#10 Visualization for PTSD: Build a Safe Space & Calm in Minutes | Recovery Secrets Series

Welcome to the Overcoming PTSD Podcast. My name is Brad Schipke, and this is the limited series called Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching. Now, these were private sessions that I originally ran as a paid coaching program, but now for the first time ever, I'm making all 100+ sessions available for free for all of you podcast listeners. And this series is over 100 days of practical strategies that have helped thousands of trauma survivors fully heal. So make sure to subscribe because I'm dropping a new episode every single weekday until the archive is complete, and you definitely do not want to miss it. So without further ado, let's dive on in.

All right, we are live here. Welcome everyone to our Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching. I'm so excited to be here with you today for our coaching session. We're going to be talking about something, you know, as always we talk about stuff that's very practical, but we're actually going to be talking about a couple of different tools today, specifically relief tools. But the foundational skills that you need and that you're going to learn In applying these tools, some things are immediately actionable and will get you immediate results, and other things you have to put into action for a while before you get the results. Tools are typically something where you can put them into action today, right this second sometimes, and get the results of them. And what's cool about the tools that we teach, and there's a very specific reason why we teach certain tools in a certain way, is they're, they're important later on on the recovery journey. So today we're going to be talking about visualization. Now visualization is a big big topic, so I'm super excited to talk about that. Now, typically when I teach visualization, I actually teach 9 different visualization tools. Okay? Today we're gonna really focus in on one, and then depending on our feedback, I'm, I'm gonna teach you a different tool that isn't a visualization tool, or we'll do another visualization tool. Now, you've heard visualization come out up throughout the week already. Now I'm gonna be teaching you the foundation to visualization, what it is, how to use it, stuff like that. Then we're gonna be talking about one specific tool that's gonna be the foundation. But again, what's cool about visualization is it takes you far, far beyond recovery. So the definition of visualization is the process of creating and experiencing visual images in your mind. Okay? Creating and experiencing visual images in your mind. Anyone here a worst-case scenario thinker or a master ruminator? Anyone here experience flashbacks or nightmares? So the good news is, for those of you who are worst-case scenario thinkers, who are people who experience flashbacks, nightmares, who are master ruminators, the good news is this tool is going to harness the same skill. We're just going to use it differently. Okay, I'll say that again. This tool is going to harness the same skill. We're just going to use it differently. And so if you heard me, I believe it was last Friday, because we talked about sleep last Friday, you know, I talked a little bit about nightmares and kind of what to do when you experience nightmares. And one of the things I said is, you know, if you experience nightmares, if you experience flashbacks, it, it can give you an edge. It can give you a superpower, okay? And it can really be a great skill set to have because your mind basically is a master visualizer. That's what it's doing. It's just not doing it in a, in a way that's helpful to you. So you have this basically this built-in skill, this built-in muscle that we're going to basically redirect. Now, for those of you who don't have that It's okay. We all visualize at some level. So another question here, have you ever imagined like picking a fight with someone? Or have you ever imagined a situation in your head, you know, because your partner didn't pick up their phone? My mind was visualizing so many worst-case scenarios. Okay, but it doesn't necessarily have to be worst-case scenario. You know, have you ever daydreamed? I used to do that all the time in school. You'd be sitting there, you'd be bored. Just kind of look out the window, think about other things. Maybe one of my favorite things, and I still do this sometimes, right? You're reading a book, you're reading a book and your eyes are going through the words, but you're not comprehending it because you're thinking about or visualizing something totally different. Okay, so we all visualize. Now that's a really cool thing. We all have this power of visualization. So again, visualization is the process of creating and experiencing visual images in your mind. There are ways to actually do visualization and use visualization and the skill of visualization. Because visualization, although one of the keywords is visual images, and that's really the goal that we're aiming for, it's— you're experiencing it. So you're creating and experiencing something. Now, you experience things. You're experiencing something right now. You're experiencing this coaching right now. You're experiencing whatever's happening in your life at present, at this very, very moment. Now, you're experiencing that not just through one sense, right? We don't just experience with our eyes. Do we? We experience with our whole, our whole being, basically all of our senses and then some, right? We also experience with our, our thoughts and our emotions, right? Everything comes into play when we're actually experiencing something, including our past experiences. So, and those of you who feel like you're not visual and are, are not gonna succeed in this visualization process, I want you to not worry because there's a lot of other ways that we can experience something.

Mm-hmm.

