“With visualization techniques, you can control your health. Change how you see yourself and how others see you. This article explains why and how.”

Success, in the minds of many people, is an outside force that controls the direction of their lives. They believe in the outdated idea that “as the twig is bent, so grows the tree”. In fact, they believe so strongly in that old adage that they grow up to lead lives that are governed by their past. They falsely harbor thoughts and feelings to the effect that dramatic change and self-improvement are impossible goals.

Unfortunately, until some awesome crisis causes them to confront their mistaken notion of reality and they actually accept responsibility for their fate, they’ll continue to float through life being mere passengers on a ship of fate that’s steered by others and by “luck.”

Their lifestyle will continue to be one of groping and coping, or of just “getting by.” Such a lifestyle and thought pattern will take over every aspect of their lives:

• from their health to their appearance,
• from their fitness level to their finances,
• and will even paralyze them in their relationships.

The reality is that all of us can take charge of our lives and shape our destinies through a planned program of visualization techniques that can truly make us winners in all departments of life:

• in our physical health,
• careers,
• family relationships,
• friendships,
• and virtually every other aspect as well.

I like to refer to this higher plane of living as being in a state of Laser Visualization. It means that you have practiced and honed your visualization techniques. So you’re able to visualize the present and your desired future to such a degree that you can see it without ever closing your eyes. It means you can see the world around you, not as others see it, but rather as you have determined that you want it to look. It’s all a matter of your outlook on life.

We all know that when we are depressed, nothing we do seems to go right. What usually triggers depression?

Examples Of Triggering Depression

Depression is triggered by the way we react to a certain person or event, such as a rainy day. If you tended to get depressed and sleepy when you were younger simply because it was a rainy day, then you probably still get sleepy and depressed whenever it rains.

Did you know there are people who actually get excited when it rains? What about all those kids who grow up loving to play in the rain? What kinds of feelings do you think they associate with rainy days? Let me say, rainy days are play times for them.

The moral of this story is that the rain does not determine your feelings, nor does it determine how you will act that day.

You are in control of your every mood, and of every reaction you have to events and other people.

Let’s look at another example that may be closer to home for you. Think of someone you really love (or someone you’re really intimidated by—either scenario will work here).

• If you’re in a bad mood, thinking about someone you truly love has a tendency to bring you right out of that mood.
• If you’re in a great mood but you’re told that you have to make a presentation to your intimidating boss, you might click into a depressed or introverted mood for your presentation.

You see, in both cases most people would allow themselves to be controlled by the event, rather than deciding to take charge and to be in control of how the event affected them.

Once you attain the state of Laser Visualization, you will be in control of every event in your life, and minor things like a rainy day or a presentation to your boss will not divert you from reaching your goal!

Laser Visualization Techniques Change Everything

Being in a state of Laser Visualization consists basically of imagining things. I use the term Laser Visualization because this psychological process can carve new successes and destinies with the most stunning accuracy and efficiency. After you practice the visualization techniques in this article, you’ll be able to focus your thoughts like a powerful laser beam, drawing into your life whatever you focus on throughout the day.

New research suggests that the superior achievements of famous thinkers may have been more the result of mental conditioning and visualization than of genetic superiority. You can learn to condition your mind in the same way and improve your performance in virtually all aspects of life.

Visualization techniques enable you to bypass old, outdated inhibitions and access the core realities hidden in your own subconscious.

• It is believed that the famous physicist Albert Einstein, for example, spent hours imagining what it would be like to travel at the speed of light. It was through this technique of visualization that he was able to create his famous theories of time and space.
• Nikola Tesla, another great physicist, was said to visualize all of his famous discoveries (such as the principle of the rotating magnetic field) before he made them, and all of his inventions (including wireless communication and fluorescent lights) before he built them.

Much as for these scientific luminaries, visualization can be YOUR inner guide, the internal compass that directs you unerringly toward the important goals of your life. It’s already there, waiting in your mind’s eye right now, yearning to be developed.

Visualization Can Make Your Dream Body Become A Reality

Interestingly enough, we use visualization techniques in our lives every day. Sometimes we use them for good purposes, but, more often than not, for uses that stifle our development.

To understand how that happens, let’s look first at the Universal Laws of imagination, mind, and achievement. These are the principles that have guided the successes of men and women throughout the ages.

Let me again explain the concept of a Universal Law.

