A Mental Exercise That Will Drastically Improve Your Child's Life

How to help your kid leverage the power of their creative imagination for personal growth.

“How can I develop a growth mindset in my children?”

This is one of the most common questions we get at Zamio.

I mean, I get it, what parent wouldn’t want their child to have a growth-oriented mindset?

The way we think and feel creates our experience of life, so if we want our children to have a great experience, it’s necessary to take the time to nurture the greatness within them.

This means helping our children build and develop a quality and growth-oriented mindset.

There are many ways you can do this, and one of them is by teaching your kids how to use their minds to intentionally create precisely what they want.

And you can do this by using a unique tool we all have access to:

Creative Visualization.

But before I share how to do it yourself and teach your children this practice, let me dive into what it is and why you’d even want to take the time to do so.

What Is Creative Visualization?

Creative visualization is simply the process of using your imagination to create pictures independent of the outside world.

Anytime you form mental images that are not directly observable in front of you, you are visualizing.

The Science Behind Visualization And Why It Works

According to modern physics, everything we see and experience is just a vibration of energy that consists of two main elements:

Magnetism and electricity.

This is electromagnetic energy, and it is the “raw material” that makes up our entire universe.

I share this because our thoughts and emotions consist of this same electromagnetic energy.

In fact, every single thought can actually be measured as a unit of energy, and the same goes for our emotions.

Our thoughts are electromagnetic units of energy, and when we focus on them they produce waves of energy that are felt as an emotion.

And these emotions do not, by any means, stay inside of our bodies.

They actually “leak out” into the outside world and directly impact our atmosphere.

Harvard Researcher Proves That Our Emotions Influence The Earth

On 9/11, one of the United States satellites designed to measure the earth's magnetic fields showed a massive spike in the earth's electromagnetic field.

Spikes that they had never witnessed before.

When they looked at the data, they pinpointed the precise moment the spikes began.

To their surprise, they discovered that the first spike happened 15 minutes after the first plane hit the World Trade Center.

And the second spike occurred shortly after the second plane hit.

Somehow, somehow our collective feelings impacted the frequency of the entire world.

Why am I sharing this?

Because it demonstrates an important truth.

#1 - Our thoughts and feelings “in here” directly influence the world “out there.”

Then again, in the mid-1980s during the Israeli-Lebanese war, a group of individuals came together to practice transcendental meditation.

During the period of the mediation, the deaths caused by the war statistically dropped by a staggering 72%, war-related injuries dropped by 68%, the level of conflict dropped by 48% and cooperation of anti-war activists jumped up 66%.

This is in the midst of the war. Coincidence?

Maybe, but there’s more.

Between 1988-90, a group of 8,000 participants gathered to meditate on the feeling of peace, and this effect was global.

It seemed as if a “blanket” of peace went over the world and caused an energetic shift in the minds and hearts of the people in it.

During this period, all of the major conflicts in the world came to an end.

The seven-year war between Iran and Iraq, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Soviet-American cold war that went on for forty years ended.

This demonstrates that our thoughts and feelings directly influence what happens in the world around us.

So if we intentionally create images in our minds and mix them with strong emotions, we can begin influencing the world outside of us.

Can you imagine how empowering it is for a child to feel that connected to their outside world with the knowledge that they are not at the mercy of outside events?

Extremely.

The Second Reason Creative Visualization Works

Not only do our thoughts and feelings impact the world outside of us, but visualization literally changes the brain.

Visualization creates brand new neural pathways inside the brain.

Neural pathways are the clusters of cells in your brain that fire whenever you think a thought and execute a certain action. They are created as you engage in new behaviors repeatedly.

For example, when you first start putting on your own shoes, you begin with one foot, and day by day you put that shoe on first.

Within time, usually 30-60 days, your brain would have been trained to create a new neural pathway to automatically put that shoe on first without you even thinking about it.

These clusters of cells cannot tell the difference between mental imagery and physical action.

Therefore, if you close your eyes and picture yourself playing the piano repeatedly, you will train your brain to create more neural pathways that support that action.

Then within time, you’ll find that you just seem to know how to play when you sit in front of a physical piano.

So creative visualization works because it causes real changes in the brain, which will lead to new experiences, and these changes create energies that literally influence the outside world.

