Can you overcome your conditioning just by imagining yourself in a new, desired state?
Say you see the world in a certain way but it’s not serving you. Is it possible to start changing how you look at the world?
What about how you look at yourself?
Can you start to embody a different version of yourself?
For example, if you always believed you sucked at business or couldn’t make money, can you shift your self-image to the version of you that is successful with money and succeeding in your business?
Lately, I’ve been putting into practice what I like to call positive embodiment.
Positive embodiment is the practice of imagining yourself as the version of yourself that you’d like to be. The version of you that is free of the limiting beliefs you currently believe you have.
Notice the wording there…
The limiting beliefs that you currently believe you have.
You’re likely familiar with the quote:
“The only limitations we face are the limitations we place on ourselves”
Well, it’s true.
We hold on to certain thoughts and emotions about ourselves because we’re conditioned to do that.
Even if they aren’t serving us or preventing us from moving in a new direction in our lives.
The difference is, we are doing this unconsciously.
We are not intervening in any way.
We’re letting the ship steer the captain and not the other way around.
So if there are limiting beliefs and conditioning controlling us, is it possible to consciously shift our beliefs?
Is it possible to start taking control of our unconscious behavior and start seeing life – and ourselves – in a new and positive way?
In this post, I want to share a powerful technique that I’ve found to start shifting my psychology around, weakening long-standing limiting beliefs, and moving more into my ideal state of being, thinking, and feeling on a daily basis.
There are 3 things you’ll need to be able to practice this: awareness, will, and imagination.
Awareness
First, you must have enough awareness to notice when you are unconscious. That is, when are you acting on autopilot?
If we can notice when we are unconscious, then that is our awareness coming in.
For many of us, we might be quite aware that we are operating from old conditioning but it will be difficult to fully separate ourselves from this unconsciousness.
This practice will help with that.
Will
Next, you must have the will to practice this exercise.
You must have the desire to change your life.
It is the will to change that will bring you to this practice over and over again, and with enough repetition, we can shift our mentality and psychology around.
Imagination
And finally, equally if not more important than will, is imagination.
You have to be able to imagine yourself experiencing your ideal state in real-time.This is very similar to visualization except in this practice, we are more interested in feeling the shift rather than seeing any particular event unfolding in our minds.
Why is feeling so important?
Well, for any true change to take effect, there has to be unity between the head and heart.
The mind has to imagine it and the heart has to get on board!
You must feel the full truth of what you imagine in your heart and body.
This can’t be just a mental exercise.
When you’re able to imagine yourself as a different version of yourself and can feel the full resonance of that in your heart and body, you are on the path to real change!
So what does this look like in practice?
When you have enough conscious awareness to notice when you are unconscious and acting out of past conditioning,
have the will to set aside moments throughout the day to practice this exercise,
and know what you desire, and are able to imagine yourself in this ideal state,
then you have everything you need so start shifting your psychology and changing your reality.
Life will be your greatest teacher, so pay attention to circumstances and events that trigger your desire in everyday life.
What transpired that you wished would have gone differently?
Pinpoint a desire in your life and start there.
Close your eyes (or keep them open) and imagine how you would be if you were already the version of yourself that lived the life of that desired experience.
Imagine yourself already living that life and, most importantly, give awareness to the body.
Open your awareness to the emotional level.
The more you’re able to feel this in the body, the more powerful this will be.
You’ll know you are succeeding with this when you feel a shift in your emotions.
You’ll also experience a shift in your physiology: your body will shift and you’ll feel your body move.
Maybe your tension will let go and your spine will straighten.
You’ll feel different.
Hold onto that feeling.
Don’t force it but allow yourself to sit in it for as long as possible.
Do this for as long as you want.
You may ‘rehearse’ the feeling a few times or you might try rehearsing other versions of yourself that you desire to experience.
The practice is the same:
- Think about a scenario that you desire to experience in your life.
- Imagine what it would be like to already live with that experience.
- Feel how that feels in your body.
- Rest in that feeling.
If you practice this, you will start to notice subtle shifts in your energy when you’re out interacting with the world.
Remember, that you are in control of how you choose to feel.
Use life as your teacher and notice where you still experience discomfort.
Life is your training ground and positive embodiment is your practice.
This, for me, has been the most potent form of visualization and reality shifting that I’ve found.
Being able to imagine oneself in an ideal state and to feel that in the body is a powerful way of teaching and training our psychology to experience new states of being.
Over time, we start to condition ourselves to these new chemical experiences and the old ways and patterns begin to lose shape.
With practice, I truly believe we can create remarkable changes in our worlds.
Please let me know your thoughts and experience with this or similar practices.
If this post resonated with you or gave you any new insights and you think this could be helpful to anyone else, please share it.
Thanks for reading,
Dave
