If you’re suffering from anxiety, you know well how it can severely impact your sense of self and security. Fears and worries hinder us from becoming the self that we want to be. But there is a way to take those anxieties and turn them into positive thoughts and concrete plans. If you learn how to visualize the future, you can live in your zone of genius to your fullest expression.
In the fourth episode of Returning Home, Elise guides you through a visualization practice that you can use to ease your anxieties and reconnect with feelings of hope. Through this, you’ll be able to meet with your future self and establish your goals. With this episode, Elise Kindya helps you regain faith in yourself, your capabilities, and your impact on the world.
If you want to learn more about how to visualize, this episode is for you!
Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:
- Learn how to visualize and the various resources that you can add to your healing toolkit.
- Connect with your future self.
- Rediscover your goals and capabilities.
Resources
- Slow Down To Speed Up: Visualization Masterclass
- Sign up for Elise’s Newsletter and receive a FREE PDF to start your self-compassion journey!
- Connect with Elise on Instagram: @elisekindya
Episode Highlights
[01:17] How to Visualize an Outcome
Learning how to visualize helps improve the outcomes we get in our lives.
- If you want new results, you have to take a new way to get there and be excited about the future rather than worrying.
Our minds are powerful; visualization helps us harness that power to our advantage. Lastly, visualization will ease anxieties, become more excited and hopeful, and have faith in yourself that things will work out for you.
[02:32] Some Reminders
- This episode is one of many that contains an actual practice to receive direct guidance.
Do not drive or operate heavy machinery while participating in this visualization. It’s best to perform visualization techniques while relaxed, so refrain from doing or planning anything else.
[03:18] How Visualization Works
Visualization helps you become familiar with your feelings as you take aligned action.
- Your brain cannot tell the difference between doing something in reality or imagining it; thus, thinking about something puts you through that experience.
- We can experience anxiety when thinking about things that may or may not happen, but we can also use our imagination to feel excitement and satisfaction.
[04:06] How to Visualize
- Set aside an appropriate amount of time.
You’ll perform a body scan to relax you before you lie down and begin the visualization.
- Being relaxed allows you to tap into the brain waves that will help you benefit from this practice and absorb whatever you’re going to absorb.
- Prepare a journal and a writing utensil for reflection at the end of the practice.
Journaling helps ground ourselves after doing something intangible, such as meditative sessions like visualization. Think about an intention or goal that you want to visualize yourself achieving.
[06:06] Starting the Visualization
- Make yourself comfortable in a position, whether lying down or sitting up, that will hold you throughout the entire practice.
- Release any “shoulds” for now. During this exercise, you’ll receive anything you’re meant to receive.
There’s no right or wrong way to do this practice; the path of learning how to visualize is individual to each person.
- Open yourself up to learn and absorb anything that’s meant for you.
- Call on any of your spirit guides, feel that you’re divinely guided, protected, and loved.
[07:11] The 5-3-7 Breathing Practice
- Breathe in and out. You may close your eyes at this time.
- Breathe in for five seconds, filling your belly with air.
- Hold at the top for three seconds, then breathe out for seven seconds. Imagine feeling your belly button touch your spine.
- Repeat this breathing practice five times in a row.
[08:57] Body Scan
- Imagine a brilliant, bright, healing light forming above your head.
- Then, imagine this light reaching your toes and absorbing any tension in your body. Feel your anxieties releasing through your breath or melting into the earth.
- The light enters your toes, working its way up your feet towards your head.
- Allow your body to become heavy, feeling its weight supported by the surface you’re on and every last tension dissipating.
- As you’re ready, return your breathing to a regular rate; no need to strain.
[12:04] Visualizing Your Intentions
- Once fully relaxed, think clearly about the intention that you set.
- Find the words for it in your mind’s eye, imagining the words appearing before you.
- Create a clear intention. Then, get in touch with your future self or the version of you that has already achieved this goal.
Get in touch with the emotions of your future self, visualizing the words and feeling the bodily sensations.
[13:59] Conversing with Your Future Self
- See yourself face-to-face with your future self and speak to them.
- Ask them what steps you need to take to become them in the future, and listen intently to what your future self has to say.
- Focus on the three steps that your future self tells you to do to become them.
- Think about the first thing you need to become that future version of yourself by thinking about the words for it.
[15:02] The First Step
When you’ve completed the visualization of your future self, ask: what’s the first step you need to take to become your best future self?
