Visualization Exercises

[?] Subscribe To Choosing Life My Way

Visualization Exercises

Have your say… leave a comment below after you read!

Visualization exercises can be used in many ways, both for creating more of what we want to experience in our lives, and as a means for releasing thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that do not serve our highest good.

Many visualization exercises involve picturing ourselves in a place that brings us peace and tranquility, and allow us to enter a relaxed state of mind. When in that state of relaxation, we are receptive to achieving whatever we wish to achieve from a visualization.

In some cases, we may use these exercises purely as a means of relaxation and stress relief. Even in the middle of a hectic schedule, it is often possible to take a 10-minute break, go to a quiet place (the bathroom if nowhere else usually guarantees privacy!), and take a mental mini-break. While you are lying under a palm-tree on the sand, listening to the waves gently lapping on the shore, it is also a great time to feed yourself some positive affirmations. Feel the sun warming your body as you tell yourself ‘I allow myself to go with the flow,’ ‘there is always enough time to do what I need,’ or ‘whatever is happening, I handle it well.’

Visualization exercises can also be used for creating a picture of how we would like certain aspects of our lives to take shape. The key to using visualization in this way is to be creative, and to visualize your ideal scene as if it is happening now. The more real you can make your visualization, the more powerful it will be. One of the ways that visualization works is to get your mind to be able to accept the possibility of what you desire becoming true. It helps to take dreams out of the realm of fantasy, and bring them within reach of reality.

If your dream is to run your own business, picture yourself in your ideal office, interacting confidently and effectively with your clients, and enjoying the fulfillment that your success gives you. Create lots of detail, and use all your senses. Smell the coffee that your assistant is brewing, taste the tangy raspberry pastries that you are sharing with your clients. Enjoy the feel of the soft plush carpet under your well-shod feet. Delight in the flow of words that streams effortlessly from your lips, as you provide excellent quality service to the people that you are dealing with. Sit back in your comfortable leather chair, and soak in the atmosphere of your calm, yet thriving workplace.

Another way of using visualization exercises is to create a picture in which we symbolically let go of our negative emotions, our limiting thoughts or beliefs. There are so many ways that this can be done; the only limit is what you can imagine. Here are a few ideas for visualization exercises for releasing.

Picture an empty balloon. Put the balloon to your lips, and as the balloon inflates, breathe your feeling/thought/belief into the balloon. Tie it up, and let it go. See the balloon rising up into the sky, and being blown away, carrying your unwanted thought within it. Breathe in some pure fresh air, and fill your body with light and power from the vast blue sky.
Choose a color to represent the negative feeling/thought/belief you wish to release. As you breathe slowly out for a count of four, see this color leaving your body, and rising like smoke, up into the clouds. As you breathe in slowly for a count of four, picture another color that represents love, joy, and strength filling your body. Continue until the negativity has completely dissolved and evaporated, and your body is filled with healing and energizing light and power.
Picture yourself with a sack of heavy stones, representing the things you wish to release. See yourself dragging that bag, slowly and laboriously up a hill. You puff and pant from the heaviness of your load, and this reminds you of why you must get rid of these burdens, and throw them into the depths of the ocean; far from where they can weigh you down. Arriving at the top, you stop to catch your breath, and look at the beautiful view spread out around you. Your resolve strengthens to rid yourself of the burdens you have been carrying for far too long. You reach into the sack, and drag out a stone. Heaving it over the edge, you watch it splash into the fathomless depths below, and disappear from view. Repeating this with each stone you have brought, you begin to feel lighter and lighter. Finally the bag is empty, and you gaily toss that over into the water too. You are not planning to accumulate any more great burdens just now! Lightly and freely, you skip down the hill, ready to embrace the joys and blessings that await you now that you have empty hands to receive them.

The beauty of visualization exercises is that not only do they allow you to instantly live out anything you want to experience in the realm of your mind, but using them frequently can also help to make your dreams a reality. Once that happens, then you get to live out your visualizations in the physical realm too!