Simply put, visualization is the act of clearly picturing something in our minds. It could be a future event, or a goal, or something we would like to create in our lives.
Sometimes I try to visualize the life I want to create—peace, joy, contentment and many dogs.
Have you ever tried it? It’s harder than it sounds.
I have been trying to get familiar with visualization over the last one year or so, and I am extremely surprised at how challenging it is to still your mind, create a mental picture, and hold on to it for a even a few seconds.
It gets especially harder when your life is busy, when you are going through a big event in life, or your circumstances demands a lot of you. What I see is when I live a slow life, and have a routine in place, it is slightly easier to calm my mind, be grateful for all we have and focus on the life we want to create
The opposite of this happens when we are constantly mired by our tasks, to-do-lists, and other things happening in our lives. As I sit to visualize these days, even the guided meditations fail me.
How I visualize
Guided meditations are my go-to when it comes to visualization. A good guided meditation can ground you, calm you and put you at a place of extreme ease, while gently nudging you to form a mental imagery.
I personally do not like loud, hyper-motivational and toxic positive sort of guided sessions, because they tend to put me off instead of making me feel easy. Here are a few guided ones that have helped me.
What I like about these especially the mindful movement one, that goes on for 20 minutes, is that they flow really smooth, and do not force you into visualizing things. It is a seamless transition from where you are now to where you want to be.
Despite these, I struggle with visualization every morning. First comes the mind voice that constantly tells me all of this is bullshit. A little bit of awareness here comes into play where I check my self sabotaging thoughts, and proceed to sit down to meditate.
When I do, I constantly find myself thinking about petty, mundane things about work, or about life or a series I am currently watching—none of which help. : )
I wonder why I am resisting this so much?
One reason could be that I find consistency difficult to adopt as a person. I am always fascinated by the next interesting thing. It is actually very difficult for me to stick to one thing for long, unless I really enjoy it.
Another could be the extremely active mind voice that sabotages every good thing I try to do for myself. The good thing is I am more aware of this now. The bad news is that I still feel powerless against this vicious inner critic.
These days I give up more often than I try. Clearly, I am going through something. But I will continue to fight these battles, and keep showing up as much as I can. If you have any tips for me, leave them in the comments.
