Comment: Creative visualisation can help you achieve health and fitness goals

Use your visualisation in positive, creative ways by constructing the scene you want to see. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION:

In this “new age” of mental abilities, it is no secret that thoughts and emotions directly affect the body and, depending on focus and where predominant thoughts and emotions lie, the body either reacts for the better or the worse.

In other words, the body and mind are connected and react together, not separately. So, if you are feeling fear of some sort… this ailment will show up in your body somewhere.

If negative thinking rules your mind through stress, fear, worry or anger, or over-excitement, these emotions - energy in motion - will hurt and adversely affect your body by releasing hormone-disrupting chemicals and toxins into your blood.

Creative visualisation is a powerful inner tool that can be used that can help combat destructive negative beliefs and emotions and shift lives for the better, and that includes losing weight. The subconscious mind is a powerful creator and accepts and treats all conditions, whether real or “imaged in”.

The goal when using visualisation techniques is to present your “imaged in vision” so powerfully that your subconscious mind shapes it to look like your mental pattern/image in the outer world.

Use your visualisation in positive, creative ways by constructing the scene you want to see. For example, you could “image in” a slim, fit, healthy body that is out dancing and having a great time with friends. See yourself accepting compliments and admiring glances. Make this mental image as real and tangible as possible. Feel it.

Whatever beautiful images you empower your imagination with are something you can never find in any nutrition or exercise routine. These life-changing tools are in your mind, and if you can get your mind to align with your heart’s desires, the dreams and visions you “feel” about yourself in your hear, that’s when permanent change occurs.

As you go about practicing visualisation techniques, do not allow any limitations in… that is old programming that you are ridding yourself of. Clean out the limitations and allow all possibilities to fill your beliefs so you can “image in” what it is you want to see in your body, shape and world.

You can never create the new in your life by clinging to old visions and beliefs about yourself. Those are the very things preventing the new from appearing.

Here’s some simple steps to creating that new “you”. Make any physical changes required to positively affect how you eat and exercise. Remember, the mind and body work together.

Stay consistent with your ideals and actions… marry your heart’s visions and ideals with the actions of your healthy, positive mind and body - one that no longer sees and creates the “fat, unhealthy you” through distorted thinking/old programming, but has replaced this vision with one of health, strength, and vigor. The new “you.”

Only accept positive feelings about you in whatever you are wrapped up in… whether that be spiritual/psychological, physical in nature or both.

Imagine your mind as the engine that is your driving force daily. Without a healthy engine, you won’t get very far. See yourself fueling this engine with the best available fuel (your positive thoughts and images). Allow it to rest after a long day of traveling (a good, quality night’s sleep), and keep the body it lives in strong by using it regularly the way it was designed to be used (proper exercise, supporting with REAL food).

Creative visualisation is a powerful tool that can be utilised to create a new healthy lifestyle and achieve goals such as losing weight. But, the controls remain with you. You are the only one that can turn the controls in the right direction - you must know without doubt that you are worthy of these lofty health and fitness goals.

You do deserve to enjoy excellent health, clarity of mind, stable emotional health and high energy levels, all bundled into one incredible body. But you must not settle for less.

Practice using the power of imagination and visualisation (without limitation) daily to create the body and lifestyle of your dreams.

Carolyn Hansen is co-owner of Anytime Fitness.