- Create a step one with the words you thought about in your journal. See them in your mind’s eye.
- Once you’re clear about the first step, find out the actions you need to take by understanding the sensations of the experience.
- Walk into your mind’s eye and see yourself achieving the first step.
When you’ve seen yourself achieve it, notice how your mind and body are feeling.
[16:42] The Second Step
- Once you’ve seen yourself achieve the first step, get in touch with your future self again. What is the second step?
- See the words in your mind’s eye and imagine yourself writing them down in your journal.
- Walk yourself mentally through the motions of the second step, getting clear on the sensations and feelings of the experience.
- What do you feel as you achieve the second step?
- Get clear on the feeling words and bodily sensations, tracing these feelings to the area on your body where you feel them.
[18:52] The Third Step
- Connect with your future self a third time. What is the third step?
- Walk yourself through the third step, finding the words and writing them down.
- Then, bring yourself through the motions, feelings, and sensations that come with the experience.
- What are your feelings after achieving the third step?
[20:55] Being Grateful
- After achieving the steps and talking to your future self, rest in gratitude.
- Know that you have the answers in you.
- Who you are today is a result of your past actions to bring you to this very moment.
By learning how to visualize, understand this: who you become in the future starts today.
[22:06] Finding Resources
- You have the potential and capability.
Elise: “… you have all of the potential, all of the capability and if it feels that there’s something missing, that you need a resource or some help, know that you have that knowledge now and you can take the steps to gaining that resource gaining that knowledge.”
- If you feel something is missing, understand that you now have that knowledge, or that you’re capable of gaining that resource.
- When thinking about goals, it’s also vital to think about the resources you have.
- Who’s present in your life that you can ask for help? What can you ask them for help, and what can they offer? What sort of experiences do you need to achieve your goals?
[23:44] How Does Your Goal Impact Others?
- It’s not selfish to want to live your best self because it means other people can also live to their fullest expression.
- People each have their own zone of genius.
Elise: “You have your zone of genius; they have their zone of genius. You can ask them for help in a way that helps them stay in their zone of genius while you stay in your zone of genius.”
Imagine how achieving your future goal impacts the people in your life.
- See your body, mind, and soul being a cause for good. Notice all the benefits that your best self has in the world.
[26:13] Merging with Yourself
- Achieving your goal isn’t just for you but also for the people around you.
Elise: “Your ripple effect is felt in your orb, in your world, in your circle of influence. And it matters.”
If there are other steps you need to take to achieve your goal, take some time after the visualization to write them down and plan out how to achieve them.
- Rest in gratitude, picturing your future self and meeting them in an embrace.
- Feel these two versions of yourself merging, bringing your future self into your current self, and notice the feelings and absorb them.
[28:12] Ending the Visualization
- As you’re ready, bring yourself back with small movements in your fingers and toes.
- You may also roll your wrists and ankles or stretch your body.
- In your own time, come back fully alert and awake, deepening your breaths. If your eyes are closed, blink them open.
Grab your journal and write down everything you visualized.
Enjoyed this Episode on How to Visualize?
If you enjoyed this podcast, please make sure to subscribe and share it!
Leave an episode review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in to this episode, don’t forget to leave us a review. You can also share what you’ve learned today with your friends to help them embody their true, authentic selves. Anything is possible when you return home to yourself.
Have any questions or lightbulb moments? I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to hit me up on Instagram or send an email at elise@elisekindya.com.
Thank you so much for listening! For more episode updates, visit my website.
Transcript On How to Visualize
Elise Kindya: We can also use our imagination to feel excitement, satisfaction, and even contentment about something that we desire to happen in the future. Welcome to Returning Home: the Podcast. My name is Elise Kindya, and I am a trauma informed and intuitive therapist. This podcast is a space that I have created for you to discover a deeper understanding and love for yourself, which leads to expanding what you think is possible in your own life.
My goal is for you to feel excited to live your life as your full, authentic self. By listening to these episodes, you will learn things like how your brain works, my favorite resources for healing, stories from my own life, practices that you can press play on to add to your healing toolkit, and so much more. I invite you to return home to yourself in big and small ways to live the life you desire on your terms. You can live connected, empowered and aligned when you return home to yourself anything is possible. I can’t wait to share all of my insights with you. Now let’s begin.