• A Universal Law is a law that is not refutable by anyone.
• No one can oppose it in any way, and no one can alter it.
• We must move in accordance with these laws, just as humans have done since the beginning of time.

Perhaps the most visual of these laws to use as an example is the Law of Gravity. When Sir Isaac Newton was sitting under that legendary apple tree and stumbled upon this law, the apple that fell on his head had no choice of direction in which to fall once the twig had snapped. It could not have moved upward or sideways. The Law states that any object that is not significantly affected by air resistance will be drawn directly downward, to the earth. All other Universal Laws are equally unbreakable.

Law Number 1:

The mental images and ideas we hold in our minds produce the physical reality and the activities to which the images correspond.

Law Number 2:

A human being always acts in accordance with the mental images and ideas he/she holds and accepts as either true or false, real or imagined, regardless of their source.

“The Imagination”

“The imagination,” according to the great success writer Napoleon Hill, “is literally the workshop wherein are fashioned all plans created by man. The impulse, the desire, is given shape, form and action through the aid of the imagination faculty of the mind.”

What Hill is saying is that before we can really achieve something we desire, we must first have an image of that reality already alive in our imagination. And, according to Universal Law Number 1, once the visualization or idea of the thing has been created, willpower will see to it that the physical counterpart to the thing is created. You will enable your willpower to create its counterpart in reality: a dynamically slim, youthful, energetic body.

Made Up Of Energy

We must remember that everything in our world is made up of energy. Your thoughts, for example, are energy. And thought is an energy that can be transferred into its physical equivalent.

A sculptor will have a visualization, an idea, of what he or she wants to create before even beginning to shape and mold. A child may dream of being an actress long before she ever takes an acting lesson. Dreams, of course, are forms of visualization. And studies show that people who have a clear idea of what they want are far more likely to achieve it.

We have all seen evidence of this in our own lives. Whenever we think about an idea constantly, our minds cannot help churning out concepts and actions to turn that idea into reality:

• a better job, a more workable relationship with our spouse or children, a better way of doing something.

If we can imagine the solution to our problem, we can create a solution in reality.

A special note of caution is in order here:

• The opposite is also true—and must be avoided at all cost!

When You Think Bad Thoughts

Whenever you consistently think bad thoughts, bad things will be drawn into your life. If you constantly harbor thoughts of your relationship being bad, you will cause your relationship to become bad. If you constantly picture yourself as being fat, out of shape, unhealthy, sickly, or unmotivated, you will draw these things into your life! And this will happen unless you switch from harboring negative thoughts to entertaining positive, successful thoughts.

You can engage in visualization techniques at any time of the day. In fact, once you are good at this process, you can hold on to the goals you have visualized. You can do this even while you’re working, sleeping, talking, driving, etc. And once you become good at this, your mind will actually get stronger and more receptive to your current needs.

Best Time To Practice Visualization Techniques

Although you could practice visualization techniques at any time, I suggest that you do your visualizing while you’re as deeply relaxed as possible. And that you do this as frequently—and for as long a time—as is convenient for you.

You don’t need to go into a trance-like meditation. What is important is clarity and singularity of focus. In that respect, it’s like daydreaming, something we just naturally do all the time. The biggest difference is that daydreaming is a random, almost involuntary preoccupation. Whereas Laser Visualization techniques are planned, purposeful, and goal oriented.

The Imagination Can Do Our Bidding

The second principle of visualization is even more important than the first. This law states, in effect, that a person always acts, feels, and performs in accordance with the images in his or her mind, regardless of where they come from.

When you think and believe in yourself as a “winner,” for example, your mind will retain any thoughts and beliefs that are appropriate to this mindset, and it will automatically discard any thoughts and ideas that are unsupportive.

The second law states, in addition, that the mind never acts in a vacuum.

• It will process any visualization, any thought or idea it receives, regardless of the source.
• The subconscious mind makes no distinction whatsoever between constructive and destructive thoughts and images. Nor does it judge whether the material it receives is true or false, real or imagined.

The more important point—and this is a powerfully important discovery—is this:

• The subconscious will do this with any information it gets, even with images which you purposefully plant in your subconscious.

Using Laser Visualization techniques, you can learn to use your mind to intentionally create whatever you want in your life. This includes a better, healthier body.

As We Visualize, So We Become

Keep repeating to your son that he is stupid and worthless, and before long he’ll reproduce that image in reality. In other words, he’ll start behaving as if he were stupid and worthless. Since you have been feeding him visualizations of a “loser,” he’ll start selecting and accepting from his world those images and ideas that support the notion that he is worthless.