Visual is, is typically the easiest jumping off point for people. And again, that's kind of the goal that we want to lean towards. However, doesn't mean it's impossible or not practical, or it won't give you the same results to experience with kind of other senses and in other ways here. So yes, love to create. Yes, you, you are going to be doing the creating. You are going to be doing the experiencing. So that's the really, really cool thing about visualization. So visualization is like watching a movie, right? You ever watch a movie and you're like in it? Like, time flies by. I remember going to the movies as a kid, and it was just like super, super dark. And like, you're in, you're watching Spider-Man, and you're just in it, and you feel it, and it's emotional, and it's happy, and it's sad. And then, you know, you're anxious, and you're excited, and all these different things, right? And then I remember walking out of the theater and being like, wow, I just feel like I was in like a— like, I just feel like I time traveled. All of a sudden it's like dark out. When I got here, it was light out. Now it's dark out. And it was just real because it happens really so fast because you're fully, fully immersed in it. Right? So it's like watching a movie or pressing play on a movie, a really good movie in your mind. Okay? And so in that movie, you're fully immersed in it. You're wrapped up in it. Okay? And the powerful thing here, and the thing that you're aiming for, is your body and mind believe and react as if it's a real experience. So I wanna hone in on this for a second. So your body and mind believe and react as if it's a real experience. Now, the cool thing about visualization, there have been tons of studies on visualization. Visualization is as old as time. It's as old as time. People have been doing it since people have been people, okay? And you, maybe you've heard about it. You've heard about Olympic athletes doing it. Michael Phelps, for example, one of the, I don't even think arguably one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time. I believe he still has like the most medals like ever for an Olympic athlete, okay? He used the power of visualization in his training. A lot of Olympic athletes do. A lot of people do for a lot of different reasons. So it's as old as time. Now, again, the really cool thing about visualization is your brain— now listen to this, I want you to listen to this and then we'll kind of explain it— your brain actually doesn't know the difference between something you vividly imagine and something you actually experience. I'm gonna think about that for one second. Your brain doesn't know the difference between something you vividly imagine and something you actually experience. I want you to think about the consequences of that. And when I say consequences, I don't necessarily mean negative. What are the consequences of your brain not being able to distinguish between what you're, you actually experience in your life and what you've vividly imagined? What are the consequences of that? So Joe sharing, I have heard athletes use visualizing as your mind does not know the difference between it and doing it. Your brain cannot tell the difference between something you vividly imagine and something you actually experience. What are the consequences of that? Both positive and negative. There's gonna be some pretty big consequences. Okay, and I'll share a study. You know, they started to do— this has been as old as time, right? And so people have known the power of visualization but really haven't been able to prove it until, in the scheme of things, fairly recently, till we've been able to do things like brain scans. Okay, and so there's a, a study done— I forget the, the doctor's name, but I like to use this one as an example because I think it's, it's, it's so simple, it's so cool, right? And so there's a study done on visualization where there were 3 groups. Okay, group number 1 physically played a sequence of notes, 3 or 5 notes, on the piano every day, I think for 5 days. So group number 1 physically actually played a sequence of notes on the piano for 5 days. Group number 2 visualized playing a sequence of notes on the piano every day for 5 days. Okay? So again, group number 2, they didn't actually play the piano. They visualized themselves playing a sequence of notes. On the piano every day for 5 days. And then group number 3 did nothing. Okay? So they were the control group. And when you see the brain scans between the people that actually play the piano and the people that visualize playing the piano, you can see the areas of their brain that light up. You can see the mental practice. Okay? All lit up in the same area. Okay? And then you can see the control group, of course, not lit up at all when they thought about playing the piano. Okay, so you can see really how powerful this is. Now again, this is just one of many, many examples of the power of visualization. Okay, Judy sharing, visualizing a vacation. When you need rest, you can actually give yourself some rest that you need. That's a great example. At least the rest that your brain needs. That is a great example, right? Joe, here's another one. Scary movies equals nightmares, right? And so the movies specifically and television shows specifically are designed to— they're designed to suck us in. They're designed to immerse us similar to how