Writing & New Age
Lesson 1: Techniques, Imagery, and Beginning Exercises.
Section 1-2: Guided Imagery.
I. Sub-conscious Illumination:
You may want to reference the texts on Guided Imagery at this time. One that I recommend is Fifty Visualizations That Promote Relaxation, Problem-Solving, Creativity, and Well-being, its summary follows:
Guided Imagery creates opportunities for people to unleash their creativity and enhance their well being. Guided Imagery harnesses power of the mind and body to heal, enhancing self-image, develop relaxation, assist problem resolution, to center spiritually, to provide peak performance, and to assist with stress reduction and management. Teaching writers how to transform natural abilities of daydreaming toward powerful tools for develop literary efforts is a zealous goal. How do you incorporate Guided Imagery into presentations? What materials are required? How much time is required? What kinds of groups benefit from Guided Imagery? How can group dynamics enhance Guided Imagery? These questions are answered within Guided Imagery for Groups: Fifty Visualizations that Promote Relaxation, Problem-Solving, Creativity, and Wellbeing.Top athletes use Guided Imagery to train the mind to win. Doctors have begun using Guided Imagery to train the body to heal itself (curing disease by stimulating the immune systems from Guided Imagery sessions). Many responses in the body do not distinguish between physical experiences and imagining physical experiences. As an example, getting caught up in a scary movie can stimulate an adrenaline ("flight or fight") response just as if you were actually involved in a life-threatening situation.
Guided Imagery combined with soothing music can bring about a state of mind and body conducive to healing. Deep relaxation and positive focus utilizing Guided Imagery can release tension, anxiety, past hurts, and a variety of negative emotional states.
Advocates of Guided Imagery contend that the imagination is a potent healer long overlooked by practitioners of Western medicine. Imagery relieves pain, speeds healing, and helps the body subdue hundreds of ailments (i.e.: allergies, asthma, depression, and impotence).Using techniques he's taught to thousands of patients and healthcare professionals, Dr. Rossman presents an overview of imagery and then provides readers with specific scripts that can be used to achieve deep relaxation and healing.
The power of the mind to influence the body is quite remarkable. Although it isn't curative, Guided Imagery can help cure ninety-percent of the problems people bring to the attention of primary care physicians; this is a phenomenal statistic. Therefore, to achieve writing enhancement Guided Imagery can improve approximately ninety-percent of your creative difficulties that may arise.
II. Images and Senses Are the Means Used by the Brain to Communicate with the Body:
Guided Imagery is the most fundamental language we have. Everything you do the mind processes through image. When we recall events from the past or the childhood we think of embraces, pain, pictures, sounds, and etc. It is unusual for these events to be recalled in terminology, however, if we incorporate self-hypnosis to this regime of inner awareness we can relive those emotional states and recollect the language of the experience as well.
Images are not necessarily limited to visual results they can be sounds, smells, tastes, or a combination of sensations. A certain smell may invoke pleasant or bad memories for you.
Think of holding a fresh juicy lemon in your hand. Perhaps you feel its texture or you can see the vividness of its yellow skin. As you slice it open you see the juice squirt out of it. The lemon's tart aroma overwhelms you. You stick it in your mouth, suck on it, and taste the sour flavor as the juices roll over your tongue. More than likely, your body has already reacted in some way to the previous image. You may have begun to salivate imagining the experience.
Guided Imagery is the language the mind uses in communicating with the body. You don't talk to a wart and say, "be gone." That is not the language the brain uses to communicate with the body. You do though imagine the wart, see it shrink in your mind, and over time through good imagery, enthusiasts' say, you may actually dissolve the wart. Guided Imagery is a biological connection between the mind and body. As you learn it will become extremely useful in your mind body associations. It is innovative and certainly acceptable to utilize in developing qualitative writing.
III. Imagery Can Involve Negative Visualizations Too:
Many images pop into our heads that do more harm than good for us. The most common type of imagery unfortunately is worry. When we worry, what we worry about exists only in our imagination, but it blocks our creative flow.
It is estimated that the average person has 10,000 thoughts or images flashing through their mind daily. At least half of those are negative, (e.g., anxiety over a meeting, a quota, a coming speech, a job related anxiety, etc.). Unharnessed, a steady dose of worry and other negative images alters your physiology making you susceptible to a variety of ailments that result in reduced creativity.
