More Than Anxiety

Ep 92 - How To Use Guided Imagery for Anxiety, Stress, and Goals

• Megan Devito • Episode 92

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In this episode I'm talking about one of my favorite tools I use to help the people I coach lower anxiety and stress and grow their confidence. You'll learn how to use guided imagery and/or future pacing , what it is, and why  it works.

Be sure to stay until the end or pause and come back when you're in a place where you can relax and feel comfortable. I'm taking you through a quick relaxation imagery session so you can destress and feel great anytime you listen.

Combining future pacing with coaching helps my clients get the results they came for faster without having to dig into the past or fearing the future. To talk to me about how you can work with me as your coach, CLICK HERE.

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Guided Imagery for Anxiety Relief

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Using Guided Imagery for Success

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Guided Imagery for Stress Relief

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You know you're overwhelmed, burned out, sick to death of work but also trying to do everyting for everyone at home. TAKE THIS QUIZ to find out why you're so overwhelmed and what to do about it.

Megan Devito:

Welcome to the More Than Anxiety Podcast. I'm Megan Devito and I help ambitious women break out of the anxiety cycle that keeps them frustrated and stuck. Get ready for a lighthearted approach that will change what you think, how you feel and what you believe about yourself. This podcast is full of simple steps, a lot of truth, talk and inspiration to take action. So you walk away feeling confident, calm, and ready to live. Let's get to it.

Megan Devito:

Hey there, welcome to episode 92 of the More Than Anxiety podcast. If you've been here before, it's great to have you back, and if not, I'm super excited that you found me, whether on YouTube or wherever you catch your podcasts. This week, I wanted to share one of my favorite tools that I use when I'm coaching to help people process their anxiety. And I use this as future pacing, but it's also called guided imagery. Either way, it works wonders. It's so helpful and it's super easy to do. You can catch other videos on YouTube, there are apps, there are recordings on iTunes and all kinds of different places, and I'm going to give you a freebie sample at the end of this episode, so you're going to want to stay until the very end. Make sure you've got a place where you can sit and close your eyes, so obviously not while you're driving and really listen to this. It's going to be a fantastic little brain break or a quick vacation for you in your own mind. I think these two processes, even though they're not exactly the same, they work in the same way and they have really enormous benefits that I see play out in the results that my clients get to help them relax, to move forward, to be able to do things that make them nervous. And there's something that you can just start up anytime. It doesn't take a lot of background, it just takes a willingness to sit and be quiet. So, like I told you, they're really simple and we're just going to go ahead and dive in so we can get to the good stuff at the end of the episode.

Megan Devito:

So guided imagery is just creating mental pictures like a movie in your mind, whether those come from YouTube or from me as your coach, or, if you practice them enough, you can just do them on your own through thinking thoughts on purpose. So this goes beyond just thinking about something in general and it really pulls in your whole body, and I'll explain this in a few minutes about why this is important and how you can do it. So this is safe. It's forward focused. We're not talking about past trauma here. It's all forward focused and it's just a way to help you manage stress and anxiety that works without having to rehash all of these old sad stories and events, so you do not have to go dig back into the past to feel better.

Megan Devito:

I think that's a really you know, I think that's a really big eye-opening thought for a lot of people who struggle with anxiety is that I have to go back, I have to talk about the things that might've made me anxious. I have to be able to heal that. And that's not necessarily true. And in fact, I have an exact opposite situation. I have no like serious trauma other than regular life circumstances that happened. That granted, some point along some point along the road, I probably picked up ways that I stored these situations in my body that created some anxiety. I was a super sensitive kid. I'm a super sensitive adult, so that was probably a lot of it.

Megan Devito:

But last year I've mentioned before that I had a lot of anxiety last year from just things that were happening in my life, normal life circumstances that just lodged into my body. So I felt really anxious last year and I spent a lot of time listening to things about healing your inner child and trying to work through this past trauma, and what I noticed was that for me, it just made everything that much worse because I kept wondering what if something happened that I don't remember? What if I'm doing it wrong? What if this, what if that, what if this, when in fact I was just giving anxiety a lot more attention than it actually deserved. And as soon as I caught myself which actually took a long time, but as soon as I caught myself I realized that this is not necessary and when I'm not doing that, I feel amazing. So we don't always have to go backwards.

