Seeing is Believing. It’s Science.
“Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality.” - Robin S. Sharma
The Power of Visualization Explained by Neuroscience
In my past life, I followed my father’s lead for about 7 years and learned how to race automobiles. It sounds rare for a female but it wasn’t that out of ordinary for me. I grew up around him club racing as a hobby, and after enough evenings (artfully) making foot-long subs at Subway and passing out hotdogs at our hometown stadium in the summer I saved up enough money for a “track-worthy” car.
When I first started learning how to race though, there were only so many hours in the day that could be spent on the track. As a result, my father, who was also my first instructor, encouraged me to sit in silence when I got home and visualize running my lap around the track. His advice was to set a timer and run through each turn - seeing the marker I had chosen as my cue to start breaking, feeling the sensations of the car's weight shift as I pressed on the pedals and began to downshift, the sound of the engine increasing in pressure, and the force of the car as it glided through the corner and eased back into acceleration. Then onto the straight, and the next turn, and the turn after that, until I had run through my whole lap.
That sounded like a huge waste of time to teenage me. But like a good teenager, my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to try it.
It didn't take long to realize that if I really stayed with it - took myself out of the seat of that desk chair and into the seat of my mind, the seat of that race car, I could just about get my lap time down to the second. The first time I did it, I blinked in astonishment. How could I have recreated that track, that car, the weight of my helmet and the sensations of those accelerations down to the second? Not possible. Seemingly though, very possible.
When I showed back up at the track, my driving got increasingly better. That's when I became (acutely) aware of the power of visualization. The ability of our mind to take us somewhere we are not, so we can continually experience and practice where we’d like to be (and who we’d like to be), to perfectly paint the reality we’d like to live in.
Recently, in this life, I’ve been sitting down again to visualize where and who’d I’d like to be. Though I anecdotally had my racing experience to support the power of visualization, as with most things, I started to wonder about the science behind why visualization really works.
That quest for evidence and understanding led me back to my love affair with neuroscience. Neuroscience is the study of our brain and holistically, our nervous system. Studying neuroscience has allowed me to move out of the passenger seat of this crazy thing called life and get back into the driver’s seat. Understanding our brain and nervous system is simply another vehicle for understanding ourselves. How can we truly know ourselves if we don’t understand the machinery, or in this case the beautiful brain and body, we’ve been gifted?
Here’s what I found.
3 Neuroscience Reasons Visualization Works:
Neuroplasticity - To start, visualization works because there is surprisingly little difference to the brain between experiencing an event in our external reality and a vividly imagined (and often felt) reality created in the mind. Our mind is that powerful, and for better or for worse, our brain is that easily convinced.
Imagining the event happening sends electricity to those areas of the brain and starts to build neural pathways in the same way they are built by experiencing the event externally. These connections may not initially be as strong as a full-body experienced event but with repetition and focus, those pathways can quickly gain strength and eventually become the default network.
This phenomenon is known as neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to change itself. Our brains are constantly creating new connections, strengthening existing ones with frequent use, and pruning old ones that are no longer of service to us. The difference with visualization, is instead of letting this process occur naturally the way it does when we travel to new places, learn a new language, or forget an old language - is we are directing it. Otherwise known as self-directed neuroplasticity. You are picking up the building materials and architecting your own connections, while shedding others, to become the designer of your mind. Ultimately, making you the designer of your life.
The Reticular Activating System - Every moment of every day, more than ever, we are bombarded with millions of bits of information. That information is filtering through our eyes and ears by a large extent but also through touch, taste, and smell. If our brain was to take in all of this information at once it would remain in complete overwhelm (I think my brain has tried). To operate most efficiently, we’ve been given a lovely bundle of nerves (that sounds super nerdy) known as the Reticular Activating System or RAS (extremely nerdy).
The RAS is the reason you buy a new car and start seeing it everywhere, learn a new word and all of the sudden it comes up in conversation constantly, or decide to start dating again and feel like you’re noticing other attractive individuals everywhere (the opposite of this is seeing couples everywhere and feeling disheartened). Basically, you see these things because you’re looking for them. The RAS has tagged them as important because you have signaled it to do so. You’ve given it instructions that since you now own a new Mini Cooper those cars are now of interest to you, the word “neuroplasticity” now means you can learn how to change your brain, and since you’re single again; other singles are back on your radar. This programming is all happening without our consciousness knowing because our brain is smart, it wants to make your life as beautiful as possible with as little work as possible.
The beauty of visualization is you’ve now consciously decided to tell your brain what’s important. You’ve set the intention to marry the conscious and subconscious parts of your mind to create a new set of value tags. Essentially, a new set of beliefs. By continually seeing it in your mind, you’re priming the brain to see those things - or opportunities that support the progression of those things - in real life. So, now The Law of Attraction doesn’t sound so mystical. Architect your RAS to notice the negative things in life (couples everywhere because you’ve just got out of a relationship and everyone’s happily paired off but you), and that’s what you’ll invite into your life. Design your RAS to see the positive, abundant, gorgeous, breath-taking things in life (insert beautiful inside-and-out single people) and that’s what you’ll attract because your brain is seeking them out. It’s magic and science colliding to influence the world you’re seeing and creating.
Mirror Neurons - Cool, so, if you’re not convinced yet that the brain is absolutely fascinating my last piece of evidence in support of the neuroscience behind visualization is mirror neurons. Mirror neurons, in the most basic sense, are neurons in the brain that fire by watching someone else perform an action.
For example, you’re chatting with a friend at a coffee shop and she takes a sip of coffee and smiles and you instantly feel a bit warmer, as if you’d taken the sip yourself, and lighter, as you too start to slip a smile without any conscious awareness.
My reasoning says that mirror neurons can also be intentionally put to work with the power of visualization. If you’re continually seeing individuals (whether in your mind or tagging them with your RAS in real life) who are living the life you want to create and feeling the way you want to feel, your mirror neurons will naturally start firing in unison with that person. This is how children learn and inevitably grow to mimic the same mannerisms as their parents and how in adult life (#adulting) we are constantly reminding each other, ‘You are who you surround yourself with’. Because, honestly, you actually are who you surround yourself with. They are mirrors of you, and your brain, reflecting back to you. Firing to create the person you are and the one you’re becoming. I’d make sure to select them, and the visuals you choose for your future self, wisely.
In summary, you are magic but you are also science. Visualization harnesses those forces to design the reality, and the brain, that you’ve always imagined. Now you’re back to being the driver, the architect, the author - whatever you want to be - of your own life. A life by your own design.
P.S. If you’re ready to harness the power of visualization download the Self by Design app. It’s an easy way to create a digital vision board and receive powerful reminders to keep you seeing, and believing, the reality you’re creating.
