Age-Proofing Your Brain – Mental Picturing, 1

The human brain thinks in pictures. A thought is really just an internal mental picture. Visualizing is another name for the process of forming pictures in your mind’s eye. Robert Collier put it this way: “Visualize this thing you want. See it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blueprint and begin.” You “see” what you want to accomplish in your mind’s eye. The subconscious mind doesn’t use language, per se, but it can follow the picture that the words create. Because the subconscious is much more powerful than the conscious mind, the subconscious pushes you toward your mental blueprint. It is important to see what you want to have happen and speak positively about it. That goes back to Dr. Daniel Wegner’s “White bear phenomenon.” If you say, “Don’t think about the white bear,” a representation of a white bear goes into working memory and you think about it even more. Never picture what you do not want and only see and speak positively about what you want to have happen. More tomorrow.