Dear dtnl42,
I apologize for the multiple delays and I thank you for your patience. I
realize you have waited almost an entire month for someone to post an
answer to your question. Here, at last, are the goods. Below is a newly
written script for creative visualization that uses allegory to portray
any given individual's future success. I believe you will find it easy
to change small details of the script, such as the number of years the
subject is looking forward. Other elements that I have deliberately
left vague, such as the subject's gender or the composition of the
household, can be made more specific on a per-session basis without
altering the narrative outline. I expect that you will also have some
favorite motivational wording of your own that you can incorporate into
the prelude or epilogue. In any event, I hope you are pleased with the
results. Let me know what you think.
Regards,
leapinglizard
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Visualizing Your Success: A Script
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I am inviting you on an adventure of the mind. Your imagination will
soar into the future and inhabit a potential future self of yours,
a self that has attained the goals to which you aspire. You may adopt
any comfortable posture. Sit on a chair, sink into a sofa, lie on the
floor, even stand against the wall if that's what you find conducive
to imaginative thought. Arrange your limbs loosely, eliminating all
strain in your joints. Stop fidgeting. Close your eyes and relax, but
truly relax. You must loosen your facial muscles. Let your day face
drop away, allow your features to settle into true repose. Breathe
deeply but not forcefully. Draw the air down into your lungs and hold
it for a beat, then release it and let your chest subside. Pause for a
beat. Draw another lungful of air. Hold. Release. Pause. Again, breathe
in. Hold. Release. Pause. Again.
Twenty years from now, in a house at the top of a hill, you are
asleep. The bedroom windows are open to admit the bright summer sunshine
and the fragrance of the warm earth. You wake in this morning of the
future feeling rested and alert, looking forward to the day ahead. White
curtains rustle in the breeze. Outside your window, a songbird trills a
sweet aria. A gentle gust of wind plays over your face, caressing your
skin. You sit up effortlessly and swing your legs over the side of the
bed. The textured granite floor is pleasantly cool under your feet,
these feet that have trodden so many miles to bring you here. Every
tile in the floor, every slate on the roof, every brick in the walls
of your house is a testament to your hard work. But you have arrived,
and this is a day to appreciate your accomplishments.
You stride through French windows onto a broad terrace overlooking the
rear garden. At a round, glass-topped table sits your consort, who greets
you with a glowing smile. You make light conversation as you breakfast on
succulent slices of your favorite fruit, grown here on the surrounding
land. The talk digresses briefly into a matter of finance or household
management, but only to confirm that all is well. Your affairs have
reached a point of equilibrium where the gaping holes have long been
plugged, where no major shifts can occur any more. Contemplate this
briefly. Security is yours. Your mind is at ease.
You rise from the breakfast table and stroll down the terrace,
approaching a further set of French windows where sounds of merriment
are audible. Other members of the household are at play. You look in
for a moment, scanning their countenances for signs of worry, but there
are none. You see their faces unlined by anxiety, mirroring your own
contentment. By achieving stability in your life, you have also granted
it to those who depend on you. Your success is a gift to others. It
belongs to you, but you can share it freely without diminishing its worth.
You return to your living quarters, where you wash and dress for
travel. Today's journey is a brief one, down to the shore and across the
strait to visit some friends. You descend the front steps of the house
to the drive, a carpet of smooth gray pebbles, where your steed awaits.
A horse? An elephant? A Ferrari? You mount or enter, as the case may be,
and lightly grip the reins or the steering wheel. You pause to gaze at
the horizon, an indistinct line separating the glittering blue of the
sea from the milky blue of the sky. The sight infuses you with joy,
with a sense of absolute liberty, because there is nowhere you have
to go today. You are setting forth not from necessity but because it
pleases you. The days of duty are behind you, the arduous chores are in
the past. No one is riding you now. You are in the driver's seat.
The road winds through fragrant orchards, then among rolling hills
overgrown with wild grasses. It peters out on the soft sands of a beach
that seemed much less friendly when you landed here some years ago under
a stormy sky. The sand was grittier then and the winds were fierce,
the very waters hostile. In those days, it had seemed a dire matter to
cross the water, to battle your way onto the shore, up the slope, onto
the plateau where now you dwell in peace. You have since recognized that
what appeared to be a raging sea is only a channel of water separating two
landmasses. What was an arduous crossing of days and nights on a warship
has become, with the benefit of experience, half an hour by rowboat.
Waiting on the sand is a small rowboat in good repair, freshly painted
in your favorite color. Red? Purple? Green? You ease it into the water.
Warm waves lap against your ankles. You grip the oars and row easily,
leaning back with each stroke. No need to look over your shoulder. You
know this crossing well. It holds no more hazards for you. When you first
came this way, your greatest fears rose from the deep to assail you,
the glistening coils of sea serpents looming from the swell to sweep
you overboard and drown you. But you prevailed. You fought through. Now,
on this bright and perfect day, you can be glad that your resolve never
left you. Your fears are vanquished, the sea serpents dead.
Where you land on the opposite shore, there lie in the sand the bones
of creatures that stood in your path. No longer do they menace you
with claws and fangs. These were your anxieties, your neuroses. Only
their skeletal remains are left in the sand, polished by abrasion to a
jewel-like finish, suitable for a necklace. You stand now on the beach,
gazing at your friends' house nestled between sand dunes. The dunes rise
into grassy hillocks, which are the foothills of a mountain range you
once had to cross. It is a small mountain range with gentle inclines,
yet how steep they once seemed.
The mountains are much diminished in hindsight, their contours softened,
the crags worn smooth. These paltry barriers, how threatening they once
appeared. Yet you forged ahead. You persisted where others lost hope,
you went on where others faltered from complacency or anxiety. And
here you are, on a sunlit day without trouble or care, looking back
on the obstacles you have overcome. The day is warm. Your friends are
near. Your troubles are behind you. You are at leisure to enjoy the best
that earthly life can offer. You have arrived.
Hold this moment of the future in your thoughts, fix it clearly and
firmly. This is what awaits you. It must not preoccupy you. Your
vision of the bounty that is to come must remain a solace, a source
of comfort into which you can dip from time to time as a reminder of
your ambition. It must not take on a life of its own. You are not to
spend your daylight hours wandering this dreamscape or embroidering the
vision. It is merely a point toward which you are working. You will live
it when you get there. Now you must return your attention to the present,
where duty calls.
Breathe deeply, not too forcefully, and gird yourself for the day
to come. Draw in a lungful of air, then hold it. Release. Are you
ready? Another lungful of air. Pause. Release. You are ready. Another deep
breath. Pause. Release. You will shortly open your eyes and address the
present with calm strength. Act with purpose. Live in the moment but not
for the moment. Look forward to the fruits of success, but do not dwell
upon them. It is enough that you know what is to come. Now is the time,
right now, to work toward it. You are ready. Open your eyes and seize
the day.
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