A common misperception among many people is that they can’t visualize. The truth is everyone visualizes and everyone has an active imagination.
If you have caught yourself daydreaming, then you know that your imagination works. If you have ever thought about something that you don’t have yet, you can imagine and if you can imagine and if you can imagine, you can visualize.
What seems to throw people off is the belief that visualization means having a crystal clear picture in their mind, like looking at a television screen. Some people can do that…most cannot. For most people, visualization is a feeling, a sense…it may include odors, tactile sensations, sounds…and it is often some combination. All of it is visualizing.
The following exercise will help to strengthen both the belief in your ability to visualize and the process itself.
First, read the rest of this article all the way through…maybe a couple of times, until you have the instructions and the exercise clearly implanted in your mind. Once you have done that, sit comfortably, close your eyes and take three very slow very deep breaths…these breaths should start all the way at the bottom of your lungs and fill them all the way to the very top until you can feel your shoulders stretching. Breathe in through the nose, hold the breath for a couple of seconds and then gently exhale through the mouth.
At this point, you should feel comfortable and relaxed.
Then, remember this exercise and begin.
Remember your ability to imagine, to daydream, to have fun with your thoughts and with the eye of your mind.
As you relax and rest comfortably, eyes closed, breathing easily, picture the room around you. See the objects in the room. In your mind and only in your mind, get up, and walk across the room to the first object that attracts your attention. Pick up that object.
Stick out your tongue and touch the object with the tip of your tongue. How does it taste? How does it feel in your hands? Now, gently, you don’t want to break it, set it down.
With your body continuing to relax comfortably right where it is, leave that object and walk out of the room. Go to another place you like to be. Once you are there, look around. What do you see? How does this place feel? Sit down. How did your body feel as you sat down?
Now spend a few minutes, sitting, relaxing, enjoying being in this new place. Just rest and enjoy.
Without standing up, using only your mind, look back into the room where your physical body is resting comfortably and enjoying this experience. Look at yourself. Smile, be happy at the miracle of your physical body. Be happy at your mind that allows you to do all these amazing things.
Now, in the room where you are sitting, stand up and leave. Go back to where your physical body is resting…and rejoin your physical body.
That’s all there is to it. You did it. Do this often and you will become very comfortable with your ability to visualize and imagine. Play with the exercise and change it up. Leave the building where you are. Go far away.
One key element though, is to always, at some point in the exercise, be sure to check back on your physical body while you are in another place. It is this ability to place yourself somewhere else so realistically in your mind that you can look back on yourself which will ultimately allow you make miracles happen.
Enjoy your imagination.
