visualization

Visualization is a wonderful practice that can assist us in creating a new image for our lives. Visualization has been used for decades by successful people, entrepreneurs, and athletes to create positive outcomes.

Visualization can help us create the life of our dreams by giving us the confidence that we can achieve anything we want to achieve. Visualizing our dreams every day can rapidly accelerate the opportunities we receive and our dreams and goals.

The process of visualization allows us to tap into the subconscious mind and allows creative ideas to come up in a clear mind space. Visualization programs the brain to receive messages for resources that can help us on the pathway to achieve the dreams.

Visualizing allows the brain to understand that opportunities are available outside the current reality and that we can bring new ideas and actions into our life. When we do visualizations, we create an attraction so life can bring us more of what we desire.

Imagery Exercise for Better Sleep

The practice of guided imagery for better sleep is to create focus and attention on a story we create or an image in the mind that is calm and allows us to relax.

• First, get into a comfortable position in bed and close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths and relax the body as much as possible.

• Get into a comfortable position and begin to visualize a scene or memory or a story that is calming. You may want to visualize a vacation spot, a place on the beach or in the mountains, a place in nature that relaxes you, or a nourishing activity.

• Begin to create a new scene in your mind and focus your attention on this and begin to create the scenario in your mind. If you ever find your mind drifting to a thought that is unrelated, you can take note of it and let it go.

• You can always refocus the mind to a new story that is relaxing.

We may need to continue to practice this daily until we can keep this vision in our minds eye without disruption. Visualization is a lifelong practice.

Guided Imagery

Some people prefer to listen to a guided meditation that is facilitated by a person and is set to music and follows a particular storyline. This can help us to create our visualization image by guiding us into a realm where we can be more creative.

It is possible to buy or download a meditation online that is specific for use before sleep. The guide will often lead listeners through a series of exercises to relax the body and then the mind and to create a safe space to explore the thoughts and create new experiences.

Guided meditation is a great place to start if you have trouble holding an image in your mind for extended periods of time, or if you find yourself falling asleep quickly when you try to visualize.

Some Extras To Ease You Into Sleep

Some additional tips and tricks can assist in easing you into mindful visualization. One tip is to turn off electronics before bed and turn your clock away from you or cover it with a cloth. It can be stressful to watch the minutes go by when you are trying to visualize and sleep.

Keeping your cell phone off or in airplane mode eliminates late night distractions and prevents blue light from disrupting our sleep and visioning cycle.

Try to create a peaceful environment instead, using soft lighting, a salt lamp, essential oils, or other calming meditative ambiance like music.

Color breathing visualization is a practice that can be undertaken to relieve stress and to improve the mood. Breathing along with the visualization of certain colors can be very relaxing and can help us to gain a calm demeanor.

When we breathe with intention, we can mitigate stresses and we can bring awareness to our experiences in everyday life. Color breathing adds another dimension to meditation and mindfulness visualizations by incorporating colors that are associated with healing elements.

Anytime we bring awareness to the breath we can become more present in the moment and can more readily process what we are experiencing.

How to Do a Color Breathing Visualization

Undertaking a color breathing visualization is easy and can be done in various ways. Some people may prefer to sit while others would like to lie down. If possible, set aside a few minutes or more when you can be undisturbed. However, if you only have a moment, it’s also okay to close your eyes for even a few moments and envision the color you wish to implement.

Take a few deep breaths into the belly and into the chest while envisioning your body enveloped in the color of your choice. Continue this practice until you feel a shift in your mood or stress levels or experience a sense of calmness.

Colors and Their Meanings

Red

The color red is traditionally associated with the root chakra. This color is associated with grounded energy that is stable and consistent. Red can also represent the heart and can represent love and healing the heart. Red is associated with the element of fire and can be visualized to enhance a sense of security.

Orange

The color orange is associated with the sacral chakra and is often harnessed as a color of sexual energy. This is also a color of creativity. This is a great color to visualize when you are implementing a project or searching for ideas.

Yellow

The color yellow is associated with the solar plexus and is considered as the color of self-empowerment. It is also a color associated with the land and the Earth and it can help us to enhance self-confidence. This is a great color to visualize when you need an energy boost or a confidence boost. Visualizing yellow can help us feel more competent and ready to take on tasks.

Green

Green is a color associated with money, with the heart, and with the wood element. Green is a color that connects us with our leadership and allows us to commit to the world with love and care. When we can resonate with our community, we can work together to relieve stress and feel loved and cared for.

Blue

Blue is the color of water and the color associated with the throat chakra. This is a great color to visualize when we want to speak up about something, we are afraid to say, or when we cannot formulate our thoughts into a cohesive speech. The color of water and the sky helps us associate to our atmosphere on Earth and connect us to the grander vastness of our existence.

Purple

The color purple is associated with royalty. It is associated with spirituality and a higher power. Purple is a color that can help us remember that we are powerful and that we are always experiencing exactly what we need to grow and learn, even if it is a difficult lesson.

White

A white light visualization brings protective energies and can allow us to rest in the peacefulness of knowing that we are cared for, even if only by ourselves. White light energy can assist in alleviating symptoms of depression and can protect the body from receiving darker energies.

