A Simple Exercise

Here is an exercise in the basic technique of creative visualization:

First, think of something you would like. For this exercise choose something simple, that you can easily imagine attaining. It might be an object you would like to have, an event you would like to have happen, a situation in which you’d like to find yourself, or some circumstances in your life you like to improve.

Get in a comfortable position, either sitting or lying down, in a quiet place where you wont be disturbed, relax your body completely, starting from your toes and moving up to your scalp, think of relaxing each muscle in your body in turn, letting all tension flow out of your body. Breathe deeply and slowly, from your belly. Count down slowly from ten to one, feeling your self getting more deeply relaxed with each count.

When you feel deeply relaxed, start to imagine the thing you want exactly as you would like it. If it is an object, imagine yourself with the object, using it, admiring it, enjoying it, and showing it to friends. If it is a situation or event, imagine yourself there and everything happening just as you want it to. You may imagine what people are saying, or any details that make it more real to you.

You may take a relatively short time or quite a few minutes to imagine this- whatever feels best to you. Have fun with it. It should be a thoroughly enjoyable experience, like a child day dreaming about what he wants for his birthday.

Now, keeping the idea or image still in your mind, mentally make some very positive, affirmative statements to yourself (aloud or silently as you prefer) about it, such as:

Here I am spending a wonderful weekend in the mountains. What a beautiful vacation. Or

I love the view from my spacious, new apartment. Or

I’m learning to love and accept myself as I am.

These positive statements, called affirmations, are a very important part of creative visualization. If you like, you can end your visualization with the firm statement to yourself:

This or something better, now manifest for me in totally satisfying and harmonious ways, for the highest good of all concerned.

This statement leaves room for something different and even better that you had originally envisioned happening, and serves as a reminder to you that this process only functions for the mutual benefit of all.

If doubts or contradictory thoughts arise, don’t resist them to try to prevent them. This will tend to give them a power they don’t otherwise have. Just let them flow through your consciousness, acknowledge them, and return to your positive statements and images.

Do this process only as long as your find it enjoyable and interesting. It could be five minutes or half an hour. Repeat every day, or as often as you can.

As you see the basic process is relatively simple.

Meditation for Children

Learning meditation has been found to be one of the biggest gifts that children can receive since it allows them to understand themselves and accept themselves. Children, these days have a hectic life. Apart from school, most kids are involved in a variety of hobbies and activities. By the time they are through with homework and supper they are completely washed out at the end of the day. On top of this, they are expected to perform well in school and in other areas of life. Because of this, they not only face pressure from their parents, but also from school. Along the way, they forget how to relax and end up losing their initiative and become de motivated. Here is where meditation for children becomes a crucial requirement in their daily routine. Meditation allows them to regroup their energy and calm down, gradually feeling enthusiastic about everything they do.

How It Helps

There are many children that suffer from various emotional problems for various reasons. It could be the prevailing situation at home or it could be anything. Through meditation, these children can benefit by learning to relax and deal with their issues in a better way. Meditation for children improves their confidence levels and makes them feel less pressurized.

Children also need to connect with their souls and understand themselves better. This helps them develop positive self-control, clarity of thought and a broad outlook. Children are basically innocent, and have not yet become conditioned to the vagaries of life, its dogmas and misplaced ideals at times. Children are amazingly logical and see most situations in black and white. Since they already have the potential for self-awareness and lack of ulterior motives, they are natural candidates for meditation.

Meditation for children is very essential, as they need to learn how to maintain serenity, silence and be relaxed. The interesting thing is that children can learn to meditate a lot more quickly than any adult can. A lot of schools are adopting the policy of including at least one hour of meditation right from the primary school level. It is suggested that children follow the practice of meditating at home also, along with their parents so that all can benefit from this wonderful state.

Too Many Benefits To Ignore

Meditation for children develops in them clear focus and a sense of well-being. They can easily get rid of their anxiety and stress through this. It is also an effective way to release frustrations, hyperactivity, etc. They sleep better. Children who feel aggressive from time to time can come to terms with these issues and get over them. Children suffering from ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder benefit in a major way through meditation.

