LAURA MORRISSEY COUNSELLING·SATURDAY, 22 DECEMBER 20181 read
This time of year often calls upon us to reflect on the past year and think about the year ahead. It can be a time of happy memories or of sadness or a combination of the two. It can be poignant on so many levels.
Dreaming about how you want the next year to shape up is a vital tool for making it happen. It is true that we have very little control about so many things, life and death are part of the human condition. We cannot make people love us again but we can have some control over things that are within our reach.
It is true that what we visualise is very likely to happen. We imagine disaster or failure and manage to make it come true. The opposite is true also and this is the amazing part of our brains and how we choose to use them. We can spend hours ruminating over disasters that may never occur or past events that we cannot alter, so why not spend more time on shaping our dreams and making them a reality?
Athletes use visualisation in order to ensure they succeed, they imagine the training session, the race or the game going well and them winning. They realise that to imagine failure will result in failure:
“When athletes visualize or imagine a successful competition, they actually stimulate the same brain regions as you do when you physically perform that same action. Visualization in sports or mental imagery is a way of conditioning () your brain for successful outcomes.” ( www.peaksports.com/sports-psychology-blog/sports-visualization-athletes/)
I know that we can make (some) dreams our reality. A tool for helping us is that of the ‘Vision Board’. This is a visual board that encapsulates what we want from the year ahead. It is a visual reminder of our hopes and dreams. They can take any form that suits you as an individual. It can be completed on the computer, laptop or phone or images can be pinned to an actual board or printed off so that it that hangs on your wall, somewhere that you can see on a daily basis.
It can be made up of just images or images & words. It can have inspirational quotes…whatever works for you! The process starts by collecting images in the first instance, images that appeal to you. Cut them out from magazines, take them from the computer…write down phrases that speak to you, collect motivational quotes.
Next blog: I shall offer some hints about how to create your board or if you feel like it, create it now! The beauty is that it is yours, individual to you and cannot therefore be wrong. Have fun, dream big, imagine the what ifs….
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
