How would you like to be able to improve your physical and emotional
well-being?
How would you like to be able to program more success into your life
and career?
How would you like to be able to reduce the stress in your life?
There's a magic tool that you can use whenever you choose that can help you do all of those things.
Actually, it's not magic at all.
The tool is guided imagery, also called
visualization. Guided imagery is the creation of an experience though the use of
the imagination. Through your imagination you can visualize your body relaxing
and releasing stress. As you do this, the physical markers of stress (such as
blood pressure) decrease.
Through your imagination you can visualize improving your performance in a task,
whether personal or professional. As you do the task in real life, the
unconscious puts into effect the improvements that you visualized. Through your
imagination, you can revisit a painful memory, this time making the scene
resolve itself in a way that feels better to you. Your spirit responds as if
just that change had happened in real life.
Elite athletes have used this tool for years. Just recently I saw an interview
with Drew Brees, quarterback of the San Diego Chargers football team. In 2003
Brees had a terrible year. So bad, in fact, that the team used their number one
draft pick to choose another quarterback.
Much to everyone's surprise, however, through the middle of the 2004 season that
brand new, multimillion dollar quarterback has yet to start a game. Brees is
just playing too well. The reporter asked Brees how he'd turned things around so
quickly. "Visualization," Brees replied without hesitation. He's spent the
summer going through the playbook, visualizing himself making plays. By the time
he got to training camp, the responses were automatic. He was confident that he
could make the plays because he'd made them in his mind so many times before.
The medical community is beginning to catch onto the possibilities of the
healing power of guided imagery. Bernie Siegel popularized the tool in his work
with cancer patients. Research is showing its effectiveness in treating a wide
range of problems, including chronic pain, improving rates of healing following
surgery, diabetes management, headaches and improving the immune system, among
others.
As a therapist I've successfully used guided imagery in helping people as they
heal the wounds from abuse and neglect suffered in childhood. This can be a
powerful experience in which the person is able to reclaim the power that they
did not have as children.
Through guided imagery, you can re-write the story. When you had to be silent as
the event happened, you are now able to speak. When you were alone and helpless,
you now have powerful helpers coming to protect you. It's a way that people can
give themselves an experience that they were denied in childhood. It's also
being shown effective in helping people deal with nightmares resulting from
trauma.
I've also used it in helping people negotiate present-day transitions and
visualize possibilities for the future. Guided imagery can be a way to help
figure out which direction to pursue or to visualize career changes. It's a way
to help people connect with their own inner resources and wisdom.
Guided imagery may take several forms. It may be a simple relaxation technique
in which you progressively relax parts of your body. It may take the form of
visualizing an event, like Brees did, rehearsing a future action. (Public
speakers use it to see themselves speaking easily and effectively to groups.).
Or it may take the form of a journey in which you go to a place that's safe and
welcoming for you, a place from which you can do whatever healing work you need
to do.
There are several things to remember in a guided imagery. You are always in
control. It's your process. Paradoxically, it becomes more effective when you
can surrender some of that control to allow yourself to be led in surprising,
but ultimately perfect, ways. It's about accessing your own inner wisdom,
whether the wisdom of your body or of your spirit.
Although we talk about "visualization," it's more than just seeing. Effective
guided imagery brings in details of sounds and feel and smell. One of the things
that I like about guided imagery is that you can do it for yourself. However, if
you are dealing with material that has a lot of emotional energy, such as issues
related to trauma or abuse, it's recommended that you work with a therapist
experienced in using guided imagery and in dealing with these issues. Knowing
there is someone else with you can help you to relax safely.
We are all much more than we know. Through guided imagery we may tap into the
healers within us, improving our health and physical well-being. We may tap into
the wisdom within us, discerning which pathways to choose and which directions
to follow. We may tap into the power within us to accomplish the tasks and the
dreams before us.
Peggy Haymes is a counselor and minister in Greensboro, NC and Winston-Salem,
NC. Along with Susan Lautemann, she is the co-author of the audio CDs, "Feeling
Good: Four Guided Imagery Journeys for Healing Body, Mind and Spirit" and
"Grieving the Loss of Your Pet." Both are available from Kalalogos (www.healing-growth-change.com).
