Positive Imagery
Postitive Imagery is a practice of closing your eyes, taking several slow, deep, intentional breaths and using all of your five senses to visualize, feel, taste, touch and hear a positive desire, outcome, goal or environment.
If you want to relax, learning how to use positive imagery to imagine yourself on the sand of a beautiful, safe, sandy beach, or on the top of a beautiful mountain, or sitting by the side of a river, or anywhere you would like to be, can be very soothing for your mind and nervous system.
One of the major benefits of positive imagery is that your subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between reality and what you are imagining. When you enhance that with all of your senses, your body feels the same as it would if you were actually in a beautiful environment, or having achieved the goals you are seeking.
Of course, the same is true when you imagine scary outcomes and threats to your safety, environment and future. Your subconscious believes that to be true as well! Learning how to catch yourself when you start to go down a negative or scary rabbit hole and substitute some positive thoughts, is a major step of profound self care. A regular practice of Positive Imagery has been proven to significantly reduce stress and anxiety, and increase joy and productivity.
Studies
Imagery has been used in athletics for over 25 years. Here is one of the first compelling studies demonstrating how visualizing a goal can improve your performance:
The Landmark Basketball Study In 1996, University of Chicago conducted one of the pioneering tests of mental imagery. Researcher Dr. Blaslotto segregated his sample participants into 3 groups and tested them on how many free throws they could convert. After this initial measure…
- The first group physically practiced for an hour each day.
- The second group practiced visual imagery
- The third group did neither
After 30 days, Dr. Blaslotto noted the improvement scores as:
- 24% for the first group
- 23% improvement-which is very close to the first group
- No improvement
This study was an important milestone in demonstrating that a combination of physical practice and mental imagery could help achieve top performance.
Later, Plessinger (2005) in his study stated that if teachers, coaches and athletes were looking for an additional advantage for enhancing free throws, a combination of mental imagery and physical practice could be beneficial.
Post et al. (2010) through their study concluded that pre-game imagery exercise had a positive impact on free throw shooting accuracy among a high school girls’ basketball team.
Kanthack et al. (2014) found a significant beneficial short term effect on the first two out of ten free throws after watching a one minute video and engaging in a three minute motor imagery session among young players with a mean age of 17.6 years.
Why do NBA stars like Aaron Gordon, Michael Jordan and Stephen Curry use visualization before competition? And could it help you too?
“ Visualization is an important tool for me.” Phil Jackson, one of the most successful coaches in NBA history.
Linda Frazee
Linda has been teaching Positive Imagery for the last 40 years. In fact, her business was called Positive Imagery until just last year when she shifted the name to Authentic Wisdom. Linda includes Positive Imagery with all her private sessions, workshops and online classes.
The online community, Authentic Wisdom, has a library of Positive Imageries for members to listen to for pleasure, or to utilize with stepping away from negative thoughts and feelings or enhancing production or goals.
Linda has trained countless people and companies in her long career. A few of her clients have been: The Pentagon, FBI, Health and Human Services, LPGA, Maricopa County Superior Court, National Association of Realtors, Many Centers for Spiritual Living, Countless churches and Private Companies and Associations.
