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A website for those who
want to learn about creative visualization and explore the leading-edge
paradigm of mind and the creative nature of human consciousness.
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Frequently Asked
Questions
Table of Contents
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Is creative visualization a religion?
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How do I know if creative visualization really works?
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If it's such a great technique, why don't more people
use it?
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How did
you first come to use creative visualization to
achieve your goals?
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Can I create things I don't want by mistake?
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When
I create my goal, what should I tell my friends about how I did it?
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Can you give me a powerful visualization exercise to improve both image
clarity and control of what I see?
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Is Creative Visualization a religion?
No. Creative visualization is a technique.
Sometimes people think it may have a religious component to it because it draws
upon our spiritual connections to the universe around and within us. Human
beings are truly made up of body, mind, and spirit. If you leave out the
spiritual dimension, you have body and mind--which are nothing to sneeze at,
mind you, but simply can't accomplish what they can with the help of the spirit.
A religion is an organized structure designed to assist
with the development and expression of spiritual experience. Religions use a
variety of techniques to help achieve these goals such as meditation,
prayer, contemplation, monitoring thoughts, systems of study, and practicing
loving action, for example. These, like creative visualization, are techniques
that can be applied in a variety of arenas, including religion. But they should
not be confused with being a religion!
People of many different religious faiths may find the
creative visualization process to be compatible with many of their religion's teachings
and in support of their religious goals. Likewise, many people who choose to develop
their spirituality independent of religious organizations will find creative
visualization to be a valuable technique for growth upon their individualized
spiritual path.
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How do I know if creative visualization really works?
The greatest validation of this technique comes from
personal experience with it. I have yet to meet someone who sincerely tried the
process with an open mind who did not meet with a sufficient degree of success
to get their attention.
In my classes, I ask skeptical students (though truly
skeptical students do not register for a class such as this) to give the
process a chance by "pretending" that it will work. They have nothing
to lose and their goal to gain. The paradox is that the more lighthearted one is
when using creative visualization, the more seriously successful the technique
can be. This is because a playful attitude discourages the conscious mind from
constantly interrupting, trying to interject doses of "reality" into
the process.
Typically, progress goes something like this: The
participant learns the technique, maintaining a playful attitude (fine if it
works, fine if it doesn't). The participant gets surprising, encouraging results
and is eager to become a practitioner. The new practitioner takes the technique
much more seriously and chooses a greater challenge for his or her goal,
expecting big things (now that they are serious about it). But initially, the
practitioner gets disappointing results and begins to doubt either his or her
abilities or the validity of the creative visualization process—or
both.
At this point, some will abandon the technique in
frustration. However, those who persist and find their way back to that playful
attitude will get the big payoff—the
success they are looking for. The lesson to be learned here is that one cannot
make the technique work, but if you allow it to work, it will. And the only
person who can prove that to you, is you.
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If it's such a great technique, why don't more people
use it?
Well, you may be surprised to discover just how many
people do use it! Many in the fields of business and sports are
particularly avid promoters of creative visualization (though they may call it
by other names). For example, sales staff
are trained to repeatedly see themselves closing the sale. And athletes are taught to
mentally image
over and over the successful execution of a desired physical action. Because
these two fields are inherently so competitive, they require a high
degree of motivation to achieve success. And highly motivated people are willing
to learn and use non-traditional techniques that will give them the competitive
edge they seek.
As for the rest of us, we come by our ignorance
of creative visualization quite honestly. The foundation of modern Western
culture is the mechanistic paradigm, which goes to great lengths to explain
everything—body,
mind and spirit—in
terms of physical properties. The body is a bio-chemical machine; the mind rises
out of the brain's electro-chemical processes; and the spirit, well, just go to
church/synagogue, follow the rules, and you will find a place in heaven.
There is little room in a mechanistic paradigm for the
kind of organic and imprecise creative activity that occurs in the creative visualization
process. In this paradigm, "reality" is what can be clearly defined and experienced with
the five physical senses. All else is suspect. As a result, anything that falls outside that
paradigm is generally not taught in school or elsewhere.
As time passes, however, expect to see this change. The
field of quantum physics is providing Western culture's deep thinkers with lots
to think about in terms of what is "reality" and how it comes into
being. Change often happens slowly, and it can take awhile for the discoveries
of the leading edge to find their way into the mainstream. Fortunately, we don't
have to wait for everyone else to "get it." Today we can benefit from
what others may not be ready to understand until tomorrow. Or until the tomorrow after
that. Or the tomorrow after that. Or...you get my drift.
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How did you first come to use creative visualization to
achieve your goals?
In my 20's, I went through an
"early mid-life crisis." I had been deeply troubled by meaning-of-life
questions that first arose during my teens in response to the difficult illness
and early death of my father. Now, with my career established, no family yet to care for, and a bit of
time to pursue personal interests, I felt ready to seriously look for answers to
those questions. Often, I was drawn to read books that in one way or
another fit into the field now called consciousness studies.
Raised in the Methodist church, I had to try to
reconcile the belief systems of my religion with what was being proposed about
the nature of human consciousness in my reading. Sometimes, the two were not at
all compatible! Few of us can easily drop the beliefs we were brought up with—without
a bit of angst and resistance! But dissatisfaction with the traditional answers
can be a great motivator to explore new options for understanding! And I was
greatly dissatisfied.
As I read, one proposal captured my attention and has not
let go since: You Create Your Own Reality. This felt so intuitively right that I
was fascinated by it and compelled to learn more about it. Perhaps my training
as an artist and art teacher (that creativity thing) helped form a bridge for my
then conservative, non-controversial, non-radical self to cross into a land
of paradigm-shifting ideas.
