We were once again battered by a strong storm this week. A long-time patient of ours accompanied her brother who developed chest pains at the height of the storm and was worried that he might be developing a heart attack.
He was a bundle of nerves as we examined him and did some confirmatory tests at the emergency room. We couldn’t help but notice, though, how his sister has been very relaxed all the time, even helping us calm her brother down, who was still worrying of all the damages the typhoon has caused them.
“You have a very positive disposition despite what happened,” I told her, adding that she must have incurred the same extent of damage since she and her brother lived in the same village.
Power of visualization
She replied that they only had small tree branches and leaves littered all over their place but otherwise their house was literally spared, compared to what many of her neighbors experienced. And for the next 15 minutes or so, she lectured to me on the power of visualization to have a favorable outcome even of an unfortunate event such as a storm.
She considers it a form of prayer and meditation. In fact, they practice visualization after their daily family prayer. It sorts of reinforces their prayer. What they prayed about, they visualize as a family. They visualize their home as a awesomely strong structure, impervious to any element the storm might bring. They visualize their home keeping the whole family safe.
They visualize the many trees in their back and front yards as robust and deeply rooted, and strong enough to withstand the mightiest gust of wind the typhoon would bring with it. They visualize these trees protecting their house.
Most importantly, they visualize each member of the family remaining calm but alert during the storm, knowing exactly what to do when an exigency happens.
They visualize every detail they can ever think of with every member of the family taking turns in leading the others what to visualize. They do this as a family for a day or two when a typhoon is expected to hit, and she said that if we could do this as a nation we would probably have a different outcome with every typhoon that comes our way.
Benefits
I’m sure that we’ve all heard about the benefits of visualization but we’re all probably not convinced enough, or perhaps, we just don’t think that spending a few minutes doing it is worth the time and effort.
It is said that the imaginative and visualizing mind can make the imagined and visualized thing real, depending on one’s belief system. If one believes it a hundred percent, the visualized goal will likely be realized a hundred percent. If one does it half-heartedly, one would have a 50-50 chance of achieving it.
And it’s true for whatever we have in mind. So we can visualize ourselves to safety following a calamity, as well as happiness, success and good health.
The downside about visualization is that if we’re preoccupied with negative thoughts like fear, worry and apprehensions, it would also make whatever we fear or are worried about a reality. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy,” my patient said.
She went on to explain that many people, like her brother perhaps, are giving energy to the things they worry about. “What constantly preoccupies our mind will soon become a reality, so we really have to be careful what we think about,” she said.
Visualizing the opposite
“Why can’t you visualize for the entire country to have a favorable outcome with every typhoon?” I asked her, apologizing later on because I might have sounded sarcastic. She calmly replied that they actually tried to do that, but the energy generated by an entire nation doing it would be much stronger than if only a single family was doing it.
“Unfortunately too,” she added, ”many people may not be aware of it, but they’re visualizing the opposite—big floods, landslides, deaths and other unfortunate outcomes. So what we see is what we get.”
The bottom line is that while we should brace ourselves for a storm and do what we need to do to get out of harm’s way, the feared harm should not constantly occupy our minds. The more we fear things, the more we give them energy to make them a reality, she explained.
I think she makes a lot of sense.