Chapter 6
Choosing the Best Times and Locations for Effective Visualization
In This Chapter
Ensuring that you’re free to concentrate
Increasing the power of your visualizations in the unconscious
Using music and video while visualizing
When setting out on a path of personal development through creative visualization, ensure that you do everything possible to get great results as early as possible; doing so helps to reinforce your belief in the techniques and encourages you to use them more.
Not that you must have faith for creative visualization to work – the techniques are tried-and-tested psychological means of connecting with your unconscious mind. You need only to practise them and, even if you’re sceptical, they work. As long as you’re objective in your analysis of the results by noting actual goals achieved rather than vague feelings of being different, you’re going to notice changes taking place in your personality, body, and life in general.
The more fully you visualize, however, and the more convinced you are that the practice is going to work, the faster results come and the quicker you benefit from a happier, more fulfilled life.
Every little advantage can help to achieve this aim. In this chapter, I describe how to select the best times and places to carry out your visualization sessions and provide a few tips on enhancing the process. I also help you to understand the vitally important role of the unconscious mind in effective visualization.
Being Able to Concentrate
With the exception of those who meditate or practise relaxation techniques, many people tend to have busier minds than is good for them. Although to a certain extent a busy mind can help you achieve more things by multitasking, over a certain level the speed of ever-changing thoughts become a burden as they run into (and often conflict with) each other. For people with extremely busy minds, concentrating on any single task can be very difficult.
Therefore, a mind that’s too busy is overloaded and needs slowing down somewhat, which happens with repeated visualization. Calming your mind and relaxing goes a long way towards helping you to concentrate, but the benefits are negated if distractions are preventing you from keeping focused.
The most important thing you need to be able to do when you visualize is concentrate. If you lose concentration and let your mind wander from what you’re imagining, your visualizations tend to revert to simple daydreams, with none of the added benefits of guided imagery.
The following sections help you to find spaces, times, and privacy for your visualizing.
Choosing your visualizing space
The first and most obvious thing to do when you start to visualize regularly is to find somewhere quiet with little likelihood of distraction.
A good place to visualize is in bed, at the start or the end of the day (or both), unless you’re too tired, because then you risk your visualizations quickly turning into dreams. That doesn’t sound too bad, but most guided visualizations have a beginning, middle, and end, and often the end part is crucial to the whole exercise; visualizing the first two thirds without the final part, because you’ve nodded off, can have the opposite effect to the one you desire. If you’ve only visualized as far as the before part of an exercise (the thing you want to change from) and omitted the after part (the goal you want to achieve), the wrong part of the visualization is emphasised.
If you do choose to visualize in bed at night, only run quick imagery through your mind, such as mental flash cards. If you’re sufficiently awake in the morning, though, that’s a good time to perform longer visualization exercises.
Another environment that’s conducive to successful positive visualization is somewhere in the home where you can’t hear other people or perhaps in the garden as long as distracting traffic isn’t going on.
You can often also visualize during parts of your commute if you’re a passenger and your mind is free to concentrate properly on the exercises. While travelling to work on buses and trains most people are quiet and read a book or newspaper or use their laptops; but gazing out of the window and visualizing is just as easy.
At the risk of stating the obvious, don’t try any type of visualization while driving a car, because you need to keep your full concentration on the road at all times. If your vehicle is stationary, however (for example, at traffic lights), you can sneak in a quick five-second mental flash card.
Some people also seek out good places to visualize that are away from their usual routines. For instance, if you live or work near a park you may enjoy going there specifically to visualize. And if you have a dog that needs walking, you have a wonderful opportunity for visualizing.
Weigh up a few places you can easily access and where you’re most able to visualize properly, and try them out. If some appear more promising than others, concentrate on those places to start with, but other locations may well turn out to work better than you think.
But if you can’t find somewhere quiet it’s more important that you visualize than not, so instead try to find places where you can snatch brief moments of maybe 10–60 seconds. In these circumstances restrict your visualizations mainly to seeing your goals accomplished and contemplating the positive effects on your life of having done so.
By doing this you find that you strengthen your ability to concentrate and block out unwanted noise, so that over time you find yourself able to practise longer visualizations in a very noisy environment. The key is to discover how to get into the visualizing, trance-like state so that you can ever more easily get back into it when you need to, even under difficult conditions.
Preventing interruptions
When you begin to visualize, you may believe that your partner, friends, relations, and so on consider that what you’re doing is a little crazy (unless they also visualize, in which case they’re bound to be totally supportive). They probably don’t think you’re crazy yourself, but if the thought of that bothers you, simply don’t tell people.
If someone interrupts you during a visualization to ask why you’re being quiet, or offers a penny for your thoughts, quickly think about something like a recent holiday you enjoyed (or plan to enjoy) and then (truthfully) say ‘I’m just thinking about the trip to Cancun’ (or wherever the holiday destination is).