Megan Devito:

This imagery, this guided imagery and future pacing, is all about moving you forward and letting it be okay to feel anxious sometimes, so this is safe, it's forward focused and you're not digging backward, we're just thinking forward, and there is science behind this to prove it. So this provides immediate relief from anxiety symptoms, which are really the problem. Anxiety itself is just a state, it's an emotional state. It happens, it burns off relatively quickly, like 60 to 90 seconds, and then, technically or theoretically, I guess you should be back to normal, but most of us aren't because we keep thinking. So what this does, it helps us to calm the body down so that we relieve the symptoms, and when you calm the body, the brain kind of stops thinking of new things to be afraid of on its own. So we're going to help you feel calm so that you can think clearly and creatively.

Megan Devito:

If you are a creative person, if you're a creative entrepreneur and you notice that you get stuck in decision paralysis or overthinking, this is a great way to reset your system and to be able to do it on the spot. You don't have to keep going through the same things over and over again based on how you feel. We're going to calm that down by creating stories in our head that aren't making it worse. This is great for entrepreneurs, so that you can see what you want and where you're going, instead of coming up with well, it won't work, or what you don't want to see. And this is great for everyday use too, just to help you manage your to-do list or get started on tasks or get organized, or just to take a break and give yourself time to do nothing If meditating is hard for you because you can't turn your brain off.

Megan Devito:

This is the exact opposite concept, with the same kind of results, and we're just going to notice thoughts, that we're going to create thoughts on purpose instead of noticing thoughts and letting them float through. Both of them are incredibly beneficial. They're just not the same. And this works. The reason that this is so powerful and why it works is because your brain believes absolutely everything that you tell it. It just assumes that if you thought it, it's true. This is why, if you're in the shower and you start thinking about something really really scary or sad, you can make yourself cry. It's also why you can think about things that would be really really exciting and get super excited, even though you're really just in the shower or driving your car or whatever else you're doing. When you let your mind wander down that path, we're just going to let it wander down the path with purpose and on purpose. So we're going to create emotions, we're going to create feelings inside of your body and we're going to get you to move forward instead of swirling around in crazy stories that just end up making you feel worse. So when we talk about visualization and we talk about how this can work, whether it's to reduce stress or to achieve a goal. We kind of have two different scenarios going on there with the same kind of process, and I want to tell you a story about Michael Phelps.

Megan Devito:

I talk about Michael Phelps because I feel like everybody knows who he is and because I love swimming, so he's always the best example for me. Back when he was about 15 years old, he started working with this coach named Bob Bowman and even before that, I'm sure he was working with Bob Bowman before he was 15, but I don't know the exact age and one of the things that they started doing because he had a lot of energy. He was like an ADHD kind of kid and it was a lot of trouble to keep him focused and moving forward, but he had an obscene amount of talent, right Like we know, the guy is amazingly gifted at swimming, and so one of the things that his coach had him do was practice his races every night before he went to bed. And that doesn't mean he got in the pool to practice his races. It means that while he was in bed he did this thing called future pacing, and I've done this with several of my clients for lots of different situations. So with some clients this is a great fit for them. With others we do more guided imagery, but in particular people who are trying to achieve a goal or to be able to do something that makes them feel really anxious. We practice it ahead of time Because your brain, every time you think about it, and especially when we pull in the senses, your brain thinks it's actually happening. So back to Michael Phelps. He would lay in bed at night and his coach would walk him through the process of putting on his cap, stepping up towards the blocks.

Megan Devito:

What does the block feel like when your feet are standing on it? Can you feel the sandpaper? Starting blocks are grippy so that you don't slip off and like fall off the block before you race. So can you feel your feet on the blocks? Can you feel how your heart feels or your body feels when you go down to grab the block and take your mark? And when they do that, can you imagine your body moving forward farther and faster? Can you imagine how your arms are in front of you? Can you imagine your toes pointed? Can you imagine what your tips of your fingers feel like when they enter the water first. Can you imagine what your tips of your fingers feel like when they enter the water first? Can you imagine moving through the water? What does your body feel like? How's your heart beating? What are you doing? Okay, let's swim the race. How are your hands going in? What's your body position? How are your feet kicking? What does the water feel like as it's moving fast past you? What does it feel like when you pull? Like, which muscles are engaged? What does your turn feel like? On and on and on. They go through the entire race, all the way to the finish, and looking up to the clock and imagining what you want the time to be, because you can get it that close. You can time it. We've seen it happen.