We wanna design a visualization to immerse us in it. Now, when you're, when you're visualizing something, right, the key, one of the key words is, is what? Experiencing, right? So it's not just about thinking about, I'm not just like thinking about playing the piano, I'm visualizing playing the piano. Now those are 2 different things. So I want you to visualize playing the piano with me, even if you've never played the piano. So I never got piano lessons, but I imagine this is how it would go, right? So you, you know, you've seen this in movies, you've seen, you've seen people play the piano before. Right? So, you know, your, your instructor's gonna ask you to sit up straight. Now, you don't actually have to do this, okay? I'm, I'm physically doing this as an example. I want you to visualize this. Visualize yourself sitting up straight in a seat and then visualize a piano in front of you, right? You can get a good, fairly good idea of what a piano looks like, if I had to guess. And then what I want you to do is visualize your hands hovering over the key. Now, again, even if you've never played the piano, you're gonna know how that looks. Then what I want you to do is visualize. I want you to imagine, visualize, vividly imagine, synonyms here, okay? I want you to imagine your fingers playing notes on the piano. Don't worry about how it sounds, okay? How are your fingers going to play those notes? You know what these things feel like, right? So visualize yourself. Stop, think, imagine, draw your senses into this experience of playing the piano. Okay, now the key to visualization— I'm going to give you a 4-step process. The key to visualization is that immersion, is drawing yourself in, okay, is feeling everything that you feel. And so if you've ever done a grounding exercise, for example, what do we ask you to do? We ask you to draw yourself in with your 5 senses. Visualization is really no different. How does it feel? How do your fingers move? Okay, how does it sound? Then you can start to go to different senses. How does it look? Okay, how does the piano look? How does your body feel? Okay, how do you move right in this? Okay, so what are you seeing? What are you in piano? You know, actually there might be a smell, right? When I take my guitar out of the case, there's a smell to it. Okay, and it smells like wood and it smells like, sometimes it smells like orange juice to be honest with you, right? But there's a smell to an instrument. Right? And you can feel the weight of the keys. There's all sorts of things that you can feel, that you can see, that you can hear, right? Maybe you hear the actual, not the note itself even, but the pressing of the key. You ever played a piano or an electric piano? You ever touched it with, without it being plugged in, right? There's a feel to it. There's a sound to it. So again, all these things, you're drawing yourself into this, to vividly imagining this thing. Now, when it comes to visualization, you know, there are, there are 4 basic steps to visualize anything, and then we're gonna go into some specific, specific visualization exercises to do. Now, you can visualize anything. So again, going back to the consequences of this, okay, there are positive consequences, there are negative consequences. If your brain can't tell the difference between what you vividly imagine and what you actually experience, what does that mean when you're worst-case scenario thinking?

Yeah.

Your, your brain and subsequently your body are experiencing that thing. Okay, so I'll pick on Shonda Rhimes. You'll hear me pick on her all the time. One of the greatest television writers maybe to ever live, ever live. Her stuff is unbelievable. She's a woman that wrote Grey's Anatomy. Okay, and so huge fan of Grey's Anatomy, especially, you know, for a lot of my life anyway. So I used to watch a lot of Grey's Anatomy. For those of you who have watched Grey's Anatomy, it is high drama, it is high anxiety, it is constantly worst-case scenario. Okay? And it's designed like any good show to suck you in, to make you care about the characters, feel what they feel, feel the anxiety. Okay? Imagine one of the, one of the Grey's Anatomy season finales and, and how dramatic and how worst case scenario that is. So I would have all these what we call inputs, right? Basically these thoughts being introduced to my mind, my mind basically being on high alert, being in this, in this visualization all day. I just watched the season five finale of Grey's Anatomy, and I'm like, oh my goodness! What if this happened? This, this, this, this, this, this, this. Okay. And now what's what's a little bit scary about that is that your brain can't tell the difference between something you vividly imagine and something you actually experience. What that means, and I'm going a little bit deeper than I normally do, but what that means is your body is going to react as if that's happening. Okay. And so we have something in our body again. I'm going a little bit further than I. I normally do with this. We have something in our body called— now bear with me, this is just a fancy name— the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Okay? And so, that's a really fancy, fancy name for your stress response system. And basically, what it is, is it's when your body sends signals to other areas of your body that this is freeze, fight, flight mode. It's go mode.

Okay.

