Carving our own path using mindful imagination

ever since i was little

i would escape into my imagination time

and again

not really knowing the power that was

vested in it

for me though dreaming about

possibilities or escaping into my

imagination

was a part of the process the process

that involved my struggle

striving and creation but many would

label my tendency to get

lost in this little world of my own as

an escapist

or mindless and futile endeavor that

would really yield no results

but today i am here to talk to the

dreamer in every single one of you

and encourage you all to immerse

yourself in this realm of possibility

by giving free reign to fantasy as i

take you on a journey

that goes beyond circumstance beyond

limitation

and beyond whatever is in your present

as we head into this realm where we

imagine what could be

and bring its magic through the process

of creation

so come with me and you’ll be

in a world of pure imagination

take a look and you’ll see

into your imagination

in this talk i’ll talk about striving

about breaking through

and the process of carving my own path

and through my story

i hope to inspire anybody that is

feeling stuck

or caged and suffocated in their present

because i would like to demonstrate that

it

is possible to break through and create

a future for yourself that goes

beyond whatever would be due to your

circumstance

i firmly believe that imagining the

future changes it

and today i would like to demonstrate

the role that imagination played in the

creation of my present

so we’ll begin with a spin

traveling in the world of my creation

what we’ll see will defy

explanation now before i head into my

story

i would like to just preface my talk by

briefly introducing the concept that

i’ll be bringing up today

with a small exercise this is the

concept of mindful imagination

so i want you all to make a grip like

this and consider it to be your

mindfulness

but i also want you to step away and

head into this realm of imagination

now go side to side and move back and

forth

you realize that the deeper you go and

the more you move

the harder it gets to keep your grip

right there the harder it gets to stay

mindful

i hope you can keep this exercise in

mind because i’ll be referencing it

throughout the talk

now let’s head in what i really want to

talk about today

is actually dreams so there are many

circumstances that limit our dreams

and many predicaments that impose

restrictions

on the nature of our grains and what we

truly consider possible

for us in the future most of the time

though we just come to internalize and

believe

all the things that we have been told

lie in store for us

and as such our thinking and imagination

are restricted because we come to see

all the dreams that have already been

dreamt for us

now my story of dreams began at birth in

india

quite comically actually so i was born

quite premature and when my father held

me in his hand

he started crying when the people at the

hospital saw him they were like

oh he’s crying because he had a girl

child we sympathize

then really he was just crying because i

was so premature

and he was really worried about my

health so since this moment on

my life societally at least had a

negative bias towards it

and even though my parents gave me all

the love in the world

all the dreams that they could even see

for me were dreams that were already

written

and manufactured by society this

assigned gender at birth dictated

who i was what i could be and what i

ought to be

and limitation was sort of the nature of

my reality

for years i was told that my fiery and

masculine temperaments were unladylike

and therefore nobody would marry me and

that i had to change myself to fit into

regressive ideas of femininity

so that i had all the ideal qualities of

a wife

so that someday somebody would marry me

now this is important because

indian society literally deems marriage

to be the biggest milestone of a woman’s

life

the ultimate purpose that she’s there to

fulfill

now unlike my grandmother and so many

other women in india whose fates are

sealed in their teens when they get

married off

my life still had some hope for it a

hope that i could not see for a very

long time

but this was because for years i was all

i was hearing was that

which means that my parents and my

family weren’t even my real family and

that

at my marriage my parents would

literally donate me away to this other

life

and so every single moment of my life

was literally preparing me for this

purpose of getting married and even

though my education was emphasized

it was always a means to an end and i

remember at the time when my parents

were supposed to be saving for my

education they were saving for potential

dowry and ceremonious costs of marriage

for me and my sister

at that time i felt like my education

wasn’t being emphasized

but in retrospect it makes sense because

it was literally going to be the biggest

expense of their lifetime

and every single thing that i had to do

in life was sort of decided for me

my education to my career to like how i

would get married

and i felt this intrinsic lack of agency

in my life

and anytime i would exclaim my desire to

be free or independent

i was told that before my marriage i was

under the guardianship of my father

and after my marriage would be my

husband so freedom

independence or having a life of my own

