Visualization Techniques to Manage Stress During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic
-
Hey hi it's me again Joan Childs, I'm in my home office still home bound and I was going to teach you a trick to help you calm down again with some of your anxiety due to the corona virus and everything that we're all going through, these are really tough times, but I thought of something else first that I'm going to do and then my next video I will do the collapsing of anchors which is an NLP neuro-linguistic programming technique, but I'm going to do a visualization or show you how to do a visualization without having a therapist in your in your home or in your wherever you are.
You can use this as an example and all you have to do is close your eyes take a few deep breaths like I told you in the last video breathe into the count of four, hold it for the count of seven, and then breathe it out very slowly to the count of seven.
When you take your breath in to the count of four you want to remember to expand your lungs to the fullest and expand your belly at the same time and while you're holding your breath then just release it when you contract your belly and tuck it in, and you breathe out very slowly and you do that four seven times, and then from that point on when you finish the seventh time you're going to do a visualization. Which means you're going to find somewhere in your and your history in your brain is all recorded maybe the first thing that comes to your mind that was really a very pleasant beautiful experience where you'll receive some sense of serenity and tranquility a lot of joy, happiness, pleasure all the positive feelings that you can possibly think of.
You can find some place in either outdoors or indoors with or without people that you can remember a good time, a wonderful time, a time that gave you a sense of peace a sense of joy and a sense of happiness so you take a few moments and just kind of like scan your brain and go back to when you remember the last time you remember being somewhere either with some people or with someone or by yourself where you will you felt that sense of peace if then you felt grounded you felt centered and you felt joy and just hold on to that and see what you see everything.
What time of day what time of year you might even remember what you were wearing and if you were with someone or with other people you can see them in your mind you don't have to have your eyes to see what was already there you can remember it you can just boot it right up so you see what you see hear what you hear and feel what you feel, and when you can connect with those positive feelings of enjoyment, relaxation, calmness rev it up.
Intensifies those feelings and just stay with it as long as you can and at the same time take your thumb and your forefinger your index finger and hold them together squeeze them a little bit to attach it to that memory and just stay in that memory stay in that picture and relive every moment of it and all the sub modalities what you see if you were to take a complete circle the trees if you're outside, the ground that if there's water if there's a lake if there's a beach wherever you might be see everything you can remember about that moment that time when you were in that state of calmness serenity and tranquility and keep your fingers there and hold it because when you feel the anxiety come about and that feeling of that hightness of worry or fear you take your fingers your right hand your thumb and your finger index finger and you squeeze them together and you close your eyes and let yourself go back to that beautiful visualization that's already been created in the windows of your mind and that's all for now.
And I'll teach you how to do collapsing anchors in their next video. Thank you, and remember now stay safe stay well and stay at home.
Video Series: Managing Stress & Anxiety
Joan E Childs, LCSW is a renowned psychotherapist, inspirational speaker and author of I Hate The Man I Love: A Conscious Relationship is Your Key to Success. In private practice since 1978, she specializes in individual and couple’s therapy, grief therapy, EMDR, NLP, inner child work and codependency. Learn more about her services at www.joanechilds.com.
Leave a Reply