Okay? It is, there's a dinosaur right in front of us and we need to make a decision mode. Okay? And so, your body has a limited amount of resources, and it uses those resources for things like muscle growth and repair, processing memory, digestion, things of that nature. Now, when this hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis stress response system is turned on, which it is in a worst-case scenario situation, Because our brain can't tell the difference between a visualization and a real experience. Your body sends all of it, it collects all of its resources, and it sends it only to the area that it needs to deal with that situation. Okay, so it's going to increase your heart rate. You don't need to, you don't need to worry about digestion when there's a dinosaur in front of you. Okay, you don't need to worry about muscle growth and repair when there's a dinosaur in front of you. You don't need to really worry about anything. Except panic and fear and anxiety to increase your heart rate, to increase your respiratory rate, to get you ready to make a decision to run or fight or do whatever you need to do. Okay. Now, people with PTSD are constantly in this state. This system is constantly on, which is why it's really, really common for people who struggle with this, for people with— who experience trauma, who have PTSD, CPTSD, to have other issues. Like fibromyalgia, like a lot of gut issues, chronic fatigue, chronic chronic pain. Right? There there's all sorts of things that go with it because your resources are constantly being used for a dinosaur that is not really actually in front of you. Okay, so those are the negative consequences of visualization. Now the positive consequences, and consequences can be a good thing, of visualization is are. What do you think? What could some positive— and I love what you already shared, Dale, sharing like any muscle, you can build visual abilities through practice. Absolutely. This will be a muscle, which is why I said at the beginning here, you know, for those of you who, who experience nightmares, who are worst-case scenario thinkers, who are master ruminators, okay, that was all myself included. You have, you have this muscle. We need to redirect how you use it. Okay. And then for those of you who don't, it's okay. It's a muscle you're going to build and you're going to get real strong at. So the positive effects of visualization. Now, if the negative effects of visualization turn all those systems on, could then the positive effects turn all those systems off and allow you to, allow you to calm down, right? I love that, Barbara, right there. Allow you to calm the system down, allow you to pause, allow you to breathe, allow you to shut those stress responses down so that your body can do what it needs to do to actually take care of you. Okay, so that's what visual— positive visualization can do. We're barely scratching the surface on visualization, believe it or not, because we're not even specifically talking about it for goal setting. Okay, or another kind of twist on visualization is, is manifestation, right? So we're not even really talking about those things specifically. The way that we are going to use visualization is for a very specific purpose, and it's to get you relief. And in what we're going to talk about today, In our case, a sense of safety. Okay. And so what we're gonna do, we're gonna talk about one visualization exercise. Now, before we do that, I do wanna give you the resource of how to visualize anything in, in 4 steps. So there's gonna be 4 basic steps to visualizing anything. So I, I wanna just give you this and share this with you. And then again, we're gonna get into one specifically. So the very 4 basic steps to visualizing anything. Relax. Now, this is an interesting one, right? Because what I just told you is we're gonna use visualization specifically to kind of calm you down and specifically to get you relief. But this will make sense as we go along here. So more than relax, almost, you know, what I want you to do is just kind of lean into it. Allow would actually be a better word. So allow, allow this to happen. Similar to how now we don't realize this when we're worst-case scenario thinking, but similar to how we allow a worst-case scenario to happen in our minds, we, we're not fighting typically that worst-case scenario, right? I wasn't fighting that. I wasn't telling myself, no, stop, don't, don't think about that. Like, nope, we're going to think about this instead until way later on. So really allow. You want to allow. Now, relaxing is a good thing. It's part of the 4 steps because visualization is used for a lot of different things. How we're specifically using it, you can start with relax or you can kind of tweak that to be allow. Okay? So, and again, there we have a lot of other relaxation tools as well, which you'll learn throughout the coaching. So step 2 is to imagine the mental picture or scenario. Okay? So here's where you're imagining whatever your visualization may be. Now, you can Visualize anything. Okay? So you wanna feel the positive emotions, in our case, positive. You wanna feel the positive emotions and then do something, and we'll talk about this a little bit more when we get into the actual exercise, we call recycling past emotions. So you can recycle past positive emotions to allow yourself to feel them in this moment. Step 3 is to focus on your 5 senses. Okay? So you wanna focus on, at first, your 5 senses, and then you can go out further to like your thoughts and emotions and stuff. But pull yourself into a visualization by being detailed about what am I seeing? And you can even like, what are 5 things I see? What are 10 things I see? What, what do I smell? What do I hear? What am I feeling? Okay. What do I taste? Okay. So pull yourself in with the 5 senses. And what you can also do here is actually narrate what's going on to help keep yourself focused on this. Really super powerful. And then number 4 is to, to let it flow without force. Okay? So you wanna keep yourself focused. But you don't necessarily want to force this. So you want to almost kind of get the ball rolling and then create— so you ever been bowling and they put bumpers up, right? It's your job to get the ball rolling and then to be the bumpers so that your mind doesn't get too off track and stays within that lane. But that's a pretty big lane for your mind to kind of do what it needs to do to allow it to kind of be in the visualization. Okay, so those are the 4 basic steps, and we'll make sure we kind of get those to you. So super, super powerful. Now, the one really tool I want to teach, because it's foundational for a lot of the recovery journey, and this is a tool that I use. I'm not even kidding you, I used it a week ago, okay? And I didn't use it for the purpose that we're going to be teaching it today, but it's called safe space. So a safe space is really, it's a moment in time that you design, that you design. So if you don't, if you're right now saying like, Kiley, there's no moment in time where I felt completely safe, it's okay. You are creating this. Okay? So it's a moment in time where you feel completely safe, relaxed, and in control. So now, because it's your— for typically a lot of people, it's their first visualization that they're creating. It can be really, really helpful to draw from real experiences and real feelings and kind of, sometimes I'll call it, make a mixtape of those feelings and those experiences to create something totally new and unique. And I'll give you an example of that. You wanna make your safe space as detailed as possible. So the more you do this exercise, the stronger your ability to visualize is going to get, and the stronger and more powerful your safe space will become. Okay, so the more frequently you actually work with this exercise, the stronger it's going to become. So I'm going to share mine. Okay, now when I first made this, it was super, super weak. Mine comes from a few different places, so it is fiction, but it's drawn from real events. So the sounds, the sights, The smells, the tastes, the feelings are all things that happened in my life that I took, you know, I took this sound and this feeling and, you know, this sight and I, I mixed and matched them into something that is sacred to just me. Okay? So it's, it's something that basically cannot be tainted because it's something that I created. Super, super powerful. So again, I'll give you my, my, an example of mine. So mine was, and I guess continues to be, it's me and it's me sitting on a chairlift.