Every parent would like their children to grow up with a healthy mind and body and have a happy childhood. Meditation for children can ensure this. Children who are relaxed and do not feel under pressure find it easy to do well at school and get along well with their peers. They find it easy to stick to a healthy routine. Meditation helps to develop their creativity and keeps them alert. Meditation lowers the risk of developing health problems as they grow up. Just a few minutes a day is all it takes to enjoy all these benefits.

Creative Visualization and Quantum Physics

In order to understand how creative visualization works, its useful to look at several inter related principles:

Energy

The scientific world is beginning to discover what meta-physical and spiritual teachers have known for centuries. Our physical universe is not really composed of any matter at all; its basic component is a kind of force or essence that we call energy.
Things appear to be solid and separate from one another on the level at which our physical senses normally perceive them. On finer levels, however, atomic or subatomic levels, seemingly solid matter is seen as smaller and smaller particles, which eventually turn out to be just pure energy. Physically, we are all energy and everything within and around us are made up of energy. We are all part of one great energy field. Things that we perceive to be solid and separate are in reality just various forms of our essential energy which is common to all. We are all one, even in a literal, physical sense.

The energy is vibrating at different rates of speed, and thus has different qualities, from finer to dense. Thought is a relatively fine, light form of energy and therefore very quick and easy to change. Matter is relatively dense, compact energy, and therefore slower to move and change. Within matter there is great variation as well. Living flesh is relatively fine, changes quickly, and is easily affected by many things. A rock is much denser form, slower to change, and more difficult to affect, Yet even rock is eventually changed and affected by the fine, light energy of water, for example. All forms of energy are interrelated and can affect one another.

Energy is Magnetic

One law of energy is this: Energy of certain quality or vibration tends to attract energy of a similar quality and vibration. Thoughts and feelings have their own magnetic energy that attracts energy of a similar nature. We can see this principle at work; for instance, when we “accidentally” run into someone we’ve just been thinking of, or “happen” to pick up a book that contains exactly the perfect information we need at that moment.

Thought is a quick, light, mobile from of energy. It manifest instantaneously, unlike the denser forms such as matter. When we create something, we always create it first in thought form. A thought or idea always precedes manifestation. “I think I’ll make dinner” is the idea that precedes creation of a meal. “I want a new dress,” precedes going and buying one; “I need a job” precedes finding one, and so on. An artist first has an idea or inspiration, and then creates a painting. A builder first has a design, and then builds a house.
The idea is like a blueprint; it creates an image of the form, which then magnetizes and guides the physical energy to flow into that form, and eventually manifest it on the physical plane.
The same principle holds true even if we do not take direct physical action to manifest our ideas, simply having an idea or thought, holding it in your mind, is an energy that will tend to attract and create that form on the material plane. If you constantly think of illness, you may eventually become ill; if you believe yourself to be beautiful, you become so. Unconscious ideas and feelings held inside of us operate in the same way.

Law of Attraction

This is the principle that whatever you put out into the universe will be reflected back to you. “As you sow, so shall you reap.”

What this means from a practical standpoint is that we always attract into our lives whatever we think about the most, believe in most strongly, expect on the deepest levels, and/or imagine most vividly.

When we are negative and fearful, insecure or anxious, we often attract the very experience, situations, or people that we are seeking to avoid, if we are basically positive in attitude, expecting and envisioning pleasure, satisfaction, and happiness, we tend to attract and create people, situations, and events that conform to your positive expectations. So, consciously imagining what we want can help us to manifest it in our lives.

Using Creative Visualization

The process of change does not occur on superficial levels, through mere “positive thinking.” It involves exploring, discovering, and changing our deepest, most basic attitudes towards life. That is why learning to use creative visualization can become an experience of deep and meaningful growth. In the process we often discover ways in which we have been holding ourselves back, blocking ourselves from achieving satisfaction and fulfillment in our lives through our fears and unconscious beliefs. Once seen clearly, these limiting attitudes can often be dissolved through the creative visualization process, leaving space for us to find and live a natural state of greater happiness, fulfillment, and love.

At first you may practice creative visualization at specific times and for specific goals. As you get more in the habit of using it, and begin to trust the results it can bring you, you will find that it becomes an integral part of your thinking process. It becomes a continuous awareness, a state of consciousness in which you know that you are the constant creator of your life.

