Creating the Life You Want
By Rita Milios
Would you like to experience your personal best? To feel confident, secure, competent, poised and self-assured? Would you like to look and feel your "ideal" self? Would you perhaps like to work at a fulfilling job that utilizes your talents and rewards you financially? Would you like to control your own future? Most of us would answer a resounding "Yes!" to at least some of the above questions. But too few of us know how to make these ideals a part of our lives. We too often feel out of control, not competent or confident about our goal; we often don't know how or where to start.
It is a good idea to create a time every day
to mentally send out your visualized goals.
If we only realized that it is easy to start and it is easy to know how — once we gain a clear vision of what we want. Vision is the catalyst that jump starts all change, that lights the way toward all growth. Without vision, goals and ideals are merely pipe dreams.
Visualizations Are Real
Vision is that clear, constant image of what we want and where we are going that we hold in our minds. Visualization is the "mind tool" that you can use to create that vision. Visualization is the process of creating vision, and that process is simple; it can be learned and used by anyone. Visualization works because it creates belief, belief that can alter the circumstances of your life.
Visualization literally means creating pictures in your mind. With visualization, you "speak" directly to your subconscious mind, by-passing the censorship of the logical, conscious mind. Your subconscious mind "thinks" in pictures, and you can reach the programming levels of your subconscious mind quickly and easily with visualization. Visualization is an idea, a thought form, in picture.
By starting with a picture, you take a short-cut directly into your subconscious. No words have to be "translated" from conscious ("left-brain") language to subconscious ("right-brain") language. You deliver a simple, clear, direct message right into your subconscious mind.
Creating visualizations of the things you want to believe is very effective. Your subconscious mind does not rationalize. It takes whatever you give it as "truth." If you consistently picture yourself as having already achieved your goal, your subconscious mind soon believes that it is so. Then, in order to balance your inner and outer reality, your subconscious sets into motion any events or circumstances necessary to create in the physical realm that which you believe in your mind to be true. Visualization is a bit of mental "trickery". You are, in effect, tricking your subconscious into believing that an event has occurred when it has not.
This is where visualization can help. "Seeing is believing" for most people. We believe what we see with our own eyes. The same holds true for mental "seeing".
Visualizing a scene in your mind tends to make it more real. You come to believe in the reality of the image. At first visualization of a goal may seem forced and unnatural. But repeated visualizations, like repeated affirmations, slowly create the belief that the desired goal is possible, then probable, then, finally, a fact. And once a goal has become real in your mind, once you believe it, it starts to become real in your life.
Using affirmations (positive statements that we repeat to ourselves in a positive way) and visualization together is like a "double whammy" for creating belief in your desired goal. One or the other alone will work, but by using the two together, your success will come easier and faster. Visualize your desired goal while you repeat your affirmation for it. Create a scene in your mind where you see yourself already having achieved your goal. See yourself doing what you would be doing, saying what you would be saying, feeling what you would be feeling. By making your visualization vivid, active and exciting, you add energy to it.
Visualizing Special Goals
Close your eyes and image a movie screen (or if you prefer, a blackboard) about six inches away from your face and up a couple inches above your eyes. This is where you should make your mental pictures. You do not need to get details. (Most people don't really see details like hair and eyes on their figures.) In fact, when you "see" an image or visualization, it is in the form of a thought-picture, a sort of mix between an actual image and just the thought of that image. Don't expect pictures like those on television. Trying too hard to get a "good" visualization will hamper your results. Sometimes you "sense" an image more than you actually see it.
It is a good idea to create a time every day to mentally send out your visualized goals. Often people do it just before they fall off to sleep. Another good time is shortly after awakening in the morning, before you start your day. You can add impetus to your visualizations by accompanying them with affirmations, or positive statements that also reflect your goal. Following are some specific kinds of visualizations that you might use to begin creating the life you want.
