You probably know that old saying: "The mind is like water. When it’s turbulent, it’s difficult to see. When it’s calm, everything becomes clear."
When your mind is full of thoughts and stories, ruminating past events, contemplating "what if's.." and worst-case scenarios, it's like a turbulent lake or the stormy sea, full of waves roughing up the sand from the ground. It appears filthy and unclear. By taking the time out, time to slow down, you smooth out the clutter. Your mind becomes calm and you can see all the way through. Suddenly you can see all kinds of things you haven't been aware of before, colorful tiny fishes, mussels, little stones, plants, and coral. They have been there all along, yet invisible to your eye. You are back to being more present, calm, and focused.
The practice of Self Hypnosis or meditation for example allows you not only to relax and ease into the present moment, yet to discover feelings, new impressions, hints, and different possibilities, that might have been there all the time, hidden, cluttered. You can inspire yourself, gain insights and surprise yourself.
Combining your time out, may it be in the bathtub, on the sofa, in bed, on your office chair, on your way to work even, on a walk, you name it, with visualizations you can connect with yourself on a different level.
Your unconscious mind doesn't distinguish between reality and imagination, and so it all appears "as real as real" to your mind.
People who suffer from all kinds of fears, phobias, anxieties, and also depression use that powerful part of the mind for rumination and destructive, negative thinking without necessarily being aware of it. Often it seems to come unnoticed and you just feel anxious or panicky, seemingly out of nowhere. If you are one of them, you know, that the moment you find yourself in that cycle of overthinking, worrying, or stress you begin to FEEL it AS IF it is real. And once you're in it, you can't seem to find a way out of it just as easily.
You kind of have been visualizing everything that scares you or makes you feel low and bad. So you know how powerful visualizing can be and can rather use it in a more constructive manner, calming and clearing your mind to find all the corals, fishes, mussels, and maybe even pearls on the ground.
Here are some simple steps for you to get started:
Begin to relax. You can start by scanning your body from the top of your head, relaxing each part of the body, noticing the tension, and releasing it, down to the tips of your toes.
Notice your body and how it feels like letting go of unnecessary tension, become aware of your breathing, how it slows down naturally and becomes deeper, as your body eases into the chair/sofa/bed.
Feeling as calm and relaxed as you feel then, you can ask yourself: What is it that I really want? What do I want to experience this year?
Now take the time to visualize. Imagine, what it would be like, when you experience, what you want to experience. What do you notice? What does it feel like in your body? Don't be hard on yourself, if you cannot seem to SEE anything clearly. Sometimes it is just enough to get a sense of it. You are already busy rewiring your brain, creating different connections in your neural network.
Be bold, dream, and fantasize, it does feel good, doesn't it? Stay in that pleasant state for as long as you wish and notice how different you feel.
Find a special word or color, that connects you to that experience, every time you encounter that color, say or hear the word you have been thinking of.
This whole process doesn't have to take long, start simple, make it 2 minutes, expand, when you want to, and repeat as often as you like.
The most important thing, I cannot stretch that enough, is: have fun with it, enjoy it, therefore you will be eager to make it a new habit.
