Month: October 2010

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Have you tried visualisation and think it’s very difficult?
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Maybe you think you can’t do it?
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Well guess what, you can and I’ll tell you why & how!

Recently I’ve been trying to learn how to astral travel.  I’ve started reading an excellent book by Robert Bruce about NEW or New Energy Ways – a system that doesn’t rely on getting to the awake/asleep point to travel (something I just can’t do!) but anyway more about that in a future post!  Early on Bruce points out that many people believe they have difficultly with visualisation, but that this is due to a mistaken concept of what visualisation is.  He explains that visualisation is NOT seeing the scene you are trying to picture, running like a movie in your head, but instead is ‘Mind’s Eye Visual Ability’ in other words

‘Visualization is NOT a visual skill. You are not supposed to actually see what you visualize. If you do see something it is then no longer classed as visualization. It then becomes a Mind’s Eye vision type of ability.’ (Robert Bruce, New Energy Ways Manual.)

When I first read this I thought to myself, ‘well I can see what I visualise’, but then I remembered that years ago I thought that I couldn’t visualise, because I did believe that you were supposed to view almost like a movie in your head (there are a select few people who do this but these are in a very small minority).  Bruce explains that visualisation is actually using your creative imagination – have you ever day dreamed or fantasized about something? Yes? Great! because this is what visualising is!  He gives a simple way to test it.

Excercise

‘get up and go to the kitchen, get a drink of water and then return to where you are now. As you do this, take note of everything you do and see and feel along the way. After you have done this, sit down and close your eyes and relax for a moment. Remember what you just did from the very beginning and recreate this entire sequence of actions with your imagination; in your mind’s eye. It is important to feel everything as if you were actually doing it. This is exactly like creating a fantasy based upon real life events. Remember yourself getting out of the chair and standing, and how the room looked as it moved around you as you turned. Remember your steps as you walked towards the kitchen, what you saw and felt when you arrived. Remember how your hand looked and felt as it reached out for a glass, filling and drinking it, and how the water tasted, smelt and felt. Remember returning the glass and walking back to your original position and then sitting down again. Do this in real time, taking roughly the same length of time recreating this in your mind’s eye as it took you to actually do it.’

As I read this I realised that I have come to associate visualisation with this kind of creative thought activity.  Whilst I can somewhat picture things, it is in my mind’s eye, and sometimes I ‘see’ myself as if I am looking down from above.  What has really helped me to develop this skill is doing audio meditations by Meditainment.  They do beautiful ones for all different reasons (eg to help you sleep, relax, deal with anxiety, give up smoking etc)  and each one is a different scenario from going down the river in a boat and entering a meadow to taking a bath in a coloured pool, or escaping an arctic storm to ‘chill out’ (sorry, cheesy pun) in your igloo.  The great thing about the meditations is they have lots of sound effects which help create realism, and they encourage you to use your senses, from smelling the flowers around you to imagining colours, feelings textures etc.  You can try out a full secret garden meditation mp3 here, you do need to give your name and email but it is well worth it.  I will speak to Meditainment and see if they will let me put a quick sample of one here.

Anyway, it’s not necessary to use audio meditations to practice and develop the visualisation skill, but it is fun and encourages you, and can be very beneficial for your health, and for me has definitely helped dramatically,  I’m very glad I discovered them.  But you can always practice by yourself, and now you don’t have to worry or feel you can’t do it because you can, everybody can!

Here is a more creative visualisation to try out again from Robert Bruce:

‘With your eyes closed, remember what it feels like to walk barefoot across a beautiful lush lawn on a lovely sunny day, with trees and shrubs and flowers all around you. Construct this from your memories, in your mind’s eye, and feel yourself as being there inside your fantasy creation. Remember a time when you actually did something very like this, or remember a scene from a movie or TV that you can use for this purpose. Feel yourself walking across the lawn towards a massive ancient tree with heavy, leafy branches hanging down all around. Some of these branches are touching the ground.

Sense the tree getting bigger and bigger as you approach it. Walking through a small break in the branches, you now move into the restful shade within its stately boughs. You find yourself standing in a secret clearing. You can smell the living wood and leaves of the tree, intermingled with soft, earthy smells like moss, bark, rotting leaves and damp earth. Walking closer to the great bole of the ancient trunk you see the shape of a comfortable looking chair molded in the living wood of the massive root structure. Soft green moss is everywhere and you can feel its friendly touch underfoot.

Moving closer you sit in this great chair and relax. Leaning back with hands clasped behind your head, you close your eyes and listen and feel and smell the secret world all around you. You hear the wind gently whispering and murmuring through branches. You hear small birds fluting and insects humming and fluttering all around, calling and chirping sweetly to each other. Smell and feel the wind, the flowers, the tree, the leaves, the moss and the grass all around you. Sit here awhile, feeling totally relaxed and at peace with the world, letting all your cares and problems drift away into nothingness. After a timeless moment you take a deep breath and return to your other reality, gently stirring your physical body back into wakefulness.”

If you’ve given this visualisation a go, congratulate yourself (you may want to record your voice saying it to make it easier) you’ve constructed a complex visualisation using memory and imagination with not just images but smells, sounds, textures and touch.  Well done!

What’s your thoughts? Can you visualise? Do you see a movie style thing or is it a case of using your creative imagination or something else? Have you tried any meditainment or other good visualisation/guided meditation tracks? Let me know about your experiences! x StormJewel