I used to have absolutely no clue how to use visualization.  I tried it in guided meditations, yoga classes, and in attempting to manifest things I wanted in my life “Law Of Attraction” style.  It always felt forced and frustrating.  Instead of slipping into a peaceful relaxing meditation I would spend the whole time wondering why when I closed my eyes I had no clue what anything looked like.  I wished my inner world was vivid, detailed and bright, but all I saw were fleeting shapes and the colour of my own eyelids!

I think previously, because I didn’t believe it would help me in any way, I didn’t really want to visualize what was being suggested to me.  I had to come to it on my own.  It sounds corny, but I had to find the magic of reaching for the stars within my own imagination in order to access the ability to visualize.

photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/2top/8729655292/ via http://photopin.com under licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Ability to use the imagination comes so easily to some people, but even as a child I never really got it.  I remember being so bored writing stories or drawing pictures in school.  I only really enjoyed doing things where there was a clear right or wrong answer, like maths.

Now I use it constantly, whether I’m singing, massaging, making jewellery or writing.  It started with my yoga practice.  After thinking my yoga teachers were all a little bit crazy talking about putting roots into the ground with our feet and opening our hearts to the heavens, I now regularly out-metaphor them on the mat with the wild imaginings of my beautiful mind.  Because it works.

I had to really dig deep to tap into it though.  Sometimes I can feel so lacking in energy that I don’t even want to get up and make a cup of tea, let alone do a handstand.  But one day something clicked.  I imagined myself as an other-worldly yoga goddess, and for a moment I wasn’t limited by any of the beliefs I held onto about my body and its abilities.  I rolled out of bed onto my yoga mat, and bunny hopped up gracefully into the most elegant handstand I’d ever managed to do.  It revived me, and it definitely didn’t feel like exercise.

photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jill_r/8625802904/ via http://photopin.com under licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/

I’m not trying to suggest that if you’ve never done a handstand (or some other crazy yoga posture) before you can just visualize it and then you’ll be able to do it perfectly.  The point I’m making is that one image in my mind made a massive difference to how I felt in that moment, which consequently changed my whole day.

That moment, and countless others since then, have changed my view of visualization completely.  I actually sing better when I visualize.  I don’t know if it’s just the distraction from worrying about what I sound like, or if there’s something more complex going on.  It doesn’t really matter to me.  The results are what I care about.

We’re subconsciously visualizing whatever we’re doing constantly.  I’m becoming more and more aware that a lot of negative emotions, that seem to come from nowhere, are actually coming from deeply held beliefs about myself which play out as images flickering through my mind, so fast I barely notice them.  The emotion is a reflection of these images in my body, and I tend to become the things I am imagining.  So now I make a conscious effort to constantly challenge these pictures of myself and replace them with ones that feel good.  Low and behold I feel better, and can function much much better, as a result of it.

I’m sure this is just scratching the surface of the potential uses of visualization, and I look forward to continuing my exploration of the super power of the imagination!