When you learn to direct and control the images in your head, you can help your body heal itself. Our imagination is like a spirited, powerful horse. If it's untamed, it can be dangerous and may run us over. If you learn to use your imagination in a way that is purposeful and directed, it can be a tremendously stalwart vehicle to get you where you want to go, to even include better writing.
Your imagination can be a potent tool to help you combat anxiety, stress, tension, and writer's block. You can use visualization to harness the energy of your imagination. Remarkably it does not take long to accomplish this-it takes just a few weeks to master the techniques to harness the energy of your imagination.
You will want to visualize two or three times a day, try to visualize at least once a day. Most people find it easiest to do in bed in the morning and at night before falling asleep. . With practice you will be able to visualize whenever and wherever the need arises. Guided Imagery is different that the meditations and self-hypnosis we will overview later in this lesson series. You can perform Guided Imagery in bed in the morning and evening, however meditations, Qi' training, and self-hypnosis are better to perform in standing, sitting, and|or upright positions.
IV. Imagery Had Been In Use in Ancient Civilizations:
Guided Imagery has been used as a healing tool in virtually all world cultures. It is an integral part of many religions. Navajo Indians practice a form of Guided Imagery that encourages the tribal member to "see" himself or herself as healthy. Ancient Egyptians and Greeks (including Aristotle and Hippocrates) believed that Guided Imagery released spirits in the brain arousing the heart and other parts of the body. They thought a strong image of a disease is enough to cause its symptoms and that a strong image of its removal can induce its cure. A strong image of a best-selling novel can result in the actuality of its creation.
V. Visualization and Imagery Has Application in Sports, Leadership Training, Possibility Thinking (writing and arts), and Other Fields: Athletes use affirmations and visualizations daily. Dale Carnegie, Robert Schuller, and Steven Covey who summon peak performance in other individuals suggest utilizing it. Athletes use visualization to enhance their performance often without realizing it. A golfer forms a mental map of the fairway, imagining precisely where he will place the ball on each shot. A high jumper visualizes every split second of his approach to and leap over the bar. A baseball pitcher runs a mental film of the ball from the time it leaves his hand until it lands in the catcher's glove. The writer visualizes the life of their antagonist and protagonist throughout the course of their novel.
In the oft quoted, Seven Habits of the Most Effective People, Steven Covey suggests we use our right brain power of visualization to write affirmations that will help us become more congruent with the deeper values in our daily lives. According to Covey's writings a good affirmation has five basic ingredients:
- It's personal,
- It's positive,
- It's present tense,
- It's visual, and
- It's emotional.
For a few minutes each day I totally relax my mind and body. I think about situations where I can develop my writing. I visualize those situations in rich detail. I feel the texture of the chair I sit on, I feel the floor under my feet, and I feel the sweater I am wearing. The more clearly and vividly I imagine all the details of my visualization, the more deeply I participate in the experience, the less I see as a spectator, the more vivid my conscious mind recollects the Guided Imagery, and the more clear my writing from that image becomes.
In doing this day after day, writing behavior changes, it improves. It becomes enhanced. Instead of living out scripts given to me by my own environment, genetics, parents, or society I can live the script I write from my own self-selected value systems.
In this inspiring landmark book, psychotherapist and guided imagery pioneer Belleruth Naparstek pulls together everything that's currently known about this exciting new method of deliberate, directed daydreaming, and shows you how to use it for your own health .
Guided Imagery is powerful, it crosses many disciplines. Good leaders are visionaries, so they "visualize" potential and possibility. They plan details meticulously in their mind before they execute them. They work out potential glitches in their visualization processes.
As stated previously, almost all world-class athletes along with peak performers, use Guided Imagery and visualization. They see it; they feel it; they experience it; then they actually do it. They begin with an end in mind. You can visualize every area of your life. Before a performance, before a sales presentation, before a difficult confrontation, or before the daily challenge of meeting a goal; seeing it clearly, vividly, and relentlessly over and over again achieves success. Create an internal "comfort zone" for any given scenario and then, when you get into the scene you have created, the internal comfort zone for it is no longer foreign, it no longer can scare you-you have already lived it.
VI. How Effective Is Guided Imagery:
Guided Imagery has been found to be very effective for the treatment of stress, too. Guided Imagery is at the center of relaxation techniques designed to release brain chemicals that act as your body's natural brain tranquilizers (e.g.: lowering anxiety levels, blood pressure, and heart rate), researchers find these techniques work. As previously stated, Guided Imagery relaxes your body, doctors specializing in the use of Guided Imagery recommend it for stress-related conditions (e.g., chronic pain in the neck, backaches and headaches, high blood pressure, spastic colons, and premenstrual syndrome cramping).
