Worry And Imagery

What is Imagery ?
Imagery is the making of mental pictures, it is visual thinking. Whenever we're having an internal dialogue, we're usually making up images of whatever it is we're talking about. So, if you are talking to yourself about a meeting you are going to host, you are making pictures in your head of the meeting room, the participants, the actions and reactions of the participants, yourself, your actions, your reactions.
If you are worried about the meeting, the pictures are going to be distressing ones, since worry will be about unpleasant and undesirable happenings.

To continue to use the wife of the heart attack survivor for our example, we can speculate that some of the worried mental videotapes and slide shows she's playing include:
- picturing her husband as an invalid
- continually dependent upon her and demanding of her moral
- physical and financial support; seeing the balance in their savings account dwindle despite her working two jobs to support their lifestyle; imagining the "For Sale" sign in front of the home they worked so hard to buy, that they expected to retire to; looking at her husband in his coffin and receiving the condolences of friends and family.

If you have already learned how to intervene in your self-talk, than you will have found that the images are forced into change in relation to the new messages you are inserting into your thought system.
However, if you consciously choose new images to match the new internal dialogue you are creating for yourself, you can speed up and magnify your results. In fact, if you have trouble changing self-talk, you may find changing the pictures in your head to be an easier and more powerful tool. And, in its turn, that change will cause changes in your self-talk.

When you make pictures in your mind, you are giving yourself experiences as valid to your mind as any external or "real" experience.
When you dream, don't you feel happy afterward if you dream something that makes you happy in "real life?" If you watch a drama on TV, don't you feel as angry with the villain character as you would if he were "really" harming someone you know?
It doesn't matter whether experiences are external or internal - your mind does not automatically differentiate.

To give yourself the best life experience, you will want the best match between your new self-talk and the new mental pictures that you can get. And you will not only get the best match but you will remember much better if you consciously choose the new pictures.

This is what to do ;
1. When you intervene in your worried self-talk, note the images that go along with the worry. Just as you will choose the new messages to give yourself to counteract the worried, you will want to choose the pictures that best counteract the worried images.

2. Make up pictures that represent what you want to happen that oppose the pictures of what you fear will happen. Example: the worried wife's picture of her husband in his coffin can be counteracted with a picture of him in vibrant health, playing a favorite sport or game.

3. If you are dealing with a probable outcome that is unpleasant or undesirable, and most probably unavoidable, make pictures of your desired responses to counteract the feared responses.

example :
Your beloved mother is in the final stages of cancer and is almost certainly going to die within the week. If you check your thinking, you'll find you are not worrying about her dying. If you are worrying about anything, it will be the consequences of her dying, including how you will feel when she does.
If you check your pictures, you will see that you fear how you and others may react. You may also have pictures of what you believe will happen to your mother after she dies, depending upon your religious or philosophical orientation.

In this case, you would modify your self talk to messages about being morally strong enough to get through your grief and make pictures showing yourself reacting bravely and confidently when receiving the news of the death, when telling others about it and when receiving condolences.
You would tell yourself about the support system you have and make pictures of yourself receiving the help you need from family and friends. You would tell yourself that while you would miss your mother, your life is separate from hers and complete without her and make pictures of yourself going on with all the good things you do that do not include her.

And the most importantly, you would use the time you have before her death to remember all the good things she represents to you and the good things you've shared, talk to yourself and make pictures about these and >> whether or not she is conscious << relay your self-talk to her and describe your pictures to her; tell her every loving thing you always meant to; ask her forgiveness for trouble you've given her and give her yours for any trouble she's given you. In short, make your self-talk and your imagery about what you can do now. Then, finally, use your self-talk and imagery to do what you can do now.
How Not To Worry
What Is Worry
Worry And Imagery
Worry And Self Talk