Posts Tagged ‘visualization’

11
May

Who’s Your Guide?

Blue sign with arrow pointing right, directing traffic one way

As a master’s level psychology student, various classes required that we practice visualization. Visualization is meant to help people handle anxiety. The premise is that you close your eyes, relax, and visualize a pleasant, peaceful scene. The scene is supposed to cause you to calm down and deal with what caused your discomfort more easily.

I, for whatever reason, seldom got much out of such exercises. Until now.

Enter guided meditation. In guided meditation group members are asked to place themselves inside a scene as described by the facilitator. The facilitator is always conscious that certain scenes may not be helpful for all; we have experiences that make us fearful of some scenes. Thus, the facilitator always gives people the option to create a different scene for themselves.

Even if feeling comfortable, the members are free to see things as God moves them. The results are astonishing. While one member may envision the scene with certain surroundings, another, with the same scenario, envisions something totally different! And yet, both people find something meaningful! Here is what I described from a guided meditation: