The Choice of Freedom: Separating Mental Imagination from Physical Reality

Anxiety has a way of sneaking up on us when life is quiet. You can be lying in bed, the house calm, nothing urgent demanding your attention…yet your mind refuses to rest. Suddenly you’re replaying old mistakes, rehearsing conversations that haven’t happened, or predicting disasters that don’t exist.

And here’s the tricky part: your body can’t tell the difference. Shoulders tighten. Chest gets heavy. Your heart starts to pound. You’re stuck in a loop, reliving fears that haven’t even happened.

The irony is that none of it is real. The suffering doesn’t come from the situation itself….it comes from the “movie” our mind is playing on repeat.

The Mind as a Projector

Think of your mind as a movie projector. The future is a blank white screen. Nothing is written there yet, full of potential, possibility, and openness.

But the projector rarely leaves the screen blank. Instead, it pulls reels from past experiences; mistakes, traumas, criticisms, failures… and throws them onto the screen. Suddenly, what was wide open becomes a horror film you wrote, directed, and are now starring in.

The catch? You’re the only audience, and you are reacting!!!

This is why anxiety feels so convincing. Your brain doesn’t differentiate between something you vividly imagine and something actually happening. It responds as though the movie is real: adrenaline pumps, muscles tighten, and the survival system activates.

Why the Past Shapes Tomorrow’s Fear

Here’s what I’ve noticed: the hurt we carry from the past doesn’t just stay in the past. It becomes the template for how we approach the future.

If you were humiliated once, you brace yourself for humiliation again.
If you failed at something before, you expect failure around the corner.
 If you were rejected, you rehearse rejection in advance….just in case.

Your brain thinks it’s protecting you by predicting the worst. But in reality, it’s imprisoning you in a movie of recycled pain.

That’s why anxiety feels so convincing. Your body doesn’t know it’s just a story. It reacts as if the danger is real.

Anxiety Is a Story About Tomorrow

Strip anxiety down to its core, and it’s always the same thing: a story about the future.

“What if I fail?”
“What if they reject me?”
“What if everything falls apart?”

Each “what if” dresses itself up as certainty, but it’s not. It’s just imagination. The truth is, the future hasn’t happened yet. Which means the story you’re telling about it isn’t fact…..it’s fiction.

And the more you resist the feeling of anxiety, the tighter it grips you. I’ve seen it in clients and I’ve seen it in myself: the harder you fight to avoid fear, the more you end up living inside it.

And that’s where Peter Crone’s words resonate. He reminds us:

“You do not fear the unknown. What you’re fearing is what your brain is superimposing on top of the unknown… When you have those thoughts, it creates all sorts of anxiety.”

And to support this, he also shared a powerful example:

“A friend of mine said, ‘I will do everything I can to avoid conflict’… and I said for that reason, you are in perpetual conflict.”

Emotional Intelligence as an Antidote

This is where emotional intelligence becomes a lifeline.

–Self-Awareness – Catch yourself in the act. Notice the thought: “I’m rehearsing failure.” Naming it weakens its hold.

–Reality Testing – Ask: “Is this happening right now?” Most of the time, the answer is no. You’re reacting to your imagination, not your reality.

–Balanced Optimism – If the mind can invent worst-case scenarios, it can also invent best-case ones. Why not project a possibility where things go well?

–Stress Tolerance – When your chest tightens or your heart races, remember: these are body signals triggered by thought, not evidence of danger. Breathing, grounding, and movement can help you reset.

Anxiety thrives in the absence of these skills. But once you build them, you learn to separate imagination from reality.

From Catastrophe to Curiosity

Here’s a reframe I’ve shared with leaders and teams: replace catastrophe with curiosity.

Instead of: “What if this goes wrong?”
 Try: “I wonder what could go right?”

Instead of: “What if they reject me?”
 Try: “I wonder what I’ll learn no matter how they respond.”

This isn’t about false positivity. It’s about discipline. It’s choosing which movie you want to project on the screen of tomorrow.

Curiosity loosens the grip of fear because it shifts you from certainty of doom to openness to discovery. And discovery is a much lighter place to stand.

My Own Reflection

I’ve had moments where I was exhausted before a meeting even began. Not because anything bad had happened, but because of the mental rehearsal of disaster I’d just performed in my head.

The turning point was realizing: the suffering wasn’t coming from reality, it was coming from my imagination.
That awareness didn’t erase fear overnight. But it gave me something even more powerful: choice. The choice to stop projecting old hurt into new tomorrows. The choice to replace catastrophe with curiosity. The choice to direct a different movie.

That’s freedom.

Practical Steps to Break the Cycle

Here are some practical ways to reclaim the projector:

–Pause the Movie – When you notice the spiral, literally say: “Pause.” That simple word interrupts the cycle.

–Name the Projection – Label it: “This is me predicting rejection.” or “This is me rehearsing failure.”

–Check Reality – Look around and ask: “What’s actually happening right now?” Often, the answer is: nothing threatening.

–Flip the Reel – Intentionally imagine a neutral or positive outcome. “What if this goes better than expected?”

–Ground the Body – Anxiety is mental, but it’s felt physically. Breathe slowly, unclench your jaw, or move your body to calm the nervous system.

Why This Matters for Leaders and Teams

Anxiety doesn’t just affect individuals, it spills into culture. A leader projecting failure infects a team with fear. A manager rehearsing catastrophe paralyzes decision-making.

But emotionally intelligent leaders can see the pattern for what it is. They stop letting projection dictate culture. They replace fear with curiosity. And when leaders breathe easier, teams breathe easier. Performance follows.

Closing Thought

At its core, anxiety isn’t about the unknown. It’s about the story we attach to it. The future itself is neutral, our mind is the one adding the plot twists.

Avoidance doesn’t free us—it binds us. The moment we see that anxiety is a story we’re telling, we can choose to tell a different one.

Because if your imagination is strong enough to terrify you, it’s also strong enough to set you free.

Tony Ragoonanan is the Founder of  V-Formation Training & Development. As a Certified Emotional Intelligence/Performance Strategist, he helps individuals, teams and organizations to align skills, behaviours and outcomes. Outside of this, it’s all about family,  football, and fitness!!

868-681-3492 | tonyr0909@gmail.com