Over time you’re going to feel less silly about visualizing, especially as you see the results, and perhaps even want to tell others about it. But don’t feel that you need to until or unless it feels right, although you may need to tell certain people if they’re not used to frequent moments of quiet contemplation from you. If you live a hectic life with children rushing around all the time, or have flat- or room-mates who always party, let them know that you sometimes need your ‘thinking time’. In such situations you may need to specify certain times of day during which you ask not to be disturbed. You need only five or ten minutes a day away from the noise and distraction to begin to see results, and so you’re being quite reasonable with such a request.
Of course, if you really want to bring change into your life and have some major goals in mind, spending an hour or more each day working on your visualizations is going to benefit you. This time is a total figure, though, and so it can be six blocks of ten minutes, twelve of five minutes, or any combination. If you visualize for this long each day, however, you’re going to have to find ways around all the potential distractions.
I have a home office that looks out across the street to a busy Greek restaurant. Customers are continually coming and going. When I’m visualizing I like to stare into the distance and unfocus, but the scene over the road is sometimes too distracting for me. I tried putting a blind up in the window, so I could simply twist the slats to close them when visualizing, but then the room became darker and with only the blind to stare at in front of me it just didn’t feel right.
In the end I moved the office around and placed my desk under a side window, which simply looks onto the side of the house next door and a few trees. Now any time I look up is perfect for a quick visualization.
In the 1990s, my British software company set up a branch in the US, and I had to rent an apartment in Pasadena that had extremely noisy neighbours both above and below. Most of the time I dealt with this noise by turning up the music or the TV or opening the window to let in the noisy street sounds (and the heat).
In the end, the solution I found was a pair of noise-cancelling headphones I picked up at the airport. They worked great on the plane and were just as good in the apartment. Of course I didn’t wear them all the time, but when I had some research to undertake or wanted to visualize they were perfect. Give it a try!
Finding your best times of day
The times at which you visualize most effectively are going to be quite different from other people and depend on your lifestyle; whether you work or are a student, if you have children, if you’re retired, and so on.
I recommend that you draw a line between your work and your personal visualizations so you don’t run the two together. Of course your work and home life are closely connected, but separating the two is good for your mental health and is only fair to your employer. And being fair and honest is one of those things you need to be if your visualizations are going to be fully successful.
Use full visualization exercises at work only if they’re somehow work-related. In fact, many successful business people use creative visualization as a work productivity tool. For example, if you’re suddenly handed a difficult project to bring in within a low budget and in a very short period of time, spending some time visualizing the entire project is quite acceptable because that’s part of your planning process.
In the earlier section ‘Choosing your visualizing space’ I discuss making use of your commute to work for visualization time, but why not also consider the morning and evening hours as well, before you leave and after you arrive home.
Some people enjoy visualizing while munching away at their toast or breakfast cereal. You can start off by imagining a positive and productive day (to set the day up in your mind), and then move on to your goals and life changes.
After work or other quiet times are also suitable for contemplation and visualization, such as while watering the plants, cooking meals or washing up, doing the ironing or vacuuming, and participating in a hobby.
I don’t advise that you practise longer or more complicated visualizations while watching TV. Television has a way of grabbing you almost hypnotically, so the words you hear and things you see just flow into your brain without the usual level of conscious scrutiny you’d normally bring to bear (which is why advertisers love TV so much). If you try to visualize with the television on, some of the events on the screen break into your imagery and distract you. Others creep past and into your unconscious, so it receives both your visualization and (perhaps) an advertisement for soap powder at the same time (check out the later section ‘Understanding the Role of the Unconscious’ for more details on the relationship between the unconscious and conscious minds).
If you need to visualize when the TV is on or other distractions are in the room, give yourself a few minutes without that distraction. The bathroom – which everyone visits alone a few times each day – is always a good place for a quick visualization.
Clearing your schedule
If you’re so busy that you need to keep a schedule of appointments, activities, projects, and so forth, the only way you’re easily going to make time for creative visualization is to clear your schedule, leaving suitable times of the day just for this activity.
All you need to do is set aside a few minutes between appointments. What’s more, when you use these times to visualize they also act as a powerful energy-restoring exercise, preparing and refreshing you for your next appointment.
If you can’t set aside the same times each day to visualize (and so get into a routine), you’re going to need to pre-book some reserved slots into your busy schedule.
Even if you’re not hyper-busy, when you start visualizing you may find that setting notifications on your phone or other scheduling device is helpful to avoid you forgetting to practise your visualizations.
Understanding the Role of the Unconscious
The more effort and focus you invest while visualizing, the more effectively it works, because these things impress upon your unconscious mind, which then listens more closely to your conscious mind. Therefore, effective creative visualization requires an understanding of the unconscious and its relation to the conscious mind, something I provide in this section.
Your unconscious mind handles dozens of essential jobs at any single moment, including: managing your breathing, heart rate, temperature, and digestive system; monitoring your organs; controlling thousands of individual muscles; and much, much more. It encompasses your belief system, memories, skills, everything you’ve been through and seen, and all you’ve ever learned.