Several studies suggest that Guided Imagery boosts immunities. Danish researchers found the use of Guided Imagery increased natural killer cell activities. In researching ten college students, the use of Guided Imagery helped improve their immune systems. Natural killer cells are an important part of the immune system because they recognize and destroy tumor cells, virus-infected cells, and other invaders. In this research, their imaging assisted, enhanced, and improved natural killer cells in proactive ways.
Guided Imagery can help alter menstrual cycles by relieving symptoms of premenstrual syndrome. In preliminary studies, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital found that 12 of 15 women, aged 21 to 40, who used Guided Imagery for three months lengthened their monthly menstrual cycles by an average of nearly four days and slashed their perceived levels of premenstrual distress in half. They also reported fewer mood swings.
At the University of South Florida, researchers asked 19 men and women, aged 56 to 75, who had chronic bronchitis and emphysema to rate their levels of anxiety, depression, fatigue, and discomfort before and after they began using Guided Imagery. The researchers concluded that imagery significantly improved the overall quality of their lives.
A study at Yale demonstrated that patients who suffered from severe depression were helped by imagining scenes where they were praised by people they admired, a clear boost to their self-esteem.
Visualization and other relaxation methods produce significant benefits to help ease pain and lift depression. Research is continuing to determine whether more spectacular results can be achieved using Guided Imagery.
A controlled study of fifty-five women examined the effects of imagery and relaxation on breast milk production in mothers of infants within a neonatal intensive care unit. They received a twenty-minute audiotape of progressive relaxation followed by Guided Imagery of pleasant surroundings, milk flowing within the breasts, and the baby's warm skin against theirs. They produced more than twice as much milk as compared to those receiving only routine care.
VII. Learning the Basics of Imagery:
Virtually everyone can use Guided Imagery successfully. It is a question of patience and persistence. It is like learning to play a musical instrument or learning to fly an airplane, when you put in the time and you put in the discipline you will be able to do it. It is the same in using Guided Imagery, with practice, practice, and more practice you will be able to achieve the results you desire.
How much time it takes before you see results depends on the vividness of your imagery and your determination. A person who has a sprained ankle may get pain relief in just one five-minute imagery session. There aren't a lot of test studies that affirm the use of Guided Imagery in literary development, however, it is suggested that writers use it routinely.
Most proponents suggest practicing Guided Imagery for fifteen to twenty minutes per day initially to ensure you are learning it properly. As you become more skilled and comfortable with the technique you will be able to do it for just a few minutes at a time as needed throughout the day.
The most effective images are the ones that have some meaning to you. When battling tumors, a person may imagine that their healthy cells are plump, juicy berries, while their cancerous cells are dried shriveled pieces of fruit. They may picture their immune system as birds that fly in and pick up and carry away the raisin-like cancer cells, while the rest of the cell flourishes. Another common image is that their immune system cells are like silver bullets that come in and annihilate tumor cells.
As a writer you may see the fluidity of your writing concepts flowing freely from your mind. You may visualize the concepts arriving from beyond your conscious self and see them erupt in the forefront of your consciousness like flowers in a valley. You may envision compositions as clouds of free inner consciousness floating through your mind then plant those in your active brain. Experts recommend actually personifying your inner mind and "reasoning" with it. This way you have a chance to learn from it.
VIII. Step By Step Imagery:
Studies indicate that Guided Imagery works best when it is used in conjunction with relaxation techniques. When your physical body is relaxed you don't need to be in conscious control of your mind and you can give it freedom to daydream. Meditation, progressive relaxation, self-hypnosis, and yoga are the most common relaxation techniques used with Guided Imagery and we will learn more about these in this lesson series.
Footnote:
St. Jude Thaddeus: Writer of canonical letter, a good saint to assist with writing imagery.
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Lessons
Lesson 1: Techniques, Imagery, and Beginning Exercises.
• Section 1-2: Guided Imagery.
Lesson 2: Resources For Establishing Your Writing Goals.
Lesson 3: Personal Definition As A Writer.
Lesson 4: Rating Personal Literary Performance.
Lesson 5: Uniting With The Inner Source.
Lesson 6: Mental Enhancement Toward Becoming A Greater Writer.
Lesson 7: Your Writing Space.
Lesson 8: Summary.
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