When Kids' Imaginations Go Dark

When Kids' Imaginations Go Dark: How Your Stories (and Attention) Create Your Reality (Living Lucky® Podcast)

What happens when a lighthearted interview with a 4-year-old takes a startling turn into an elaborate kidnapping tale? On this profound Living Lucky® Podcast episode, Jason and Jana Banana reveal how this unexpected moment exposes a universal truth: the stories we tell ourselves (and others) are incredibly powerful, actively creating our reality!

Discover how we often confuse attention with love and acceptance, unconsciously clinging to disempowering narratives (even victimhood) because they generate the validation we crave. What you give your mindset and attention to, you ultimately live into. Learn how our subconscious mind and Reticular Activating System (RAS) then seek evidence to confirm these chosen narratives—whether they empower you or reinforce limiting beliefs.

This episode is a vital self-help guide for personal development. You'll gain crucial insights into filtering the information you allow into your brain and consciously choosing empowering narratives that align with your dreams and goals.

Ready to transform your life by transforming your story? Break free from disempowering tales and take control of your narrative. Tune in to Living Lucky® and unlock the true power of self-awareness and positive thinking to create the abundant life you crave!

• How stories shape our reality.
• The power of attention in personal growth.
• Overcoming limiting beliefs through storytelling.
• How the subconscious mind creates reality.
• Cultivating a positive mindset with narratives.
• Self-help for changing personal stories.
• The link between imagination and reality.
• Why we seek attention with negative stories.
• How to filter information for mental well-being. Life coaching for narrative change. "How do the stories we tell ourselves affect our lives?" "What is the Reticular Activating System (RAS)?" "How does attention influence reality?" "Can changing your narrative change your life?" "What is the difference between attention and love?" "How to develop self-awareness through personal stories?" "Why do people cling to victimhood narratives?"

Stories, Reality, Attention, Mindset, Positive Thinking, Self-Awareness, Narrative, Subconscious, Imagination, Validati

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*Previously Recorded

Episode Transcript

Jana Shelfer (00:00):
Are you ready to create a life you crave?
Let's spin that doom loop ofnegativity into an upward
success cycle and start LivingLucky®.
Good morning.
I'm Jana, I'm Jason and we areLiving Lucky® you are too.
We are in my childhood town andwe're here with my family.

(00:24):
We are in my childhood town andwe're here with my family.
So I thought, wouldn't it besuch a treat to interview my
four-year-old niece for thispodcast?
So I sat Evan down yesterdayand I just started asking her
about her Getting life from afour-year-old perspective.

Jason Shelfer (00:43):
It sounds like it could be so cool.
I did, because you know I Kidssay the darndest things.

Jana Shelfer (00:48):
Right, Isn't that how it goes?
And I thought you know what.
I just want to share herlaughter and her light and her
innocent perspective on life andher energy.
Yeah, I know she's great.
So I sit her down and all of asudden she starts telling me
that she was kidnapped sevenweeks ago and that she had to

(01:12):
punch the kidnapper in the faceand all of a sudden I'm like
this is not like this went dark,quick this is not taking the
path that I thought it was goingto.
So then I showed the podcast toher parents and her mom got very

(01:40):
, very concerned, a littledistraught, because where did
this imagination come from?

Jason Shelfer (01:46):
Like we know, four-year-olds have a great
imagination, yes, but when wearticulate that into a story
that's being told to someoneelse, it can be scary.

Jana Shelfer (01:58):
Now, the reason that I bring this up is because
we all do this to some extent.
So she is four years old and,yes, she has an imagination.
And somehow it went dark, I'mnot sure where she was exposed
to the story of being kidnapped,and I mean literally.

(02:19):
She gave me details like hetried to put her in a trash can.
Yeah, he showed up in a truckwith a mask on and I started
being very, very aware of thequestions I was asking, because
I didn't want to create a falsememory yes, and I didn't want to
give it too much attention, andwhich is why we're not airing

(02:40):
that podcast right but I alsoyou know, I've talked to you
about it, jason and we all dothis we all start telling
stories and sometimes ourimagination does kick in a
little bit, and sometimes it cango for the better and sometimes
it can maybe go a littlemacabre yeah, like it could have

(03:04):
been.