Mm-hmm.

in like a mountain up north, right? Like a ski mountain. And I'm sitting on that and I'm in my— I'm alone on that chairlift. And now there's a lot that goes into this, okay? I feel the chairlift swinging. I feel the cold breeze. I feel myself constricted with all the clothes that I'm wearing and my helmet and stuff like that. Now, again, all of those little things you can go way, way deeper into. I'm just trying to give you the example. I feel my snowboard kind of tugging on my ankle. Right? I can hear the sound of, or the lack of sound that, you know, snowfall creates. I can hear the creek doing its thing below, flowing below. I can hear the snow falling off the trees. I can hear the wind going through the trees. Okay, so these are all little things. Now I'm warm inside. I have a warm feeling inside, so I'm not like chilled to the bone out there, right? And so these are all tiny, tiny little things that go into this moment. And you can Exacerbate basically the moment. And that's what I want you to do is sit in that moment and go deeper and deeper into that moment. So it's, it's a moment in time. And when I first started teaching this, they didn't have these live photographs. For those of you who know what those are, right? You take a photograph on a phone and if you press and hold it, it has like a, a motion to it. It takes like a snapshot, basically like a small, small video. It's basically like that. Okay. Where there's a little bit of movement, it's Dynamic a little bit, but it's just a singular place in time. Okay? And so this safe space, now it can be anything. I've had people use like underground, like they, they made underground bunkers where, you know, it, it was a, they did an eye scan and a thumb scan and it was like for sure safe just for them. And it was just them just kind of hanging out in there, whatever it was. Right? So it can be anything and I want it to be something that's special and sacred to you. Now, when you're creating this, if you don't have the entire goal of this is to create a feeling of Safety. Okay. And if you, if you have feelings of safety in your life, that's great. You can draw from those feelings to know what that feels like. If you don't have feelings of safety in your life, that's okay too, because what I want you to work to create is what you want safety to feel like, or what you think safety should feel like. Okay. So your goal for that feeling. And now when I'm saying you can recycle emotions from past events, let's say in my visualization, I wanted to feel a sense of safety. Calm. Okay. And I just couldn't bring up that emotion, like in that moment, right? I'm sitting, I'm doing my visualization. I wanna feel this feeling of calm, but I, I can't quite get my hands on what that feels like. What I'm gonna do is basically a visualization within a visualization, and I'm gonna think back to, you know, what's one moment I felt calm? Or I'll give a different example. I felt proud. Okay. And there was this one moment, this is a true story, you know, so I can't feel that feeling of proud right now. I can't quite get my, my hands on the tip of my tongue, but I can't, I can't get that feeling out. Right? So there was one moment I was in elementary school, my cousin and I graduated together. I don't know what we graduated from, I guess 5th grade. Okay. And there's this picture, this is why I remember it. There's a picture of me and my cousin Catherine and, and our grandma. And our grandma was so, so small. She was like the size of us when we were 5th grade in elementary school. And, you know, we had our flowers and our medals and whatever. And I just remember feeling really proud in that moment. My grandma was really proud of me. It was super, super sweet celebration, right? And so I couldn't quite get proud when I was sitting doing this safe space visualization. And so what I did is I said, okay, was there another time in my life where I felt proud? And you go back and you basically visualize that moment and you say, okay, okay, that's the feeling of proud. Now let's bring that forward. And so that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about recycling past emotions. And again, we can go further into this in, as we get further and further into the coaching as well. But that's kind of the goal. Again, your goal is to create a sense of safety. Something that is sacred to you in regard to safe space. So this is a great exercise to use if you're anxious. I absolutely recommending— recommend using it before bed because the more you use it, even if you don't feel anxious, the more you use it, the stronger it's going to become, the more detailed it's going to become. If you create this and think about it once, when you're in distress and you need a feeling of safety, it's gonna be a lot harder to call on. Then if you practice this each day, right, practice makes perfect. Okay, so practice this even when you feel good. I recommend practicing it at night. It's a great feeling to kind of fall asleep to. You do that visualization, fall asleep in it. No, no big deal there. Do it if you, if you have, you know, flashbacks and just get yourself to kind of sit and visualize that feeling of safety. If you wake up from a nightmare, it's a great tool. You can pair it up with other tools. For those of you who know the butterfly hug, amazing, amazing tool. Okay. And so that's, you know, you really want to— you can use it whenever you feel any extreme emotion. It's only one visualization exercise, but it's one that's going to come up again later on your journey. So it's