Remember that your mind is busy interpreting reality during all of
your waking hours. Everywhere you go, you take yourself with you.
In many of the exercises, we ask you to recall past experiences
and the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, taste, and smell memories that
go with them. In our Training sessions, sometimes participants tell
us, “I can’t visualize very well. I always have trouble with it.” Change
this internal representation immediately by noticing the degree to
which you are able to visualize. Everyone has had an experience
like this one: You go to a party with a friend. You excuse yourself to
visit the rest room and, upon your return, you are ableto find your
friend. To do so, you must visualize what your friend looks like
when you return and scan the crowd to find a person whose appear-
ance conforms to your internal representation. Even if your inter-
nal image is somewhat faulty—if you remember the friend wearing
a blue outfit and actually he wore a gray outfit—you can still find
him. Our internal representations are almost never perfect; they
don’t need to be. If seeing Paris were the same as visualizing it,
surely fewer people would go. Even after you have visited Paris, your
internal representations of it do not precisely express how it looks.
Sometimes in our Training sessions people say, “I can’t imagine
that.” This is not a matter of ability but rather of willingness. Your
mind has the capability to imagine anything. It is completely free to
think anything. Even better than anything you have imagined be-
fore—or worse, too, for those who want to go in that direction.
Two steps in increasing your ability to visualize and to gain ac-
cess to the internal representations you have recorded from all of
your senses are:- Notice the ability you already have.
- Increase your willingness for your mind to be free.
HOW TOFEELBETTERINSTANTLY WITHOUTYEARS OFTHERAPY
The past is over. It doesn’t exist except in your mind. Most people
remember each past event in only one way. How we remember
the past determines how it affects us today. Even though you can-
not change the content of the past, you can change how you remember it
and, thus, change how it affects you. People do this unintentionally all the
time. For example, I (PL) served in the military during the Vietnam War. In
those days, members of the armed forces complained about military life,
constantly counting the days until their discharge. Today, many of the same
people remember that same military experience fondly.264 Appendixccc_laut_appx_263-266.qxd 7/8/04 12:28 PM Page 264