The most useful positive emotions are gratitude, compassion and laughter. Forgiveness, though not an emotion, is one of the most important factors in healing many chronic issues.

The most difficult negative emotions are feeling sorry for yourself, resentment,repressed anger, and fear. Repressing emotions is worse than having negative emotions. If you are having a negative emotion, feel it and let it go. Do not give any importance to it. Frequently practicing gratitude, forgiveness, or compassion quickly dispels negative emotions.

Learning to Visualize

If you find that you cannot clearly see images, there are a few techniques to practice that improve your ability. One is to look at simple a shape, such as a circle or triangle, that is in a bold colour. Look at the picture for a while, then close your eyes and maintain the image in your mind’s eye as long as you can. Practice imagining the face of a loved one, or an object you know well, such as your car or favorite cup.

Everyone has a sensory system that they are most comfortable with. For some people it is sight, for some it is hearing, and for others it is sensation. Often if you start your imagination exercise with the sense that you are most comfortable and then move into the visual, it is easier to “see” than if you go straight for the visual. For instance, say your most comfortable is hearing, then feeling, then seeing. You would imagine you are walking on a beach, for example, and the first thing you would notice is the sound of the waves. Then you might imagine the feel of the salt breeze on your cheek, or the sand under your feet. Then you can look at the sand and the waves.

With regular, daily practice, you will soon develop the ability to clearly visualize images.

The Steps of Self-Healing Visualizations

Not every step is used every time you do a visualization. Generally most of them are used and they are done in the following order

Intention: Before you start, be very clear about what you want to accomplish. It helps to actually say a sentence to yourself, such as, ” I am doing this visualization to let go of this headache.”

Relaxation: Relaxation itself is very healing for the body. It also helps you get into a state that is conducive to visualizing., and communicating with the unconscious mind and the body’s unconscious processes. The more often you practice relaxation, the faster and more deeply you will be able to relax.

Cleansing: Many health issues involve some level of toxicity or old, stale, stagnant energy. The cleansing part of the visualization helps to get rid of toxins and old, stale energy. When cleansing is necessary, it is best done at the beginning, to make room for fresh, new, healthy energy.

Flow: Everything is constantly flowing, changing, transforming. There is a statement in Chinese Medicine: When energy flows, there is no pain. Where there is pain, energy is not flowing. Most health issues involve a loss of flow. When we resist change emotionally, it often shows up in our bodies, creating stgnant energy. Physical trauma and diseases can also impede the flow of energy. Imagining flow helps the body to become fluid again. Also, learning to go with the flow, in life, helps.

Nurturing/Re-energizing: The last step of the visualization process is bringing fresh energy into the body. Particularly when we are weak or low in energy, we need to nurture and re-energize ourselves. It is important, as part of the last step, to see ourselves as completely healthy. The unconscious mind responds to the images we give it. If we give it an image of health, that is what it will create.

Your inner healing sanctuary

Going back to the same place, again and again, for healing, will increase its effectiveness. It is similar to Pavlov’s dogs getting used to a bell ringing at meal time. It should be a place you can easily reacll in detail, and it should be a place where you feel very comfortable and safe.

Useful outdoor parts of your inner sanctuary are a stream of clear, refreshing water and a place to lie down in the sunshine. The water is useful for cleansing and calming. The sunshine is useful for re-energizing and nurturing. You may also want an indoor sanctuary, with a spa and perhaps a massage table. Add anything to your sanctuary that helps you relax and feel nurtured.

The Chinese Five Element System

The Chinese Five Element system organizes all of the organs, tissues, sense organs, and emotions, into five groups. Using the five elements is very helpful in discovering a pattern to our dis-ease. Often people go to their doctor, with multiple issues that they feel are related. The doctor says they are not related, but if you look at them through the lens of the five element system, you find that the patient’s intuition was correct; there is a pattern to all of their complaints. When we see the pattern we can treat the core of the problem, and not just the various symptoms. Each element is associated with a colour, which can be used in visualizations

Wood: Liver, Gall Bladder, tendons and ligaments, eyes, anger and its relatives, lack of flow in any area of the body/mind. Green.

Fire: Heart, Small Intestine, blood vessels, tongue, joy, excitability. Red.

Earth: Spleen, Pancreas, Stomach, muscles, mouth, worry, over-thinking. Yellow.

Metal: Lungs, Large Intestine, skin, nose, sadness. White.

Water: Kidneys, Bladder, Bones, ears, fear. Deep Blue.

Inner Smile Meditation

There are various methods of doing the Inner Smile meditation. At it’s simplest, you smile into the various parts of your body. When you smile into the organs or tissues of the body, you can also imagine light, of the appropriate five element colour, flowing into that area.

Golden Hands

Standing in a meadow on a clear sunny day, see yourself stretching up  to the bright golden sun. See your arms becoming very long, stretching your palms up to the sun. The sun’s rays enter your palms and circulate through your hands, then out your finger tips. On your dominant hand, at the end of each ray, coming out of your fingers, see a small golden hand. On your other hand, at the end of each ray coming out of your fingers, see a small eye.

Turn your hands toward your body and using the eyes, look for the areas that need healing. As you go inside your body, the eyes emit light so you can see what you are doing. Each of the small hands can use different instruments for the healing work, such as a golden bristled brush, a laser pen, golden scalpels, blue gold healing salve, and golden thread for suturing. When you finish, gather up all of the waste and as your hands leave your body, throw the waste behind you. Then stretch your hands up to the sun one more time, and let the small hands and eyes retract back into your palms.

Resources

Healing Visualizations: Creating Health Through Imagery, by Gerald Epstein

Creative Visualization, by Shakti Gawain