The Healing Power of Imagination: Transform Yourself and the World, Part 2

Tara Brach

Tara, Dharma, Selfhelp, Talks, Spiritual, Buddhist, Insight, Audio, Tarabrach, Mindfulness, Rain, Psychology, Compassion, Vipassana, Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Meditation, Guided, Brach, Buddhism, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 10.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if a key to personal and collective transformation lies in reclaiming our deep capacities for presence and imagination? In this two-part series, we’ll explore how mindfulness awakens us from the trance of fear and separation, reconnecting us with our innate clarity and compassion. And we’ll discover how imagination, when grounded in presence, becomes a superpower—allowing us to envision new possibilities for our lives, our relationships, and our world. These talks include reflections that activate imagination in ways that can heal our hearts, deepen connection with others and help bring forth a more loving, just and awakened world. In this week’s talk (Part 2), Tara explores:

How shifting our perceptions through imagination can free us from habitual fear and separation.
The power of storytelling to awaken compassion and soften rigid patterns of reactivity.
How imagination helps us reconnect with our inner wholeness and sense of possibility.
The practice of mindful presence as a gateway to creative and loving awareness.
How we can reimagine our identity, releasing limiting beliefs and touching into our true belonging.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference.
0:06.0	To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Welcome, friends.
0:31.4	Begin with a story I love that came to me recently.
0:35.7	I was reminded of it of a woman who was traveling and she had to stop
0:42.4	in an airport and then get a second flight. And she was exhausted between the flights and she was hungry
0:48.6	and she bought a package of cookies and sat down at a table to have her snack. So she's reading the newspaper on her iPad,
0:56.0	and she becomes aware of someone rustling at her table. And she's shocked to see this
1:02.8	nicely dressed young man helping himself to her cookies. And she didn't want to make a scene.
1:10.4	So she just leaned across and took a cookie for herself.
1:14.0	And a moment later, there was more wrestling,
1:16.8	and he's helping himself to another cookie.
1:19.9	And by the time they're down to the last cooking, the package,
1:23.5	she's outraged, but she doesn't say anything.
1:26.0	So before leaving the table, the man broke the last cookie in two and left half for her.
1:35.5	And so that later she leaves, goes to her gate, and she reaches into her bag for her iPhone for her e-ticket.
1:43.9	And you can imagine her surprise and her embarrassment
1:47.4	when she found her package of the cookies.
1:51.1	She had been eating his.
1:54.9	So it's humbling the stories that we tell ourselves,
1:59.8	what we imagine, what we expect, what we think
2:03.3	is going on. And it's interesting to consider what happens when we're regularly imagining that
2:11.1	people are going to take advantage of us, you know, that if we can't trust people. And what does that
	...

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