Janice Wilson

I love looking at words and finding their power to create images. I guess it’s because I find meaning in stories and pictures. When I was a kid, I loved to read., I’d walk to our library which was about five miles away from home with my wagon and bring back 5 to ten books every week. My mom called me a book worm. I didn’t like that picture. She’d say, “There’s Janice with her nose in a book.” I didn’t like that image either. But I loved the stories that I got to experience when my nose was in those books. I could be anywhere. France, Italy, New York…Africa…I could be apart of anyone’s life…..Marie Antoinette, Agnes De MIlle….Nijinsky….Catherine the Great…Jackie Kennedy…I could experience the lives of kings, queens, duchesses, dancers, inventors, Nancy Drew, Huckelberry Finn, Aristotle and the Bobbsy Twins.
That’s why I love the word “imagination.” It conjures up the power of I am a genie, a genius in action. That’s what those books did for me. I got to become every character in the book. I got to experience their feelings, their adventures, their mysteries, their fun, and their discoveries.
The more I activated my “imagination” the richer, more exciting, and fulfilling my days became. I loved using my imagination to see things differently than the way I saw them before. Every day was new adventure filled with good images. I wasn’t hallucinating, I just loved seeing things in my mind and discovering how they would feel and appear in real life.
I’d imagine that I was a famous dancer on stage……and it happened. Then I imagined I would go to this amazing University and study dance and theatre with the greatest teachers…..that happened too. And then I imagined that I’d have a great job, great family, beautiful home, and a swimming pool. That happened also.
Then people started to tell me that’s not how life worked. Life was suppose to be hard work, filled with struggles, disappointments, and betrayals. I was suppose to face reality and stop day dreaming. I started to believe them because that’s the way my “real” world started to appear. I didn’t stop imagining but now I imagined struggling to pay bills, working out, losing weight, working hard, and being stressed. My beautiful experiences sadly disappeared. My new images of a life were filled with worry and fear.
Was this the truth about my adult life? I hoped not, but my imagination made me believe it was. That’s when I began to realize how powerful my imagination was….both good and bad.
It could work for or against me. Wow. I was shocked with the power it held. How was I going to get out of this mess? The same way I got in…but this time I vowed to use my imagination for good! It took me some time to regain my confidence in my ability. It appeared as if the world was out to prove me wrong. Those bad imaginings were addictive. What if my good images had lost their power to become real? What if “they” were right. What if i couldn’t make it happen again?
These nagging thoughts made me feel like a concert pianist who’s finger were broken in a fight with a jealous competitor. I wanted to play beautiful music again, but I’d lost my confidence, my hands hurt and the only music I could hear was a single note from one finger. But something inside me didn’t want to give up.
I practiced listening to the sounds of the word “image”…. they sounded like “I am…I am a genie, I am a genius in action.” I practiced and listened some more. Sometimes the sound was clear, sometimes it was loud, noisy and harsh. But I kept seeing the word IMAGINE. I kept hearing my voice “I am a genie….I am a genius in action.” Little by little, my good imaginings started to become real again. I wrote and published three books. I moved three times to three different beautiful homes. I have a radio show. I conduct Master Mind classes. I speak to groups about the power of their imagination. I bought an Apple computer. I go to Apple’s classes that are taught by creatives and geniuses. (the same people that teach Steven Spielberg new techniques in editing.) I’m even learning to build my own web-site. ( imagine that!)
My good images are again creating genius experiences. M