Visualization: How To Successfully Do It

Now that you know why visualization works and the science behind it, let’s break down how you can actually begin using it in your and your children’s lives.

There is a specific exercise I’ll be walking you through, but first I want to make sure you understand the 8 elements of successfully seeing real results with visualization.

1. Clarity - Have a clear mental image of what you want.

Clarity is important, when you have a clear picture of an event or goal you would like to accomplish it is much easier to make it feel real.

Fuzzy pictures can sometimes create fuzzy feelings, but no worries, if you have trouble visualizing and creating clear pictures in your mind - click below to listen to my podcast episode:

“5 Ways To Strengthen Your Visualization Muscle.”

Your mind is a goal-oriented machine, and the pictures you give it are the goals it sees.

Therefore when you create a picture in your mind, consciously or unconsciously, your mind automatically reorganizes its resources towards realizing that picture.

When you give your mind a clear image during visualization, it will accept the image and begin subconsciously working on ways to achieve the goal or realize the picture given. So encourage your child to get really clear on a desired outcome they want to accomplish.

2. Belief - Belief in the possibility of it happening.

It’s also important that your children actually believe in the possibility of what they are picturing in the timeframe they give it (if you have one).

This doesn’t mean that your children limit their dreams, it just means that it is helpful to encourage them to set big goals that feel like they could actually happen.

3. Real Experience - The nervous system is the accelerator.

Its important that your children physically feel the event.

In order to create “stickiness” and really normalize the event, you want to stimulate your nervous system.

The best way to do that is get all of the five-senses involved, because when you do that you literally convince the brain that it is experiencing the picture you are imagining.

This is how you create brand new neural-pathways.

Remember to teach your children: Neurons cannot distinguish between mental pictures and physical experience.

In order to trigger the five senses, encourage them to pay attention to the little details inside of the picture they are imagining.

For example, if your kid is imagining themselves shooting basketballs and making them, have them feel the pressure of their feet against the ground and the ball in their hands.

Have them hear the sounds of the ball as it bounces and goes into the net.

Have them smell the ball and the air. This directly stimulates their nervous system, which will then normalize the feeling of it in their bodies.

4. Ease - Less effort, less will, more results.

Our brains and bodies are like machines that run on automatic impulses from the data received by the sensory organs.

We don’t have to consciously engage every single muscle as we walk from one end of the room to the other. We just give our minds a clear picture and instruction: get to the other side of the room.

Then without you trying, your body automatically makes all of the necessary movements in the muscles and nerves and activates all of the right neurons to accomplish the goal of getting to the other side of the room.

Just like a machine. Once a goal has been programmed into it, it will automatically respond to accomplish the goal given it.

A computer keyboard is programmed to respond automatically when you press it, instantly and effortlessly creating every pixel in the letter you are pressing.

You don’t have to do anything but give the computer a clear goal and instruction.

Our brains are the same.

When we give it a clear goal or picture, it takes that as instruction and will work on its own to find the most practical means to accomplish it and carry out each task necessary.

Encourage your children to have fun with their visualizations and to do them in a relaxed state without being rigid with the planning in terms of how.

5. Childlike wonder - a complete absence of judgment.

This goes along with #4, but this aspect is so important that I felt it was necessary to give it more attention.

Make sure you teach your children to approach visualization with a fun attitude, the same way they approach video games or watching their favorite movies.

A high level of playfulness and faith in an idea will lead to the emotional realization of the picture your kids are visualizing. Also have them think in terms of “This will not fail.”

6. Recall and revisit previous successes.

At first, I wasn’t going to include this one, but I realized it truly is a staple to successful visualization.

Since I’ve discussed the significance of your emotional state during the actual visualization process, I want to take the time to tell you an effective tool to easily emotionalize the event.

One of the leaders of this idea was Maxwell Moltz, the author of Psycho-Cybernetics.

He would have his patients and students recall and revisit past positive experiences to “stir up” the emotion of success, or a positive electromagnetic charge.

Since our emotions influence our external reality through influencing the electric and magnetic fields around us, it’s easy to see why stirring up, or creating positive emotions is a big part of successfully changing your reality.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to have your kids recall past successes, accomplishments and moments when they were brave or just happy memories.

