Hey.

Welcome back to your daily mindfulness.

Over the last number of days,

we've explored a lot of different

strategies related to cultivating

happiness and wellbeing in your life.

Today, I want to share a strategy

you can use around visualization.

Now, when it comes to mindfulness and

meditation, well, at least mindfulness,

specifically, visualization is

not as much of a component of it.

However, we do bring mindfulness to

the stories going on in our minds, the

visual images going on in our minds.

And we're learning to work with

that in a more skillful way, which

is often letting it be there as it

is, or redirecting our attention.

Today, I want to talk about what happens

when we notice maybe a visual in the mind

that is more negative or not optimistic

and how we can start to change that.

Now, I think, a lot of times when

we, well, the first example that

comes to mind, is like stage fright.

When we think about having to give a

talk or go into a new group of people

and have a conversation, and we feel

some nervousness around that, one of

the things that's happening, is the

mind is already imagining all the

way is, this isn't going to go well.

We're thinking about how people might

perceive us, we see them rolling

their eyes, we see them not liking us.

And these visuals in the mind condition

a certain emotional reactivity,

which could be stress, sadness, fear.

However, one of the quickest ways

you can work with that, is just

change those visuals, and instead

of imagining what goes wrong,

you can imagine what goes right.

You imagine going there and, uh, perhaps

having a great conversation with someone.

You imagine going to a party and someone

smiling at you in that conversation.

That sort of visualization is

going to be very different than

imagining someone frowning or

not liking you or turning away.

My encouragement to you, is to look at

what are some of those visualizations

in your life when you feel yourself

down, or not at your best, or not

experiencing the wellbeing that you

want, how are you imagining your life?

What are you thinking about?

What are you seeing?

And it could be what you're seeing in

the present moment as it relates to

how you perceive yourself, but it could

also be seeing yourself in the future

and how you see your life unfolding.

And as it relates to mindfulness,

yeah, we're first cultivating

an awareness of those things so

that we're not consumed by them.

But you could take it a step further and

practice shifting some of those images.

Being playful with it, imagining what

would it like, the most beautiful

image look like where your life

feels inspiring or something's going

really well and is really positive.

This is just another tool that

you could put in your toolkit.

It's not something you have

to do in every single moment.

In fact, that would probably be

really tiresome to constantly have

to manage the visuals in our minds.

But in those moments where we are

feeling down, it can be a powerful

resource to start thinking more

positively and start enjoying

thinking about our life in the future.

So we'll do some more of this in

the meditation so you could get some

practice, but as you go throughout

your day, just start to notice

this and have some fun playing with

those images and transforming them.

I'll talk to you in a moment.

Thank you for your

practice, and take care.