On the other hand, tell your son that he is exceptionally bright, and although he may have only average intelligence, he will begin to act on the visualizations you’ve put into his head and will perform according to this new self-image. He’ll actually begin to perform as a better-than-average student.

Again, remember that it makes no difference whether your images are true or false.

If you perceive them to be true, they will carry full weight with you.

Food For Thought

Feed your mind thoughts about a fat body, incapable of serious exercise and metabolic change, then you’ll fulfill that age-old saying “whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap”. Before you know it, you’ll be binging on ice cream and brownies, and continuing your life as a couch potato.

Feed your mind visuals about slimness, health, and a happier, more fit you, and your mind will find harmonizing thoughts, ideas, and actions from the world around it to turn these pictures into the real thing: a thinner you. The winners’ circle will soon be yours!

Why Not Visualize Yourself As Fit, Vibrant, And Beautiful?

Realizing that your actions, feelings, and behavior are the direct result of the images and beliefs with which you nourish your mind, you have the perfect tool you need to build a better body. By evoking mental pictures of yourself having successfully boosted your metabolism (becoming fit, eating right, and being in good health), you’ll provide yourself with the images your willpower needs to turn your goals into reality.

Starting Steps To Visualization Techniques

Your first step in controlling your mind–body link through proper visualization techniques is to decide what you want to look like. What do you want to physically and mentally change about yourself? Remember, your body is a direct reflection of the way you see yourself when you close your eyes! Change how you see yourself and you’ll change how others see you!

I know what some of you are thinking: “But I went through this process before. Do I have to do it again?” Well, let me make two comments about that:

First, the more you write and re-write your affirmation, your statement of success, and your goals, the more focused you will be and the more honed or polished they will become.

If you re-wrote your goals twenty times a day, each day making them crisper and more accurate, you wouldn’t be wasting a single second. In fact, you’d be doing more for yourself this way than by almost any other step you could take toward reaching your goals.

Second, what I want you to do in this article is different. This exercise will help you take what you’ve already written and make it clearer and more precise. Remember, the more focused your goals, the faster they will become a reality.

Write Your Dream . . .

All I want you to do here is to describe in writing the person you have set out to become, in simple, declarative language.

And here’s the most important thing:

• write your description of your dream self as if the changes have already taken place.

Your goal, in the visualization techniques that follow, is to add as many visual and emotional details to this “picture” as possible.

You might write something like this:

 Now that I have lost thirty pounds, my clothes are fitting more loosely. My metabolism is a fat-burning furnace. I’m losing weight, I have tons of energy, and I feel great!

Visualize Yourself

Visualize yourself in such a way that you portray your success as completely and accurately as possible. Picture yourself in happy situations, enjoying your successes as if they were already yours. Make sure you see this very clearly. You might be able to reinforce your visualization by actually drawing a picture of your goal body.

Finally, believe with all your heart that the object of your visualization, your goal body, is yours—or will become yours. Remember, any disbelief will simply introduce negative energy into the situation and will dilute the power of this exercise. Once you see that you have indeed achieved your ideal body, acknowledge that you made it happen and be proud of yourself!

Now go out and live life in the knowledge that you are already at your goal weight, that you’ve already achieved your success, and that you’re already proud of all you’ve achieved. Your body will soon resemble the picture that you have in your mind.

How To Do Visualization Techniques

I want you to do just what I’ve outlined above, and to do it every day for the next thirty days. Set aside a time each day when you can relax, uninterrupted, a time when you can let your imagination run free and wild.

You might choose to do this exercise in the morning before you arise, or perhaps at the end of the day before you go to sleep. For that matter, you can do this exercise at any time of the day. The more positive energy you send out, the more you will get back. That’s just the way the Universe works.

Any comfortable spot will do:

• a bed, a couch, an easy chair, even at your desk.

The important thing is that your mind be free from distractions:

• away from phones, kids, and computers; away from it all.

Find your spot. And then make a conscious effort to relax each part, each muscle of your body, one by one. Start with your head and neck, and work your way down to your toes. This should take several minutes. As you perform this relaxation exercise, take slow, deep breaths. Allow yourself to become as relaxed as possible. Close your eyes and let your thoughts drift inward.

Your First Week

During the first seven days of these visualization techniques, picture as vividly as possible how rewarding and satisfying your life will become when you achieve the body of your dreams. Keep a running list in your personal journal of all the benefits of your maximized metabolism.

