Let Me Tell You This About That

Imagination--Opens Our Hearts to the Good!

• Delbert and Hess • Season 1 • Episode 40

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Delbert and Hess love, love this topic—Imagination!  

In this Sunday morning chat, join us for our discussion about imagination.  Imagination is the bridge from the reactivity of the limbic brain—fight, flight, freeze—into the broad expanse of the potential and unlimited possibilities in the universe!  We again, talk about Delbert’s Papaw, and how imagination kept him alive in the 104th division of the U.S. Army in Europe in WW 2.  Papaw had a wife and family to come home to.  He continued that practice in all of his life, and inspired his children and grandchildren to continue using imagination.  Imagination moves us from fear based thoughts, connects us to our hearts and moves us to a broader sense of reality that is love based.  Delbert and Hess share their own personal stories of imagination making their life what it is today.   Peace and Love, think about imagination and it moving you forward to the next best step!   

Tara Brach's website and talk about imagination:  https://www.tarabrach.com/the-healing-power-of-imagination-part-1/


I am still collecting for José's cancer treatments. We are awaiting the next CT Scans that will tell you where he is after his second round of treatments. Thank you for your continued support!
https://gofund.me/e6f61999

In addition to being a podcast host, Hess is also an LCSW--if you'd like to learn more about her work as a therapist, check it out at www.jessicabollinger.com

One of her mission's is for all of our lights to shine--when we see each other and allow ourself to be seen--and we can say to the person in front of us, There You Are! the world will be an amazing place!

Delbert is a top realtor in Louisville, KY, and you can find her at Kentucky Select Properties She will help you find your home, and also help you get the most equity when you sell your house.

Her philanthropic work to continue her sister Carole and niece Meghan is Carole's Kitchen. Blessings in a Backpack helps feed the many hungry students in our schools. The instagram account is: https://www.instagram.com/caroleskitchen.nonprofit?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==




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Hess:

Hey you all, thanks for tuning in and listening to our Sunday morning chat. I'm Hess and I'm sitting on the white chair. I'm sitting in the white chair looking out my bedroom window out at the green grass and the asparagus growing up in the garden and the tomatoes and some red tomatoes starting to red up. So here I am. Thanks so much for joining us.

Delbert:

Morning, everybody. Of course. I'm on the green couch this morning and it stormed last night, but it, I'm looking out the picture window. It is a beautiful day today. It's gonna be gorgeous out

Hess:

Thanks for the weather report. Delbert, you always give the weather report from the green couch

Delbert:

as always. The weather, the unofficial weather report of Louisville, Kentucky

Hess:

yeah.

Delbert:

I would.

Hess:

Everybody, when we say, I'm sitting on my, I'm sitting in my white chair, Delbert says she's sitting in her green, on her green couch. It, it might evoke your imagination of what it looks like where we are. And that's what Delbert and I wanna talk about today is imagination. I was inspired more about this. Bert on my drive back from Canada, pulling the Relation Ship I was listening to beautiful Tara Brach. She's a Buddhist. Meditator, philosopher, psychologist and her theme on this podcast I was listening to was Imagination, the healing power of transformation, and we weaved in and out of imagination a lot in all the things we've talked about, Delbert, and I just wanted to really give an emphasis to the subject of imagination on our talk this morning.

Delbert:

It's a great idea. I was just telling Hess right before we. Recording that I've just been mindful of imagination this week because we said we were gonna talk about it and it's really in every part of our life. That's good. Whether you're a basketball player and you're envisioning that play that shot, or if you're a developer, a planner. All our neighborhoods that we live in last night I was. Downtown in Central Park at this beautiful park that the Olmsted Brothers designed. And it's just so gorgeous, in the middle of the city, this beautiful park with playgrounds and tennis courts and little splash park. And it's also where two of the most wonderful things about Louisville collide. We have a beautiful park system, beautiful outdoors. And many of the parks are designed by the Olmsted brothers who designed Central Park in New York City. But we also have a fantastic art scene. And Shakespeare in the park is where those two worlds collide. And they've got a beautiful stage with a little amphitheater set up down there so that you can go and sit out under the stars and watch, the Shakespeare players perform and they usually do two or three plays every summer. But I just thought about the imagination that went into designing that park and then also just, oh, the beauty of that stage that those set designers did. Simin is one of the plays they're doing the summer, and it just looks like a big fairytale castle, just almost sitting on an oak tree. It's just gorgeous. So anyway. That was my experience last night. My youngest darling was at Shakespeare camp and they always perform right before the the main play, so that's how I ended my week with imagination. What about you, Hess? What's coming up for you?

