5 Visualization Meditation Exercises

Letting your mind take a break has innumerable benefits, both for our physical and our mental health. It allows us to regain our internal balance by listening to ourselves and finding harmony between body and soul. What if we could reap these benefits through our imagination? This is precisely what visualization meditation is. It’s a creative way to do mental exercises and increase our well-being. 

Imagining is creating, delving into a world we’ve never been before, and surpassing our limits. Thanks to the power of our imagination, we can design our own reality. This is why using visualization in meditation exercises is so beneficial. In fact, it’s used by all kinds of professionals, from athletes to different types of artists and important businesspeople.

Visualization meditation techniques to fight anxiety

Visualization is a technique that people use to reduce anxiety. In brief, it’s a tool people use to reach a level of complete relaxation through the decrease of physical arousal/stimuli that we feel when we’re anxious.

The following visualization meditation techniques allow us to become calm and feel that sense of peace we lack sometimes. Besides that, they help us have a more open attitude towards new challenges, opportunities, sensations, and future joy.

The first thing to do is find a comfortable spot in which you feel calm and are able to find peace in silence. Once you find this sort of haven, start breathing deeply, in through your nose and out slowly through your mouth. Then, do one of the following exercises:

Colors

The color gamut analyzes the perceptions, behaviors, and sensations colors provoke. This means that imagining our body is full of light can be a good way to attract emotions.

This exercise consists of breathing deeply while imagining you’re surrounded by a light that changes colors… While doing so, you need to focus on the physical sensations you experiment with each color. What does each color make you feel? After that, imagine you’re a green light and that you’re in complete harmony.

Muscle tension

We often get home from work and feel that our whole body is in pain. To relieve your pain, you can use this visualization meditation exercise. It consists of sitting or lying on the ground and focusing on your tensest muscles.

Then, imagine you have a knot that doesn’t let you move freely and you have to untie it with your mind. Keep your attention on each section of the knot while you breathe and visualize it becoming looser. The fibers will untwist slowly until the knot unties completely.

Feel free to repeat this exercise on each tense muscle in your body.

Active memory

You’ve had a rough day. A lot of things have happened to you. This exercise will help you feel at peace. Close your eyes, breathe in deeply, and go back to the beginning of your day. Image how you slept, what you had for breakfast, how you said hello to your family… It’s all about reliving those thoughts and sensations as if you were in that moment again.

Once you recreate every moment as vividly as possible, focus your attention on any painful moment to be able to help your mind let it go. After that, focus on the present moment, on the here and now.

Bubbles

This visualization meditation exercise is one of the most comprehensive ones, as it combines two senses: sight and sound. To do it, imagine you’re in a calm, solitary, and dark place. In that place, you’re surrounded by a feeling of peace. After a while, you hear a slight and pleasant burst.

This sound was a small bubble that popped right next to you. Immediately after, you hear another bubble popping to your left. Then, another one above your head. Little by little, bubbles start popping all around your body, with the same intensity and subtlety. This will make you feel more and more relaxed each time…

Facing the unknown

What’s beyond what we know? What will our future be like? What experiences does life have in store for us a few years from now? Facing this uncertainty can be easier if you visualize yourself in a dark closed room located in a forest. Outside, the wind is blowing and there are hungry animals walking around. The next step is to close your eyes and focus on the sensation you’re starting to feel. Is it fear? Anxiety? Hold on to it for a few minutes and then slowly let it go.

Now, imagine a door opening and you finding a way out of the room. You start running towards it and suddenly find yourself in the woods, in the same situation as before. What emotions are you feeling? After identifying them, you’ll be able to see a path opening before you. You decide to follow this path and escape and you gradually feel less tension. You’re safe, calm, and comfortable. The only thing left for you to do is enjoy this sensation and connect with it.

You can do all of these simple visualization meditation exercises anywhere at any time. You just have to be able to focus and develop your creative abilities to feel that relief you often need.