What are visualizations?
A special form of guided imagination is visualization, i.e. active dreaming. It consists of creating images in your mind, a living vision of a goal. You use this method to convey a message to your subconscious mind.
In this article you will learn:
- What visualizations are
- How to visualize
- How to use visualization in spiritual development
Why use visualizations?
Through visualization, you activate the creative forces of your mind. It affects the concentration of your mind, stimulates and motivates it. Visualization improves the effectiveness of your brain. It motivates it to take the necessary steps to achieve your goal. Visualization causes your subconscious mind to generate ideas on how to achieve this goal. It programs your brain to make it easier to see and recognize the resources it needs to achieve your goal.
Visualization also activates the law of attraction, causing the resources you need to achieve your goal, people and circumstances to emerge in your life.
How does it happend?
Scientific research shows that when you perform an activity, the same processes occur in your brain as if you were just imagining that activity. This is because your brain doesn’t know the difference between visualizing and actually experiencing it.
Visualization affects the Reticular Activation System (RAS) in your brain, which is tasked with flirting the information flowing into your brain. It only releases the information that is essential for your survival and the achievement of your most important goals. A visualization full of vivid, colorful, and interesting images allows it to define which information is important to achieve your most important goals.
Many athletes use this method in their training, it is the so-called mental training. For example, rock climbers often watch videos of other climbers. When they do, their muscles work the same when they are climbing alone.
Unfortunately, it also means that when, for example, you watch a horror movie, although, in reality, you are not in danger, you feel fear because your body starts to release the stress hormone cortisol as if you were in real danger.
When you visualize your goals every day as already achieved, a conflict arises in your subconscious between what you imagine and what you actually have. Then your subconscious tries to change the situation in which you live according to your visualization.
How to visualize?
- Sit back and relax.
- Summon a picture of your goal in your mind. Make it as clear and distinct as possible.
- Affect your every sense. Imagine with your imagination every detail of your vision, hear sounds, feel what you see, feel the taste and smell. In this way, you will stimulate different areas of the brain to work and it will remember the image better. The more colors and details, the more real it looks, the better the result will be.
This will help create the neural connections in your brain that will help you find the right resources to achieve your goal.
Inflate your visualization with emotions because, as you know, they trigger neural pathways in your brain.
If you have trouble seeing images in your mind, help yourself with additional tools. Use photos, images, symbols, videos to help you focus your awareness and subconsciousness on a specific visualization.
- For best results, it is best to practice visualization in the morning when your brain is not too excited, or just before falling asleep, when your brain starts working on Alpha waves. Do it every day. The entire visualization process should take 10 to 15 minutes.
In your spiritual development, you can use visualization to create a better version of yourself.
With its help, you can reprogram your negative beliefs, i.e. beliefs and patterns of your ego. You can visualize that you are removing those that do not serve you and replace them with new ones that support you. Remove emotional blocks, unwanted emotions, forgive someone, and heal your emotional wounds. Talk to your inner child as well as balance the work of your chakras and purify the aura. And also heal your body by imagining the repair and regeneration processes in your body. Visualization will also help you in working with anxiety or stress.
How do you use this visualization?
Use meditation to visualize the desired processes. If you want to use the visuals to balance the work of your chakras, try e.g. color breathing. To do this, during meditation, visualize the chosen color and breathe thinking about that color and think what it represents for you. With each breath, imagine this color slowly filling your body from head to toe. And with each exhalation, imagine that any unwanted emotion leaves your body and is replaced by the color you are thinking about.
And when you want to heal your body, e.g. remove pain from it, lie down comfortably. Close your eyes. Relax. Take a few deep breaths in and out, then imagine inhaling bright light and direct your imagination’s eyes to the sore spot. Imagine this light penetrating the cells of your body and dissolving the pain.
And when you want to use the visualization to heal your emotional wounds, lie down comfortably. Close your eyes. And visualize yourself as a little child. Talk to this child. Ask what he needs and pass on the feelings he needs. Love them.
Visualizations are a powerful tool, but unfortunately underrated. So use it whenever you can and you will see your quality of life change for the better. Appreciate the strength of your mind and use all its possibilities. Be a conscious user and take responsibility for your life and its quality.
Source:
Jack Canfield „Zasady Canfielda. Rusz się stąd gdzie jesteś i idź tam, gdzie chcesz być!”, 2009, Wydawnictwo Studio EMKA
https://www.jackcanfield.com/blog/visualize-and-affirm-your-desired-outcomes-a-step-by-step-guide/