Colorful Visualizations To Help You Work Through Anxious Moments
As an acupuncturist and clairvoyant, I've worked with tens of thousands of beautiful souls over the years. One thing that connects many of them, regardless of background, income, fortune, fame, family, health, or career? Stress, overwhelm, and anxiety. I've found visualization to be one effective way to deal with this near-universal feeling.
We all know that words are charged, and hearing "relax" when you're anxious can be a trigger that leads to the exact opposite of relaxation. Imagery, on the other hand, is more neutral. Creating new images on demand can be a powerful and radically effective distraction from stressful thoughts.
And you don't need to wait until your mind is racing and your palms start to get sweaty to try the following exercises. Even before you get to that place, try to commit to building a visualization practice so it's there when you need it. The more you commit to visualizing, the stronger this conjuring muscle gets and the easier it is to call upon it when necessary. Just like with meditation, a consistent practice in visualizations can rewire your brain1 and help you respond to life rather than react to life.
I'd recommend committing to practicing the following for at least 21 days, exploring all three for a total of 20 minutes a day. (Like I say in nu it school, practice makes permanence.) Thankfully, you don't have to be perched in a chair with your eyes closed to try them out. Explore practicing them with your eyes open, when you're mid-conversation, while you're on the computer, whenever you wish!
A color visualization for grounding.
Sometimes when we feel anxious and uncomfortable in our own skin, it's because we've picked up on some energy that isn't ours—maybe through social media or our surroundings. This visualization can help you tap into your intuition and ground it out:
- With your eyes closed, visualize a grounding cord as a hollow tube of light that extends from your hips down into the earth's core. This tube functions like your own personal trash shoot. You can send all the extra stuff in your space down it to get sucked into the earth's core.
- Imagine the color red traveling out of your body and down this grounding cord. Any red at all that's in your head, in your body, your legs, abdomen, wherever the red may be, is sucked right out of your space. Do you feel that? Can you see the red leaving you and entering your grounding cord? Can you see the red being absorbed into the center of the earth?
- Repeat with other colors. Go through the rainbow and send orange down next. Then yellow, green, blue, and purple.
- Cycle through the colors of the rainbow for as many times as it takes until you feel calm and peaceful.
A color visualization for reclaiming your surroundings.
If there's a person or a location that tends to freak you out, this visualization will have your back. It can be wonderful for difficult conversations at work, negotiations with the boss, auditions, interviews, and everything in between. It's like setting the frequency of any room to the perfect fit for you. Feel free to look up and open your eyes to remind yourself of your location through this exercise:
- Imagine a golden column of light in the center of the room. Like your personal grounding cord, this hollow tube of light extends all the way deep down into the center of the earth and functions as a vacuum.
- Watch dark, dingy colors melt off the walls and furniture of this space and get sucked down the room's grounding cord and disappear into the center of the earth.
- Cycle through all the colors of the rainbow and send them all down this golden grounding cord.
- Next, visualize yourself writing your name on all the walls of this room, declaring that you belong here. Imagine your smiling face on all the walls.
- Write your intention on all the walls, such as "I am at peace," "I feel confident," "I am capable of clear communication."
A color visualization for living in the present.
Feel stuck in the past or anxious about the future? This one is all about calling your power back in and feeling perfect, whole, and complete as you walk through the present moment:
- Imagine a huge golden sun that hovers just above your head.
- Notice your name in the center of the golden sun in the form of a magnet. This name-shaped magnet calls all your personal power into your sun.
- Watch as golden light pours into your sun, as if it's a pitcher filling with water. Light from your past and future, your relationships and belongings is magnetized right into your golden sun until it's so full it looks like it might just burst.
- That's when you'll poke a hole in the bottom of your sun and fill yourself with all your golden light. You'll fill your feet, legs, torso, arms, and head with all this beautiful golden light of yours, and it will help you become powerfully present.
To make these visualizations easier to follow, you can find guided recordings of them here. These visualizations took me from feeling mostly worried all the time to feeling mostly grateful every single day. I hope they do the same for you!
Deganit Nuur, DAOM earned her doctorate in acupuncture from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine. She's also a certified end of life doula, medicinal essential oil practitioner, feng shui practitioner, reiki master, and herbalist. She practices as a metaphysical teacher and clairvoyant healer. Deganit has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, Vogue, Vanity Fair and other reputable publications as well as appearing on The Today Show and Good Morning America. She lives between New York City and Los Angeles.