Visualisation
Action Replay
Creating memories is one of the outcomes of daily life. However, instead of letting them go and moving on we tend to send them into our subconscious where they build up in both quantity and strength. Many of them add further strands to our self-belief and self-image. Unfortunately some of them are not positive or uplifting, and we have the tendency to hold on longer to the negative things we say and think about life in general and ourselves in particular. This visualisation exercise may help you to discern those images which enhance your self-image and self-esteem and also see and release those that do not.
Sit comfortably and close your eyes ...
Take your time and rewind the day you had today (or yesterday if you are doing this in the morning) as if you were watching a movie going backwards...
Now, slowly, play the day again, from the beginning, on the screen of your mind...
Stop whenever you arrive at a scene in which you felt negative, upset or unrelaxed...
Study the scene is all its detail, its characters, the expressions, the exchanges, as if you were looking in fascination at a picture hanging in an art gallery...
You are just the observer, even of yourself...
Then freeze the frame...
Imagine your hand reaching for the framed picture and peeling it off the screen ...
Now your other hand comes into the picture with a lit match and sets fire to the print...
Watch it burn and disappear in smoke...
Now do the same for a scene that was positive, where you felt relaxed, at ease and confident...
Study the scene, freeze the frame, peel it away and place it in a photo album...
Then pick up the album with the positive scenes and place it somewhere in your home where you can see it...
Be aware that at any moment you choose you can always go to that album and refresh your memories of all that was positive and worked for you...
Let these images form the fabric of your self-belief...
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Why Practice Visualisation?
The most powerful energy in the universe is the energy of the mind. Everything we create, from the simplest of objects, to the most complex philosophies, are formed in the human mind. The images and thoughts which you create at each moment directly influence your emotional and physical well being. Imagine yourself eating a lemon and you will begin to salivate, picture yourself fall from a cliff edge and you will generate the feeling of falling along with tremendous anxiety, possibly terror.
The key to relaxation lies in what you do with your mind. Like an inner television screen or an artists blank canvas, your mind is ready to display any idea or image which you choose. While meditation tends to have one point of mental focus (an idea, insight, icon or mantra) creative visualisation is the purposeful use of the mind to create positive images and therefore has a number of beneficial uses:
- 1 Simple Relaxation
When you create peaceful and positive mental images you invoke and awaken feelings of inner peace, releasing tension and dissolving anxieties.
- 2 Generate Healing
There are now many documented cases of patients visualising their return to good health, or using symbols and images to visualise how their immune system fights and defeats physical disease.
- 3 Invoking Inner Wisdom
We all have a deep resource of wisdom and truth at the heart of our consciousness – sometimes referred to as intuition or conscience. Creative visualisation opens and quietens the mind, so we may clearly hear this inner voice and allow it to guide us.
- 4 Goal Setting
When you set a goal for yourself you will create an image of its achievement, sometimes known as a preferred future state. (goals are not desires) The vision then helps you to discern what is useful to achieve the goal, and if the vision is sustained with the right quality of energy it begins to attract towards you the necessary resources.
- 5 Restoration of Creativity and Concentration
Our modern world has encouraged us to become dependent on others creativity and most of us have lost our awareness of the importance of mental concentration. The media and entertainment industries present us with the clever and calculatingly impressive ideas of a few. As we, the many, sit and allow ourselves to be entertained, we can easily become dependent on the creativity of those few, and in so doing lessen our own creative capacity through lack of practice.
Daily visualisation restores our ability to focus and concentrate the energy of our consciousness and become masters of our own minds. If we are not able to do this for ourselves, we allow others to capture our attention and influence our creation. We then become slaves to others imagery, and wonder why we are not able to relax at will, and why we feel drained after a particularly emotional movie.
Learning how to visualise, and develop the breadth and depth of 'inner vision', is the art and the heart of all creativity.
While the weekly visualisations are designed for your practice it is important that you generate your own visualisations - otherwise it can become yet another dependency, and lazy thinking continues. So we would encourage you to use the visualisations which you find here as a template for creating your own.
Any Questions?
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