were not really words that i knew

were not even the dreams that i could

see and for years i just

internalized this reality and came to

believe it

and anytime that i was mindful of my

circumstances or my present

i would just become complacent in it and

submit to whatever was happening in

front of me and whatever was

in front of me and so in this kind of

mindfulness

all i was seeing was what was in front

of me and i could not go beyond

to see all the possibilities for myself

and because of exactly this i would

escape into my daydreams and in this

lava land where i was just this escapist

but i believe that your imagination has

immense creative power

but this can either be unmanifested or

misused

and this was the pendulum that i kept

swinging on because

on one hand my imagination was

unmanifested when i was doing

mindfulness

in a complacent way where my mindfulness

was inactive and

passive because all i was seeing was

what was in front of me and i could not

transcend and go beyond to see all the

things that my future and my reality

could look like

now if you go back to the grip that we

made

if you stay at that reality if you don’t

move and you don’t transcend

what happens is that you get attached to

it when you’re

in that present moment you get dragged

along by life

into a future that would be and this was

the unmanifested kind of imagination

where i was doing mindfulness wrong and

because of exactly this

i swung to the other end of the pendulum

where i was this escapist daydreamer

where i would get lost in this la la

land and i was a lost boy from neverland

and this was literally the pendulum i

was swinging on but i believe this was

because

i was taught mindfulness wrong for a

very long time

i was told that i was supposed to be in

just the present moment

and just see what was in front of me but

today i want to tell you that that kind

of mindfulness is actually

so inactive and passive and the kind of

mindfulness that i want to teach you

today

is actually a transcendental kind

one that goes beyond that present moment

and heads into this realm of possibility

where you see all that could be even

your past present and future exists

so there is this reality which is

two-dimensional

and there is this other reality which is

your reality of imagination

where there’s so many possibilities and

so many things

and you have to create this conjunction

make that pendulum stop swinging

and you come up with mindful imagination

this kind of mindfulness that is so

transcendental that you’re able to see

beyond your reality and we all know that

there is more to reality than what meets

the eye

and that’s just what i’m here to show

you today the first step i had taken

towards carving my own path was actually

to start

mindfully imagining instead of being

introduced swinging on this pendulum

when i started mindfully imagining and

working with my reality in my

imagination

instead of against it i started creating

possibilities

that could actually occur for me because

imagining within your reality is sort of

like creating doors for yourself

it might not be possible to open all of

them but if you’d never thought of

something it would never be a possible

option for manifestation and i just want

to emphasize

how important mindfulness really is

because initially i reacted to the idea

of it

because i was seeing it wrong but with

your imagination too

you have to be mindful that you have to

be mindful

because then dreams become more

important than reality

you just get lost in the thought record

where you’re just daydreaming and you

forget to create

and do things and exist in your reality

and both parts of my pendulum swinging

were actually complacent

and mindful imagination is the one that

is active

mindful imagination is the one when you

start carving your own path

now when i started expanding my horizons

actually seeing that maybe my future

could look different

and saw this within my reality instead

of this other reality

i realized that maybe i could make it

come true i

expanded my barriers to another point

i expanded my barriers from here to here

now what do i mean by this

i want you to take a look at this

balloon now if you see this balloon in

the two-dimensional reality

the reality where you just see what is

in front of you

you’ll only see those barriers these

barriers that are right here

but with your imagination you actually

blow into the balloon

and you turn this reality to a

three-dimensional reality

which brings in the realm of imagination

to this 2d reality

before what i was doing when i was

escaping was actually blowing out to the

balloon

but working with reality is to blow in

the balloon

and you have to once again do it

mindfully because you remember

the harder the deeper you go the harder

it gets to keep your grip

and the same goes with the balloon the

more you blow the more you risk

bursting the balloon but you have to

slowly with trial and error blow it

slowly slowly

slowly and that is how you know that you

are expanding your horizons

and you’re testing your true limits of

your reality

instead of the limits that were there in

the first place when you were doing

mindfulness in this passive way

this is how i would sort of describe

mindful imagination

but now that we’ve spoken about

mindfulness i actually want to talk

about action and activity that i’ve been

emphasizing for so long