Hess:

Delbert, you talking about imagination, A landscape architect like, like the Olmsted brothers and J Frederick Olmsted designing Central Park. He also designed the grounds there at the Biltmore Mansion in nor in Ashville, North Carolina. Talk about imagination walking around and being able to imagine. How plantings could be done streets or roads, driveways how things could be laid out. And then imagining what kind of flaura or fauna would be best be placed different places, what an imagination. And then it grows into that. I love that. I love that example of Iroquois Park that you're saying.

Delbert:

Central Park, but I has an amphitheater too. But yes.

Hess:

Okay. You're at Central Park. Gotcha. Gotcha. Delbert being in, in my field of mental health, what I know about the brain is when we've had a bad experience, that limbic brain, it goes into a shutdown state of fear, and we become then disconnected from our hearts. And our brain, though it's wired, it's wired to move into that negative, that limbic. It's What's bad, so that it can protect us. So it does it out of protection. It does compare, contrast, and it goes into a fear and judging. So a whole lot of times, Bert, in our Sunday conversations, we've talked about being able to feel what's happening, being able to feel what the limbics, like making this fear and allowing the feeling of it. Don't push it down, don't distract, feel it, and then move forward to the next best step. We said that often. So Delbert, one of the next best steps is imagination, right?

Delbert:

Yes, it's the God within.

Hess:

Love that. Delbert our listeners have also heard us oftentimes talk about your papaw and when he was young and he was already married, he'd already started a family when he went into the army. During World War ii, and he was enlisted in the a hundred fourth division, and that division was an amazing division that did they, it was a walking infantry and the way that they, they covered like 20 miles a day and so forth. They were in bunkers. Your dad was, your papapa was one of the lone survivors in one bunker experience of war. So like many people who were in those trenches. They experience very hard things and your papa having that family and that hope to come home to that probably started to feed that imagination of being able to return, having this good thing to come home to like Victor Frankel talks about in his book. You experienced firsthand one of his tools, the imagination that helped him survive. Like when he told you the story that Gussy, when Gussy had to be euthanized when Gussy had been attacked by that big dog, your papa said as you all were getting ready to move to a new house, your papa you the story. Oh, gussy got married. Yeah. Yeah. Gussy. Gussy had, somebody come by and propose and they went off to go start a family, that was imagination.

Delbert:

Pretty little girl dachshund. And in, in doing that, he encouraged my imagination.'cause I wondered what kind of house they would live in if they'd. Have China and silver. I didn't know, but my papa and my dad had built gussy, this really cute doghouse in our backyard that had a little light bulb in it and little shingles on his roof and everything. It, all of that beautiful imagination it sparked it for. The grandchildren and his children as well. Yeah, it was a great gift and I do imagine that Hess, I imagine him in those foxholes and walking those, back roads for, miles on end, imagining what his life was gonna be like when he got home and he manifested that. I tell my darlings to do that all the time. Something that they want, they dream about, they desire for the future. I say manifest that. Really think about how you can make that a reality and manifest that.

Hess:

I love that it was so special. I might not be talking to you today, Delbert, if you had not had. Influence of your papa and all that good time that you got to spend with him. I'm so thankful for it myself, just being affiliate, affiliated with you, being your friend.

Delbert:

Oh. It was it was a magical way to grow up as his grandchild. And I'm so thankful for it really am. And he instilled that in all of us. My oldest darling wrote an essay about the hundred and fourth, and you had to create an interaction with the person. And my oldest darling imagined that they appeared to him in a dream and said, don't give up. And I'm like, that could well happened. Look what the future generations are gonna be like. Here's a, and just met'em on one of the streets, that they were sleeping on one of the roads and just said, don't give up.

Hess:

What an imagination your oldest darling had to do their report that way.