one that I consistently, like, recommend to people as they get further into their processing. So the more they do their processing, a lot of people get really nervous, really, like, apprehensive about, you know, going into past traumas and actually doing the processing tools with those traumas, right? And It's one I always recommend having strong because, you know, if, if you ever feel like you are, if you ever get nervous and apprehensive about going into, you know, an experience or, you know, doing any sort of processing, you'll always have that to lean on. You'll always have that to take you out and then, and give you that feeling of safety. So how I used it, and this is really, really interesting, and I've used it like this a few times and I, I haven't used it in, I haven't needed it in years and I haven't used it in years. And last Thursday I was on a flight. Super, super rocky situation. It was super tough weather the whole way, and I get motion sick, okay? And it was hot, and I was, you know, I was in my mask, and I was motion sick, and I was like, I cannot throw up on this plane, right? I'm like in the window seat, and they didn't let you get up, so I like couldn't go to the bathroom and throw up, right? So I was like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? Okay? And so immediately, right, I was like, okay, I don't have any other options. Immediately my brain went to that safe space, actually. And, the reason was is because it makes me feel safe, it makes me feel level. I was able to immerse myself fully in it and basically kind of take myself out of this situation where I was hot and I wasn't feeling well. I was able to put myself in that safe space where it was cool, which is important to me. I was able to focus on that, feel that cool air, and I was able to keep myself from getting sick on that flight. Now, this is years later. So, there's the skills that you are learning here with the visualization— and again, there's a lot of different exercises you can use— are skills that you're going to build on and you're going to need later on in your journey. Now, again, visualization has come up a bunch this week already. So when we talked about visualizing your Unbreakable Planner worksheet, visualizing your recovery hero, use those 4 steps to visualization. Immerse yourself in it. What does it feel like? What does it look like? What does it sound like? Okay, use everything that you have there. Great. So your action today is to create your safe space if you don't have it, and to work on your safe space to continue to build your safe space if you do have it, and visit your safe space. Okay, amazing. Dale's sharing, I like visualizing beach, beach in Hawaii. Oh, that makes me calm, Dale. Just like that, with big waves breaking on the shore. That's an amazing one, Dale. Another way you can use visualization in almost like a mixed way— I used to do this You know, when I would be having a conversation and I would want to keep myself calm, but I like was very emotional, you know, I would be in the conversation and then in the back of my mind I would just think about waves crashing on the shore. Like I just visualize the beach like in the back of my mind. So I almost had like kind of split attention to, to be able to like calm myself down but stay in the conversation. That's awesome, Dale. So, Lindsay, I have an upcoming situation that I need to imagine going well and most importantly being calm. No matter the interaction or outcome, feeling confident in my spot, feeling confident in my response. I should say not reactionary. Visualization can be like proactive medicine versus reactive. Yeah, exactly that. So in school, when I was in college, when I was in high school, I always used to get compliments, my presentation skills, right? And so I used to do a presentation. Now I was a super, super shy kid, super introverted. So I, it mostly used to surprise people that I could get up and give a coherent presentation that was dynamic and it was active. And time and time again, I got like complimented on that. Or like in college, there are some presentations I really like prepared for, but you know, it's like, that was the best presentation we've ever had in class, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know, I thought about it once and Brad and I were talking about it once and he was like, what do you do to be like a confident teacher? Because I used to teach sailing as well. And at the time, I didn't really understand visualization, but I was actually doing it. And so what I would do is I'd actually stand in front of the mirror. And this is funny, in the beginning of like when I do YouTube videos or when I do training videos or when I do basically any sort of video where it's, it's a little bit tighter than this. It's recorded. I have a kind of flow that I wanna follow. I, I have certain points that I need to make sure I absolutely hit no matter what. Otherwise I have to redo the video. You know, I'll turn the camera on and what you'll see me do is actually stand there silent and I don't even realize I'm doing this. And then it's, it's funny to watch back. I'll actually stand there silent and go through it all with my hands and I'll point to certain things on the whiteboard that, you know, will be there when I'm actually Doing the presentation or whatever it is. And you'll just see me like doing stuff like that. I'd stand in front of the mirror and I would just imagine being in the classroom, what it was like, where it was, you know, in the school at the university. And then I'd imagine