now your action and activity either

psychological

or real action can be of two types

now initially my action the

psychological one when i was imagining

my striving was in it but your action

can be of two types

real or psychological correct now this

is either reaction

or pro-action and i was sort of always a

reactive

i would just react to things when i was

stuck but and i was stuck in between the

stimulus response stimulus response

cycle

but because i was a reactionary i sort

of lost mindful imagination

now let me explain so i reacted to

mindfulness say when i was taught it for

my adhd like

inattentive daydreaming and then i also

reacted to my gender when i was told

this is what it means to be a woman so i

was like okay i’m a boy now

anytime i was told to do something i

would just do the exact

opposite and overall at school and

otherwise i was seen as this reactive

rebellious and oppositional delinquent

now were any of those stances that i

took that were oppositional wrong

not really but i forgot to mindfully

imagine i just jumped

from one place to another i could not

see all the possibilities that were

there

i could not see how mindfulness was

useful i did not see the beauty of my

gender non-conformity

etc etc and i want to say that proaction

does not mean that you don’t take

oppositional stances

i did take one and i’ll tell you about

that in a minute but proaction is a

little bit different

it is using mindful imagination where

you’re being mindful and not

mindlessly reactive and examining

possibilities before action

say for example i did take that

oppositional stance

when i was told that you had to become a

doctor or an engineer

and i was like no i want to become a

social scientist

and even though i was coerced into

taking stem subjects

i stepped my foot down and i was like

with or without your consent i’m gonna

take these subjects at school

but this was a proactive action why

because it was something i

was doing for myself not just because it

was something that i was reacting to

i was carving my own path not not just a

reactionary path

and that is why i want to emphasize

pro-action today

because when you’re being proactive you

start carving your own path

and slowly slowly i started opening my

parents minds to possibilities of what

my future could look like

i asked them if i got a full scholarship

out of india would you let me go

they were like okay but i’m pretty sure

at that point they were just thinking

that i was building castles in the air

but i was so stern on finding a way out

for myself

that i started using all this

imagination and proaction

to build my path and so like i said

before the 2d and the 3d

i was using this 3d when i was actually

getting inspired from my past

seeing for years when any time i

confronted somebody about their gender

bias

they would just get defensive and i

usually didn’t end up accomplishing

anything

and so maybe like the way i expanded my

parents horizons to

possibilities of what my future could

look like i could expand people’s

horizons to different worlds

and i thought that maybe i could come up

with a board game that would reduce

gender-based implicit biases using

storytelling

and role-playing and this was this and

this was an idea that i pitched to a

research team in bangalore

called the collective mind of end lab

and i asked them if they would help me

and to my amusement they were readily

and to my and to my amusement they were

actually really ready to help me

with their help i was able to bring this

game to fruition and i applied

for the national science fair in india

and at this national science fair

my game was selected to represent my

country at the intel international

science fair

and when i heard my name on stage i had

tears of joy

because what it meant for me was that

maybe i could have this new life that i

wanted for myself

and soon after the fair i heard from the

university of toronto that i had been

awarded the lester b

pearson scholarship and all of the

and all of the cards just turned in my

favor and

i felt like i had created my path

towards this

end towards this new life where i could

have the education

that i wanted and pursue the career that

i really wanted for myself

i feel that using mindful imagination

and pro-action

i was able to carve my path into this

new future

but i would just like to say that it is

not always possible to break through

and i would not dismiss any role that

luck played in my life

sometimes the balloon you’re given by

life is so small

and the barriers are so thin that you

can’t really blow much into it

and this is the story of countless women

in india

who still have the strength every day to

face their reality head on

and be mindful in their reality and i

am the story of all of these women i am

my grandmother’s story and i am my

mother’s story

but i’m really just this bird that gets

to sing and fly

and i’m so so eternally grateful for

having carved my own path

and having found a way to find meaning

and fulfillment in my life

and career and i would not dismiss that

maybe someday i could find it in a

traditional household

but at least now it’s not limited to it

and i hope that we all today can support

each other and build each other up while

we’re all

trying to face our realities and carve

our own parts

hopefully now using mindful imagination

and proaction

i hope you enjoy the talk and have a

good day