Think of how you will behave once you achieve your goal weight, fitness level, or eating regimen. Make these pictures as detailed as possible. Are you confident and self-assured? Are you achieving success in the other areas of your life as well?

See yourself acting confidently and deliberately in those situations that have caused you embarrassment in the past. See yourself behaving with assuredness, poise, and, above all, determination, especially in circumstances where you may have previously wilted with trepidation. At the gym. On the track. In a new dress or suit. At a business meeting. At your wedding or high-school reunion.

• Hold these pictures in your mind as long as you can.
• Turn them over again and again.
• Look for new detail, added dimension, colorful nuance—and, perhaps most of all, rich emotion.

Your Second Week

Emotions are crucial to the process of visualization.

When combined with your emotions, your visualizations will sharpen and intensify your ability to change your ways of thinking and your behavior, much as a magnifying glass focuses and intensifies the rays of the sun.

The need to incorporate your emotions into the process of visualization is precisely the point that most other so-called self-help gurus miss.

You see, affirmations in and of themselves don’t work, and positive thinking alone is practically a waste of your time. As a matter of fact, none of this mental training will do much of anything for you UNLESS you mix emotion in with it!

Emotions are the spark plugs that start that beautiful car sitting in your garage. No matter how beautiful that car is, no matter how fast the engine, no matter how many times you wax it, it won’t go anywhere without spark plugs. Likewise, your positive self-talk and all your visualization techniques won’t go anywhere in the absence of strong emotions.

I’m thinking about emotions such as love, happiness, confidence, joy, self-respect, etc.

When you drench your visualizations with these emotions, they are twice as valuable as goal-directing devices.

• How do you feel when your metabolism is under your complete control? Happy?
• What emotions do you experience when you show off a sleek, well-toned body?

Well, remember the emotions that you experience at times like that. In fact, remember them fifty times a day.

The more you experience those emotions while picturing

your goal body, the faster your results will come.

Visualizing With Emotion Can Take Time

Since Laser Visualization techniques are new to most of you, it will take time and practice to achieve its most important results. Your powers of visualization may have grown diffuse and weak from disuse. But your imagination can become more vivid, more effective, through use and training, just as any muscle or organ of the body becomes stronger through use.

Be particularly careful to focus on visions that reflect your reasons for mastering your metabolism and becoming physically fit. And remember to add the special leavening agent of emotion. Think not just in terms of being thin, but of being happily and joyously thin. Or thin and sexy. You know what I mean.

• Imagine each benefit in its smallest detail, so that you become thoroughly familiar with every aspect of the idea.
• By doing so, you will set for yourself a pattern, and create a mold, after which your inner life will shape your outer life.
• You will generate well-beaten mental paths, “habits,” along which your visualization can travel in its search for shapely expression.
• Repeat the same visual pictures again and again, and a new, sexier you will take shape before your very eyes.

Your Third And Fourth Weeks

In the third and fourth weeks, the time you devote to your visualization techniques must grow longer, first to twenty minutes, and then to thirty minutes or more.

You see, once you’ve mastered these visualization techniques, you will be holding your image twenty-four hours a day. That twenty- to thirty-minute period of intense training will act simply as a booster, or a refresher, of your actual affirmation or statement of success.

Visualize yourself as being powerfully strong and in control of every aspect of your life.

See yourself routinely saying no to junk food and other temptations that slow your metabolism. See how much better you’ll look, in full detail—and get emotional about it!

It Works!

Successful users of the program outlined in this website have profited from this technique over and over again. Many were skeptical at first. But in no time at all they found themselves vigorously reducing the gap between their inner and outer selves.

• In his book Psycho-Cybernetics, Maxwell Maltz recounts the miracles that many men and women have achieved by visualization.
  • His work cites how a salesman increased his sales by 400 percent, simply by imagining he was successful; how a world-famous chess player and a professional golfer “practiced” winning plays in their imagination; and how a renowned concert pianist became great by practicing the piano “in his head.”
• Napoleon Hill, Shakti Gawain, William Atkinson, and Robert Assagioli, as well as many famous students of visualization who came before them, recognized the vital role that visualization plays in achieving lifelong dreams, whether the dream is to develop the perfect body or to make a million dollars.

This daily exercise will lend new determination and resoluteness to your willpower.