Delbert:

I know, right? So I love that. And I'm like, that could have actually happened, so anyway just keeping all that divine within us alive, especially, when we're going through hard times, so important To keep that divine in, in our lives. I was telling Hess after I listened to that podcast that you sent me, I didn't get to listen to all of it'cause I listened to it while I was driving and working. But I did listen to about half of it. It was very good. And so it made me wonder about this wonderful imagination that we have and how sometimes people have the same idea in different parts of the world at the same time. Calculus was discovered by two people at the same time or close together. Photography, a lot of art, forms of art, so many things. Theory of evolution. So CS Lewis and JR Tolkien, I was listening to a podcast about this conversation that they had, and JR Tolkien, he says, the fact that there are fairytales in every part of the world that came about. Around the same time, and they're all similar and that is the divine in our lives that.

Hess:

Wow. Fairytales told over the world in different places that have the same threads running through them. That's part of the divine Wow.

Delbert:

Yeah. And I thought, wow, wouldn't you have loved to have been there for that conversation, those two walking down, but also just what a great message. What a great, it's synchronicity. It's zeitgeist the spirit of time. All of those things, they're just so incredible and they're such a phenomenon. She also quoted Thomas Merton, who is from here in Kentucky at the Gethsemane Monastery. He lived there when he was alive. Do you have, do you wanna say that quote.

Hess:

Yeah. So Thomas Merton, one of our Kentucky owned, he says. Life is simple. We're living in a world that's absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. Wow.

Delbert:

And he said, that's not just a nice story. That's a fact. Yeah. I love that. I love that the design

Hess:

I

Delbert:

is shining through.

Hess:

often.

Delbert:

Yeah.

Hess:

I often tell my clients, Hey, look around. Everything's a miracle. Look at, be in awe. Look at, look around at all the miracles that are just right, even so close to you.

Delbert:

Exactly.

Hess:

the opposite. The opposite. Like when we envision that danger, when the limbic brain gets frozen, we don't feel like a way forward. We gotta stop and feel it and go to that mindfulness that Tara Brach talks about and helps people connect to, and then we can connect to the larger reality. we then we can imagine what's possible and move forward. It's so important in our times right now where we feel like things are going awry. Take some deep breaths, feel it, and what can you imagine that could be possible? And then take the next best step. And I can imagine, Delbert you experience this a lot with real estate, if a deal falls through if a seller pulls out or a buyer pulls out and a house does or a house doesn't pass inspection, boom, I know immediately. You might feel disappointment for your client and so on, but you've had enough experiences of knowing that there is gonna be something good and it will turn out right. So it's our past experiences of good things then that we can connect to and fire our imagination up to imagine that it's all gonna work out.

Delbert:

Exactly. And. Because, I've been doing it for so long. I always tell people we're gonna keep doing the next right thing and we're gonna find the perfect house for you. You just gotta believe. And if something happens along the way, like a bad inspection, we've gotta walk away from that and know that the right house is out there. This just wasn't it. We thought it might be, but it's not. Yeah, we just gotta keep moving forward and

Hess:

Right.

Delbert:

keep knowing that the right thing is out there. We just gotta keep moving towards it. And I liked what you touched on a minute ago about the negativity. The imagination is not anything that would make you hate someone that would cause you to think, you know about conspiracy theories. That's not an imagination. That's not a good use of your imagination.

Hess:

That's the fear.

Delbert:

That's the fear. Yeah. So don't be confused by that. Especially in times like these, keep the light inside of you.

Hess:

Yeah, your imagination can take my imagination can take me to the place of a more just and loving world. And, we talk here, Delbert about the helpers and they're everywhere. I use my imagination and I see the helpers, I see the people saying, no, this isn't right. The people that are speaking up the people that are trying to right some wrongs and so then my heart can relax and I can feel safe. so right now going on in my life, I'm not having much contact with our son, and I miss him, but I've had so many great loving experiences with him. It's easy for me to imagine those and then I move forward to that. I move forward to those and that's what I envision. And it's not difficult to do. Our imagination, it energizes us. There's so much potential Delbert for goodness to keep evolving and getting better. Another, yeah, another Kentuckian, bell Hooks. She wrote this beautiful book I got called Love. She analyzes love. She says, imagination creates the future. It's not a passive mirror, it's a tool for transformation.

Delbert:

That's beautiful.

