I don’t know about you but I have a really big imagination.

Ever since I was a little kid, I used my imagination to help me get through things in life. And yes sometimes I still do that to this day.

If I have to eat something that I absolutely hate but I HAVE to eat it, I just sometimes pretend that I’m on the Oregon Trail and this is part of my meager portions that I need to eat to survive.

While I’m running, when it gets really hard and I feel like I’m about to die, I pretend that I’m being chased by zombies and I just need to go a little further to make it to safety.

I read a lot of fiction and I watch a lot of movies. While I do read a good amount of non fiction, I prefer fiction because I enjoy seeing how others use their creativity.

Imagination does get me in trouble sometimes however. There’s the whole daydreaming when you’re not supposed to, like in class or in church during a sermon. Sometimes it’s hard to focus when the speaker just goes on and on about a boring subject and they refuse to attempt to make it interesting.

And then there are those times when I worry or have anxiety and I let my imagination run away with me. I will gather just the bare bones information of what I have and I will concoct a wild and crazy scenario that will probably be completely untrue. Sometimes I am right, sometimes I am wrong. Either way the thing is, I don’t know 100% what’s going on.

Sure, I can be realistic and prepare for something that could possibly happen. But if it’s something that I’m dwelling on without confirmation? It’s my imagination running away with me and THAT’S when imagination becomes a problem. Because that’s when the worry, fear, anxiety, and stress will all kick in just because I start to think something may be happening based off of assumptions and an overactive imagination. Though I will say, if you don’t respond to a reasonable amount of texts, voice mails, emails sent over a significant amount of time and no one has any idea if you’ve fallen off the face of the earth, I may start imagining that you’ve died in your house and we all just don’t know it yet.

It’s perfectly fine and healthy to have an active imagination. But you have to know when it’s real and when you’re running away with it. As long as you can tell the difference (and perhaps confine it to a certain room), you’ll be fine.