Meditative techniques I use (part 1: positive visualisation)

A little while back I said I was going to perform an experiment. The experiment was rather unremarkably named “Social confidence gaining practice”. I said in the post I'd do half an hour of medative visualisation everyday day for a week, and in it I would visualise myself doing well in social situations. Here’s an excerpt of that article:

"...It's very simple. For half an hour each day, I am going to lay down on my bed and imagine social situations that are likely, or that have already happened with me, and run through them like I were in the situation. However, of course I'm going to run through them, like I were a cool charming sociable person..."









Of course also I said I’d get back and post about if I gained any positive results or not. Well, welly well well well, I did :D. Even though I believe I skipped the practice on a couple of days, after the week I seemed to be more at ease whilst socialising. It’s important to note that the placebo effect may have played a part in this, but I honestly think not that much.

Quite recently I realised that what I'd been doing was a well-known form of meditation called Positive visualisation. I later decided to pinpoint the usual forms of meditative thinking I engage in, that I've sort of accumulated over the last year. 6 types came up, and ever since I made this kind of 'breakthrough', I’ve been able to make ever increasingly good use of those, now chartered, forms of meditation. This is mostly because now I know which precise one is best to use in whatever disposition I may find myself, where meditation would be helpful.

What is meditation...

To meditate is to focus your thoughts in a certain way. When meditating it is best to cut out distractions around you if you can - so by laying down or sitting on a comfortable spot, and closing your eyes in a quiet place, this will help your practice. There are ways of simply ignoring noises around you, but this is harder than simply being in a place of little distraction.

It has been scientifically discovered that some monks have slightly changed physical brain shapes due to the meditation they undertake (that's quite a big testament right there). Meditation, the way I see it, is simply a way of using the mind very effectively by being especially focused. You can change your current emotional state with meditation, you can figure out things you wouldn’t normally, and you can change yourself and your mind with meditation for the long-term.

In this post, I’m starting with the one I attempted to gain social confidence...

Positive visualisation

As I exclaimed earlier, this is a greatly well-known form of meditation, and you'll find that a lot of top athletes use it to help them at their sport. To sum it up, it is imagining yourself doing well at something (like I had been with socialising). I believe the more vivid you imagine yourself doing well at that something, the more the process will make positive changes in your mind. Positive visualisation helps supply your mind with a strong and clear picture of what you want to acomplish. It creates and strengthens pathways in your brain that will be used when it’s time to execute the task.

My preferred method...

I have my own preference when it comes to the exact method used, but use whichever way you find suits you best (because we're all different). I like to imagine myself in third person perspective, ergo I’m kind of looking at myself from outside of my body. I then imagine that the me I’m seeing has the ability to do well at the chosen task. Following that, I simulate the version of myself I’m watching, accomplishing the task proficiently. Afterwards I step into that version of me, and imagine myself inheriting the new ability, and subsequently acting out the task successfully in first person perspective. I may decide to run through several times, the whole of this meditative process or simply just the first person perspective part.

Maybe physically act out some of it...

I sometimes to an extent, physically act out the task. Whilst visualising about badminton (for instance), I might sometimes move my arm as if I were swinging the racquet; I might even be grinning because that’s part of what I would imagine myself doing whilst playing well.

Feel good...

When visualising, perhaps try to feel a sample of the good feelings you'd get if you were actually acomplishing the chosen task in reality. This may help reinforce the positive changes in your mind, but also, exercising this will help to make the visualisation task more enjoyable - meaning most likely, you’ll probably want to keep it up, because it won’t be like a chore.

Try to be in a tranquil place...

As I’ve said near the beginning of the blog-post, it’s a good idea whilst meditating to be sat or laid down with little noise in the background. White noise is also fine, such as a refrigerator humming. In actual fact, if there’re random noises going on in the background (like people talking, the television downstairs, etc) you can use white noise to drown some of that distracting sound out.

When to use this meditative technique...

If you have an event coming up, for instance, a presentation in front of your class at university, set aside some time in the days running up, to positively visualise making a successful presentation. You may spend 20 minutes after lunch each day for a few days, before you go to bed, or whenever you feel is best. Another time undergo some positive visualisation is when you want to improve your performance at something that regularly occurs in your life, for example, talking to customers at the place you work - so then you may want to think about doing this form of meditation a few times a week (for at least 5 minutes apiece). Think about something in your life that you’d really want to be better at, then use this practice to help you.