Picture This
Another tool for the toolbox
Since a very young age, I have been adept at visualizing.
Sometimes I would lie in bed and make myself cry thinking, “What if my dog died?” Then I worried that putting such dark thoughts out there might make it manifest. This is when I would engage in an elaborate visualization:
I imagined those dark thoughts were written on a page in a book of my mind and I’d tear that page out and crumple it up and then seal it in concrete. Lastly, I’d bury it deep in the ground.
The burying in concrete might’ve been overkill but there was no doubt that imagining tearing out a mind-page was immediately effective.
It felt like I never had the dark thought in the first place.
I don’t know where the instinct to perform this ritual came from, but not only was it highly efficient, it hinted at the nature of trauma and healing. The brain’s grasp of reality and what is considered harmful was something that could be reshaped, rehabilitated and released.
For many years now, I’ve led meditations in my classroom. I invite students to put their heads down or lay on the counters, close their eyes and unwind as I guide them through relaxation and introspective exploration.
Several years ago as students were coming out of a meditation, one of my students said ‘I didn’t see nothing but the back of my eyelids.’
I was shocked! I had no idea that we vary in our capacity to visualize in our mind’s eye.
Recently, around pandemic time, the image below was widely circulated as folk also grappled with the idea that some of us can visualize better than others.
Go ahead and close your eyes and visualize an apple.
With respect to the clarity and detail of the image, where on the scale below does your visualized image most align with?
I, personally, score a one, whereas individuals who score a five have a condition called aphantasia, which is the inability to form mental images.
[Consider telling me in the comments which number you visualize at..I’m very curious!]
So what can one do with this ability to visualize? So much.
Visualizing to release tension
I have twice been told by different massage therapists that they especially enjoy working on me because it feels like we’re working together to heal my body. While my husband says they’re just trying to earn a fat tip $$, it is true that I am not just passively laying there. Instead, with my inhale I imagine breathing in pink, warm light and sending it to the knotted tissue that they are working on. I visualize the muscle fibers gently loosening; unraveling any knots until the fibers are aligned. After all, if thoughts can make us tense, then thoughts can free us as well.
I recently used this visualization to rid myself of a knot in my jaw muscle. I pictured the muscle detached from its tendon so that I could repeatedly comb through it with my energetic fingers. Once combed through, I reconnect the fibers to the tendon.
The knot was there when I woke up and twenty minutes later it was gone before I even got out of bed. Of course if I don’t deal with the cause of the injury, like stress or clenching, the problem will return. Still, it was nice to be free of the pain.
This visualization has helped me avoid getting sick many times as well. If I can avoid throat strain, I can often deter the cold from setting in. Visualizing the throat muscles relaxing in the pink light will often do the trick.
Visualizing to release past traumas
The most powerful meditation I know was taught to me by my transformational growth guide, Adrianne Bell.
This meditation can help heal emotional wounds from the past- distant or recent. I find it shocking that the brain can be guided to let go of trauma as easily as this. Studies have shown however, that the same brain network that underlies memory is also that of imagining, making it less likely for your brain to differentiate between the two.1 We should definitely use this to our advantage.
Here are the steps of what Adrianne dubbed as the…
Rescue Mission Meditation
Find a quiet, private time and location where you won’t be disturbed.
a) Recall a moment in your life when you needed someone to protect you — but protection never came.
b) In the meditation you will go back to right before the negative event occurred. It is crucial that you do not let the negative event replay in your meditation. Instead, your older, wiser self (your current self) is going to step into the scene and remove your younger self from this location before anything happens. You will whisk your younger self away to a comforting location and take care of them. This is not about confronting others. This is a simple act of self-care.
c) In the visualization, the safe place you take them to can be anywhere; like a cabin, treehouse or a beach cabana. Once there, take the time to nurture that younger version of you. Ply them with comfort, be it hot chocolate, a snuggle, listening to them or whatever they need.
d) Bringing the meditation to a close might involve letting your younger self know you’ll keep working to be there for them. Open your eyes to hopefully a new lightness of being. Congratulations. You just protected yourself.
I recommend using this meditation on lighter wounds to begin with. I once used it after a colleague cut in front of me at the copy machine! For whatever reason, I was harping on the incident and this meditation helped me let it go. It basically rewires us.
As for deeper wounds, it’s important to practice caution when working with trauma. Having enough time, space and an available support person (counselor, guide, etc.) to help you process what is being unearthed is prudent. If you’re going to unpack the past, you need enough resources to ensure you can function afterwards…or enough freedom and support to go ahead and be non-functioning for a while.
If you have a memory that is limiting you or a relationship, consider a Rescue Mission meditation. You might even want to schedule some time for one on your calendar right now before rejoining the busy world.
Ripping out mind-pages, muscle relaxation and healing trauma are three areas I’ve found visualizing to be powerfully effective; it has its limits however and should not be used solely in lieu of proper therapy.
Before I had my fibroid embolization procedure, I spent the months leading up to it utilizing acupuncture, castor oil packs and visualizing. The following ultrasound showed negligible results. A tool can be powerful but we need to use the right tool for the right job.
Consider visualization as another tool in your toolkit.
But what about the 2-4% of the population that has aphantasia?2 How can they participate? Perhaps trying to put the visualization in writing or a drawing might be helpful for the one doing the scribing. While this article suggested listening to healing frequencies and meditating with mantras, the comments were full of many more ideas from folk with aphantasia.
Just a reminder to put your visualizing score in the comments!
I think my visualization score is a 0!! I;ve never thought about until i read your story. I can think about what an apple looks like, because I know what an apple looks like, but i can't "see" an apple when i close my eyes. Is that what you are asking, if we can "see" an apple? Can you "see" an apple??? yikes, now I'm kinda freaked out, lol.