body's gonna reject this because you are in a different timeline. You you know this. And again, I yes, I do know this, and I I do know that for years he was giving me example after example, and you can look at former episodes where I talk about, you know, graphic things like explosive um bowel movements, you know, in inopportune places, that type of thing. Because you see, when you are evolving and you step up and you eradicate and delete a lot of these programs, you are no longer vibrating the same way. So if you digress, and I'm sharing this stuff because we all do it. It's the two steps forward, one step back concept. But there comes a point where energetically the vessel that your pure light and energy lives in, this physical body, your physiology will no longer tolerate certain things, certain foods, certain drinks, certain um ways that you used to move, that type of thing, certain thought patterns. And your new self will do everything to get you back on track. This is how it how it happens. So I fell susceptible to that old way of being last night. And I did stop and we got teas. Now, um, the upside of it was my husband and I had a wonderful time at a bonfire last night. And we sat outside by a bonfire, which is very atypical for a southern country lifestyle. Bonfires and brewskis and autumn, they all seem to go together in the southern way of life. And we enjoyed each other's company and we and we conversated about this very topic, and I was sharing with him, and I, you know, I feel like I'm digressing, but here I am, and and this and that, and we we had a really good evening together. Oh, but oh buddy, you can never escape. Karma is a bitch, and karma is nothing more than what? Cause and effect. You make a decision, and guess what? That decision has a price. And whether it takes two minutes, two hours, two days, two years, you are always going to have to pay the price. And the price I paid was heading out to my DoorDash job, which you know it's it's it's going bye-bye, which is a manifestation that is coming into my life because for the last six months I have literally been putting out to the universe, I don't want to do this anymore, I don't want to do this anymore. So now I'm moving out of DoorDashing again and into more consistent finances for a time so that I could work towards full-blown entrepreneurship, live and learn. Going back to what I did by going backwards. Yes, I'm out making deliveries and the belly thing hit. I'm not going to go into any more. It's way too TMI for this podcast. Maybe down in the future I'll I'll reveal it all. But that is what we need to do. We need to use our imagination for our good, but also at the same time that our imagination is also used to help us identify, acknowledge, recognize, and sit with what we don't want to look at. And that's when the imagination, we think it's at our worst, really is. A gift. It's a gift to have a memory come up and finally have the courage to sit with it, feel it, and finally release it and delete it from our body, mind, and soul. And as we do that, one by one, we grow and we can now start to image in what we do want: the vocation, the peace, the relationship, the financial freedom, whatever it is that we want. And to go back to the childhood imagination, why do you think the matrix hits our children? Because they want to shut down that imagination as early as possible. And by the way, they're doing a damn good job about it, unfortunately. It's really, really sad when you stop and think about it. And it's time that we start training our children to not only see themselves as who they truly are, love and light, and in our Creator's eyes, already perfect and already having purpose and already here to shine the light, and then teach them to image in all those, yes, yes, my son, yes, my daughter. You can be whatever it is you want to be. Whatever you can imagine can happen. Just think about it long enough. Nothing is impossible. Audrey Hepman gave us that great quote. The word impossible itself says, I'm possible. That's what we need to be teaching our children what to do. So creativity is seeing, Albert Einstein told us, what everybody else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought. That is using our imagination to the umpteenth level. It's imaging in things that people can't even imagine. So, in closing, taking it back to authenticity, we have to imagine ourselves. This is my favorite part of this whole concept. Imagine Humanityville. What it would be like to be your complete authentic self. You already know him or her. Begin imaging in. If nobody stopped you, what would your life look like? What would you wear? Where would you live? What would you look like if nobody was telling you how to look? How would you talk? How would you carry yourself? You see, you can use your imagination right now to take you to the complete place of authenticity. And so as we look at that letter I in the word authenticity, pull out your imagination and remind yourself this weekend that the entire world that you experience with your senses this weekend is nothing but a blank canvas to your imagination. What will you image in this weekend with your imagination, which is the most marvelous, miraculous, inconceivably powerful force that the world has ever known? Take that yellow brick road called the imagination to worlds unknown this weekend. Peace.