Research Paper By Alagappan Nachiappan
(Executive Coaching, MALAYSIA)
If you can see it in your mind and if you can believe it, it is a lot easier to achieve it. Oprah Winfrey
What do these famous people have in common? Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Thomas Edison, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, The Wright Brothers and the list goes on… All of them imagined and visualized a better future that did not exist during their time. They visualized a future that was beyond reality. Imagine the world if Edison did not visualize the light bulb, if Alexander Graham Bell did not imagine the telephone, if the Wright Brothers did not visualize the airplane, if Gandhi did not visualize a free India, if Mother Teresa did not visualize loving hungry and destitute people, if Larry Page and Sergey Bin did not visualize Google. They all imagined and visualized something that did not exist and in the process created something new, original, pristine and of lasting value. An artist’s first impressions are always first in his mind’s eye. Picasso said ‘Everything that you visualize can be real’.
Self-development, Growth and Leadership is about imagining a better future that is very different from today. It is the art of harnessing human energy to create a better future.
What is Visualization?
Walt Disney said ‘If you can dream it, you can do it’. Visualization is the art of using mental imagery and affirmation to produce positive changes in your life. It is being successfully used in the fields of health, business, the creative arts, sports, cinema, arts, music and in a variety of other disciplines and in fact can have an impact in every area of your life. It is a technique that can help you to use your power of imagination to create what you want in your life, change negative habit patterns, improve self-esteem, reach career goals, increase prosperity, develop creativity, increase vitality, improve your health, experience deep relaxation and much more including personal mastery of your life.
You create a clear visual image, idea or feeling of something that you wish to manifest or happen and continue to focus on it, giving it positive energy until it becomes reality – in other words, until you actually achieve what you have been imagining or visualizing. Your goals may be at any level – physical, emotional, mental or spiritual. You might visualize yourself with a new home, or finding a new and fulfilling job, or a satisfying relationship or just feeling calm and serene and a life filled with energy. You can work at any level and have results. It is a technique to prime your sub-conscious mind to achieve whatever you want. It is a technique used by very successful athletes, sports persons, actors, painters, musicians, entrepreneurs and people from all walks of life. It can be used for almost anything, including preparing for interviews, training for sports, presentations, recovery from illnesses, respite from pain, healing and a variety of every day mundane activities.
One of the basic principles of holistic health is that we cannot separate our physical health from our emotional, mental and spiritual states of being. All levels are inter-connected and a state of ‘dis-ease’ in the body is often a reflection of conflict, tension, anxiety and dis-harmony on other levels of being as well. So, when we have a physical disorder it is a message for us to look deeper into our emotional and intuitive feelings to restore harmony. Visualization is one way we Visualization Page 3 communicate from our minds to our bodies by forming images in our minds consciously and unconsciously and transmitting them to our bodies as signals and commands.
The Why of Visualization
You see the end result in your mind in pictures and this is burned into the visual cortex of the brain.
The ‘Why’ of visualization needs a little digression into the human brain and the conscious and sub-conscious mind.
The scientific world is beginning to discover what metaphysical and spiritual teachers have known and talked about for centuries. Our physical universe is a unified energy field. Everything in the universe – people and things are all connected. Physically, we are all energy and everything within and around us is made up of energy. We are all parts of one energy field and we need to harness this energy. The energy is vibrating at different rates of speed and thus has different qualities from finer to denser. ‘Thought’ for instance is relatively fine and light form of energy and therefore very quick and easy to change. ‘Matter’ on the other hand is relatively dense and compact form of energy and therefore slower to move and change. Thoughts and feelings have their own magnetic energy that attracts energy of a similar nature. We can see this principle at work, when for instance we ‘accidently’ run into someone whom we have been thinking of or ‘happen’ to pick up a book that contains exactly the information we are looking for at that moment.
All forms of energy are inter-related and affect one another. Human thought and intention have the power to influence reality. Neuro Scientists now tells us ‘Change your thoughts and change your world through the power of intention and attention’ – (Ref: Dr Mario Varvoglis)
The power of the human mind
The conscious and sub-conscious mind
If I were to ask you to say the alphabet or the days in the week or at a physical level to open and close your hands, you will be able to do this intuitively. Now, if I then ask you to salivate instantly or to increase your heart rate or blood pressure instantly, your conscious mind cannot do this instantly or intuitively. Now imagine you have a lemon and you cut into four quarters and you sink your teeth into one of them and let the juice flow into your tongue, you will notice that you begin to salivate profusely. This is an involuntary action and your sub-conscious mind takes over. Again, imagine yourself standing on the edge of a very tall building or precipice and you are leaning and looking down. Notice how your heart rate will increase rapidly in an instant and your blood pressure shoots up. This is your sub-conscious mind taking over with a trigger response.
We are guided by our sub-conscious mind every day, whether we are aware of it or not. The sub-conscious mind has no ability to reject anything. It will accept anything that you give it or tell it. The subconscious mind operates through pictures and visuals and runs 90% of your life. (Ref: Conscious Universe & Supernormal by Dr Dean Radin)