Creative Visualization -
Take Charge of Your Mindset

You’re already using creative visualization, whether you know it or not. That is, if you accept the premise that our outer world—our physical experience—reflects our inner mindset. Too often we aren’t really consciously directing our inner thoughts, and negative self-talk begins to creep in. We all have an inner critic, and that negative voice can run wild if we don’t take the wheel and put our conscious mind in charge. Letting your mind run on auto-pilot and allowing worry, fear, and self-doubt to dominate your mind’s inner “movie” will manifest situations in your life that mirror those negative emotions. Obviously we don’t want that.

Direct Your Own Mind's Movie

Even if you don’t go so far as letting your mind succumb to negative thoughts, if you’re not consciously directing your mind’s inner movie, then you could still be manifesting a humdrum, going-nowhere existence. Take charge of what thoughts play over and over in your mind, and make sure they are vividly imaginative thoughts of your dream life.

Just imagine all the creativity you put into a worry session - why not put that same amount of emotional energy and creativity into visualizing the positive instead. You would no doubt have wonderful results. Think of it as daydreaming, but not just in a random way where you let your mind wander aimlessly; no, creative visualization is directed daydreaming where you consciously direct your own mental movie according to what your goals are. You can consciously write the script for your own mind's movie rather than letting a negative or aimless subconscious mind do it, so let yourself write it to include all your wildest dreams, and then direct yourself to stick to that positive script!

DIY Tools to Help You Visualize

You can create your own creative visualization tools to replace those negative thoughts and emotions with positive ones, focusing on goals that reflect your dream life. Here are a few ideas that have worked for me:

• Write down your goals. Just the process of putting your highest dreams into words, and then the physical imprint of seeing your own hand writing those words can add to your mental picture of the goal. This piece of paper can be posted on the wall where you will see it often. If you have some sort of special altar, you can set the page on it with a candle on top of it and light it as you do a visualization meditation. You may also want to put the page under your pillow at night. If you read over the page before you go to bed and then put it under your pillow, your subconscious mind is likely to stay focused on it as you drift off into sleep. This will help to reprogram your mind to hearing a positive, encouraging inner voice more often than your inner critic.

• Create a vision board—or you might call it a treasure map. It’s just a collage that you construct out of pictures from magazines–both images and words–that depicts the things you want to manifest in your life. These can be really fun to make, because you are illustrating your dream life. If you don’t have access to old magazines, you can just draw pictures and write words–a hand drawn vision board can be just as effective. Also, it’s great if you can get really specific about what you put on your vision board, such as an exact amount of money, or a certain type of car, or even the qualities you’re looking for in a potential mate. Including the specific details helps you visualize the goal more vividly.