Jason Shelfer (03:04):
Someone delivered rainbows and unicorns.

Jana Shelfer (03:07):
And I would have been all over that Right, right.

Jason Shelfer (03:10):
That's the story that you kind of want to dig
into and get curious about.
Not saying did not get curiousabout a kidnapping, but
obviously when we know theparents and we know that her
input is closely guarded.

Jana Shelfer (03:28):
So here's another element to all of this is what
you give attention to is what weall kind of live into.

Jason Shelfer (03:38):
Yes.

Jana Shelfer (03:40):
So I really needed to be very careful because when
I got this podcast done, I wentout and I was like you got to
hear this and of course I'msharing it with the adults and I
quickly realized you know whatshe's taking all of this in.

(04:01):
And I need to be careful, whatwe give attention to, because
those are the stories we liveinto.
We all create stories.
We all create stories and weall live into our own reality.

Jason Shelfer (04:14):
Yes, and a lot of times, when we tell ourselves
stories all day long.
What is the story that we'retelling ourselves?
Does it lean towards our goalsand dreams, or does it lean
towards our fears and doubts?

Jana Shelfer (04:27):
And many times when we get attention, whether
or not the story is empowering,we tend to live into.

Jason Shelfer (04:40):
Live towards the attention.

Jana Shelfer (04:41):
Where we get attention, whether it's from the
people around us, whether it'sfrom the universe, whether it.

Jason Shelfer (04:49):
I mean she became a drama queen quickly, yeah,
and she gets attention for thatRight consistently play the
victim, or when you consistentlysay things don't work out for
me because someone will come in,fill that space and coddle you

(05:09):
for that, and you're like, oh,this is what I'm really lacking
underneath, is that attentionand this is what I'm craving.
So that's how I'm going tostart interacting with people
socially.

Jana Shelfer (05:21):
Yes, and there's such a blurry line here, because
we always want to believepeople's stories.
We need to believe people whenthey tell us things and at the
same time, we need to put amicroscope on ourselves and
believe.
Almost evaluate is my storyreally true?

Jason Shelfer (05:55):
Is this true the person?
Or, instead of living into thisemotion of I'm a victim, I have
doubts, I have fears, we canchange the conversation to what
are your dreams and what areyour goals, just so that we can
kind of get out of that insteadof feeding the emotion and
feeding the attention.

(06:16):
Because so too many times welaugh at someone else's dream,
yes, too many times we tellsomeone oh, you can't, because
you're too young, because you'retoo old, because you're too fat
, because you're too skinny,because you're too, all these
things.
And if we start believing morein the possibilities of good and
what can be achieved, then wecan start creating a new

(06:39):
attention area to focus on.
But when we can quickly jump tooh, it's okay, oh, poor you, oh
, I'm so sorry this happened,that creates a new attention.

Jana Shelfer (06:58):
So as the adult in this.
Almost like a negative gift forsomeone as the adult in this
equation, I really I guess I allof a sudden became aware of the
responsibility in raising thesekids, because what you laugh
out and what you react to orjust as a listener.

Jason Shelfer (07:22):
It doesn't even have to be with kids.
It could just be with Ourfriends, your friends, your
siblings, your neighbors, theperson in the grocery line,
because we're all seeking someform of validation, some form of
just attention.
I think that attention is theword of the day.

Jana Shelfer (07:43):
Because we mix attention with love.
Yes, I really think we're alljust wanting to be loved and
accepted.

Jason Shelfer (07:47):
We want to be seen, heard and accepted.

Jana Shelfer (07:48):
Yes, and so sometimes, when people give us
attention, even if it's, youknow, in the, in the media world
or in the entertainment world,we had a saying no publicity is
bad publicity.
As long as they're talkingabout us, yeah, as long as
they're talking about us, it'sall good and it's kind of like

(08:09):
that in life too right.

Jason Shelfer (08:12):
So how do I create them talking?
Well, you see it in the newsevery day.
How do I create them talkingabout me or us, yes, and as soon
as I get that, I start buildingthat avalanche and I'm like OK,
I need to add to that, I needto keep adding and keep growing
in this area because, thiscreates more of what I'm looking
for.

