"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is
limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination
embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know
and understand." Albert Einstein, Physicist, 1879-1955 This one
quote alone is a pretty compelling reason to learn how to turn
our imaginative genius loose. All of us have a fairly vivid
imagination, but unfortunately, we do not control it. It
controls us. It runs willy-nilly on its own, painting pictures
in our minds of things that we do NOT want to materialize.
What's even more alarming is the fact that the same reel of
pictures keeps playing over and over again. There are statistics
that indicate that of the many thousands of thoughts that we
have in the course of a single day, the vast majority of them
are the same old, tired out, uninspired thoughts that we had
earlier in the day, and the day before, and the day before that,
ad nauseum. Here are some simple visualization exercises that
will help you train your imagination to flex its muscles. You
can perform these anytime, anywhere, and in just a matter of
seconds. Exercise 1 - Color Me Beautiful Focus on any object in
your immediate vicinity. Mentally change its color. Some people
try to be too literal-minded about this and claim that they
cannot "see" the different color. Just get a flashing "sense" of
it being this different color. That's all that is needed. Run
through several colors in rapid succession. Change the finish
from a high gloss to a matte finish. Make it fuzzy. Make it wet.
You can graduate to seeing multi-colored patterns: plaids,
stripes, polka dots, animal prints, etc. Exercise 2 - Bend Me,
Shape Me, Any Way You Want Me Once again focus on any object.
Increase its size, more, more, even more. Now shrink it back
again. Make it so tiny that it all but disappears. Make it fat
and puffy and then skinny and sunken. Pull it like taffy and
make it stretch and twist and bend and fold. Now turn the object
inside out. Again, you do not need to "see" every single detail.
The idea is simply to get your imagination to come out and play.
You want it to break free of its well-worn, literal rut, and
more importantly, you want to get comfortable seeing things that
are not yet in your physical world. Let's do one more. Exercise
3 - Mental Aroma Therapy Our sense of smell is by far the
strongest sense that we have. A single aroma is enough to
unleash a flood of vivid memories. Also, olfactory sensations
are the first ones to reach the brain. So not only does smell
provide a powerful link to our recall. It can also serve to
stimulate and excite our imagination. This exercise consists of
simply "recalling" certain odors that are most pleasant to you.
What aromas make you feel calm? Smell them now. What scents make
you feel powerful? Train yourself to mentally whiff that scent
when you're feeling small. Think of smells that make you feel
confident, free, intelligent, rich, kind, playful, or anything
else that occurs to you. As you go through different odors that
cause you to experience these pleasurable sensations, take note
of what pictures each aroma conjures up for you. What aspect of
these mental scenes pleases you most? (This is a great way to
engage your mind during lost, odd moments.)
These pictures and odors should be remembered and incorporated
into visualizing your goals. The point of these exercises is to
get your logical mind to loosen up, to release its choke hold on
your creative spirit. Why is this so important? Because the
fastest, most efficient way to achieve any goal is to SEE it in
our mind's eye. We are to act, feel and give heartfelt thanks as
if it were already a done deal. Some authors call this "Thinking
from the end." Giving our imaginations a workout will help us
accomplish this. "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination
will take you everywhere." Albert Einstein
About the author:
Rosella Aranda, Editor, Author of Sabotage Thyself No More, an
excellent guide to getting rid of self-limiting beliefs.
http://www.SabotageThyselfNoMore.com/ Free mini-course!
http://www.FromThoughtsToRiches.com/ Know How to Be Rich
Rosella Aranda
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