Many people have heard the notion that recurring thoughts can affect what happens in their lives. But how does this work, and how can we use it to create positive experiences in our own life?

Here’s a simple experiment that demonstrates how thought and visualisation can affect our body: close your eyes and vividly imagine a full glass of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Then visualise yourself picking it up and drinking the whole thing, taking good notice of the imaginary taste and smell. Do this now before reading further.

You probably noticed that your body responded as if what you visualised was actually happening – by producing saliva, and perhaps even tensing up facial muscles and feeling tingling in the throat. It is as if the visualised experience was almost real for your body, from just a single visualisation. And how about visualisations that we repeat many times? A common example of this would be excessive worrying – repeated visualisation of events that we do not want to occur. Here’s how it can play out:

Sam is worrying about a new social event he is going to go to. He worries that people there will not want to talk to him. Because of this Sam already feels rejection, even though he hasn’t left home yet. When Sam arrives to the event, he is approached by Emma who greets him and they start chatting. Sam is quite tense from all the worrying and quickly runs out of things to say, and the conversation stalls. Sam‘s interpretation of this situation is likely to be consistent with his earlier thinking – “Just as I expected. She was just being polite and doesn’t really want to talk to me” – and he leaves the conversation to get a drink by himself.

This example shows how repeated visualisation can create an experience before it actually occurs, affect a person’s interpretation of events, and affect how they respond to situations. What would happen if Sam deliberately replaced his worries and visualised that people at social events are keen to meet someone new and interesting and have fun together?

In a similar way our recurring thoughts influence our relationships, our work, and even the course of our life. So, how can we change recurring thoughts that are unhelpful?

The first step is to notice what is already there. What do we think and visualise most often? How does it make us feel, interpret events, and act? It is worth taking a week or two to watchfully observe our thinking. This will lay a good foundation for change.

The next step is to come up with alternative visualisations that create feelings, interpretations and actions that make us feel good. It is very important to visualise the desired experience not as a distant dream, but as something that is already happening. Just like drinking that lemon juice.

The final step is to catch ourselves when we are “viewing” the unhelpful visualisations and deliberately replace them with positive visualisations we’ve created – similar to changing a video tape. This will need to be done many times before it takes effect. After driving in reverse, a driver will first need to slow down and then start driving forward to return to the starting line, and only then progress ahead. Same here – the effect will not be instant, but persistence will gradually change the long time habit and bring positive change.

Most of us already spend a good deal of time visualising future situations, so why not put this process to optimal use? And if you believe that our thoughts affect the energy we radiate into the world, and the energy we attract to ourselves, this process should seem even more potent.

Feedback for this article is welcome below.

PUBLISHED IN APR 2013 ISSUE OF THE FRINGE.
This is the original article. Published version was shortened by the editor.