Megan Devito:

The craziest part is that when you do this, especially for athletes and there are other athletes that use this as well, Tiger Woods was one they know that by practicing this, and really getting really deep into your imagination and feeling your muscles, it actually increases muscle mass, which is insane. But I use Michael Phelps as an example because when he won one of his races at one of the Olympics, it was so close, it was like fingernail length, and they said how did you do it. And he said I've practiced that race hundreds of times in my head because he practiced it every single night. His brain just assumed that it happened before, so his brain knew exactly what to do. This is creating muscle memory, and we know that memories are stored in your muscle. So, in order for this to be extra effective, what we want to do is we want to really engage the body, be able to work those memories and those feelings that we want to experience into the muscles and into the nerve and the tissue fibers, so that they are there, so that when life happens, you're like I've done this before. This is not a problem. I totally know how to do it.

Megan Devito:

So these are some of the benefits of using guided imagery to relax, but also, on the flip side, using future pacing to be able to get you where you want to go. The cool part about what I can do is that I can combine those two to say this is where we want to go. So we can use future pacing, we can create a script and I've done this where I've created these audio recordings for my clients and said this is where we're going, this is how your body feels when you're going. We're calm. Notice how calm your body feels. Notice how you're breathing. Notice how your shoulders feel. There's not a lot of tension. Notice what you can see, notice what you're going to say and do when you go there. So we're practicing moving forward and we're practicing relaxation at the same time. It's crazy how good this is.

Megan Devito:

So, as women, a lot of times we like to be, you know, we like to be seen as kind or giving or liked, and those are all wonderful things to be seen as. But you also can be powerful and you can be passionate and you can be goal-oriented. We can have all of those things. But when we are in a position of trying to move up the corporate ladder or of trying to raise our kids and hold down a job at the same time, or trying to take care of our families, and maybe our parents or our neighbors, or whatever else, it is because, genuinely, we're kind of wired to be caretakers. Even if we don't have kids, we're still wired to be caretakers. It's like the feminine side or the feminine energy.

Megan Devito:

So when you're feeling overwhelmed by all the things that you have to do, it can be really helpful to imagine yourself completing these tasks easily or doing whatever order works best for you. But when you go there in your mind and you can see that this is already happening for me, your brain's like check, I got it, we've done that. We can do it again. Your brain loves familiarity. This is the way we beat anxiety. We're setting up a situation where your brain already knows what to expect ahead of time and when it doesn't have to guess, it doesn't make up stories. So you don't feel as anxious. And when you don't feel as anxious, it makes up even fewer stories. It just goes with the one that you've practiced. So we could let it go down the path of everything you don't want. We're going to go down the path of giving it what you do want.

Megan Devito:

So imagine how you would feel if you were walking up to your boss and asking for the promotion or the raise, or even asking to put in your resignation. If you're just going to wing it or you're going to think about it, you could think of everything that people would say about you, or how you don't deserve it, or that you're going to fumble, you're going to cry, all these different things. But when we practice it ahead of time, on purpose, you can say oh wait, I can do this. I can feel calm, I can be confident that this is what I want, this is what I deserve. This is what I need. I can ask with authority, I can still be kind, I can behave the way I want to behave. I can feel what I want to feel now and then, when I go, do it, it's not so hard.

