Have More Good Days than Bad Days by Practicing Visualisation? (2022)
Hi everyone, a little late this week but here’s what I’ve been up to this week and have still been working my way through the exercises in The Source by Dr. Tara Swart, neuroscientist, and coach.
As a backdrop The Source by Dr. Tara Swart – is reviewed here: The Source by Dr Tara Swart — Jackie Mandeir
Last week, I shared the importance of having a clutter-free home, to help clarity of thinking and wellness and today I am moving on to another of The Source exercises called Positive You, Negative You.
Dr. Tara Swart states that any meaningful personal development starts with raised awareness of yourself, and this exercise is about improving your self-awareness.
The exercise involves drawing yourself a grid with four quadrants on a sheet of paper – each of the quadrants says one of the following Physical – Mental – Emotional – Spiritual.
· Physical refers to what you feel in your body
· Mental is about what is going on in your thoughts
· Emotional is how you are feeling
· Spiritual is about how you feel deep down at a more fundamental level, in terms of a sense of meaning, purpose, and place in the world.
Then through a series of questions, you are asked to reimagine past memories of times when you felt very negative, stressed, or unhappy, followed by a contrasting situation when you were confident, happy and fulfilled. And to note them into each of the four quadrants on your sheet of paper.
I found the exercise raised my awareness of what was happening to me especially when I was not feeling my best. Physically, I have various aches and pains, mentally my thoughts become random and confused, and emotionally, I become quite detached and then question my spirituality, of course, the reverse is true when I recalled happier times.
I suppose you are wondering why you would do such an exercise – in The Source, Dr. Swart says visualisation acts as a powerful way to recognise the most positive and negative mental states at work within you and that you can literally turn bad days into good days by noticing what is happening to you in the four quadrants and making some purposeful changes can have a profound effect on how you feel.
I also realised that by just changing the way I breathe had a really powerful effect on my well-being.
So if the quality of my breath plays such an important part, then why not concentrate on improving that? Breathwork is a part of many ancient ways of ‘being’ for example in Tai Chi and Yoga and Wim Hof, known as the iceman is the most recent person of influence to share his knowledge in this area.
Wim Hof says “We’re always breathing, yet we’re mostly unaware of its tremendous potential. Heightened oxygen levels hold a treasure trove of benefits, and the specialized breathing technique of the Wim Hof Method® unearths them all: more energy, reduced stress levels, and an augmented immune response that swiftly deals with pathogens.” See Wim Hof’s website here: https://www.wimhofmethod.com/
Back to The Source, Dr. Tara Swart says that spending a few minutes a day recounting a time when you felt really positive, happy, and good about yourself can have a powerful positive effect on you. The more you do this visualisation technique, the more you start to notice what is happening to you throughout the day.
So on to sharing my favourite things this week:
Photo of the Week
The Power of Visualisation
“Visualisation helps us to channel the law of attraction, and to act from a place of abundance and optimism” - Dr Tara Swart - The Source
Quote of the Week
“Visualisation is the human being’s vehicle to the future – good, bad or indifferent. It’s strictly in our control”
YouTube
Continuing the theme of breathwork – I may have mentioned before that one of my go-to YouTube yoga teachers is Travis Eliot and he recently posted a 25-minute yoga breathwork session: 25min "Morning BreathWork Sequence" with Travis - YouTube - if this is too long, you can find shorter ones on his channel.
Question of the Week
And my question to you all this week is – what was the most significant positive thing that happened to you last week? And how can you bring more of that into your life?
Thank you for reading, I look forward to hearing your answers. Bye for now.
Jackie