We live in a chaotic and hectic world. Many people live lives that are stressful and fast paced, and we may feel we can hardly catch a break to catch our breath. When we are under stress, we are feeling pressured and cannot function to our full capacity.

When the body is under stress, we may experience sensations in our body like heart palpitations or rapid breathing.

These are signs that our nervous system is in fight or flight mode and we are being flooded with adrenaline and other stress hormones. Sometimes it can be difficult to rationalize what we are feeling in our bodies.

It is possible to change our reaction to current situations, even if we cannot change the situation itself.

Visualization is one way to bring a new thought and idea to the mind and create a mental image of something that is more beneficial and helpful in the moment so we can move forward.

How Stress Affects Us

Stress is a feeling of overwhelm that can adversely affect our mind and body. Stress is a response to modern living that can be difficult to process. When we cannot change a situation, we have to look to how we can change ourselves to better adapt to the situation.

Utilizing tools and practices such as guided meditations helps to engage the mind to assist us in creating a new vision for our lives that is more positive and optimistic and fulfilling.

Why Visualize

When we visualize positive imagery, we can begin to associate our mental states with the faulty of our thoughts. When we think more positive thoughts, we have access to a happier and more abundant life.

When we can take a pause and recognize our mental status, we can bring gratitude into the picture. Thinking grateful thoughts can bring a broader sense of peace by allowing us to tap into what has gone well for us and how we can bring a renewed sense of positivity to the moment.

When we are stressed and feel like we are spinning out of control, visualization is a practice we can undertake to focus the mind on a chosen vision. Maybe the vision is one of achieving a personal goal or one that is dreamed by the family.

Try visualizing a time when you were in a situation and were worried you might not make it through, but in the end, it turned out better than you could have imagined. Try visualizing a time in the past when one of your dreams come true, and when you felt joy, abundance, and happiness. Remember these feelings and know that you can recreate them anytime to feel the grandeur in gratitude of life.

Once you can connect to a past successful vision of abundance, you can bring a sense of peace and calm to your life. You can connect with the knowing that certain situations have worked out for you and have gone your way in the past. This brings confidence that life will continue to provide, amidst the ups and downs.

Creating a Calming Mental Picture

Visualizing a calming mental picture can be the key to calming the chaos of the mind. Connect to an image that brings you peace and clarity and commit to holding it in your mind as long as possible until you can feel a shift in the energy. Sometimes even a few seconds of engagement in visualization will bring results!

Breathe with intention and feel the presence of your calming imagers coming true for you and be confident that you can change your outlook and perspective.

Visions of nature, water, fire, or other elements are a great place to start with imagery if you don’t yet have a clear picture of your desired outcome.

Some people are not aware of the power of visualization and all that it can do for our lives. But actually, we are all engaging in visualization throughout the day. However, many of us are stuck in visualizations of what we do not want, rather than what we do want. People often use visualization to imaging negative outcomes or to worry about the future. Sometimes we even worry so much that we seem to make the very thing happen that we don’t want to happen!

Visualization is not just a new age technique for manifesting. Instead, various athletes, musicians, and other successful people use visualization and mental imagery to make their dreams come true in their lives. Research has proven that people who do visualizations to create a positive experience before they engage in the activity.

An exercise psychologist from Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio found that people who did a workout in their minds were able to increase their muscle strength capacity by 13.5% as opposed to those people who actually did the activity with an increase of 30% muscle strength (From mental power to muscle power— gaining strength by using the mind, Yue, Guang). This means that just by visualizing in our minds we prime our body to create successful outcomes.

Research done by Newmark in 2012 also demonstrated the efficacy of visualization and guided imagery in sports performance utilized after the Russian 1984 Olympics (Cases in Visualization for Athletic Performance, Newmark, Thomas).

Basic Steps to Visualization

To begin visualization, you want to know what you want to manifest in your life. Knowing what you want to achieve will help you to create a visualization that will make your dreams come true. But first, you have to know what your dreams are, what you desire and how to make it happen, or at least, which step to take to get you to the next level.

Begin by describing the vision in detail. Maybe you want to record your vision into a microphone in order to clearly hear yourself express what you want with your own voice. You may feel more comfortable writing down your dreams in a journal and exploring how you can write your life into a new existence. Both of these practices help us to create a clear picture of what we want to create.

The next step is to begin visualizing what you want to manifest. You can visualize the circumstances or you can visualize the process or even skip all the way to the outcome. The most important part is to link the vision with the feelings you will feel when you complete the task and get to your dream place.

Taking daily action is essential. We cannot make great changes overnight if we do not take action each day. We need to set ourselves up for success each day by returning to our vision and making sure we keep in contact with our dreams. We want to continue to access our manifestations and change them as we gain new information.

We need to stay strong in order to persevere and stay on top of our goals. When we are not directing our lives, we can end up working for others or wishing we had access to different opportunities that are more fulfilling. When we are faced with challenges, we can continue to visualize our successes and find a pathway out of any situation.

Visualization provides a proven method for exploring mindfulness and engaging in meditation in a goal-oriented fashion. We can participate actively in the making of our lives through visualization.