Megan Devito:

Imagine having that difficult conversation with somebody and how you want to feel and experience it. Whether it's a conversation with your bos,s or your partner, or your teenager, or your mom, or your neighbor, or anyone else. You can practice that ahead of time. It still works the same way or really being successful ahead of time, in the same way that Michael Phelps did by using future pacing. I recently wrote a future pacing for someone who had to give a speech and she was very nervous about having to give this speech. So we talked about what do you want to feel like inside your body when you step on the stage to give the speech? What do you want to imagine people are saying about you? Let's just go ahead and imagine it now. Let's imagine you speaking directly to someone and she said I want to speak to my sister. Great, let's imagine what it's like to talk just to your sister, and what do you want her to hear. So we're going to practice the speech and we're going to imagine a crowd of 500 people listening to you, but you're only talking to your sister. So the more that we listen to that and the more that we practice that, your brain's like oh yeah, I can do this speech. So then when she goes up to give the speech, everything's fine because she's done it before. Even if it's only inside of her head, that's what counts.

Megan Devito:

Your brain assumes that it's already happening. So when you're getting the thoughts to go where you want to go in advance, you just don't spend as much time rolling them around in your head. Whether you're at work, trying to be productive, and all of a sudden you can't remember what you're doing and you're like God, I lost my train of thought, I'm so worried about this other thing. Or you don't lay in bed at night overthinking what's going to happen tomorrow when I go in. Oh my God, I hope I don't do this. I hope I don't do that. You've already practiced it. So you get to go to sleep, you get better sleep. It pays off in advance in so many different ways. So this is how we get started using guided imagery You're going to choose one topic, just one.

Megan Devito:

You don't want to do guided imagery for everything at once. Let's just knock out one important thing at a time. So I want you to choose one thing or one problem and focus on that, and you're going to find a quiet space. I mean, I suppose you could like put in earbuds and you could do this on the bus on your way, like if you commute to work, or you could do it. I don't know, I guess you could even get like go sit in a bathroom or something if you wanted to do it.

Megan Devito:

I like to sit alone in my room, or I've been known to do this in my car too, when I was still teaching. I would eat lunch in my car so I could have some quiet for a few minutes. Guided imagery was great, meditation was great, all of those things Anything that I could do to lower my stress level, to be able to go back in and finish my day. So one topic, one quiet space, and you're going to get comfortable. I used to lay the seat back in my car. You can lay the seat back, you can lay down If you're better sitting up. You can sit up and do it. It doesn't really matter, just get comfortable, sit, close your eyes.

Megan Devito:

Okay, then what we have to do is we have to decide what kind of guided imagery you actually need. Like, okay, when I think about this situation, do I feel stressed, do I feel confused? Do I just need to chill out for a while, or am I trying to accomplish a goal? Because all of those things have different ways to do the guided imagery. So, for example, if you're stressed, you might just want to sit and imagine that you're sitting on the side of a mountain and there's a beautiful creek and maybe there's wildflowers all around you, and I'm just going to sit here and I'm going to listen to that creek for a while.

Megan Devito:

And when you go to that place, in your mind it just assumes you're really there Enough that I've had people tell me they could actually smell wildflowers or trees. Your body's going to go there. It's really like a little mental vacation or like crossing over into the veil or into some other realm or something, something real, like vibey right, or like what do I want to call this? You know what I'm talking about, right? Like, when you like, jump fields, quantum field jumping or something like that. I don't know. I'm probably using the wrong terminology, but if you're anxious, you might want to choose something that brings you to like a safe place. Maybe your safe place is okay. I'm anxious right now. I just want to imagine that I'm sitting curled up in a blanket on my couch, because that makes me feel really good. Even if I'm in my office, even if I'm sitting in my car, even if I'm somewhere else, if I can just imagine that I'm in that place, my brain's going to take me there and that's great.

Megan Devito:

And if you're going after a goal, I want you to practice the routine. I want you to practice it just like Michael Phelps did, and that's when you can turn to YouTube for guided imagery or find the app or get somewhere else or talk with me about coaching, and I'll create some specifically for you. And we'll do some of those things as we work through those problems, as we work through the feelings and create new habits so that you can really use the imagery even faster and better and get your results even sooner. Which is the beauty of coaching is that we accelerate results because we're not going back to like talk about all this past trauma and certainly there is a place to do that. I mean, if you've experienced some big time heavy things, if it abuse or trauma or death or, you know, violent situations or car accidents or anything else that was really, really powerful for you, please talk to a therapist about how to do that. But that's not your story. If that's not your story, let's move forward and let's do it in a way that's going to push you forward faster. So by using this imagery, we can do that.

