FINDING YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE THROUGH CREATIVE VISUALIZATION

Finding your finding your purpose in life sounds like an exceptional idea, but so many of us struggle trying to do so. You can’t speak directly to your higher, inner, most evolved self. So how can you find the answers to some of your biggest questions whose answers can guide you forward to living a life full of satisfaction and accomplishment? Visualization may just be the key to helping you find your true purpose for this life.

Visualizations aren’t for everyone. People often have the misconception that visualizations tap into some mystic spiritualistic energy that is going to make all of their dreams come true. The truth is far more mundane and material. Visualizations tap into the power of your own mental super computer. If you can broaden your mind enough to try them, to trust the process and to embrace what information you gather, you’re already way ahead of those who won’t bother. The mind is a deep, and amazing tool. There are many ways to use it to enhance your chances for success. Visualizations are just one way. They tap into the language of your subconscious, symbols, which actually allows for broader understanding of your beliefs and mental processes.

Here are a few visualization techniques that I’ve tried with success and believe could be useful to you as well. As you’re reading them it’s best to imagine that you’re going through the journey. While you can’t close your eyes, because you’re reading, you can still imagine as though you’ve gone through each of the steps. Ultimately having a partner who is willing to patiently narrate the text for you and allow you the time and space to have the experiences is best.

You could also use this visualization later, during your daily meditation, without having to read the text while you’re doing it.

FORK IN THE ROAD VISUALIZATION WITH A SURPRISE 3^RD CHOICE

The universe wants to bring you all of the abundance, all of the love, all of the success that you desire, and everything that you want. It’s not a problem of scarcity. Abundance is the natural flow of the universe. There are billions of stars, billions of trees, billions of wildflowers, billions of gallons of water and on and on. The problem isn’t the abundance available to you, it is: CAN YOU RECEIVE IT?

Why speak about abundance when you’re working to discover your life purpose? Like visualizations, money is a tool. How effective are you at achieving goals, making dreams come true, or helping other people when you can’t even afford to pay your own rent? Abundance is important.

All of us have a little mental blocks or little mental programs we learned along the way that blocks the flow of abundance into our lives by curtailing and defining the choices we make. When you can move that out, you can receive all of that abundance that’s coming for you. The following exercise helps you move those blocks you didn’t even know you’ve created, or that are holding you back.

Find a comfortable place to sit (or lay down as long as you don’t fall asleep). Close your eyes.

Find that place inside of you that’s really peaceful and quiet and just you. The place where the buzz and hum of life, other people’s opinions, your daily responsibilities, and the hurried rat race fade away and only you remain. It may look like a beach you visited as a child, your dorm room in college (without anyone else there) or a forest you’ve dreamed about. The where it less important than it being a place where only you exist, only your thoughts, only your sounds. Find that place, find a place there to sit down, and then settle into a nice gentle smile while you get comfortable.

Think about that thing that you’re passionate about. That thing you want to create and manifest in your life. It could be in any area of your life. Whatever it is that gets your inner fire lit and blazing. Hold the image of it in your mind.

Then imagine that there’s a road that appears and opens out in front of you. Stand up and approach the path. Take the first steps forward down the road. You’re walking down that road into your future.

Up ahead you can see there’s a decision to be made. There’s a sign posted along that path that warns you, “Big Choice Ahead.” You’re going to have to decide, “Am I going right, or am I going left?”

Let yourself come to a halt wherever you are on that road. From this point on the path you’re only going to move forward just with your imagination.

If you walked down that first road, the one of the left, what is it going to feel like to you? Imagine any people that are down there, any scenes. Just visualize yourself on that first path. There’s no right or wrong answer, your mind will create what it needs to see down that path, so allow yourself to mentally explore that path ahead.

You may get some sights, some sounds, or it may be just a feeling for you. Whatever it is, tune into that feeling. Is it good, is it right, does it feel like this is your path? Or is it the path somebody else thinks you’re supposed to take? Take a good look, and get a good feel.

Then mentally rewind again to the place where you stood just before you explored that choice. This time imagine you’re taking the second path, the one on the right. Imagine going down that second path. What does it look like? Are there any people with you? What are you doing down this road? Just notice, does this feel easy, fun? Am I happy? Or is it a path that I think I NEED to do rather than WANT to do? Take a good look, and get a good feel.

Bring your awareness back again to where you stood before you pursued that choice in the road. Notice something you didn’t notice before. Noting there’s a different choice than these two choices you thought you had to make. There’s a different answer, a different road. This one scoots off at a turn to the side. As you see that new road appear, start to move down that new road. Embrace the pivot and take the actual steps as you move forward.