Visualizations for Health — Picture yourself on your mental screen, seeing yourself at your healthy best. Imagine yourself strong, vital and healthy as you make your health affirmations. If there are any areas in your body that need attention, imagine each area specifically, seeing it whole, complete and healed of whatever ailment it once had. Make an affirmation that the ailment is now healed. You might imagine a healing light permeating every cell of the affected area. Then, see yourself joyfully experiencing freedom from this ailment. Move the body part freely, breathe deeply, whatever, to show that the body part is no longer affected. End the visualization by giving thanks for your perfect health. You can also do these visualizations for others, imaging them on your mental screen.
Visualizations for Prosperity — See yourself experiencing your prosperity and wealth. What kinds of possessions would you have? What would your bank statement look like? Visualize yourself using and enjoying your prosperity. Also, (and this is very important) visualize the good that will come from your increased prosperity. What positive ways will you use your money?
Perhaps you have plans to help others in some way. Visualize this happening. Any time you use your increased prosperity to help others, you increase your potential for prosperity becoming a permanent part of your life. Your attitude about prosperity and plenty increases your wealth. Think of money as freedom, as a tool to help you do what you do best. Perhaps there is a special job or some volunteer work that you have been wanting to do, but never got around to. Use your prosperity wisely, and more will come to you. Think of your wealth as freedom, security, and added power to help others. When you want to create prosperity, attitude is everything.
Visualizations for Success — Picture your success in specific, positive images. See yourself performing a service of your choice that others need and appreciate. See yourself being congratulated and praised for your good work. Imagine that you have a never-ending supply of people who value and want your services. See yourself enjoying your work, feeling proud and happy that you can provide this worthwhile service.
If you are not happy with your present job, see yourself working and doing the kinds of things you would really like to be doing. Imagine yourself in the type of environment you feel best — at home, at an office, outside, a wonderful job (and you do not have to know exactly what this job is — you can leave that up to the universe).
See yourself depositing a paycheck into your bank account. This check shows the amount of money that you need and desire from your work.
Visualizations for Happiness — Imagine the kinds of things that you want and need to be truly happy in your life. Affirm that you have these. Visualize a peaceful scene where your best wishes have come true. Give thanks for the happiness in your life.
There are unlimited ways to visualize. Make your visualizations unique and real according to your own desires. Always remember to visualize the positive outcome of your goal. Visualize the good that will result from having achieved your goal. Visualize yourself appreciative and thankful. The universe likes to be thanked!
Visualizations For Emotional Healing — Not only can you "program" goals and desires with your visualizations, you can "re-program" old hurts and change old non-productive, limiting attitudes. If you are committed to looking deeply and openly into your own mind, using visualization for emotional healing is something that you can do alone.
For most people, however, visualization can be a real tool in helping them uncover and re-program their own mental patterns. There are several visualizations that you can use to "speak" directly to your subconscious and re-program those patterns that are not helpful to you in your present life.
One, the Small Child Visualization, is especially good for re-programming very old beliefs and attitudes. In it you "meet" yourself as you were when you were a child. You then go back to an old feeling or problem and mentally visualize its solution by you the adult, taking the child's problem and mentally releasing it (a good releasing image is to visualize the problem being dissolved by a bright, golden sun, or to see your adult self placing the problem in a hot air balloon and letting it go). Even if you don't know the exact problem, by tapping into anxieties, fears or negative feelings, you can still get in touch with the mental program associated with those feelings and release it.
You may want to go through this visualization several times, each time dealing with a new problem or feeling. An especially difficult problem may take several repeated visualizations to clear out all of the negative energy associated with the original mental program. Just follow your intuitive feelings. They will tell you when you have repeated a visualization enough times. You will know also if a sense of peace comes over you during the visualization, or you experience the cessation of a specific anxiety.
Practice Makes Perfect
Visualization is a process. It can be made better. Creating your own vivid scenes is the key to using visualization. Practice these simple exercises until you become a "natural" at visualization. It can be honed to perfection. The better you become at visualization, the more creative energy you will have available to you to create your desired reality.