Megan Devito:

So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to ask you to pause this video or pause this podcast and find a place where you can get comfortable and sit with your eyes closed for like five or 10 minutes, because I'm going to walk you through a guided imagery session. This is just going to be one for just some stress reduction. We're not going to do any future pacing because I don't know exactly what your goal is, but I can walk you through a stress reduction guided imagery that's going to help you lower your anxiety, and we're going to do it right now, on the spot. So hit pause and then I'm going to pick up. Okay, assuming that you're sitting somewhere where you feel comfortable, take a deep breath in, feel your chest rise. Slowly, exhale all the way, exhale some more and release any tension that you're holding onto. Go ahead and find a comfortable position sitting or lying down are fine and close your eyes.

Megan Devito:

Imagine a safe space where you can completely relax and be by yourself. So maybe you picture a quiet beach where you're watching the sun go down and the sand is soft and warm beneath your bare feet and there's gentle waves running over the skin and under your toes as they roll up on the shore, and the air is crisp and clean and there's a sweet scent of salt and sea air. And you look out at the horizon, where the sky is pink and orange and yellow with streaks of blue. And as you walk along the shore you feel the tension in your shoulders softening with every inhale. You breathe in the peace of this place and with each exhale you release any worries or anxieties that might be weighing you down.

Megan Devito:

Notice a smooth, pearlescent seashell sitting on top of the sand and you reach down to pick it up and feel its coolness in the palm of your hand. This shell represents your strength and resilience and as you hold it close, I want you to imagine power coming from that tiny little shell. There's a sense of calm and a tingling that bubbles up inside of you. So turn your attention inward and imagine those bubbles creating a vibrant light that's emanating from inside of you. It's spreading throughout your body in a warm wave, and this light represents your inner strength and your confidence so feel its warmth moving from your chest, filling your arms and your legs, reaching all the way down to the tips of your fingers and your toes. See yourself standing tall with your shoulders back and your chin held high. You are capable and determined and ready to face any challenge that comes your way. Remember this feeling, this inner strength that you have.

Megan Devito:

Take another deep breath in, fill your lungs and, as you gently exhale, bring your awareness back to where you are right now. You can wiggle your toes, wiggle your butt in your chair, open your eyes slowly, notice feeling refreshed, energized, and I want you to carry that sense of calmness and inner strength that you found on the beach with you throughout the rest of your day, whenever you feel overwhelmed or anxious. Take a moment to close your eyes and remember how that seashell felt in your hand. Remember the beach and the sunset and the bubbles and the light that filled you. Thank you for taking this time for yourself.

Megan Devito:

Okay, you can open your eyes. That's guided imagery. That was guided imagery for stress and anxiety relief and for a little bit of a confidence boost, and I hope that you noticed just in that really short guided imagery session that you really do feel calmer. It helps sometimes to pay attention to how you feel before and after, so go back and listen to it again. You can like set a little timer on there and just bring this episode up anytime and we'll always be here wherever you get your podcasts.

Megan Devito:

Or you can come back on YouTube market and say, oh, I just want to listen to that again. Or you can message me and say, megan, I need more of this, I need so much more of this. And we can talk about coaching. That's as simple as reaching out and just saying that you'd like to have a consultation call. Those are always free, they last about an hour and I would love to talk more with you about how I can help you, what you're experiencing right now and what it can be like to feel completely different, where you're not stressed and anxious, where you're not afraid to go after what you want, and I can help you get there when we do that call, and then you can just decide if coaching is the next right step for you. So thank you for joining me.

Megan Devito:

I hope this episode was calming. I hope that it was beneficial and that you find some really great guided imagery stuff to listen to. I'm really looking forward to talking with you again next week, or on a consultation call if I don't talk to you beforehand. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the More Than Anxiety podcast. Before you go, be sure to subscribe and leave a review so others can easily find this resource as well. And, of course, if you're ready to feel calm, to stop overthinking and have a lot more fun, you can go to the show notes, click the link and talk to me about coaching. I'll talk to you soon.