In the 1980s and 90s, Denis Waitley implemented what he called “Visual Motor Rehearsal” into the U.S. Olympics program. He and his researchers had found that when an athlete competed in an event only in their mind, the same nervous reaction in the body occurred as when they did their event in real life. This was another proof:

The mind cannot tell the difference between an actual, ‘real-life’ event and a vividly imagined one

In the 80s, when I first heard about Waitley’s work through his tape program, “The Psychology of Winning“, the power of this concept went completely over my head.

I had an experience with this recently that showed me again just how powerful this idea is. I was reading a book, the hero of which had found himself imprisoned in a cave, with no hope of escape–except for a small passage at the back. He commenced to crawling, forcing himself to continue on by way of images of what was happening to the rest of his group, who were outside and at the mercy of the bad guys.

He slithered along, and as the passage narrowed, he found it increasingly difficult to move until, finally, he found himself wedged so tightly that he could only pull himself along by pushing with his toes, and pulling with his fingers. Then he realized that he couldn’t go backward. Uh-oh.

As I was reading, I didn’t notice until that point how much I was getting into the scene in my mind. For some reason, I found myself back in ‘the real world’, and I noticed how much my physiology had changed. My heart rate was way up, my breathing was faster, and I realized that when I was reading, I was quite literally panicking (I’m not fond of tight spaces). I was scared. It took me a few minutes to recover from this little episode.

When I was back to normal, I realized that I finally understood the power of visualization.

This immersion in an imagined experience is one of the things that is essential to using the Law Of Attraction to our benefit. The LOA works not so much by images that we hold in our minds, but by the feelings that those images elicit. The feeling of having it now, the feeling of being or doing. If you’re finding that your conscious creating using the LOA isn’t working so well, this may be a good place to begin to repair your technique.

Another application of this awesome power of your mind is in the area of making changes. A few days ago, I wrote about ways of getting beyond immobilizing fears, and how you visualize past feelings of success and confidence to overcome fears. What if you can’t come up with any of those experiences that are powerful enough?

The answer to that is simple: imagine one. Take some time to get quiet, then begin to make a movie in your mind of what it will feel like when you are displaying the qualities you want to develop. Take confidence, for instance. What would you be thinking if you were totally confident? What would you be seeing, hearing? How would you walk and talk? Would you be animated in your gestures, or moving sloooowly? Would you be displaying excitement or boredom?

It is so important when you are doing this to actually be in the movie. This is where one of my biggest mistakes was, a mistake that wasn’t letting me effectively use this idea. I would make a movie, I would see myself with the qualities I wanted. But I was watching the movie as an outsider, detached from what was going on. I was watching an image of me doing these things. I wasn’t getting the emotional connection of seeing things through my own eyes, touching, smelling, hearing. It was only after my episode with the accidental spelunker in the book that I actually learned this.

[EDIT: The above, by the way, is an effective way of neutralizing disempowering experiences. If you watch yourself from a perspective outside your body, the emotional connection is lessened appreciably. You can use this to detach yourself from intense experiences that may be causing you an excessive amount of pain.]

If you use it correctly, visualization techniques are the most powerful tool in your arsenal to make effective, long-lasting changes. I encourage you to learn more about this awesome tool, and experiment yourself so you can determine what works best for you.