Click here for the guided session that goes with this lesson.
In this week’s lesson, we’re going to focus on the primary action step in our manifesting process.
As you well know by now, the core manifesting process is relax, imagine, and trust. We relax deeply, imagine our desired outcome in rich, vivid detail, and then trust that it will actually happen.
If we relax deeply enough, and imagine our end result in enough detail, the trust is established for us. And that trust, that faith, is what makes the manifestation happen. As such, this is the closest you will ever get to a process that works for you “whether you believe in it or not”.
By this point in the course, you should find it quite easy to relax. If not, then I must ask if you have been putting in the daily practice with the guided sessions I’ve created for you. I realize that not everyone needs the guided sessions. However, if you do, please use them. That’s why I created them, and they’ll work for you if (and only if) you actually use them. I promise not to repeat this too often. If you’re serious about wanting to improve your ability to manifest your desires, you have to do the work to develop the skills required.
Okay, with that out of the way, if you’re like most folks, you’re ready to improve your imagination skills.
There are actually two aspects of imagination we need to cover. The first may be best described as “flexibility of mind” and refers to the ability to conceptualize a reality which is different from what has been true up to this point. For instance, if you’ve been poor your whole life, how do you imagine a life of wealth and luxury? Or if you’ve had pain in your body, how do you imagine it feeling good?
The other aspect of imagination is the mechanics. How can you improve your ability to actually see images within your mind, or hear sounds, feel textures, and use the senses of taste and smell?
We’ll work with all of these ideas in this lesson.
Before we get to that, I’d like to ask you a question. Have you ever noticed how children seem to have a natural ability to use their imaginations? They can make up the most fascinating stories, and often pretend to be in a completely different world. “Sorry, mom, I can’t do that right now. I’m being hunted by space aliens who are tracking my brainwaves.”
Most of us simply need to remember what it’s like to be a child. In fact, I’m convinced this is what Christ meant when he said that we must become as children in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, or as I interpret that, to enter a state in which we are deeply connected to the Divine, and can manifest our desires at will.
One characteristic of children is that they haven’t yet decided they already know everything. They’re open to learning new things about the world around them, and magic is just as real a possibility as the logical explanations of science. Things don’t have to make sense to be accepted as truth.
Try imagining that you (along with the rest of the world) were just created 5 minutes ago, and everything you think you know about the past is simply a memory that was encoded within your brain. If this universe was created by an Infinite Being with Infinite Power, that is perfectly within the realm of Infinite Possibility.
Or how about imagining that the entire Universe is a stop-motion movie created by someone who adjusts all aspects of reality each and every nanosecond, and since we’re in the movie, we don’t see what happens between the moments.
Science tells us that physical objects are mostly empty space, and explains this idea by showing us artistic renderings of atoms, with tiny particles spinning around in circles. How is this any different from any other magical view of the universe?
BTW, in case you’re not aware, it is physically impossible to take a photo of an atom. The closest that anyone can get could be described as throwing a bunch of basketballs at a car and trying to determine whether the car was a sedan, a sports coupe, or a station wagon by studying where the basketballs landed. No one would know if a bicycle were standing next to the car with this approach.
In most cases, we really don’t need this level of mental flexibility to manifest our desires. We simply need to imagine that the things we would LIKE to experience are not only possible, but quite likely.
When I tell the story about how I manifested the relationship I now have with my wife, Linda, I talk about how before that point, I thought (imagined) that I was so different from most people, that there would only be a handful of women in the entire world who would be a good match for me. By changing the way I imagined myself, and imagining that there were 1000s of women in my own city who would be a good match for me, I adjusted my mental flexibility to trust in a new reality.
A similar thing happened in the story where I talk about being a temp worker at a die-cutting shop. As a temp, I had absolutely NO control over my work schedule. Yet, each week I choose the number of hours I wanted to work that week, and imagined my timesheet at the end of the week with the appropriate number written on it. I could justify this by also imagining that there was a constant flow of work coming into the shop, most of which couldn’t yet be seen.
One particular week, I was talking to one of the two press operators about the experiment I was running, and that I had picked 48 hours that week. His comment was that there wasn’t enough work to fill 40 hours, so there was no way we would get 48 hours that week. His mental flexibility was more limited, even though I explained that we don’t see the work coming into the shop, and there could be plenty of jobs we didn’t know about.
In this case, since the second press operator didn’t have the same limits in his imagination, he and I got 47.5 hours, while the first press operator only got 40.
When I want to influence the outcome of a card game, I’ll often focus on imagining a winning score on the scoresheet, and not bother with the cards themselves.
Many who want to manifest wealth will focus on imagining their friends and family congratulating them on their good fortune. They may imagine that they are walking into the bank, and depositing a large sum of money. They may imagine themselves traveling, driving expensive cars, or wearing expensive jewelry and/or luxurious clothes.
In these examples, we focus on imagining the end result we want to experience.
