Imagination

A technique I learned in hypnobirthing and something that John uses in his seminars is something called a "lemon convincer strategy." It goes something like this: Imagine that you're in a kitchen and there's a bowl of fresh lemons. You take one and place it on a chopping board and slice it open. You smell that lemony fragrance as it wafts up to your nose and permeates the room. You pick up the lemon and open your mouth . . . that's right . . . and squeeze in a mouthful of juice.

Can you taste it? Is your mouth watering? The point of the exercise is to illustrate how powerful your imagination is. The brain doesn't know the difference between what is real and not. Experience is experience. It reminds me of a story that Eric Jensen told in his 6-day Brain-based Learning seminar. There were some people stranded in a boat with no food and little water. When they were rescued 2 weeks later, all the people were dehydrated and had lost a lot of weight. Except for one guy. At first they thought that he had somehow had supplies that he didn't share with the others. This was not the case. What he did everyday was imagine that he was preparing and cooking 3 meals a day, just as he would in real life. He did it in real time. So he would imagine he was chopping carrots for soup and went through the whole process until he sat down at the dinner table, where he imagined he ate a full meal.

When I first heard that story I thought, Wow! I wonder if that would work for exercise!"
Perhaps that will be my next CD--The Virtual Workout. hahaha

John says, "Imagination is the force of creation." He said he's quoting someone else, but I don't remember who. It's gotten me curious about how to use my imagination more constructively. Napoleon Hill says in Think and Grow Rich, "What the mind can perceive, it can achieve."

If we can imagine it, we can create it.