If you suffer from anxiety, you’re going to want to listen to this episode. Today’s episode is all about visualization and how we can use it to improve the outcomes that we get in our lives. If you want a new result, you have to take a new way to get there, right. So instead of worrying and having anxiety about the future, you can get excited about the future by using this practice.
We have an incredible power in our mind — visualization is something that helps us harness that power for good and for our benefit. So I hope that this practice helps you to ease the anxiety that you feel and get in touch with more excited feelings, with more hopeful feelings, with contentment and peace, as well as have faith in yourself that you can achieve the goals that you want, and that things can work out for you. I also hope that you’ll stay tuned for the end of the episode when I go into how to do this work in a more deep fashion as well as how to work with me in the future next year in 2022. So thank you so much for tuning in. And I hope that you get a lot out of it.
Hello, and welcome to episode four of Returning Home: the Podcast. I’m really excited to bring you this episode. This episode is all about visualization, and it will contain a actual practice where you can press play and receive direct guidance from me. And this will be the first episode in many that will have actual practices with guidance from me. So I hope that you will add this practice to your healing toolkit and that it can serve you many times over.
While you participate in this visualization today, please do not operate any heavy machinery such as driving a car. This practice is to be done while you are in a relaxed state, so don’t listen to this if you’re doing anything else. This practice today visualization is something that will help you become familiar with the feelings that you want to feel when you’re taking aligned action in your life.
Our brain does not know the difference between doing something in 3D reality and only imagining it. So when we are thinking about something, we are literally putting ourselves through that experience. And so the same way that we can experience anxiety when we use our imagination — you know, thinking about things in the future that may or may not happen that we are worried about or nervous about — we can also use our imagination to feel excitement, satisfaction, and even contentment about something that we desire to happen in the future. So to participate in this visualization today, you are going to need some time, please set aside an appropriate amount of time to participate in this practice fully. I’m going to be walking you through a body scan and getting you really relaxed to then jump into the visualization.
Or I should say lay into the visualization. I’m going to get you all the way relaxed so that you can tap into some of those brainwaves, maybe even the theta brainwave state that will help you to really put this into practice in your life and to absorb what it is that you’re going to absorb through participating today.
You are also going to need a journal and a writing utensil for reflection at the end of this practice. I really find and if you listen to my last episode when I talked about my favorite resources and how I really believe that journaling is something that can help us really ground ourselves after doing something that is kind of intangible. Or like today this will be more of a meditative practice, a very, it’ll be bringing our mind and body into an alliance. But it’s, you know, it’s kind of mental, you’ll be listening to my voice. So having a journal at the end so that you can really put down on paper, what it is that you experienced will help you take the next steps in your life.
And of course, when you are doing a visualization practice and going through my process, you will need an intention or a goal that you want to visualize yourself achieving. Because like I said earlier, the brain does not know the difference between imagining something and actually doing something. So we’re going to walk you through actually achieving a goal that you want to achieve. You’re going to want to have a pretty clear intention for doing this visualization today. With all of that being said, I’m going to get started here.
So first, make yourself comfortable. You can be sitting up or laying down. Ensure that you are in a position that will hold you throughout the duration of this practice. You don’t want to be moving around or laying down sitting up laying down just choose one position. Please release any “shoulds” just for this moment. You will receive what you are meant to receive in this moment. There is no right or wrong way to do this practice.
Open yourself up to learn and absorb anything that is meant for you. Call on any of your spirit guides to be here and fully support your intention today. Feel that you are divinely guided, protected and loved in this moment. Feel the support from Mother Earth below you and around you. Breathe in and out. If it feels comfortable for you, you may close your eyes at this time. I will introduce you to a breathing practice called five-three-seven. So please breathe in for five seconds, filling your belly with air. Hold at the top for three seconds. And breathe out for seven seconds. feeling as if your belly button is touching your spine. And we will do this breathing practice five times in a row.
So again, breathing in for five seconds, holding at the top for three seconds and breathing out for seven seconds, feeling your bellybutton touching your spine. Continue this breathing pattern three more times. Imagine a brilliant, bright and healing light forming above your head. We will do a body scan in which you will imagine this light absorbing any tension and letting it melt away. You can imagine any tension being released through your breath or melting into the earth as well.
So as we are ready, you can return your breathing to a regular rate. No need to strain or try at this time. imagining this brilliant, bright and healing light forming above you. And imagine this light reaching your toes. This light enters your toes and absorbs any of that tension you might feel and letting it melt away.