doing my presentation basically over and over and over again. I didn't realize that that was a skill that I was building. And, and that's the reason I was successful. Not 'cause I'm a great presenter, right? You can see today I'm a little run down. I'm a little, I'm a little sick. And, you know, I, I certainly have my presentation practices that are not good practices. I have my filler words and stuff like that and make fidgets and, and all sorts of stuff like that. But you visualize and it also gives you more confidence, right? You're, so one of the reasons we want you to visualize the Unbreakable Planner worksheet is because when you visualize specifically your to-do list, right? If you don't know the difference, if your brain doesn't know the difference between something you vividly imagine and something you actually experience, when you visualize your to-do list, your brain is experiencing it, which means the next day when you get up, it's gonna be that much easier 'cause your brain ha— your brain thinks you have already done it. And when you've already done something, isn't it that much easier? The first time you made tea, it was like, what do I do with these 3 things? Okay, now you could probably make tea, no problem, or coffee, no problem, or, or something much more complex, no problem. But the first time you do it, it's like, what's going on, right? Really super powerful. Awesome. Yeah, practice makes progress, Dale. Absolutely. Dale's sharing, for a long time, my mental unit was my safe space, so I would imagine and self-fulfilling prophecy I would go in. Also, people including my doctor would tell me I was headed back to the hospital. I broke the habit after 15 visits, but it did give me a sense of security. Now you really can create it around anything, anything that you want. The one thing we talked about this a little, I think it was last week, someone had the question on like, oh, can I put my partner in it or should I put my partner in it? The one thing I basically wouldn't recommend is I would really strongly advise against Now, if you do it at first, it's okay, right? There's, there's no really wrong way, but I advise against people in it, even dogs. And there's a reason for that. And it's, it's you creating your own sense of safety is a powerful thing. Now, there are other visualize— visualization exercises that can include like safe figures, whether it's your partner or your dog or your friends. So you can do stuff like that as well. But safe space specifically, you really wanna kind of keep sacred. So Joe sharing, just to To let everybody in here, exacerbate means to make a bad feeling worse. Is that the definition of it? Amplify or intensify would be a better word for increasing a positive feeling, right? So intensify. Yeah, it absolutely fits better. So Barbara's sharing, thank you. I'm not sure I ever really felt safe, so doing something that gives me joy should make me feel safe. Those can be 2 separate feelings, but what you're going for specifically in the safe space is that feeling of safety. So, you know, I kind of chose a sport, right? So it's like a specific moment in time where like this chairlift is stopped It's swaying, it's cool, I can hear certain things, I'm alone. Doing something that gives me joy should make me feel safe. I think those might be 2 different things, but it can— like, it's like a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square type of a thing, if that makes sense, Barbara. So it absolutely can, but, but not always. So Judy asking, or sharing, I've still been having trouble with my safe space. A lot of my past safe past memories Are so mixed with bad emotions. As far as safe space goes, I'm guessing that it can be built from any time space, like from more recent memories. So this can be totally fictional. This can be totally fictional if you want. What can be helpful is to do the recycling of past emotions that you want to feel, if you have them. If you don't have them, I want you to create them. And so if you don't have a feeling of safety and you're just like, healing, I just don't know what that feels like, that's okay. You have an awesome opportunity. Which is to create the— what you want safety to feel like. Okay? So you can create this, which is an amazing, amazing thing. And that's what makes safe space sacred. Now, what I described, it sounds like a real experience. It was not a real experience. It was drawn from real experience. So there's actually no place on the planet that exists that is my safe space because I drew elements from different places. Makes sense? Jen sharing, it can help to write down the details of what you want to use as your safe space and all the senses you want to experience. Absolutely, absolutely it can. Some people even draw it. Some people draw it, which I love, love seeing. So you can draw it so you can like have something to, to visualize off of. And so Judy sharing, that's something for me to work on, having a safe space with just myself in it. I lean on people so much with my feelings and emotions. Yeah, so especially then we really want to I want each and every one of you to be able to create safety for yourself. That's really important. Now, there are people in our lives that, that can enhance that safety. It is foundational though, that I want you to be able to create it for yourself. And so what you do when you create it for yourself is everything else then becomes almost icing on the cake. And so it becomes less of a, I need this person to create this thing. I need this person to have this feeling.