Hess:

Yeah. Yeah. And Albert Einstein says, imagination is more important than knowledge. is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

Delbert:

Yes, it's boundless as we see from people who think about the same things at the same time in opposite parts of the world. It really, our good imagination brings us together and binds us and, I love that we're making up on our quotes because we started slacking a little on that and now we're making up for it with all these great quotes we're doing in one. There you go. Listeners, we're catching up on quotes today.

Hess:

Delbert, tell your listeners again how you use your imagination when you do your morning stretches.

Delbert:

Oh are you talking about the gold light?

Hess:

Gold light, baby, gold light

Delbert:

This is something I shared with our Barkley Village, and it was actually taught to me by one of the people in the Barkley Village, Leslie. So when I do my prayers in the morning and I meditate, the last thing that I do is I imagine a beautiful gold light around my children and grandchildren and their partners. And and then I stretch it out. To all my friends and family and I have to stretch it all the way up to Lexington for Hess and Lucas and Cathy And then I stretch it all the way down to South Carolina for my little brother. And then I get it to go all the way over the United States. And then I imagine it going to the whole world. And sometimes I focus on different places where there's trouble, like the Ukraine or Gaza and Israel. I, just, I. I shine it everywhere and just ask God and Mother Mary, I believe, I pray to Mother Mary a lot because I'm Catholic, but I ask her to just watch over everybody. Just keep us all safe and in her gold light of love.

Hess:

Yeah.

Delbert:

And that's how I start the day. Once I've got that going on, and I think I've said this before, but then I'll just text my kids. If they're having a rough time, I'll say, your force field's up. Go about your day. You're covered. Go. You're good. You got this, you got the Mother Mary gold, light, and when we were in Bethany, we would watch the sunrise in the morning and then we'd put that gold light out to the whole world. Think of all the power behind that with the whole Barkley Village. Yeah.

Hess:

Absolutely. Absolutely. love that. I love that. So you imagine all of that. I love that. Yeah, so the intentionality of that it move towards the imagination. then we're not frozen. We're not in the freeze. The fight, the flight Brain.

Delbert:

the negativity right.

Hess:

Yeah. Yeah. And you pointed this out and I gotta say it. Let me tell you this about that, that limbic brain, Is so small. It's only a few inches across. It's so small and it's based in fear. Old stories, confabulation. It's small, but the imaginations, like you say, it's so expansive. It covers everywhere. It covers the universe.

Delbert:

Stretch it out there for good. Yeah.

Hess:

And as you said you do a prayer to God and to, to Mary and Tara Brach says that some people use prayer to facilitate imagination. So that's one way that you could call that, right?

Delbert:

Yes.

Hess:

Yeah. We're 67 years old and we've seen a lot, been around a lot. And do you remember Sunday nights, the Walt Disney Show?

Delbert:

Oh

Hess:

be on

Delbert:

gosh. I live for that. That and the Wizard of Oz, even though it scared the Jesus outta me. And I'd have to end up on my dad's chair, but usually like on top of his head or something when the witch came. But yes, I lived for The Wizard of Oz and that was once a year and the world of Disney. Oh, talk about that.

Hess:

Was that what it was called? The World of

Delbert:

The wonderful world of Disney, remember? And then, they'd play, the world is a carousel of color. That was the opening. And they'd show like a, it was the first time I'd ever seen like a camera sped up so the flower would open, they'd,

Hess:

wow.

Delbert:

They'd have all the magic of all nature and the universe. And they showed this whole like kind of collage, this like film collage of all these beautiful things and things that Walt Disney thought about. And then Tinkerbell would do her little wand and it would go to black and then it would start the, it would start the, that week's episode. Yeah.

Hess:

Tinker Bell would float up. There was the castle, and she'd float up to the very top turret and then she'd ting. And this little tinkler Tinkle would go off. Yeah. Yeah. so awesome. So beautiful. And you all, when we were growing up, everything was black and white and the wonderful world of Disney was one of the first shows to go to color. Yeah.

Delbert:

great. And you just sit there in front of the TV on Sunday night and. Watch it with your family. It was so great. I never, I could, oh. I would just be like, I can't wait for the wonderful world of Disney and what's gonna be the show tonight?