Creative visualization, as made most popular by the author
Shakti Gawain, proved to offer an excellent structure to explore the You Create
Your Own Reality concept. And as a technique, it seemed to suit my nature
because I got good results when I used it. So, throughout my subsequent studies,
I tended to explore consciousness from the "how does this jive with
creative visualization?" perspective, eventually bringing me to a solid
confidence in the usefulness of the technique.
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Can I create things I don't want by mistake?
This question is asked out of a fear of the
unknown. Life seems so out of our control sometimes that we hesitate to do
anything that might make it seem even more so.
Practicing creative visualization will not cause
an opening up of a Pandora's Box of unwanted events. It will, however, help you to realize how many
things you already create "by mistake." For our purposes, "by
mistake" can be translated to mean "by default." No one
deliberately creates an illness, job loss, divorce or other life crisis. Yet, we
do play a role in the creation of these and all the other events that take place
in our lives.
One of the most empowering benefits of learning
the creative visualization process is developing an understanding of how the
events of our lives do not take place by some willy-nilly system--such as luck.
They are the results of a very simple, elegant, and consistent universal law
(like gravity), commonly described as "like attracts like." The visualizer's job
is to take conscious control of what constitutes the first "like" in the
expression. The "like" that gets attracted, then, will be consistent with what
the visualizer had in mind—literally!
If what you create is off the mark, then that is
feedback that you need to retune and refine what you are visualizing.
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When I create my goal, what should I tell my friends
about how I did it?
The answer here is not so clear cut. As your goals begin
to be achieved with increasing frequency and ease, it's tempting to want to go
around and tell all your friends and family about this wonderful new thing you
have learned! And you will want to do this believing that you are doing them a
service.
Some of these folks will be very open to learning about
this new technique. After seeing your impressive results, they may even want you
to teach it to them. (Feel free!)
However, others may have inaccurate, preconceived ideas
about creative visualization, or doubts about the "power of the mind"
to be able to have any effect on the world of REALITY. They may try to talk you
out of taking this technique seriously, and discount the success that you know
you achieved through it's use. They will do this believing that they are doing
you a service.
I have found that it is often best to limit sharing my
knowledge of creative visualization with others in day-to-day life. Because I am
professionally involved in the teaching of this technique, I will briefly talk
about it with people who inquire about what I do "for a living." If
they are interested, they will inquire further and I will respond further.
But, by-and-large, I do not recommend telling
others that your success was achieved using this technique unless you are
specifically asked—How
did you do it?—and
then only if your gauge on the person asking is that they would be open and
receptive to your answer. Generally, those who are happy for you and interested
in talking with you about your success are the ones with whom you may want to
share your how-I-did-it information.
Even then, though, use good judgment. As the spiritual
teacher, Abraham, has said, there's never a crowd on the leading edge! The ideas
that are a part of the creative visualization process can be just plain too
different for many people. Not everyone is ready to learn on the same schedule
you are. When they are ready, they will attract the learning opportunity that is
right for them, just as you have.
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Can you give me a powerful visualization exercise to improve both image
clarity and control of what I see?
Make a list of 5-6 things
or scenes to image. Start with specific, familiar things/scenes. For
example, your living room or a garden spot that you visit regularly. You
can also use an image of the face of someone close to you, a favorite
sculpture, a pet, your desk at the office, etc. Then, each day, practice
seeing each thing/scene on your list in your mind’s eye by doing the
following:
Close your eyes and take three deep breaths
to help clear your thoughts. If you like, play quiet music. Gently allow
your mind to focus on the image of one of the things on your list. Do
not force the image, but allow bits and pieces to filter onto your
mental screen. If one image is too difficult, switch to another on the
list. Spend a minute or two “seeing” each image. When you are done, go
about your day.
As the days pass, work on seeing the images
more clearly, filling in more details such as color, shape, objects,
features, etc. In time, you can also begin to add feelings associated
with the images such as love for a spouse’s face, peace in the garden,
pride in your family for picking up all their things off the living room
floor. (Hey—just because this is practice doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go
for what we really want!)
The more you practice,
the more effective your imaging sessions will be. Practice will improve
not only make your imaging more vivid, but it will also help the images
come more quickly and easily. After years of practice, I can close my
eyes and see just about anything I choose—real or imagined.
A variation on this
exercise is to get a coffee table book that has lots of
(uplifting/interesting) pictures. Choose a picture, study it, then close
your eyes and practice imaging what you saw in the picture. If you have
trouble bringing up the whole picture on your mental screen, then select
one part to focus on. For example, if it is a nature scene, you can
focus on a particular tree, a mountain in the background, an animal,
etc. Do this with several different pictures. You might find that
certain “topics” are easier to image than others.
Do the exercise for
about 10 minutes a day. In time (for most people, a week or two) you
will begin to be able to image more clearly and have greater control
over your imagery. Continue to work with the exercise, choosing new
things/scenes to work with, and you will continue to see progress.
I have only had one
student who simply couldn’t see in pictures, no matter what he did. He
was able to learn to “sense” that he was seeing pictures, but just never
could image. Part of his “problem” was that he was a seriously
left-brained scientist type! He had spent little time in his youth or
adult years participating in any right-brained activities like drawing,
daydreaming, creative projects, etc. But his experience is very much the
exception and I believe that most people can become good visualizers
with dedicated practice.
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