We have heard about Creative Visualization for many years but what do we actually know about it? Creative Visualization is the use of the imagination to manifest what you want in life. To simplify it, it's a way to identify your goals and then to make them a reality. It is a lot more then goal setting and problem solving techniques. It's more then simply wishing and dreaming to make things you want happen. Using sheer will power and force to make things happen requires a huge amount of effort. Creative visualization is a way of using little effort coupled with positive energy to work in harmony with the universe. We already know thoughts are thing but creative visualization uses this theory to build onto thought forms making them stronger, more organized and able to work their way from the fine matter into real happenings and material things by directing positive energy to a mental image to make that vision a reality.

Shakti Gawain wrote a book roughly 30 years ago called "Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life"to introduce the idea that the power of using mental pictures to help people create their reality. She developed a set of techniques that guided the new age era in ways to think, visualize and realize personal objectives. Since that time, others have contributed to this field, developing different techniques. By using your creative imagination in a conscious way and directing your focus on that vision, you can create what you truly want in life and the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

Creative visualization works on several planes- physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. An example of a physical goal might be in healing a physical ailment or in achieving the body that you want with diet and exercise or physical fitness. A emotional achievement might be finding happiness or contentment, maybe even serenity and harmony in your life. A mental goal would be like achieving knowledge about something you would like to pursue or just simply improving your mental capacities in vocabulary or communication. A spiritual goal would be something like bringing forth forgiveness in a situation. These are only a very few examples of the types of possible things. Believe it or not, for me, writing articles starts out as a purely mental vision and as I work through the material in my head and an imagined audience, this is also a form of creative visualization that takes many forms. For me this means working on the mental goal of communication and its also quite a spiritual experience for me to achieve this goal from start to finish.

Although creative visualization is often thought of as working on a longer term goal or "the bigger picture" it's not limited to just that. It can be used for more immediate situations or on-going challenges in a more direct way. I have used this technique to be more patient and understanding with my child, to be more empathetic with my spouse and family and even co-workers and to solve problems at work and in personal relationships. Creative visualization has been very effective in all these areas because it calls for me to consciously direct my focus on an issue that often seems pervasive and overwhelming.

Creative visualization can also be highly effective in shaping a vision. Once you develop a vision of what you want, using creative visualization will help you to identify the small steps that must be taken to explore and define what you are seeking. This is the way we learn to fine tune what we want to manifest and focus on. It can be used to invite the opportunities and influences and or resources into our lives to realize the vision in its full picture. Imagine that what you want or see in your life right now is like a half completed puzzle. We see part of the picture but without the completed picture, we don't see the whole vision. By defining and adding each piece to that puzzle, we can focus and direct the energy to step by step complete and finish that picture. If you don't know what you want, don't worry. By using the techniques and practicing them, you can start to narrow down where you want to go in life and the things you want to achieve.