Hess:

And yeah, and it wasn't a Disney movie or anything like that. I don't know. I forget exactly what would be the content, but my mom would always usually fix chili in the winter on Sundays, and I could smell chili in the kitchen.

Delbert:

Chilly and Walt Disney World, what could be better? But sometimes it would be a cartoon and other times it would be like, like almost like a situation comedy. Just, I think it had a lot to do with what they were working on. We'll have to Google that and talk about it Because I remember a lot of shaggy dog stuff and I remember some little commercials. Cartoons but it was always great. Didn't matter.

Hess:

The point is, and the point is this is

Delbert:

Here is the point. Yeah.

Hess:

Is the limbic will go to freeze, breathe, feel it, and then open yourself to up to imagination. And then imagination opens the way then in which we can act and move forward and do the next best thing. Boom. Mic drop. Yeah.

Delbert:

Boom. That's all you need to say.

Hess:

Yeah.

Delbert:

Yeah.

Hess:

It's we can use it in sports. There's an event going on this weekend and people doing their dressage test. And when I used to compete, I'd imagine doing my dressage test and I would picture it and see it going fluidly. And then when I do the, stadium jumping. I'd walk the course and then I'd practice over some jumps, and then I would imagine and picture it all flowing and going well, and the cross country there. There you're galloping across fields and into water and over jumps and you walk the course a few times and then I would just sit and I would imagine it and imagine it all going well, and then it does

Delbert:

Yeah.

Hess:

boom. You, you went drive by and you drove past the signs for the real estate company that you work with now, and you imagined yourself working for them

Delbert:

I did, I manifested that and I told my broker when I interviewed with her that I said I saw your signs. I love the weather vein and I. I recognize the names, as people my dad's done business with and respects, and I just, I know I don't have any experience, but I manifested being here. And yeah,

Hess:

Yeah. You and you sold yourself with that. Yeah. You imagine yourself

Delbert:

she liked it.

Hess:

that when you are

Delbert:

She liked it. Yeah. And she turned into be a wonderful mentor for me too. So Sue must love her. Love her. She's retired now, but I. I had a, I was very fortunate to have a wonderful mentor and I have wonderful bosses still.

Hess:

Yeah. Yeah and we talked last week about surrounding yourself with the people that

Delbert:

Exactly. And that's part of it. I really believe that, if you surround yourself with good people,

Hess:

Yeah. When

Delbert:

successful.

Hess:

Delbert, I used to take my pen and paper and do all kinds of drawings of barns and what my barn would look like and which horses I would have, what they would look like and so forth. And here when I was 27, I. Onto the farm carried station. My dad and I went to a bunch of different barns and looked at barns and laid out all the fences and stuff, and it's kinda like j Frederick Olmsted, just how this

Delbert:

Right.

Hess:

Yeah. So the good things happen with imagination, and they make your heart and soul feel better.

Delbert:

They do.

Hess:

Yeah. Oh, imagination. I imagine myself with the fruit market, but then also when I thought about doing going back to school and getting going into counseling work where I could help couples. my, I had a border here at the farm, Joanne Bell, one of the wisest, smartest people in the whole world. She would read like seven newspapers a day. She said, Jess let me sit down with you and you tell me where you picture yourself, what you wanna be doing. Whoa. And then she, after that discussion, she said, okay, I think getting the Master's of social work would be your best avenue. So she evoked my imagination that gave us information, and then she was able to give me a roadmap to get there.

Delbert:

And you. Yeah. And she helps you manifest that. And again, just being around the right people, surrounding yourself with the right people. I gotta go be around the right people right now, the right clients. I've gotta go to a construction site in just a little bit. So I gotta jump off here and I know you've got a client coming but we love you friends, and we hope that you have a wonderful imagination filled Week.

Hess:

Yes, life. I'd see people on the on the trip, on my cruise and they'd say, Hey, have a good day. And I'd say, Hey, have a good life.

Delbert:

there you go. Don't limit it to one week or one day. Just have a damn good life. All right.

Hess:

Bert, I noticed that we have some really good reviews, some beautiful

Delbert:

Oh, nice.

Hess:

I'd like to invite all of you all listening to please stop and give us a review. We love you all and we'll be talking to you next week. care.

Delbert:

We love you friends.