Breathe in, breathe out.
When I feel skeptical about the power of visualization, I remind myself that we often imagine what will happen in the future or replay what happened in the past. I remind myself that athletes use this technique to train their brains to accompany their physical practice to reach peak performance. I remind myself that when we imagine something scary, we can physically feel that fear in our bodies. So why can we not train ourselves to imagine the best possible outcomes and feel them in our bodies?
Instead of preparing for the worst, what if we opened ourselves up to the best possible outcome?
Visualizing letting go of what we don’t want and seeing and feeling what we do changes our brain's physiology and supports our confidence in making choices that bring us closer to our desires every day.
The following steps can help you develop a visualization practice you can use regularly and support you in replacing negative thoughts and feelings with positive ones.
Sit
Hand on stomach
Write down something you want from your mind, heart, life, person, feeling, thought, or an idea of yourself.
Write down something you want in your life: a person, a thought, a feeling, or even a material item.
Practice seeing the thing you want to let go of, what it looks like, and how it feels, so you can describe it on your paper.
Practice seeing the thing you want to describe in your paper.
Now breathe in once - breathe out the thing you don’t want, put it in a word, and think about the word or say it as you breathe out. Breathe in what you do want, put it in a word, and breathe it in as you say it.
Like all practices, consistency and repetition with visualizing will bring you results. Our brain is a muscle we can continue to train. You are an athlete training for the performance that is your life. Imagine how you want to show up for the game, and watch your world change.
If you try this practice, let me know how it goes in the comments.
More soon,
AJ
