One of the most powerful ways to have greater belief in yourself is to visualize you're already doing it.
This is a technique that many athletes use.
They see themselves go through the motions and see the game or event play out in a positive way.
It helps your mind to believe that what you want to create is possible and that it can and will happen.
You see the details in your mind of what you would like the outcome to be and in essence you're preparing your body and mind to take those steps in real life.
Your mind has so much power.
Imagine how different it feels in your body to prepare for a positive outcome rather than seeing something go badly.
As we talked about in an earlier lesson,
Your thoughts have influence about how you feel and if you envision yourself doing well,
You feel strong within yourself and it will make you believe that you can do it.
Remember,
Your mind doesn't realize the difference between what is real or imagined.
Visualization helps train your brain on a cognitive level for self-belief.
This practice of future self-visualization increases optimism and expectation of good results.
It creates new patterns of behaving,
Thinking and feeling.
This process can transform you and bring in new beginnings.
It helps you in gaining wisdom from your own inner resources and helps you to see the next steps to take.
Therefore,
It's like your future self becomes a mentor to the current one so that you can actualize and bring your dreams to life.
One little note here before we start the practice is that if you don't consider yourself a visual person,
Please don't let that deter you as you can experience it as a felt sense in your body.
So if this is you,
When I say the word see,
Just get into a feeling sense within your body.
Let's practice.
Come to your meditation seat and feel your body fully supported by the chair below.
Allow your shoulders to drop down,
Your belly to be soft.
Relax all the tiny muscles of the face.
The larger muscles of the back,
Arms and legs to release and relax.
Open your heart open in a gesture of receptivity.
Bring to mind something that you would like to accomplish or create in your life but perhaps it just feels that little bit out of your reach.
And when you know what this is,
You can just put it to the side for the next little while and bring your awareness to your breath.
And I invite you to create a steady and even breath.
If it helps you to do this,
You can count in for four and out for four.
Creating that slow even rhythm.
And once your breath feels steady,
Bring your awareness to just below the nostrils.
And feel the two streams of air as you breathe in.
Meet at the apex point on the forehead just between the eyebrows.
And as you exhale,
Those two independent streams move back down to just below the nostrils.
Inhale,
Breathe in.
Those two streams meet at the apex point on the forehead.
And exhale and they come back down.
And I invite you to breathe slowly and evenly as you follow the breath's movement.
As you become more absorbed by your breath,
It becomes a little quieter and softer.
You may even begin to sense the breath as energy and vibration.
As these two streams continue to move,
You could get a sense of energy or vibration collect at that point between your eyebrows on the forehead,
Your mind's eye.
You could sense it as tingling,
Sensation.
Perhaps it's just a simple awareness of this point.
This is your mind's eye.
And as you rest your focus here now,
See yourself at that point in the future where you have accomplished what you wanted.
It has happened in the most glorious way.
Notice who is around you.
Where are you and what environment are you in?
What are your habits and thoughts?
What are you wearing and how do you feel within yourself?
How are you interacting with the world around you?
And what does it feel like to have created this for yourself and your life?
See your brightness and your light.
Notice how your heart rate feels,
Your body,
Your breathing and any other physical sensations as you see the changes this positive future self has made.
Have this experience and bring as much detail to it as you can.
And see all the steps that brought you to this moment.
I'm going to give you a couple of minutes to bring this to life.
Thank you.
And please be Automatic.
You you Now see your future self come before you invite them to sit down in front of you and gaze into your own eyes the eyes of your future self you notice the love they have for you and you for them what messages do they have for you you might like to ask what do I need to know and take this time to listen you Thank your future self for their wisdom and as you continue to look into their eyes imagine as if the two of you meld into one and know that this future self is already who you are you are an infinite creator and you have everything you need already inside you to create your dream.
Gradually begin now to deepen your breath and bring yourself back into your space and as we close today I thought I'd share with you one of my favorite quotes by Paulo Coelho from The Alchemist.
When you want something all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Thank you for being here today.
Tomorrow we will look at tips and encouragement for your ongoing journey.