This “recall” immediately brings up a strong emotion, and when the emotion is strong your child can then “carry it over” into the desired outcome.

7. Consistency and repetition.

Our brains create brand new neural-pathways within 21-63 days, so if your kids continuously visualize a certain picture then they are training their brain to begin creating brand new neural-pathways, shifting their thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

Therefore, it is important that your children frequently revisit the same pictures during their visualization sessions until they realize them.

This gives the mind clarity and time to accept the image as true, when this happens, your child’s “inner genius” will just carry everything out automatically.

8. Theta state activation.

Many of us have but don’t deliberately use a big resource: the ability to slow our brain waves down into theta.

Theta brain waves produce this chemical called glutamate.

This chemical is responsible for most central nervous system functions and neuroplasticity, which is responsible for changing the brain to adapt to its environment.

Therefore when glutamate is present, the brain is more susceptible to change.

That’s because the chemical that is responsible for “wiring” neurons is more present, creating the necessary environment for change.

A Step By Step Visualization Process That WORKS

And now that you know the 8 keys that make visualization produce real results for your children (and yourself), let’s dive into a step-by-step visualization process that you and your children can begin implementing right away.

(IMPORTANT: It’s most effective when done first thing in the morning and (especially) as you go to sleep at night.)

Step 1: Lift your eyeballs up like you’re trying to look at the center of your forehead

Step 2: Keeping your eyeballs up, close your eyelids down until you feel a fluttering sensation. This is rapid eye movement, and it triggers alpha

brain waves (I’ll tell you why this is important later.)

Step 3: Maintaining this fluttering sensation, tilt your chin downwards as if you were looking down a flight of stairs.

Step 4: Visualize a set of 10 steps going downward.

Step 5: Walk down each step repeating:

“I’m taking step 10, and I’m going deeper. I’m taking step 9, going deeper. I’m taking step 8, going deeper…” all the way down to step one.

Step 6: Visualize a screen in front of you, a large one, but not big enough to take up your entire vision. Like a movie/projector screen.

Step 7: Recall a past positive experience, one that made you feel accomplished, happy, brave, or excited.

Make it as real as you can, stir up the positive emotion from that experience, and focus on it. You can even imagine yourself turning up a dial, telling yourself “I am getting more and more excited.”

Once you feel the emotions from that experience really “set in” – move to the next step.

Step 8: Throw the image of a future desired event on the screen. Begin putting it together piece by piece.

In our example: First, the stage, then the lights, then the colors, the crowd, and when you feel clear enough in the main environment, bring an image of yourself in the event.

At this point, you can “step into” the screen and “become” the visualization I say. In other words, get your body involved.

Get every sense stimulated if you can.

Start with sound. What would you be hearing?

Then sight. What would you be seeing?

Then touch.

What would the position of your body be?

Then smell and taste.

When you can physically feel the visualization through your senses, get your emotions involved. How would this event make you FEEL?

Or how do you WANT to feel during this event?

Play this entire event out for 15-30 minutes, or until you feel complete.

Step 9: Step OUT of the mental screen you were visualizing with and watch the event from a third-person view for an extra minute or two.

At this point, you can simply count back from 5 to one and say,

“On the count of 5 back down to one I will be energized and feel better and better.”

And begin counting and open your eyes.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are doing this before bed, I recommend skipping the counting and drifting off to sleep WHILE you are visualizing.

For unknown reasons, this seems to be extremely powerful and effective at making not only your mind but BODY adjust to the event visualized as you go to bed.

Effectively making the event physically FEEL normal and safe.

The mind seems to work on the image all night, and literally creates different neural pathways that fire differently when you are engaging in the event. Want A Guided Version?

I know this may seem like a lot to remember, so I went ahead and put this entire process in a guided video that you and your kids can listen to and follow daily. Just click here to check it out on Youtube. In Conclusion

Creative Visualization is a powerful tool for anybody because it causes real changes in the brain and the external environment.

Teaching children how to use this amazing tool at a very young age will set them up for a wonderful future as they will know how to create the future that they desire for themselves.

Inside this article, I broke down exactly why it works, how it works, and a step-by-step technique you and your children can begin implementing immediately.

This is why creative visualization is one of the biggest tools we teach children how to use inside of Zamio.