Jana Shelfer (08:33):
Oh my gosh.

Jason Shelfer (08:34):
It was such an eye opener for me.

Jana Shelfer (08:36):
And, as the interviewer, I was sitting there
and she was telling me detailsand again, I was trying to be
very you know, it's like she'swatching a Lifetime movie.
I've watched a ton of crime,shows Lifetime and.
Dateline, and you know so.
Jason, who has a lawenforcement background, has
often said to me OK, you have toreally be careful of the

(08:58):
questions you ask, because theycan be leading, and I know this
from journalism too.
You don't want to ask leadingquestions, or do you?
Depending on what outcome youwant.
So I was really trying to askopen-ended questions and just
repeat what she said to me inthe words that I use.
However, it was really daunting.

Jason Shelfer (09:21):
Yeah, and I love that you come back to that
question.
Or just the statement tell memore yeah, because that doesn't
lead anywhere.
It just says, okay, well, whatelse?
But you could see that she wasgrowing this narrative.
She was it wasn't somethingthat she was remembering.
She was growing it.

Jana Shelfer (09:37):
And the fact that we were talking in a microphone
and in my podcast equipment italmost, and she's a natural
performer.

Jason Shelfer (09:46):
So, like she.
She craves performance, or shecraves, I guess, having an
audience is what it is.
Oh, my gosh so having themicrophone, thinking that this
is going to be aired and allthat she's like.
I'm going to give them the showof a lifetime.

Jana Shelfer (10:01):
I realized you know the power of a
four-year-old, I was like wow.
And then also I startedthinking last night about we
really have to be careful whatinformation comes into our
brains, because whether or notwe realize it, maybe somewhere
in our subconscious mind we areyou know, does art create

(10:28):
reality or does reality createart?
You've heard that.

Jason Shelfer (10:30):
Well, that's so big because who, how many
four-year-olds know, even knowthe word kidnapping?

Jana Shelfer (10:35):
I know and then the fact she was like it was
seven weeks ago and it was amasked man like.

Jason Shelfer (10:42):
I'm surprised she didn't use word like intruder,
but if we so if we perpetrator,we don't have the words, yeah,
we don't use them in the story.

Jana Shelfer (10:53):
Yes, so she's heard that somewhere.

Jason Shelfer (10:55):
Yes, and that's the kind of interesting thing is
okay.
Well, what words are wecreating our individual language
out of every single day?
Because they're going to showup more and more in our stories.

Jana Shelfer (11:08):
And she at four years old you're like a sponge.
However, we all are sponges.
Yeah, we all are sponges, evenat 50 years old.
When I am hearing and seeingthings, I really need to filter
what it is that I want tocapture.

(11:29):
I mean, thoughts are justthoughts.
It's the ones that we lasso andhold on to and say this is my
story.

Jason Shelfer (11:37):
Yeah, because we'll hear something or watch
something on the news or ontelevision and then our
subconscious mind and our innervoice will start creating a
dialogue in there, like, well,what if this, what if that?
And it's creating the intentionon your reticular activating
system, really, so that you areconstantly giving yourself

(12:01):
belief, hope, dreams and apathway towards that.

Jana Shelfer (12:06):
Oh my gosh.
Lots to think about here.
However, you will not behearing my four-year-old niece.

Jason Shelfer (12:14):
Not yet.
We're going to give her acouple more years yes, and we
might need to uh help filterjust kind of explore it a little
bit more, get curious well,thanks for joining us.

Jana Shelfer (12:28):
I hope this, I hope this maybe uh gets you
thinking a little differentlygives you a little insight and I
hope it was a little fun andmaybe even start bringing
awareness to what we allow intoour own reality.

Jason Shelfer (12:43):
Yeah, and if you have a four-year-old, send a.
And they've said some crazystuff to you.
Send us a text through the shownotes here and let us know what
they've told you.

Jana Shelfer (12:54):
Have a great day.

Jason Shelfer (12:55):
Keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer (12:56):
Bye-bye.
If the idea of Living Lucky®appeals to you, visit us at www.
LivingLucky.
com.