Last time I began a series on the power of Vision Walks in the creative process. I discussed Vision Walk #1: how we can form generative questions and literally call in the information we seek. There are at least two other ways to combine walking with a form of visioning…
Vision Walk #2, Create Your Future with Mental Rehearsal, is the focus of this blog.
We can create memories of the future by envisioning scenes we’d love to realize in the land of time and space. A chosen scene may be something in a faraway (or not-so-faraway) future: a creative turning point, defining moment, or culminating event. As you walk, simply ask yourself what scene would you love to experience?
You can use this technique to mentally rehearse an important short-term goal. Are you preparing to give a presentation or a job interview? Would you love to see yourself sailing smoothly and beautifully through an upcoming task such as drafting that article, letter, or report? Writing the next chapter of your book? Finishing the collage? Polishing a series of photographs? What about closing the deal on your new house, or re-inventing your office – at home?
You get the idea.
Life itself is not a dress rehearsal, but your powerful mind can rehearse key moments of your life – to great effect.
By doing so, you create new pathways in the brain which wire you to be successful at the creative task you envision. The more familiar we become with a situation we’d love to experience, the more we live into that experience with the imagination, emotions, and senses – the more we impress upon the subconscious mind the “fact” of the future scene we’re creating.
With repetition, we build pathways for a desired experience metaphorically in our hearts, and also literally in our brains as neural circuits are strengthened through the act of mental rehearsal.
Dr. Joe Dispenza illustrates how mental rehearsal can lead the brain and the mind to be ahead of the actual experience: “Nerve cells that fire together, wire together. You fire the same thoughts, think the same thoughts over and over again, the neurons continuously fire… there comes a moment when the neurons release this chemical… like a ‘miracle grow’…” which preconditions our enactment of what we’d love to accomplish.
In living a life of conscious creativity and full-spectrum wealth, you can apply mental rehearsal to any area of your experience such as health, relationships, financial flow and freedom, and your vocation and creativity. The list of possibilities is endless…
So choose something that lights you up!
Select a scene you’d love to experience and see it, feel it, presence it in your Mind, and repeat on a daily basis. Repetition is the key to mastering anything.
Athletes have used mental rehearsal for years as a way of upping their game. Artists, innovators, scientists, entrepreneurs, educators, and consciously creative people from all walks of life can do the same.
In fact, many “creative types” have employed visualization effectively in determining events with far-reaching impacts. The Wright brothers saw themselves flying successfully long before they got a plane off the ground. In a landmark interview with Oprah Winfrey, actor Jim Carrey shared how he used visualization, in combination with a willingness to take action, in order to realize his dream of being a successful performer.
Other famous contributors who’ve used mental rehearsal include Tony Robbins, Bill Gates, Genevieve Behrend, Will Smith, Tiger Woods, and Muhammad Ali.
Okay, but… why visualize on a walk?
One of the wonderful things about walking is that it relaxes us while also giving us a work-out. Walking increases our power of concentration. Just as Zen monks lead practitioners to exercise before sitting on a cushion to meditate, we can walk before pausing at a bench, picnic table, or café to concentrate on a future memory we’d love living…
We can also take the opportunity to visualize the very day we’re in.
I often pause on morning walks to mentally rehearse all I’d love to accomplish as the sun makes another journey across the sky. This often includes coaching clients in transformation and writing smoothly while enjoying the process. You can actually rehearse feeling joy! That’s the kind of self-fulfilling prophecy I look for in my day.
May you enjoy yours. And thank yourself for the memories!