That is the ultimate point of creative visualization to make every moment of our lives a moment of wondrous creation, in which we are just naturally choosing the best, the most beautiful, the most fulfilling lives we can imagine.

Creative Visualization

"Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right".
-Henry Ford

Well! Creative Visualization is the technique of using our imagination to create what we want in our life. We are already using it every day every minute in fact. It’s our natural power of imagination, the basic creative energy of the universe, which we use constantly, whether or not we are aware of it. Many of us use our power of creative visualization in a relatively unconscious way. Because of our own deep rooted negative concepts about life, we have automatically and unconsciously expected and imagined lack, limitation, difficulties, and problems to be part of our life, to one degree or another that is what we have created for ourselves.

Our visualization faculty is a great tool with which we can attract success or failure. Unfortunately this choice is dangerous, because most of us unconsciously visualize lack and limitations.

Now! Let us use our natural creative imagination in a more and more conscious way, as a technique to create what we truly want in life. It may be any one of these- love, fulfillment, enjoyment, satisfying relationships, rewarding work, self expression, health, beauty, prosperity, inner peace, harmony or all of these. Whatever your heart desire, the use of creative visualization gives us a key to tap into the natural goodness and bounty of life.

Imagination is the ability to create an idea, a mental picture of a feeling sense of something. In creative visualization you use your imagination to create a clear image, idea, or feeling of something you wish to manifest, and then you continue to focus on the idea, feelings or picture regularly giving it positive energy until it becomes objective reality, in other words, until you actually achieve what you have been imagining.

Your goal may be on any level-physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. You might imagine yourself with a new home, or with a new job, or having a satisfying relationship, or feeling calm and serene or perhaps with an improved memory and learning ability. Or you might picture yourself handling a difficult situation effortlessly, or simply see yourself as a radiant being, filled with light and love. You can work on any level and all will have results. Through experience you will find the particular images and techniques that work best for you.

Let us say, for example, that you are feeling unsatisfied in your current job situation. If you feel that the job is basically right for you but there are factors that need improvement, you could begin by imagining the improvements that you desire. If that doesn’t work or if you feel that you would prefer a new job, the focus on imagining yourself in the employment situation that you desire.

Either way, the technique is basically the same. After relaxing into a deep, quiet, meditative state of mind, imagine that you are working in your ideal job situation. Imagine yourself in the physical setting or environment that you would like, doing work that you enjoy and find satisfying, interacting with people in a harmonious way, receiving appreciation and appropriate financial compensation. Add any other details that are important for you, such as the hours you work, the amount of autonomy and/or responsibility you have, and so on. Try to get a feeling in yourself that this is possible; experience it as if it were already happening. In short, imagine it exactly the way you’d like it to be, as if I were already so!

Repeat this short, simple exercise often, perhaps twice a day, or whenever you think about it. If you desire and intention to make a change are clear, chance are good that you may find some type of shift taking place in your work, fairly soon.

To use creative visualization it is not necessary to believe in any metaphysical or spiritual ideas, though you must be willing to entertain certain concepts as being possible. It is not necessary to have faith in any power outside yourself.

The only thing necessary is that you have the desire to enrich your knowledge and experience, and an open enough mind to try something new in a positive spirit.

Study the principles, try the techniques with an open mind and heart, and then judge for yourself whether they are useful to you.

If so, continue using and developing them, and soon the changes in yourself and your life will probably exceed anything you could have originally dreamed of.

Creative visualization is magic in the truest and highest meaning of the word. It involves understanding and aligning yourself with the natural principles that govern the working of our universe, and learning to use these principles in the most conscious and creative way.

If you had never seen a gorgeous flower or a spectacular sunset before, and someone described one to you, you might consider it to be a miraculous thing (which truly is!). Once you've seen a few yourself, and begun to learn something about the natural laws involved, you would then begin to understand how they are formed and it would seem natural to you and not particularly mysterious.

The same is true of the process of visualization. What at first might seem amazing or impossible to the very limited type of education our rational minds have received, become perfectly understandable once we learn and practice with the underlying concepts involved.

Once you do so, it may seem that you are working miracles in your life and truly will be.