That’s a big headline.
Shakti Gawain has written some beautiful books and one of
them is “Creative Visualization”. It is one of my all time favourite and if I do not
have new book to read before sleep, I would read this book, few pages at least, before falling asleep.
I believe that mind is the most powerful asset we have and
we can control the mind and create happiness or unhappiness. I think it is
possible to train the mind to visualize good things happening in life and make
those things actually happen. The obstacles on the way are our sub-conscious
doubt. Therefore, even while practising creative visualization, we sometimes do
not really believe in the power of the mind and fail to achieve what we have
set out to achieve. Kind of self defeating cycle.
For many years now I have made a combo of creative
visualization and meditation. And I use this combo method to reverse engineer
my body. But before I go any further, few lines about meditation is in
order.
At a basic level, meditation is simple. Just control the
mind and make it focus on certain things. Stop the monkey from jumping around.
But problem faced by most of us while doing meditation is, we find it is extremely
difficult to concentrate on something which we cannot visualize. Practitioners
of meditation tells us, concentrate on your breathing. Yes, that’s how it
should be done. But can you visualize breathing? So after sometime the mind
starts to wander off.
In devising the combo of creative visualization and
meditation, I started with something which we know intimately and always love
it. That is our body.
The process then becomes simple enough. Lie down in a
peaceful place, without too much noise.
Close your eyes and start visualizing your body as if you
are seeing yourself in a mirror. We all look at ourselves in the mirror, spend
countless hours praising ourselves. Only, this time, see yourself in your mind.
Start with your toe.
And say in your mind: My toes are
relaxed, my toes are relaxed, my toes are relaxed. All the time, visualizing
the toes.
Move on to heels, say in your mind my heels are relaxed few
time while visualizing.
And the process continues till you have visualized all parts
of your body relaxing them, giving them strength.
Visualize your whole body as relaxed, covered with light and
chant in your mind “I am happy, I am relaxed, I am peaceful”.
Before I started doing this, my blood pressure used to be
150/100. After a year or so, it is 80/60. The health care professionals like
nurses get alarmed when they take my blood pressure. So I can guarantee you
that this system works.
After all, there is no powerful medicine to heal your body
than your mind.
Great post. I have tried this method of "letting go" when I wake in the middle of the night and can't sleep. Thanks for the reminder. It is very hard for me to let go of my moving mind. How long did you do this until it became easy? I do not do it on a constant basis so I can't say if it worked for me. I do know it changes my mind flow so I can relax.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
You have to do it consistently, till it becomes effortless and 2nd nature. We surrender the control to the monkey mind too easily. Get that control back. You can.
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