A guided imagery: the organization of the experience

In psychospiritual psychotherapy, guided imagery is a powerful tool for transforming the inner world. Through suggestions, images, sometimes outlining narratives, the therapist guides and facilitates the client or group through a journey, a process of inner discovery that is unique and magical. A guided visualization is always an up close and intimate personal experience that gives you a new experience of yourself and reveals unrealized potential.

This is how you do it.

Somehow it’s easier in a group. If there are two of you, one can read the guided imagery to the other slowly and evenly, gently and compassionately with frequent pauses. Then you can reverse the roles and do it the other way around. Alternatively, one of you can read the guided imagery on a recording device and play it back. This is the best way if you are doing it alone. Whether you are preparing to do a guided imagery on your own, in a group, or with another person, create the conditions for a meditative space. Turn off phones and other noisy devices that may disturb you. Close the doors and tell anyone else in the space not to interrupt you. The room in which you are conducting the guided imagery should be clean and tidy, free of clutter, simple, and preferably spacious, with peaceful imagery and ornamentation. The temperature should be comfortable so that you can sit or lie relaxed and unhindered for a medium to long period of time. Breathing mindfully through your body, from your feet to the crown of your head, can help you achieve a deeper sense of relaxation. When all of this is done, take some time to breathe mindfully before you begin.

Close your eyes and relax.

Here is a basic guided imagery for you to experience.

Return yourself to childhood. Follow your memories to early innocence and naivety, to a complex world with people, animals, colors, trust, weather, mystery, wind, and nature. Remember your first experiences when all this and more begins to rise in your consciousness, when you begin to open up and receive stimuli from the outside world. For a while it is not separate from you because you are part of everything. But now I would like you to take yourself to the point where you are and all this ‘other’, the world that affects your senses. You see it, you touch it, you feel it, you smell it and you taste it and it surrounds you, coming to you through your senses. You are involved in some way and there comes a point where you need to make sense of it. This is what we call the “organization of experience”, because human beings have a compulsion to organize ourselves and if you think about it it is true. Just by being here now, you can see what you’ve done to get organized, your willingness to sit or lie down, with your team around you. All this you have learned.

Spend a little time now to remember how you organized your first life experiences…

Now consider how all this learned organization and behavior influences you today. In some cases it can limit you; in other cases it can add life and benefit you. Try not to be judgmental in any way.

Take a deep breath, roll onto your left side, and drawing your knees toward your chest, relax for at least ten minutes to finish.