I heard a wonderful parable the other day, told by a member of the spiritual center that I have been attending regularly, and I’d like to share it with you:
A man gives one red balloon each to five children. The children stand together holding their identical red balloons, but their experience is not the same.
The first child, as he holds his red balloon thinks to himself, “I don’t really deserve this balloon.”
The second child holds his balloon protectively, looking over his shoulder with a scowl worried that someone will come and take his red balloon.
The third child feels sad and worried for he’s sure the balloon is going to escape his grasp and float away, leaving him behind.
The fourth child thinks of how special and important she is, how much better she is than all the other children without a red balloon.
And the fifth child is just holding a red balloon. He watches it move in the wind, notices the stark contrast of the red against the blue of the sky, and runs his finger along the delicate string tied around his wrist.
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This is a simple story, but one that clearly illustrates we all have our own perception of reality, influenced by our life experiences, memories, cultural upbringing and unique constitution. In the field of psychology there are many names for this concept: one’s story, schema, script, or belief. In Imaginal Psychology, the psychological orientation of the graduate program I attended, theorist Aftab Omer refers to this as one’s imaginal structure. I like this term because it draws attention to the idea that we are living inside of an image, and that our imagination, our organ of perception, is structured by that image. (more…)