Notice that this one feels a little different. Who’s with you on this road? What are you doing with your awareness, what are you doing in the world along this path? On this path, notice again, does it feel good to you? Does it feel free, do you have joy? Take a good look again, and get a good feel.

Let yourself mentally rewind again so you’re standing back before the three paths. Very easily decide which one do you want to take? There’s no right or wrong answer. People decide their paths for a million personal reasons. Meet the choice where you are in your life and in your heart and mind, and decide which way you want to go.

Finally, bring your awareness back to your body, and smile. Know that you’ve just changed your future, regardless of which way you chose. It’s going to end up moving faster and smoother because you’ve spoken to your subconscious mind and made a clear decision.

With this exercise we’re doing several things at once.  You’re getting ready for the future of your choosing. You’re facing your fears, you’re deciding what the consequences of your choosing will look like and you’re deciding which way to go. You’re rehearsing for the creation that you’ve chosen. You’re doing all of this in a way that removes the influence of other people from your decision making. All of these things help. But more importantly you’re opening yourself up to new possibilities.

LAKHIANI’S METHOD

I took a course by Vishen Lakhiani about Bending Reality. Really it was a course on visualization and meditative practices to help clarify your intent and to rally the Universal energy to help you pursue your goals. Throughout the course he relied on variations of just one method of visualization that he claims to have had great success with. It is as follows.

STEP ONE: SEE AND FEEL THE PAIN. Whatever your problem is, whatever you want clarity on, whatever situation you’re unhappy with – picture it in your mind clearly. See and feel the pain the situation causes you. Embrace it, and take it deep inside so that your body is actually feeling the discomfort. Beginnings are rarely easy.

STEP TWO: STOP FEELING THE PAIN AND SHIFT TO THE SOLUTION. In your mind, shift away from the discomfort, and the problem that is causing you grief, and instead focus on the solution. Bring the solution into clear focus so that you know what it looks like.

If you can’t think of a solution, ask your mind or the Universe to help fill in the blank. Don’t dismiss any answers that come. Even a baby step is still forward motion. Allow yourself to receive answers to your question, even if they’re not the answers you were hoping to receive.

STEP THREE: SEE AND FEEL THE SOLUTION. In this step you take the solution you imagined in step two, and you breathe life into it. Imagine yourself standing in the middle with the solution happening all around you. What are you experiencing inside? What are you seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling? Lastly ask yourself what are you feeling? Emotionally, spiritually, energetically? How does being in the middle of the solution to your problem make you feel? End with that FEELING. Put it in front of your mind and then let it go.

Visualizations work best when you just release them into the ether of your mind. Don’t think about them over and over, day after day. By doing so you change the program you’ve sent to your subconscious. You add fear, doubt and uncertainty. You change the messaging from “Do this…” to “This probably won’t work, but I’d love it if…”

Just let it go and move on with living your daily life.

HOW VISUALIZATION WORKS WITH THE MIND

The more real the imagery you’re imagining during these visualization techniques, the more you fool your brain to see it as something that’s true. Science has shown that our minds see no distinction between the reality of videos games we’re playing, or movies we’re watching, versus the reality of our daily lives. Visualization is no different. If you fool your brain into believing the solution you’re experiencing in your mind, or the path you’ve chosen and walked are true then your thoughts start graduating towards them. Your choices, your proclivities, your draw will be toward those outcomes.  That’s the crux of creative visualization. You brain believes what you’re telling it to be true.

The most important steps in any creative visualization are not actually about what you see. It’s about what you FEEL (inside). Focus on the feeling. As you start doing these visualizations, go straight to the feeling. Feelings are like archetypes, or symbology, and they speak directly to your subconscious.

After you’ve practiced these types of visualizations for a while, you can skip visualizing the nuance and just go to the feeling. When you do that the universe will start speaking to you. Your subconscious will push you to make decisions that align with the intent you created when you made the choices during your visualizations. It knows what you want to feel and works behind the scenes to bring that to fruition. When you focus on the feeling your subconscious mind comes in to give you the best guidance to give you that feeling. In ways that feel like the Universe itself is working on your behalf.

It’s interesting how creative visualization is often touted by personal development coaches and packaged in some mysterious “energy work” or “Universal energy” package. The truth is that the creative visualizations we’ve just seen are not dissimilar to old tried and tested psychological techniques used in a similar ways, and with great results. It’s fine if you’d rather claim “the Universe” is responsible for providing your positive results to these techniques. The truth is that your mind is the miracle you seek, and it exponentially greater in its ability than you could ever imagine.

“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”

– Dostoyevsky