When it comes to changing your life, there is no greater tool to utilize when you’re contemplating a major shift in life than visualization.
In case you’re wondering what topic(s) I will write about each day, there really is no preconceived or premeditated program. Whatever comes up that day, either in my life, the life of a client, friend, or family member determines the subject I write about. Like today, I was studying childhood PTSD, reading Julie Valenti’s Knowing How, then followed up with a client who needed some coaching in visualization. So, there you have it.
Visualization is powerful because it helps to “rewire the brain,” as Valenti says. In my practice, visualization followed training in Christian ministry and prayer, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and Hypnotherapy (in that order) and ended up as a progression of these techniques culminating in guided visualization or meditation with concepts of the Law of Attraction thrown in for flavor.
If you have seen Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, you can get the idea about how to approach the idea of visualization and how it can change life all around you, based on where you focus your attention and practice the feeling of having whatever it is you desire, and it works.
The truth is, my mother told me that I could be whatever I wanted to be, even though very early in life I was non-verbal. I didn’t talk much as a young child, but I could mimic comedy recordings word-for-word and with some degree of enthusiasm. When company would come over, my mother would call me out of my room to put on a performance for the guests. Everyone would laugh, and then I would slink back to hide in my room following my delivery.
This was me exercising visualization by mimicry and pretending, and after a while, I learned communication skills and began to interact verbally with other people. A powerful skill that would come in handy throughout my entire life’s journey, and my mother was right, I could be or do anything. Likewise, you can be or do anything you want.
All it takes is a little visualization, practice, using something we all have been programmed to disregard in adulthood: Imagination. The more powerfully you exercise your imagination muscles and engage your actions, the more powerful your results.
It’s up to you to decide to do the work of using all your powers of imagination to visualize your life, the way you want it to be, bask in the feeling of it being your reality, and act as if it’s the real deal.
The doing of anything is a key component. What you do today determines who you will be.
In the beginning, once you start this effort, it feels ridiculous. You’re thinking this is fakery, and you start to second-guess your efforts with thoughts like, “Who would do such a thing?” followed by a flood of negative self-talk, like, “I’m not good enough,” talented enough, or the other dissuading themes reinforcing your lack of education, resources, finances, abilities, standing in the community, or an endless number of “reasons” justifying your unworthiness.
To combat this onslaught of self-doubt and negativity, you kind’a have to go a little overboard in an attempt to rewire your brain. As a young man, books like Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking and Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill were resources that helped to encourage my growth and expansion using my imagination to bridge the gap between here and there.
So, you might have to look in the mirror and practice positive affirmations, study the lives of others who have overcome obstacles to achieve the results you are looking for, create vision boards, and remove yourself from any negative influences during your reprogramming phase. Whatever it takes, do that, don’t let anything prevent you for going for it, and when it doesn’t feel real, allow yourself to pretend and fake it until it becomes true for you.
Thanks to my seizing every opportunity to turn every challenge into an opportunity allowed me to have the most tremendous experiences one could ever imagine in this life. In most cases, when facing insurmountable odds, all I had to do was to use my imagination and pretend that I was fully competent to survive and thrive through the adversity, and the Creator of the universe would support me in kind.
Even when it doesn’t make any sense, and it seems impossible, if you go forward in faith, putting yourself in the proper mindset and acting as if you are fully capable and trust that everything you need will appear in just the right time, your brazenness is rewarded by everything falling into place perfectly.
“Perfectly,” is not always the way you imagined it. Sometimes God knows there is something better He has in store for you, so try to be flexible enough to allow the power of love to override your expectations in your best interest.
You got this.