Thursday, April 26, 2007

Out of Body Out of Mind. Do You Visualize?


Saturday was a frantic day and I still had to buy my son-in-law’s gift for his surprise 30th birthday party. I had decided that I would purchase a gift card to his favorite restaurant, Lucy’s Asia Bistro. They have a sumptuous sushi bar, if you like sushi. Personally, I wouldn’t call sushi, sumptuous. Meager would be more like it.

Nevertheless, the surprise party was to begin in approximately three hours. This gave me ample time to drive over to Lucy’s and pick up the gift card. Mentally I had prepared a list of “to do’s” (similar to word association only the words are replaced with pictures in my mind). I mentally visualized my arrival at Lucy’s. I saw my car turn left onto the street; I could see the beige color of the building, the oval shaped red and orange sign with a giant letter A on the outside of the building and the party store across the parking lot.

My mental “to do” list was deeply settled into my subconscious while my conscious mind was paying attention to my driving. I left home feeling confident and assured. Neil Diamond’s song, Soolamoin was playing loudly on my CD player and my hands were tapping the steering wheel as I pulled up to the stop light.

Red became green and as I turned left onto the two lane highway the large unmistakable orange logo of Home Depot practically jumped in front of my car. Bewilderment poured over me like melted butter and I felt like I was awakening from a long sleep. “Where am I”? I said to no one there. I kept one eye on the road and in further disbelief I kept my other eye on Home Depot trying to figure out how I got here.

The next 15 seconds crawled as I tried to make sense of where I was…I mean I knew where I was but I was not where I was supposed to be. I had given my subconscious a destination, a plan, a direction and it complied becuase it arrived at Lucy's before my body did. Then, as fast as it had happened, it was over and I realized that I had not reached Lucy’s yet.

What is it about visualization? Visualization is a worthwhile and valuable exercise when practicing how to succeed. Many successful athletes and artistes use visualization with their regular practice. Successful leaders talk about it all the time. When has visualization been successful for you? Write it down,

Carma