The Power of Imagination

St. Teresa of Ávila said that the imagination is the madwoman of the house and that no one can restrain her. Perhaps that is one of the best-known ideas from *The Interior Castle* and her entire body of work. However, St. Teresa acknowledged that, although the imagination It can lead us into distraction, but it can also help us in prayer. When used well, the imagination can become a path to contemplation, empathy, and love. In *The Way of Perfection*, she wrote, “Picture the Lord Himself alongside you,” and also, in one of her poems, “May I look upon my Beloved and my Beloved upon me; may He look after my affairs and I after His”—tasks that clearly require imagination.

The Importance of Imagination

Some philosophers have pointed out the importance of this cognitive capacity, which not only gives rise to fantasies but also serves as a bridge between sensibility and intelligence. Leonardo Polo asserted, for example, that what distinguishes us from animals is not only intelligence but also imagination, which allows us to remember, anticipate, give continuity to experience, and prepare for intellectual abstraction. Not only that, but imagination can also be trained, and we can then direct it toward good things, such as art or science.

As the American philosopher Charles S. Peirce said, there is no science without a “rather wild play of the imagination” preceding it. In general, we cannot advance our knowledge without imagination, which is precisely what presents us with possible novel hypotheses. “Complete reasoning and everything that makes us intellectual beings takes place in the imagination,” Peirce asserts.

But there is much more to it than that. Imagination is also essential to our social relationships; it helps us put ourselves in others’ shoes, seek the truth, devise possible solutions, explore different courses of action, make sense of what we do, and form new habits.

Knowing How to Focus Our Mind

Imagination, then, should neither be stifled nor reviled. We simply need to channel it properly so that it stops presenting us with all the misfortunes and calamities looming over us, so that it doesn’t go round and round in exhausting circles—what if I get sick and can’t go, what if my boyfriend breaks up with me, or what if I simply miss the early-morning flight I have to catch?.

We must ensure that our imagination stops distracting us and acting as an ally to our fears, and instead helps us navigate the present with greater joy. Because it’s true that day-to-day life can be difficult: we have to juggle everything and do our best to fulfill our roles as mothers or fathers, children, workers, students, friends, citizens, and so many other responsibilities—some against our will, others willingly, but often exhausting.

Small things may not be so small. Getting through an ordinary day can sometimes be harder than landing on Omaha Beach or climbing Mount Everest. And that’s where our imagination comes in. Let’s teach it to help us grab our rifle, pickaxe, and ice axe—instead of telling us, “I can’t.”.

Holding Out in the Trenches

That really did me a world of good the priest who used to tell me in my youth, “You’re a Valkyrie, a Chinese warrior, a true samurai—you can handle anything.” I learned from him to let my imagination run wild, because that’s what helps us hold out in the trenches while enemy planes fly overhead. It helps us hold out better than a Marine until the storm subsides. You behead the dragon. You hold out in the besieged city. You fall and get back up. You adapt to the Siberian steppes with a little vodka.

Life is often like that—it’s not exactly a walk through a field of sunflowers. There are many gray days and situations that seem to overwhelm us, but that doesn’t mean we have to complain, much less give up.

Sometimes life is more like an expedition through Antarctica with frozen feet, dressed in furs that don’t keep the cold from seeping into your bones, with crevasses, avalanches, and nights that seem to last forever—or at least feel that way— with the ship trapped in the ice, with food that’s gone bad and seal meat as your only sustenance, with blizzards and snowdrifts, and with a winter so deep that not even the penguins come to visit you. Suddenly, however, there are small moments of respite, and your weary heart finds comfort. For a few moments, you take flight, light as a feather, and see Antarctica from above, from a bird’s-eye view, amid the ice.

It’s about keeping going. That’s all. No one said it would be easy. Sometimes you can’t feel your feet, but your heart is still beating and pumping. Life is definitely not for cowards, and our imagination reminds us of that. It allows us to anticipate, interpret, and discover new meanings in our experiences. Thanks to it, we’ll see that it’s possible, and we’ll celebrate. We’ll take to the streets because, in a way, every day will be victory day. We’ll be surviving. And we’ll also be saving the world.