BeASlayer.com-An excerpt from The Demon Slayer’s Handbook: A Practical Guide to Mastering Your Inner World Book 1, Chapter 3: The Raven
“Don’t worry: It’s just your imagination
Demons can capitalize the most on your creative process as it is closest to their dimension. They capitalize by amplifying your fear and negative thinking and sometimes by embellishing it to the point that your fears seem to manifest. There are specific demons for whom this is the only activity in which they engage. This is the reason it is paramount to understand and know your strengths and vulnerabilities and to be clear on the path of the creative process. It is no wonder artists throughout history have personified the Devil and demon battle with their art. Those wily bastards desperately don’t want you to think clearly, express your truth, or feel love in any way…if they can help it.
I have always had an active imagination. Anything I have ever done, I spent hours on it in my mind first. It would appear that my personality dictates that I am impetuous and impulsive, but in fact I am not. The countless hours of daydreaming are now called visioning as I am a mature professional. But really, it’s just daydreaming, sorting out every detail of an action and its consequences, or every word in a conversation, in order to fully recognize my full meaning and intention so as to own every ripple I make.
Daydreaming has even been the way I stay prepared for the world that I live in, picturing myself cleaning my house, dancing without care, and even warding off evil with complete and unequivocal success. It has also been the way I am able to tolerate witnessing for someone some of the most unimaginable sufferings that this world has to offer. My inner crime fighter is a combination of Storm, Wonder Woman, and Bruce Lee. I always loved the way Wonder Woman stopped a speeding bullet, or Storm changed the entire environment with a little focus and arm swinging. Somehow I have always seen that as possible.
Obviously, imagining having a better life is not necessarily a new theme, but a recent trip and fall triggered a reflection on how many times my meanderings of the mind have prepared me to be safe, sane, courageous, physically adept, and joyful in the physical world.
Stop, drop, and roll in my mind
The other day, as I walked down the street to meet a friend at the local café, I tripped. Plunging forward, somehow I caught myself and kept walking. The trip made me realize that I forgot something at home, so I turned back. I tripped again in the exact same spot. This time I was going down. In that split second of falling I thought to myself, I will not be hurt by this. My shoulder automatically turned in and I tucked and rolled. If there had been a little more momentum, then I would have landed on my feet again.
There I lay in the middle of the sidewalk in a little ball, without even a scratch, laughing. I easily got up, and surprisingly nothing was hurt. As I walked to the café, my heart swelled with joy.
You see, I spend a lot of time wondering what I would do if I had to get out of the way of a speeding car, escape from a burning building, or fend off an attacker. So, I often visualize the dive and roll, or the roundhouse kick to the jaw. I imagine that my legs are strong and my form is impeccable. Of course, I don’t spend all day on these things, but several times a day I catch myself in little, thirty-second snippets questioning what I would do if this or that happened. I always visualize the answer, and that day I had proof that it is not time wasted.
Hip-hop in my mind
I love to dance. I went to NYC and dancing was to be a part of my repertoire. I quickly learned that I was more of a choreographer than a dancer, and I definitely was not an athlete. I held so much emotion in my gut, and those feelings always found a way to come pouring out. That’s workable for yoga class, but definitely not for ballet or even jazz.
The thing that I got from dance was learning to move with the flow of the universe, bending, weaving, and being a conduit for the universal life force. Thinking in this way brought to me an ultra-awareness of the subtle influx of change and how to move with it instead of against it; how to move towards the steps I could do, and do them well, always seeing myself becoming good at the things I wasn’t good at just yet.
Hip-hop dance was just blooming at the time, and I was awful at it. You really need great balance to be good at hip-hop, and imbalance is my specialty. However, in my mind, I am amazing. I can even do flips; get up with one leg, no hands; and the ol’ slide and spin. I always feel invigorated after a thirty-second hip-hop session in my mind.
I want to throw in here that many of us spend hours of time per week imagining awful things happening or fearfully visualizing the exact outcome we don’t want. It is a part of our mental nature to replay, over and over in our mind, a distasteful or traumatic experience we had or fear having. Add that to some human’s extraordinary skill at telepathy and you could have a situation in which a tidal wave of unwanted thoughts and then feelings that aren’t yet real—or even yours for that matter—begin to manifest.
The thing that I got from dance was learning to move with the flow of the universe, bending, weaving, and being a conduit for the universal life force.
That brings me to another real-world application. I was at the doctor’s office one morning, and walking out the door just before me was a lady who was clearly on her last appointment before the baby came. Her husband was about twenty feet away talking to reception when I opened the door for her and motioned her to go before me.
She smiled and softly said, “Thank you.”
Something was not right in her voice. Without thinking about it, my body began to drop to one knee about the same time that I realized that she was going to pass out. It was only a few seconds before I had the full weight of her sitting on the impromptu chair I had created with my knee. Her husband noticed at the point her head fell back on my shoulder. She was out.
He and the nurse came running over and we shared an awkward glance, as if to say, Is this your pregnant wife on my lap? She came to. They got her some juice and helped her to a real chair.
The husband said, “Thanks.”
I replied, “No problem,” and walked out the door and moved on with the day. As I laughed to my car, I thought, “I really love hip-hop.”
Bruce lee in my mind
I had a poster of Bruce Lee in my room literally all my childhood. I always felt a special connection to him and to the martial arts. The concept of using an opponent’s energy against her, or summoning and directing universal chi, always resonated with me. However, like I said, I am only an athlete in my mind. So when I took those six months of jujitsu, it was a bit of a struggle. Sparring just for the sake of sparring did not make sense to me. My kung fu was definitely magical like the old Chinese martial arts movies. Flying through the air for a triple running kick—now how could that possibly help me in my future? Well, I found that warding off evil began with making some personal decisions: (1) deciding you’re not going to be a victim; (2) deciding that you will not be around violence or that violence cannot be within or around you; and (3) knowing that the universal life force flows through you and you can align with it.
One Sunday evening around dusk, as I was walking down an old cobblestone street on the Lower East Side of NYC, I saw these two gentlemen walking on the other side of the street; they were eyeing me and I knew they weren’t gentlemen at all. Even though it was still early, the street was vacant and quiet. I needed to cross to their side of the street to get to the train, so just as they passed, I crossed diagonally to end up behind them on the same sidewalk.
Just as I stepped into the street, so did they. They were causing me to directly confront them. Knowing that the meeting was inevitable, I said, in my mind, I will not have this. Whatever this is, I will not have it. Just as we crossed paths in the center of the street, the taller gentleman began to take something from the inside of his jacket. He raised his arm up above his head. With a clinched fist, the back of his hand was about to come down on me.
I raised two fingers to him, and said, “Uh uh,” as I shook my head.
He and his friend were so befuddled by this that he mimicked me, in a fairly high tone for a man, saying, “Uh uh,” and sort of waived his hands in confusion.
I just kept going and did not look back. When I got to the next block I broke down in tears and cried and laughed all the way home. As it turns out, the two-fingered hand position I gave him happened to be called the prana mudra, a yoga hand position that strengthens life force. It certainly did that night.
Day dreaming: more than it’s cracked up to be
Watching the evening news can be tumultuous, for some. Just getting through the day without worry in this sometimes desperate place that we all share is a feat. So I recommend that once a day in your quiet time, you answer one version of the question, “What would I do if…?” And since it is your vision, it can only end well for everyone. You never know when it will come in handy.”