Mm-hmm.

But this person amplifies this feeling, right? So Joe, I love this sharing for Barbara. If joy is as close a feeling you have to feeling safe, start with what you have and build from there. That's beautiful advice. Awesome. Amazing job. Barbara sharing, so being alone is the only time I felt safe, so my safe space could be alone within my apartment. Absolutely. It can be anything that makes you feel safe or, or anything, you know, that is going to help you create that, that sense of safety. It's awesome. Anna sharing, I had drawn my safe space and kept adding to it, building on it. This continues to bring me joy. Okay, so there's, there's joy coming up again. I love that. I love that. So, you know, if you're— if you can do that and you can draw, and even if you can't draw and you can just kind of get something out there to have, to hold, for those of you kinesthetic, absolutely do it. Absolutely do it. And for those of you artistic and creative, do it. And it's— that's awesome. And then you have something to reference, you have something to build on. That's a beautiful thing to do, Anna. I love that you shared that and it brings you joy. So there's that again. There's that word joy again. Awesome, guys. Jen sharing, you can use a photograph. Yeah. If you have one and you want to draw off of that, you know, all of these things are things to build off of. And one of the really cool things about this process, and for some people they don't enjoy this, is that it can be creative, right? And, and you have all this freedom to do what, do what works and is best for you. That's awesome. So Dale asking, can you do auditory visualizations such as hearing a song that brings you peace? You totally can. So again, you can add anything to these visualizations. And what I love about this is you can get so creative with it, right? So if you have a song that just brings you that safety or that peace or that calm or, you know, makes you feel like at home, whatever like feeling that you're looking for from that song, You can add it. I mean, you can, you can start with it and start with kind of visualizing and imagining hearing that song. Or your visualization could be like this morning, right? I just drove by the beach. I was a little bit early running to the office, had my coffee. I just sat, opened the windows, listened to the waves crash. It was, it was absolutely amazing. Right. And so I shut my eyes even, right? I didn't— it was actually really, really foggy, so I actually couldn't even see the waves. So I shut my eyes and I just listened, you know, and so you can start there and build off of that. And whatever's strongest for you, absolutely start with that. Dale asking, or can you listen to music while doing the visualization? Yeah, you absolutely can. You absolutely can. To again, kind of enhance you further into it. So you can use something from your physical world to help you kind of get into that, right? So I'll use the example of when I was on that flight last Thursday, they have those air things. I don't know what they are. Vents, right? And I felt it blowing on me, but I was still super, super hot. Super, super hot. So when I was doing my visualization, I basically imagined that that air was the wind in my visualization, right? So you can kind of immerse or combine elements from your physical world and the thing that you're working to visualize to kind of mix them together and enhance everything. Amazing job, everyone. Again, absolutely amazing job. You all have done absolutely fantastic work. What I want you to do is bring this visualization work throughout everything that we talked about this week. Absolutely everything that we talked about. So much can be enhanced by visualization. So, so much. So your recovery hero, your unbreakable planner, your routines— visualize yourself going through your routines, visualize your to-do list the next day, all of it. Add the visualization element to it. Visualize your gratitudes, okay? Bring as many senses as you can into whatever you're working to visualize, and it's going to Enhance it. Anna sharing, I started listening to positive encouraging K-Love radio station. For me, listening to such positive comments and music is so healing. Anna, that's awesome. Visualizing helps me remember lists. That's— and visualizing is great for memorization. My mom had a great English teacher and my mom taught me. That's awesome, Joe. But I do have to jump off. It's been an absolute pleasure to be here with each and every one of you. I appreciate your patience today. This weekend, I want you to keep taking action on everything that we talked about this week. Keep showing up for each and every one of you. Have an amazing, amazing weekend. Bye, everyone.

Hey everybody, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you want to learn more about how you can coach with me directly, there's a link in the description you can check out. There's absolutely no pressure. The main thing is I wanted you to get value from this episode here, but I hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you in the next one.