• These visions, rich with desire-supporting emotions, will become new memories, new “tapes” if you will.
• Your mind will automatically “play” them when you need a temporary boost.
• Just as negative “old tapes” can drag you down, these new tapes you create through laser visualization will force your subconscious mind to help you reach your goal.

Before long, you’ll see yourself spontaneously acting with confidence and poise. You’ll find that you can effortlessly and successfully follow the program and create the new you.

Words Of Power

One exercise that is quite helpful in fostering positive visions is called Words of Power. The secret here is to think of the words that produce vivid images of success. Only you can provide the words. Since only you know which words have the power to evoke strong, positive mental images of your success—words that are also laden with emotion.

Examples of words of power you might choose are energetic, youthful, dynamic, and sexy. You be the judge.

• To bring these words alive in your imagination, write your words of power in your journal as many times as you can.

My guess is that you’ll choose two or three words, and that you’ll write each of them anywhere from two hundred to four hundred times. Every time you do this, they will be further ingrained in your psyche. And the emotions associated with them will be strengthened.

What Will Happen . . .

As you begin what appears to be a genuinely tedious task, an interesting thing will happen:

• your mind will start drifting from the mechanical labor of writing the words,
• and you’ll unconsciously start visualizing what your words of power mean to you.

You’ll start daydreaming about how much more sexy and attractive you’ll look when you’re thin:

• the clothes you’ll wear, the places you’ll go, the people you’ll meet, and how they’ll instantly feel about you.

Think about these images and keep writing. They’ll keep coming just as long as you keep writing. When the images stop presenting themselves and your mind drifts to another subject, that’s the time to move on to the next word.

This is a fabulous exercise. Try it and you’ll see! You can even use your words of power while exercising or while eating healthful foods. In fact, just thinking about your power words can begin the flow of desire-building images, emotions, and energy.

Selecting Your Power Words

Right now, make up a list of power words, your “dieting vocabulary.”

Perhaps the words that light up your desire are skinny, trim, and attractive. Though you’re not limited to selecting words that have something to do with dieting per se. At least some of your power words can relate to successes in other areas of your life that are associated with being very attractive and energized.

Affirmations Spur Your Visualizations

Making daily affirmations is another excellent way to help the visualization process bring about your desired outcome.

To affirm something means to state it as the truth.

There is always some thought or idea running through your mind that you could affirm. This “self-talk” can be either positive or negative, and it’s very often unconscious.

As you’re getting dressed in the morning, taking a shower, going about your work, or driving someplace, your mind is thinking thoughts. Some of those thoughts are positive and some of which are negative. There is no such thing as an “in-between” thought; every thought you have is either a help or a hindrance to achieving your goals. There are no gray areas here.

If you are not in full control, monitoring your thoughts and training yourself to think positively at all times, your mind will take the garbage that others are showering on you and use it to form negative images. The negativity may come from the morning news, or from coworkers, or from any of the persons, places, and events that subconsciously influence you throughout the day.

You can put a stop to this influx of negativity by training yourself to think positive thoughts, to feel positive emotions, and to repeat positive affirmations throughout the day—especially the ones that are associated with maximizing your metabolism.

Making affirmations is one way in which we can consciously utilize our self-talk to purposely create good in our lives. They work for the same reason that visualization techniques work:

• • our subconscious mind has this miraculous ability to translate visualizations into reality, thoughts into results.

Affirmations In The Present Tense

State an affirmation in the present tense, as if it is already valid. And you should repeat them as often as possible—many times a day is best. Phrases that begin with “I am” and “I have” are very effective. An affirmation that has to do with good health might go something like this:

I am healthy and well, and every day I feel better and more energized.

You Can’t Go Wrong!

My clients have profited from these visualization techniques over and over again. Controlling themselves became easier. And developing the staying power they needed in order to achieve their goals became more natural.

This daily exercise will fan the flames of desire. It will lend fresh determination and resoluteness to your new diet and exercise regimen. And the visions you experience, rich with desire-supporting emotions, will provide new memories that you can mentally repeat over and over again when you need a mental or physical boost.

Practice Makes Perfect

As you practice these visualization techniques each day, you’ll be amazed at how quickly they’ll incite your desire to the level that’s needed for successful self-change. Moreover, you can do these visualization techniques at any time or in any situation. They’ll continue to work for as long as you continue to use them. And they’ll point the way to an exciting future—but only if you allow them to do so. >> Next Page (Massage Therapy Benefits)