“If you don’t have a vision, nothing happens.”
-Christopher Reeve

Christopher Reeve, an actor who had played Superman, was thrown off his horse during a competition and became paralyzed from the neck down. Could you try to imagine his post-accident life—total immobility, the rhythmic gasp of a ventilator, feeding tubes? It turns out that being banned from a vibrant physical life wasn’t the end of this Superman, however. With unfathomable bravery, Chris compared life’s unexpected and overwhelming challenges to being adrift in an ocean storm where the beam of a lighthouse is the only hope. “…we must cling to it with absolute determination,” he said about hope. “When we have hope, we discover powers within ourselves we may have never known—the power to make sacrifices, to endure, to heal, and to love. Once we choose hope, everything is possible.”  

A vision is born from hope. And visioning is that vision in action. A vision summons us, reaches beyond our sense of sight, and beyond this moment. Visioning is the ability to experience with our mind what is as vivid and credible as an image before our eyes.  How is this possible? Perhaps you’ve participated in the exercise of imagining a lemon without having one in your hand. You touch its waxy skin and pay attention to the shape. In your imagination, you cut the fruit open and touch your tongue to the sour sweetness. What just happened? If you didn’t experience a gush of saliva, you may have at least felt the ache in your parotid glands—the salivary glands behind your jaw.  Imagination is that powerful.

As we learn to manage our chronic illness, visioning becomes a valuable tool that allows us to mentally step into what we want, imagine the details, or “try on” a new strategy.

How to Vision

There is no recipe for visioning, but it helps to find a meditative environment away from the hustle of life, where we can give full attention to our imagination.  As kids, we naturally had pretty active imaginations.  Life and adulthood can erode that ability, but creativity and imagination are just like muscles—the more we use them, the stronger they get.  

Athletes often use visioning skills by “seeing” themselves make the perfect play, ski the tightest course, or exert the greatest strength, and it’s a practice that sharpens performance as much as actually doing it. The brain’s neuroplastic nature enables us to get better at something simply by practicing the activity in our mind. “Because the use of any circuit strengthens that circuit, rehearsing a performance in the imagination can prepare mental circuits in ways similar to the real performance.”

Creating a vision:

• Consider what you want in your life right now—a change in attitude, behavior, or performance.  How does it look or function?  How does this change make you feel?  How does it improve your life, your relationships, and your chronic illness?  
• Be detailed in your vision.  Start with generalities and give them details—like you would paint a landscape:  broad strokes to create a background, shorter strokes, color variances, and textures to bring the details into focus.  What are the details in your vision?  What are you wearing—color, texture, style?  What about your environment—location, activity, other people and animals, temperature, humidity, smells, sounds?  What do you do, and how do you do it?
• Focus on your picture.  A vivid picture engages all the senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, touch.  It is through these senses that new connections in the brain are formed as the image becomes “real.” 

Vision as a destination

A vision is not about where you want to go.  It is thought or written as if you’ve reached the place you want to be—in the present.  For example, I am  volunteering at ____ or I am learning how to _____; I do…, I have…, I achieve…, I enjoy….  It’s a visual of the best possible outcome—not an impossible reach or the arduous journey to get there, but the very best result we can hope for.  Instead of focusing on the long flight to the coast, picture the beach, palm trees, and surf.  It’s the vision of everything that makes the journey worthwhile. 

Building a vision

Image:  How does it feel to be at your destination?  What do you see, smell, touch, and hear?

Motivators:  What are the values that drive your vision?  What matters most?  What emotions do you feel?  

Strengths/Values:  Which of your values are reflected in the vision?  What personal strengths are involved as you pursue your goal?

Supports:  What people, environments, systems, or beliefs support your vision?  Conversely, what in your life doesn’t support this vision?  How can you remove those obstacles in order to proceed?

When we experience the challenges of complex chronic illness, visioning is a great way to break the brain habits that bind us to what’s unsatisfactory in our current situation.  Goals are great complements to our grand visions, and provide daily steps toward our best futures, but visions are the propellers on our dream boat—pushing us toward what we desire the most.  Just like the producer of a movie, we can view the sets, scenes, characters, and plot twists of our own life feature film.  

Visioning can help us in our journey to recover from the losses of chronic illness by: 

• Generating hope and increasing self-confidence in our ability to move ahead.
• Providing an emotional connection to our hopes and dreams.
• Re-creating an identity out of what we have, rather than lamenting our losses.
• Helping us see the fruits of our labor before we experience them—keeping us motivated.
• Allowing us to practice maneuvers so that we know how we’re going to get around the obstacles.
• Creating new neuronal pathways (brain change) so that a new way of living becomes more automatic.

Rather than getting stuck in a yo-ho-heave-ho dirge—where life becomes a drag, try visioning your best life, happiest day, most successful project.  

Effects of setting goals on the brain…

The neuroplastic nature of the brain enables us to get better at something simply by practicing the activity in our mind.  By using thoughts, images, sensations, memories, soothing emotions, movement, and beliefs to harness the power of our brains, we can “use the conscious part of our brain to modify the experience of our lives.” As Dr. Ratey says in his book A User’s Guide to the Brain, “practice makes new brain.”