For a number of years, whenever it was raining and I wanted it to stop, I would imagine a giant clear plastic dome covering the city around me, and imagine that the rain would bounce off the dome and go somewhere else. Obviously, this isn’t what happened, but the end result was the same. The rain stopped within a few minutes.
These days, I will often focus on a point in the sky and imagine a patch of blue sky, and then I’ll imagine that patch getting bigger and bigger until the entire sky is blue. Every once in while, though, I still use the plastic dome visualization. It works, so why not?
Dr. Carl Simonton became famous for his work with terminally-ill cancer patients. He taught his patients to imagine things like the white blood cells fighting the cancer cells, possibly even shooting them with laser beams. The specific visualization depended on the patient, as he would find something they could relate to. Again, this wouldn’t necessarily match up with physical reality, but the message would get through to the Divine Mind, and the outcome would match the desired result.
In these last few examples, symbols are used to represent things we are unable to imagine directly, or to give us a stronger connection to the process.
As far as the mechanics of visualization, this is simply a matter of practice, and building up in stages.
For those who have trouble visualizing anything, remember your mother’s face. What color are her eyes? What color is her hair? Now, how did you remember those details? Were they words echoing in your mind, or were they visual images?
What does the color blue look like? What about red? How is red different from yellow? And if you mix red and yellow, what does that look like?
What does a square look like? Can you imagine a triangle? How about a circle? What does a globe look like, or a map of the world?
Training your visualization ability starts with basic exercises like this. Gradually add more detail. Start with basic colors and shapes, then remember the faces of people you know. Gradually add in motion and action. Eventually, replay a memory of a real event that happened a few moments ago.
Last week, I asked you to focus on an enjoyable experience and memorize it to the point where you could replay the experience inside your mind. The more you practice this, the better you get at imagining, since imagining new things is mostly a process of remembering similar things with a few minor, but important differences.
When I needed to heal a particular part of my body, like a hand, or the side of my face, I would focus on the OTHER hand, or the OTHER side of my face, and what that felt like, and imagined that the injured part felt the same way.
A good way to learn how to imagine wealth and success is to spend time where wealthy people go. Resorts, retreats, and other vacation spots would be ideal, but you can get a similar experience by just going to a park, a beach, a marina, or browsing through jewelry shops, art galleries, or car dealerships.
When I first got into digital photography, I would spend quite a bit of time editing photos on the computer. Zooming in to check the details, then zooming back out again to see the whole image. After a few weeks, I noticed my visualizations getting more focused, with more detail.
The more we focus on details, the more our minds will pick up and remember those details. One of the reasons so many of us have trouble remembering people’s names is because we simply don’t focus enough on them. Or we try to remember too many names at once.
The best way to develop any skill is to start with easy things, and gradually increase the difficulty as we improve.
Visualizing is the same. Start with easy things, like colors and shapes, then gradually increase the number of details until you can imagine a whole world filled with happy and prosperous people living in love and joy.
Other than that, the only tip I found that really helped was to imagine a bright space within your mind when you do your visualization. Most of us close our eyes, physically see darkness, and perform our visualizations in the dark. It’s just as easy to imagine a bright space as a dark one, and a bright space makes it easier to see.
Of course, the sense of sight is only part of a full and complete experience, whether physical or imaginary.
Spend some time listening to things, and then recalling the memory of what they sounded like. Listen to a song, then turn down the volume and remember what it sounded like. Stroke your hand against a textured surface, then pull your hand away and remember what it felt like. Take a bite of something, chew it, swallow it, then imagine yourself taking another bite, chewing that, and swallowing it.
Training your sense of smell requires that you come close to something that gives off an odor, then moving away from it before recalling the scent. In some cases, you may need to vigorously breathe in and out a few times to clear away the original scent or you’ll be smelling it for real.
Another thing you can do in all this is to imagine each sensation as if it were something else. In other words, when you see a color, what would that color sound like, or does it suggest a smell or taste? When you hear something, what would that sound look like if it were a visual experience? What texture would you feel if a smell or a taste were something you could touch?
Homework Assignment
It should be obvious that your homework assignment this week is to practice using your imagination as much as possible.
Click here for the guided session that goes with this lesson.
Memorize many different experiences, and replay those experiences within your mind. Feel free to make any changes you want as you imagine the experience. For example, if you’re recalling the last meal you ate, feel free to imagine it tasting better than the original.
Spend some time contemplating alternate foundations for reality itself. Things like physical objects being mostly empty space, or everything before a few minutes ago being nothing more than a memory, or crowds of spiritual beings at your beck and call to perform any service you could ever want.
Here again, don’t worry about the possible outcomes in all this. Just go through the motions. Stretch your mental muscles and see how far you can get from your typical perceptions of reality.
One way to control which visualizations get manifested and which ones don’t is to relax more deeply while you’re imagining the things you want to manifest, and keep yourself fully awake for the ones you’d rather not experience.
And as you might expect, above all else, have FUN!
When you master the art and science of manifesting, Life WILL be a lot more fun, since you’ll know that anything you can imagine, you can create.
Until next time, be blessed my friend.