One useful analogy is to think of your unconscious as your autopilot: you program it and then sit back as it moves into cruise control, taking you through life in ways that it feels are most beneficial to your wellbeing. Therefore, your conscious mind is left free to do the thinking and making complicated decisions. Whereas your unconscious performs loads of duties simultaneously, your conscious mind can manage only a few functions at a time, although it does them very well.
While you’re performing creative visualization exercises using your conscious mind, your unconscious mind is listening and taking it all in. The more sincere you are, the more emphasis it puts on what you tell it. And at the same time it senses how you feel too, because that’s vital information to help decide how to process the data it’s receiving. The unconscious records whether you’re sad, happy, or excited, and makes a note of any pain (or pleasure) you feel and anything else coming in through your senses, such as tastes and smells.
All these different aspects crunch together in the supercomputer of your unconscious, with the result that it acts for your best interests to make the goals you visualize come true. The wonderful thing about your unconscious is that it’s a major part of the organic whole that’s you; it’s the down-to-earth, childlike, ever-pleasing, inner you. It loves the whole you (not just your conscious mind), and so you need to love it back. Just think how tirelessly it works on your behalf, 24 hours a day (even when you’re sleeping).
The job of your unconscious is to keep you well and get you through life in the way it thinks you want to go, as healthily and comfortably as possible. Be positive and it’s positive. Be negative and it’s negative. Whether during visualization or in life in general, treat your unconscious like your best friend (which it is), be good to it, and provide it with plenty of positive encouragement and direction. If you do, it responds in its fullest capacity.
Whatever your unconscious sets out to do, it always tries to do its very best and has powerful ways of getting things done. The more it knows that you deeply desire something, the harder your unconscious tries to bring that desire to fruition; which is why you must always be as positive as you can, whenever you can.
The ability and determination of your unconscious mind to attain goals is the power that lies behind creative visualization, and one of the main reasons why guided imagery works so effectively.
Enhancing Your Visualizations
The more energy, emotion, and feeling you put into creative visualization, the better and faster it works. This section takes you through a few ways to give a little back to the unconscious mind that works so hard for you (as I describe in the preceding section), and helps you to connect with this part of your mind as you visualize.
Going somewhere you love
To maximise your visualization sessions, give as much as you can to your unconscious mind in the form of encouragement and information, but not in a logical or factual manner. Your unconscious mind thrives on abstractions and emotions as well as physical sensations, so if you have any favourite places you like to visit, make sure that you visualize as fully as you can whenever you’re there. Feel all the emotions you can summon and speak to your unconscious with them.
Whether the place is a particular park, a playground, the seaside, a mountain view, or whatever, if you feel strong and inspired and simply love to be there, breathe it all in and visualize. First, experience the ‘now’ and how much you’re enjoying yourself at the moment. Second, move on to visualizing your goals; use the positive feeling you have to feel the same way about your ambitions as you imagine achieving them and how your life is going to be when they’re achieved. All the time, feel the power and inspiration that your special place brings you.
Playing your favourite music
Music has a special place in most people’s lives, maybe because it’s built from vibrations and harmonies – something the brain fully understands since it vibrates at various frequencies (known as brain waves) according to your mental state. But whatever the reason, almost everyone has a few pieces of music that they simply adore and that light up their souls.
When you listen to a piece of music that you feel strongly about, instead of simply enjoying it, drop in some occasional visualizations of your most important ambitions. Tie the music and your goals together and float them into your unconscious, which appreciates how important they are to you and works all the harder at obtaining them for you.
Your unconscious is a creature of feeling and emotion, and so responds very positively to the feelings the music brings you, and also to the music itself. If you like it that much, you can be sure that your unconscious does too – after all, you’re one and the same person!
A web search for ‘meditation music’ turns up thousands of websites containing music (some of it free) that’s been especially written to help with meditation and visualization. Much of this music isn’t as bland as you may imagine, and you can sample most of the paid music before you buy anyway, just to be sure that it’s right for you.
You can also use any other music that you find uplifting and relaxing to help get you into the right state of mind for successful and positive visualization, as well as help reinforce your imagery.
You can also light some scented candles, or take your MP3 player and headphones with you on a country walk or into your garden. The more senses you can bring to a visualization party, the more you enjoy it and the quicker the results come and the greater they are, which, in turn, makes you look forward to your next visualization session.
When visualizing, avoid music with lyrics that distract you from your visualizing. Of course, if the words apply directly to the theme of your imagery, that’s fine, but otherwise restrict yourself to instrumental music.
Watching specially created videos
Generally, when visualizing I advise against watching anything more than what you can see by gazing idly into the distance (or closing your eyes), and that particularly means no TV or films. However, many videos have been produced as aids to relaxation and visualization, and if you have difficulty getting started you may find that they help.
To find some free videos, search for ‘relaxation’ or ‘visualization’ at YouTube (www.youtube.com) on the Internet. Many DVDs containing relaxation and visualization imagery are available from online stores, such as Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk).
Although these aids are helpful, try to move on to visualizing only in your mind as soon as you feel ready, so the imagery comes entirely from within you. The more you can build up and practise your own visualization exercises, the more quickly they become a part of you and are absorbed into and acted on by your unconscious.