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.
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!
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.
The tendency to look at things negatively is often just a bad habit.
This is a good thing, because bad habits can be broken and replaced with
positive habits. Here are some important steps to breaking the habit of
negative thinking that can get in the way of your creative visualization: