Visualization

‘Imagination is the workshop of the mind’.  Lee Milteer

Visualization is using the imagination as a tool for improving outcomes in your life.

By using the mind in a conscious and deliberate way to create mental pictures or, more accurately, multi-sensory mental representations (because visualisations don’t have to be visual) we can improve ourselves or our lives in some way. These representations can be of people, scenes, performances, ideas, symbolic objects and other things.

Visualization is a natural process. We can all do it, and virtually everyone does. The skill set can be developed consciously.  It does not replaces other techniques and often works most effectively in conjunction with others, such as affirmations. A general benefit of developing positive visualization is that it can displace negative visualization (rehearsing mistakes, re-playing worries etc).

Suggestions to improve visualisations include:

• Doing it only when we are relaxed (though visualization can help to make us more relaxed) so that we send consistent messages to our muscles;
• Closing our eyes and engaging as many of the senses as we can or choose;
• Doing it normally in an associated state (ie, from ‘inside’) so that we feel strongly;
• Practicing the skill regularly.

Types of Visualisation

Receptive visualization: Visualization in which the conscious mind opens itself to communication from the unconscious mind (or Higher Self). It is particularly valuable for helping us to clarify our feelings, work out what we really want and explore resistance in our lives.

Creative Visualisation: Where the conscious mind is the active source of communication. Here we ‘make up’ images, singly or in sequence, rather than wait for them to emerge. Sometimes called programmed visualization it is especially useful for helping us to accomplish goals, improve performance, speed up healing processes and work with the images we have invited into our conscious mind.

Since it is virtually impossible to isolate the reception from the construction of images in the conscious mind, it is fairly certain that visualization is typically a mix of receptive and programmed forms.

Guided visualization (or imagery). Guided visualisations usually use an external facilitator to lead you through the exercise. Examples include going to a ‘mental sanctuary’ to relieve stress or solve problems (often called Quiet Place visualization) and visualization to contact the Wise Old Person within you, perhaps the personification of your Higher Self, who can help you with particular problems. However they can be for programmed visualisations as well such as for sporting performances.

Visualization and guided imagery techniques are used for the scores of things such as:

• Coping effectively with situations that provoke anxiety or challenge (e.g., mental rehearsal of dealing with one such situation or seeing ourselves literally ‘let off steam’ to relax);
• Improving our performance in sporting or other skill-intensive activities (e.g., mental rehearsal of playing a winning volley in tennis);

• Attaining a goal (e.g., visualizing ourselves getting married to our ideal mate);

• Performing in a role (e.g., visualizing ourselves as a caring, effective parent);

• ‘Looking back’ on a successfully managed task (e.g., visualizing having solved a problem we are currently facing);

• Understanding other people better (e.g., imagining what it would be like to live in the shoes of another person);

• Understanding ourselves better (e.g., visualizing the shadow sides of ourselves or trying to ‘read’ a symbol presented by our unconscious);

• Creating a generally positive state of mind (e.g., visualizing favourite places, people and pastimes or all the many things for which we feel grateful).