By Joan Courtney, C.ht.

Unstuck Living

Spring is on the way! Although in fits and starts, it seems to have arrived early this year. Trees have already begun to bud on their branches. Flowers starting to poke their heads above the soil after the long winter. Songbirds came in over a month ago. Very early for them. They keep me company on my early morning walk, and in the evening as I watch our breathtaking fluorescent sunsets. Their sleepy chirps are bidding the day farewell. 

With spring, there are many chances for growth. Changes of where you put your attention. New avenues of happiness you never even considered before. Different opportunities from years past. Each growing season has its particular beauty.

I’m inviting you to be an Imagineer this spring. I have a highly creative friend in Tucson who coined this phrase for herself many years ago. She can gather up the most unusual pieces from here or there, estate or yard sales, or even findings from friends, and create the most elegant, one-of-a-kind pieces. 

As I thought about her as an Imagineer, I thought about the many times I have had the pleasure of reimagining myself throughout my life. From a worker for the County to an internal auditor, to a provost for a Chinese-American medical university, to a neurolinguistic programming practitioner and a business owner. All of these used that talent of picturing myself as something or someone different.

I wonder how many times in your life you have re-imagined yourself. I’ll bet in your younger years, you were busy doing just this. How about:

• when you moved from school into a job?

• when you were single and became a couple?

• when you became a new mom? Or a new dad?

Life was totally different as you moved through each phase. Those skills of re-imagination are well-developed within you. But they may be a bit dusty or tarnished, and need a bit of spiffing up. Your life may have become more stagnant. More sedentary. You may be more set in your ways. Who needs to change, you ask?

Be An Imagineer!

What would happen if you shifted mental gears this springtime? Doing this is simpler than you think.

• Close your eyes and relax with a few deep breaths. Go back in time to when you remembered true happiness. It may be yesterday. Or a year ago. It may be 10 years ago. Or when you were a child.

• Vividly imagine that time. Where were you? Were you alone? With others? What did you hear? Was there an important taste, like your aunt’s black walnut pie? How did you feel?

• Compare that time to your current lifestyle. What was going on in the past that you can bring to today? How can you be happier in the present moment? 

It’s delightful!

Do you feel the warmth of that time? Want to go back and chase some dreams? I have a friend who was ecstatic when she got her first kayak. She learned how to load it on top of her car. And the rest is history. Another friend? Canoeing in the moonlight with girlfriends. Change the picture in your mind and you change your world. 

Be an Imagineer. Get unstuck!



Joan Courtney is a clinical hypnotherapist and an NLP practitioner who helps people end old patterns and get unstuck. Writing for Outdoors Southwest and other publications on the Mountain, she also ghostwrites bi-weekly posts for MacDuff, the Canine Executive Officer of Unstuck Living.