And imagine this light traveling up your feet into your ankles, shins, calves, knees, thighs, absorbing any tension and letting it melt away the light continues to travel to your pelvis, your glutes, lower back, lower belly, your chest, your back all of the organs inside of your chest into your bones letting any tension melt away or being blown out through your breath.
The light continues to travel to your shoulders, your arms, your hands, fingers into your heart, your neck and throat. The back of your head. The front of your head, your face, eyes, your tongue, letting your tongue be heavy in your head. And this light absorbs all of the tension from your whole body, through the top of your head, and dissipates. Allow your body to become heavy. Feel the full weight of your body supported by the surface that you are on. Feel any last tension melt away into Mother Earth.
Now that you are fully relaxed, bring to mind the intention you set before we started this practice. What do you want to envision yourself doing or achieving in these next minutes? Clearly bring this intention or goal to mind now. Find the words for it in your mind’s eye. Imagine the words appearing before you. Now that you have a clear idea of this intention, get in touch with your future self: the version of you who has already achieved this goal. See yourself in the future.
Having achieved this goal, what are the feelings that you’re experiencing as this future version of yourself? Get in touch with those emotions. Find the words for them. See if you can see those words appearing in your mind’s eye. How are they spelled? See if you can also feel those emotions in your body as bodily sensations. What part of your body is experiencing this emotion? And what does that sensation feel like? What are the words you would use to describe what it is that you’re experiencing as you see yourself achieve this goal?
So now see yourself face to face with your future self. And have a conversation with them. Ask your future self. What steps do I need to take starting today to become you in the future. And listen to what your future self has to say. We are going to focus on the first one to three steps that your future self says you need to do starting today to become them in the future. So think about that first thing that you need to do to become that future version of yourself. What is it? What is that step? Find those words for yourself.
When you’re done with visualization today, you might want to open your journal and write a number one with these words next to it. When you are clear on what step one is, get clear on what you need to do going through the actions and the motions to achieve that step. Getting clear on the sights, the sounds, smells, feelings, and even tastes of this experience. What will it feel like to do it? Walk your body in your mind’s eye. See yourself achieving step one. When you’ve seen yourself achieve it. Notice how your body feels in this moment, how your mind feels in this moment. Do you feel accomplished? Do you feel grateful? Do you feel content?
Did it feel easy or hard to do that first step? Once you’ve seen yourself, achieved the first step towards achieving your goal in the future. See if you can get in touch with what your future self said was the second step. See those words form in your mind’s eye? How are they spelled? How do they look? Imagine yourself opening your journal at the end of this practice and writing a number two with these words next to it and now walk yourself mentally through going through the motions of step number two.
Get clear on the sights, sounds, smells, feelings, emotional and physical feelings as well as tastes of this experience. Feel your whole being going through the motions of step number two. Notice that your body, mind, and soul are experiencing this step.
What feelings do you feel as you achieve step number two? Get clear on those words — the feeling words — as well as the bodily sensations associated with those feelings. Trace these feelings to the place in your body that you feel them. What are the sensations?
Bring yourself now to step three. What did your future self say was the third step that you need to take to achieve the goal that they have achieved in the future? Walk yourself through the steps to achieve goal number three, finding the words for what that goal is seeing yourself writing a three in your journal with these words next to the number three.
And then going through the motions of carrying out step number three. Getting clear on what you see, what you smell, what you hear, what you feel emotionally and physically and even tastes of this experience. Feel your whole being achieving step number three. Notice how your body, mind and soul are experiencing this. How does it feel to achieve step number three? Get in touch with those feelings, clearly seeing those words in your mind’s eye, as well as feeling it in your body.
Now that you have seen yourself, achieving steps one through three, as well as talking to your future self, just rest in gratitude for this moment. Know that you have the answers within you. Notice that who you are today is a result of all of the actions you took in your past, to get you to this moment in time. And know that who you become in the future starts today — that anything that you do between now and any point in the future will lead you on a path to that result.
That you have all of the potential, all of the capability, and if it feels that there’s something missing, that you need a resource, or some help, know that you have that knowledge now, and you can take the steps to gaining that resource — gaining that knowledge. When we think about goals, it’s important to think about the resources we do have. So think about who is present in your life now. Who can you ask for help? What kinds of experiences do you need to have to achieve your future goal? Think about what’s already present in your life. And think about what you might need to call in.
