How To Visualize In Meditation

Visualisation can be an effective tool within our meditation or relaxation practice. Knowing how to do it can take the fear out of having a go and learning to be more creative and free flowing with your thoughts. learning to let go and help the mind to be absorded with a space that is safe and welcoming. Communicate with ourselves in new ways and gain insight into our lives.

Transcript

Learning to visualize now visualizing can be a really useful skill when it comes to meditating relaxing finding a little space for ourselves and also to help with our sleep patterns and beginning to visualize may sound difficult some people might think they are unable to do this kind of thing but it's really simple to do and you could start this almost straight away and it was simply imagining or remembering a safe place that we've once occupied or a safe place that we would like to occupy to sit in,

To enjoy and gradually bringing to this experience the addition of colour,

Sounds,

Smells and other senses that we might imagine and this is something that we can develop every day like building muscle or taking exercise visiting this space on a daily basis and gradually making the mind familiar with taking a mental stroll around this space so for example an imaginary garden somewhere in the forest or the woods a stroll along a beach a favourite photograph,

A past memory all of these places can be revisited to allow the mind to occupy itself for however long that might be let's say to start with 4 or 5 minutes and to become completely immersed in that experience and that won't happen straight away so don't expect magical results in an instant again we are developing the faculty of visualisation that we can take forward into other exercises and develop it even further so take the opportunity when you have a spare moment eyes open or eyes closed and allowing the mind to come up with that image or that memory of a safe place somewhere that you can occupy somewhere that you can sit with somewhere that you can enjoy that moment and take the time to look around you can experiment with looking through your own eyes in this experience you could experiment with being able to see yourself in this space moving around and making judgements yourself whether you prefer to be associated into the image or a bit more dissociated and just watching yourself within the image there's no right or wrong with this it's about feeling safe it's about developing our skills and it's about allowing the mind the ability to let go into the moment and be completely absorbed by what's going on so this next stage of developing our visualisation is to slowly begin to familiarise ourselves with our safe place with our imagined location feel safe enough and aware enough of what's inside this space what the contents are,

What it looks like how I feel in this place and then to begin and create doorways or pathways which might lead to somewhere different so leading to a different experience leading to different parts of our minds and our imagination somewhere where we may be unfamiliar what lies behind the doorway or the pathway or whatever it might be and to become familiar with coming to this place towards the end of the initial visualisation so once we visit our place taking a good look around we start to become familiar with an area that leads us into a different space and so it is to experiment opening doors or walking along pathways whatever it might be,

However looking to feel safe,

Looking to feel protected as you discover another space and so once you've opened this door or once you have followed the path to somewhere different it's allowing the mind to produce an image that you can interpret and begin to inhabit begin to occupy a place that you've never been before a place that can provide some answers a place that can provide some relaxation or some safety a place that you can escape to and explore different aspects of your own mind of your own imagination a place where you can return to on a regular basis developing the skills for the next stage and that next stage is to be able to follow yourself on a journey through the initial space into this new dimension into this new world becoming familiar finding places to sit down and to relax finding places to enjoy and even resting in this place and allowing yourself the possibility that perhaps other people or other beings may occupy this space and a willingness to meet them and in the future to be able to ask them questions to ask them for assistance a place that we can visit with problems in mind that we need resolutions for a place where we can take our past histories and to uncover them and to help heal them and to ask these different beings or people or animals to take us to new understandings to assist with our own lives so now we have become familiar with creating a safe imaginary place and within that space to move around and to find and follow and open secret spaces and places within this imaginary world in order to in order to visit a new dimension within our own minds a place where we can meet familiar people,

Familiar beings,

Animals a way of communicating with these different entities that are our own minds and so with each visit,

With each practice we can develop the ability to communicate more clearly and to ask specific questions or even to ask these beings to lead us into new areas or to lead us to a specific place where we can receive some learning or to receive some kind of blessing or understanding and we can trust and follow these beings to show us where and when to go and to allow the imagery to just unfold to enjoy the experience however short or long that might be and once we are presented with a new place to ask our questions or just to receive some kind of wisdom or knowledge or insight to allow this process and to engage with the process so for example if we were led to a distant building or a room of some sort to trust and to feel safe into opening those doors into stepping inside into new worlds,

Into new places into new situations taking the time to observe and look around we're still in charge of this situation so we can be looking through our own eyes or we can be slightly dissociated and looking at ourselves in this place being curious and inquisitive to what is there for us to learn so it might be a book to open it might be a place to sit down or to lie down in order to receive some kind of message from somewhere or someone so to allow the mind to be free to run loose trusting in the process and all the time this is fantastic for our own wellbeing because we're learning to relax we're learning to be with ourselves we're learning to let the mind go and we are each time developing a visual framework for the mind to exist in where we can resolve these problems we can ask for future assistance we can see ways forward and perhaps a new way of being with ourselves and with others the more and more we become practiced in the art of visualization and creating a safe place in our imaginations for us to visit on a regular basis to really allow the mind to accept this space to become more curious about it and how it can help us then it is to be encouraged that we also learn to sketch out or draw or paint these inner worlds even these imaginary beings that might live there behind closed walls and the doors that exist for us to open and discover new places before we start our meditations we could even have in mind the questions that we would like to ask or the beings that we would like to meet or the kind of places that we would like to visit so it's pre-priming the mind into what is to come,

What you would like to come and to perhaps mull over the situations or problems or issues that you have at the moment in your own life and to break them down systematically into questions or different approaches that you can individually bring to each separate session that you have and there are no time constraints with this so you could set yourself in your own practices in that this might be a 10 minute slot,

A 20 minute slot you might have the luxury of lots of time to yourself and just allow the mind to wander freely and at will which may be beneficial as part of your own sleep routine so you may want to supplement your sleep hygiene to improve your sleep patterns and perhaps creating visual spaces that are beneficial for relaxation and especially in a sleep type of scenario you may not want to be talking with people you may not want to be you may not want to be communicating with any type of imaginary being we want to facilitate a space that the body can really let go and start to relax giving the mind an area,

A space,

A focus where it is no longer distracted by the busyness of the day or things to do tomorrow or the worries of the past a place where the mind can wander so far that we lose touch and we fall asleep which can be really beneficial if we have trouble with our sleeping patterns and general relaxation in general so this kind of process is really for you to make your own to enjoy,

To learn from and even to journal your experiences as you progress through your own life making note of all the questions that you've asked in the past making notes of the answers and the feelings and the learning and insights that you may have gained from the experience of a deeper visualisation a deeper absorption into your own mind,

Into your own thinking patterns a place that is highly personal,

Is completely private and a safe place to retreat to enjoy