The Art of Creative Visualization by Pat Hare Unit Ten

Unit 10: Letting Go and Allowing

You have now become quite familiar with the first four steps of the creative visualization process: visualizing a goal, picturing what it will look like when you get it, focusing on it often, and charging it with energy. You’ve also learned about some of the techniques for making your visualization exercises more powerful and meaningful, such as recognizing blockages and barriers and using insights and intuitions. Now it’s time to take a look at the fifth and final step in this process: letting go and allowing it to happen.

Letting Go

There will come a point in the process when you have done all that you can do in consciousness to create the happy end result you desire. You will have gotten as clear as you can get about what you want. You will have pictured it over and over again. You will have affirmed it, removed any blockages to it, and charged it with enough energy to run a small city.

By now, you’ve probably begun to see some exciting evidence of your goal being achieved. In fact, it’s possible that by the time you read this you will already have it! It’s most likely, however, that you don’t have your full goal achieved but have begun to see definite signs that things are going in the right direction. Once you’ve come this far and have done most or all of the mental and emotional (i.e., consciousness) work of creative visualization, the time will soon come when you must let go of the project. You will need to stop focusing on it often, stop actively looking for guidance, and stop charging it with energy. (You may, however, continue to affirm that it’s happened.) When you’ve reached this point, you’ve pretty much done all that’s necessary to create what you want. The only thing left to do is to get out of the way and allow it to happen.

Letting go signals trust. You are trusting that what you have requested and planned for will be brought to you. You are trusting the universal quanta to do their thing.

A teacher once suggested to me that when it is time to let go, I play the “life is a restaurant” game. When we go to a restaurant, we look over the menu, make our selections, and convey these to our server. We then wait for our order to be brought to us. We don’t (well, most of us don’t) follow the server into the kitchen to make sure that everything is being done. We simply trust the process and expect our meal will be brought to us when it is ready. While we wait, we occupy ourselves with other things.

When it’s time to let go in the creative visualization process, you will need to do the same thing. You will need to forget about your “order” and occupy yourself with other things. After awhile, your order will be brought to you!

Why “Let Go?”

Letting go implies an acceptance that something has already been done; therefore we don’t need to work on it anymore. If you continue to work on visualizing beyond the appropriate point, you are sending the following message to the subconscious mind: This hasn’t happened yet, that’s why I’m still working on it. However, when you let go, you are sending a different message to the subconscious mind: Okay, I’m all done. I’ve created that and now I (as good as) have it.

The subconscious mind takes this information literally. So if you believe that your goal hasn’t been accomplished and keep acting on that belief, that’s the data which will be stored on your screen. Any information you receive to the contrary will be “screened out.”

However, if you believe that your goal has been accomplished and you act on that belief, that data will also be stored on your screen. Any information received to the contrary will, of course, be “screened out.” More importantly, all information consistent with that belief will be “screened in.”

If you remember anything from this course, please remember this: Worry is akin to achievement repellant. It helps to think of it that way. Each time you worry about something, it’s like spraying yourself with “goal repellant,” keeping what you want from making it’s way to you. Worry says, It hasn’t happened yet and maybe it won’t happen at all…

How Do You Know When It’s Time to Let Go?

It’s not always easy to know when it’s time to let go. On the one hand, you don’t want to sabotage your efforts by not finishing your part of the process. On the other hand, you don’t want to overdo and make it take longer to happen, either. Fortunately, there are some reliable signs you can use to determine when your creative visualization “work” is finished. These apply, of course, after you have completed the first four steps of the process.

1. You become tired of doing your visualization exercises. What happens is this: a part of your knows that you’ve done what you need to do. At some level, you realize that you are mopping over and over again a floor that has already been cleaned and polished! In other words, you realize your efforts are pointless and it gets kind of boring.

2. You begin to have an itch to work toward something new. You may be visualizing your goal and a new image begins to insert itself, distracting you and pulling your attention toward it. Or you may simply find yourself thinking about a new goal more and more often. Again, at some level you realize that you are wasting time by continuing to focus on something that has, for all intents and purposes, been completed. Your mind is ready for the next creative challenge!

3. You realize that you are worrying about not achieving your goal. Worry is often what we do with extra energy when we don’t know what else to do with it. If you start to get caught up in worry, the best thing you can do is just let go of the whole thing. Better to not give it any energy than to give it the negative energy of worry!

Review these three signs that it’s time to let go. If you believe that any of these apply to you and that it is time for you to get out of the way and simply let your goal happen in it’s own best timing, place a check mark next to the sign below which applies to you.

____ 1. You’ve become tired of doing your visualization exercises.

____ 2. You’ve begun to have an itch to work toward something new.

____ 3. You realize that you are worrying about not achieving your goal.

Now write about your reasons for believing this on the lines below. If, for example, you’ve become tired of doing your visualization exercises, explain how you know that. Or, if you’ve begun to think about something else already, write about the new project and how thinking about it interferes with your current project. And if you are worrying, write down the worries which could be acting as achievement repellant, keeping your goal away.

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The “Oh, Just Forget It!” Technique for Letting Go

Letting go of worry has been my greatest creative visualization challenge, especially with projects that are more difficult or risky. When I find myself stuck in a pattern of worry or frustration, I find it useful to declare (and really mean), “Oh, just forget the whole friggin’ thing! (Um…or words to that effect.) I no longer care.” It helps if I’m feeling tired and angry when I say this, because the energy of my anger helps me to withdraw from the project. More times than I care to admit, when I’ve been stuck, I have found that my tantrum withdrawal from a project—at this point in the process—and the sincere decision to no longer care about it one way or the other, seems to bring about a miracle. Suddenly, BOOM! There it is! Right smack dab in my reality! Exactly what I gave up hoping would happen, happens.

This used to perplex (and embarrass) me greatly, until I realized that my anger and withdrawal were, in essence, a way of letting go. And, as I continue to work with and develop my skills of creative visualization, I am getting better and better at letting go when it’s time to let go, instead of waiting until I am so frustrated and angry that I don’t leave myself much choice!

Visualization for Letting Go

The following exercise is designed to help you let go when the time comes.

1. Close your eyes and allow yourself to become relaxed.

2. See in your mind’s eye the scene of your “happy end result.”

3. Allow this scene to become smaller and smaller, until it is a ball of light. Cup your hands and see this ball of light gently float into them.

4. Affirm that you have created this event in consciousness and that it is now in the process of manifesting in your physical reality. Express gratitude (in advance) for having this event come into your life.

5. Raise your cupped hands and release the ball of light to float up and out into space. As it drifts away, appearing smaller and smaller the further it goes, repeat three times the following affirmation by Shakti Gawain, “This, or something better, is coming to me now, in totally harmonious ways, and for the good of all concerned.” (If this affirmation doesn’t appeal to you, you can write your own—it’s sure to be more powerful for you.)

Unit Follow-up Activities

1. Let go if it is time, using the information and exercises provided in this unit.

2. If it is not yet time to let go, continue visualizing your “happy end result” (with feeling!) a minimum of four times a week and working with the ideas presented in this workbook, until you believe it is time to let go.

3. Write down your thoughts and feelings in your journal.

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