Personal Mythologies
There's something to be said for the well prepared imagination. Allowing our mind to be subjected to our own mythology in order to utilize psycho-somatic properties well known in medical literature is something that feels a little dishonest, like we're cheating the system by brushing over or reinterpreting painful memories instead of confronting them.
But... We at Derivative Psychology meant just that when we decided on a name for our little branch of Psychology. What you put into the system changes the output, whether it is done by reaching into the past and editing the context or anticipating future events and plugging in the appropriate virtues. We're taking the whole of psychology and turning towards active and dynamic roles that we need to engage in instead of fortifying long-standing beliefs in psychology that we are ultimately, victims of our surroundings.
Ultimately, we aim to put the power of psychology back into the hands of the people. It's going to take some elbow grease and certainly a little fine-tuning as we go, but we've learned first hand that the quality of life is a whole lot of what you make it out to be.
So make your next trip to the grocery store an adventure, watch people, imagine stories to fill in the gaps of what you might see as odd and maybe most importantly, try to incorporate passion, virtues and all the wonderful little quirks that make them exceptional in their own worlds. Give them good and you'll get it in return.
By filling in the blanks of others, you'll be training your brain to auto-reflect and gage the quality of your own thoughts, making it easier for you to separate the harmful spam ("I'm not as rich as...") from the good stuff ("I enjoy watching rain") in your own life. I don't exactly know where I was going with all this, but maybe I'll just leave it with an open ending.
