Guided Imagery

Guided Imagery

This is for my friends from the Expert Patients Program. I hope you like it.

What follows is taken from memory. I have the book, but I am deliberately not using it.:
I am one of those people who cannot close their eyes and relax in a group – I tend to go to sleep. However closing your eyes, taking three deep breaths and relaxing, feeling the chair or the bed supporting your body and feeling safe are the suggested preconditions for this:

You are walking along a road in the countryside. The sun is shining and there are birds singing. Try to hear the birdsong in your mind. By the side of the road is a box. Into the box you can put whatever is worrying you. It can stay there until you collect it later.

You open a gate and go into a field someone has sewn with wild flowers. Visualise and imagine the different colours of the flowers and try to imagine the scent as you walk along the path at the side of the field by the fence.

You come to a wooded area and you can walk along a path through the trees in the sunshine and try to think of how the trees would look in the sunshine, the shape of the trees, the feel of the bark, the leaves and how they move in the breeze.

You come to a waterfall and sit by the waterfall and relax watching the water and listening to the sound of the waterfall. You can stay as long as you like.

In time you realise it is time to go so you walk back through the woods enjoying the trees; through the field enjoying the flowers and back to the road. You now know you can come back here again and again.

As a suggestion you can record this and play it back through an MP3 player.

I believe in guided imagery and I believe I can make it work for me. It is not easy because lots of little niggling thoughts and sidetracks keep coming into my mind. Practice and more practice will enable me to minimise them.

Misguided imagery

This is just for fun. It is an illustration of how my mind just goes astray and the little problems I have to overcome in winning this battle. It is the most important battle there is. Nietzsche said that the will to power was the most important human endeavour but he was often misinterpreted on this – he said the power over yourself was the only power worth having.

I will persevere.

You are walking along a road in the countryside. The sun is shining and there are birds singing. Try to hear the birdsong in your mind. There’s that blackbird again. What a range of calls those cheeky little blighters have. The one in our front garden is continually teasing the cat by pretending to be wounded or ill and sitting on the grass then hopping off just out of reach….(diversion detected back to the narrative)

By the side of the road is a box. Into the box you can put whatever is worrying you. It can stay there until you collect it later. I can’t get it all in. It is a rather nice carved wooden box and it is going to be ruined if it rains. I just can’t fit all this stuff into it (diversion detected back to the narrative)

You open a gate and go into a field someone (I wonder who and why) has sewn with wild flowers. Visualise and imagine the different colours of the flowers and try to imagine the scent as you walk along the path at the side of the field by the fence. (I am getting good at this part although I am colour blind…)

You come to a wooded area and you can walk along a path through the trees in the sunshine and try to think of how the trees would look in the sunshine, the shape of the trees, the feel of the bark, the leaves and how they move in the breeze. There are shadows. Things among the trees. Try as I might I can’t help from looking round. And I feel such a fool calling out “Who’s there?” (diversion detected back to the narrative)

You come to a waterfall and sit by the waterfall and relax watching the water and listening to the sound of the waterfall. You can stay as long as you like. Why do they advise me to take diuretics and drink lots of water. Are they trying to make me into a sprinter or what…..

In time you realise it is time to go so you walk back through the woods enjoying the trees; through the field enjoying the flowers and back to the road. You now know you can come back here again and again.


I will persevere.