See those words forming in your mind’s eye? Who are the people you can ask for help? What can you ask them for help with? What do they offer that you need to achieve your goal? How can building community be part of you achieving your goal?
It is not selfish to want to live into your best self. Because you living your fullest expression means that other people can also live their fullest expression. You have your zone of genius. They have their zone of genius. You can ask them for help in a way that helps them stay in their zone of genius while you stay in your zone of genius.
It’s part of an ecosystem. Imagine how you achieving this future goal will help the people in your life — personally, your family, friends, as well as professionally. Maybe this is a hobby you have. How does you achieving this goal and expressing yourself to your fullest extent ripple out in the world? It benefits you and it benefits others see your body, mind, and soul being of cause for good in the world. Notice all the benefits that you living as your best self and achieving this goal has in the world around you.
See if you can see those words forming in your mind’s eye. And see if you can feel the feelings in your body that this benefit of you living your best self brings to the world. Get clear on that language. Yes — you achieving this goal is for you. And it’s not just for you. It’s for everyone who you interact with.
Your ripple effect is felt in your orb in your world in your circle of influence. And it matters. If you have other steps that you need to take to achieve your goal, take the time after our visualization today to write them down. You could even make a plan for achieving them. And for now, rest in the gratitude of this moment. Picture your future self again the you who has already achieved this goal. Perhaps your current self and your future self meet each other for an embrace.
And just notice the feeling of these two versions of yourself merging. Bring that future self into your current self. Notice any feelings that this brings up, and rest in those feelings. Absorb them. Allow them to sink in and become a part of you.
As you are ready, bring yourself back by taking small movements in your fingers and toes. Perhaps rolling your wrists and ankles, maybe you take a big body stretch with arms overhead and reaching your feet towards the opposite side.
In your own time, coming back, fully alert and awake. Deepening your breaths. If your eyes were closed, you can blink them open, and I highly recommend grabbing your journal and a writing utensil and writing down everything you imagined and visualized in this practice today.
If you would like more of this type of practice, I highly recommend that you check out my online course. It’s called Slow Down to Speed Up: Visualization Masterclass. It’s not actually a masterclass. I named it before I really understood what that meant. But it is a self led online course that is six modules. And it will walk you through creating and designing your own visualization practice using my process.
What I just led you through is something that I have a six module online course doing. And I have dropped the price as of November 2021. I’ve dropped the price to be $99.98. So I would love for you to be inspired by what you just went through. And check the course out. It goes six times deeper than this course, or this podcast episode. And, yeah, it’s designed to dramatically inspire you to take action in your life, and to get results. People who have participated in this course have used it to envision buying a house, starting a business, reaching a health goal, and more. You can use Slow Down to Speed Up to achieve any goal or path that you want to walk down.
So if this podcast episode was something that was really helpful for you or intrigued you, I do recommend that you check out that course today, there should be a link to it down in the show notes. Like I said, it goes about six times deeper than this episode — it is six modules. It has recordings. So the way that you just were led through that kind of a meditation, there are six recordings like that. There are videos as well as PDFs of workbooks. With each module, there’s a workbook that I’ve designed to help you, like I said about journaling, right, take concrete action in your life, writing it down, getting a plan clear. And that’s something that this course will help you do.
And if you are also interested in doing more of these types of visualizations with me, definitely stay tuned for upcoming drop-in community sessions that I’ll be facilitating. So starting in January of 2022, I’ll be talking more about this on my Instagram as well as in my newsletter. So definitely make sure to follow me on Instagram, and sign up for my newsletter. Each of these community drop-in sessions are going to be geared towards a specific topic, such as visualization, meditation, energy, healing, mental health, embodiment practices, mirror work, and so much more. Just all the stuff that I’m into.
I’m really excited to facilitate these sessions. And if you received anything out of listening to this podcast episode, I would so much love and appreciate you rating my podcast, or even writing a review. These types of actions go so far in helping a project like this succeed. And I deeply appreciate you for taking the time to listen and to interact with my podcast. Thank you so much. And I really look forward to connecting with you again. Like I said, please follow me on social media @elisekindya and interact with me there. That’s a place I love to hang out. As well as signing up for my newsletter. I do send out special things in my newsletter that I don’t always post on social media.
So if you’re interested in that, please go ahead and subscribe there as well. And thank you so much. I hope you got something out of this today. And happy visualizing!
