John was a police officer. He was on duty one evening when a car stopped outside the police station. An elderly man came out of the car and came over to him to request him for help. He wanted John to go over to the car and convince his son, who was a passenger, to take psychiatric help. A simple family matter, John thought, as he approached the car. As soon as he approached the car, the son opened the door of the car and came out. As John approached him, out of nowhere came a knife in his hand. The man lunged at John. Only for his police training, John could have died. He escaped with small injuries. The man was overpowered and taken to the psychiatric hospital under police escort. For John, life had changed. He started to have flashbacks of the incident. Two years later, he was still suffering with the images of the incident. Doctors said he had post-traumatic stress.

This is a negative example of imagery. But our mind appreciates the language of images and no other language. When we remember anything good or bad, the sounds, the smells, the colours, the feelings are remembered. As long as the image and the emotions remain in our memory, the incident remains alive in our mind and our body. If there are many incidents from our past that are negative in feeling, we tend to live in the present carrying their emotional weight and their images. This is the major cause of most psychiatric conditions.

On the other hand, you can also use imagery to your advantage. If you want to achieve anything in life- and this means anything- you have to do very little work.

Just make an image in your mind having achieved what you want to achieve. It is important to consider that what you want to achieve has already been achieved. Then add on the feelings, the sounds, the colours, the smells to this image.How would you feel if you achieve what you want to achieve. Simply imagine whatever you want to achieve, every day. If you can visualise this achievement many times a day, it is all the more better. Trust and have faith in the visualisation. Be patient with this exercise. Sometimes one has to do this exercise for upto two years. Sooner or later, whatever you want to achieve will become reality.

Do this exercise, focussing on only one goal at a time.

This is one simple exercise that can change your life. The secret behind its success is that for Nature at large, what you imagine or visualise is reality for you. Nature tends to reinforce our imagination by creating reality out of our images. In order to trust the process, you need to experiment with it. You can change your life and take it into any direction you want.

Pradeep Chadha

Born and brought up in India, Pradeep has spent last many years of his life learning and working in Europe. He is able to blend the spirituality from the East with the intellect from the West to help bring about changes in people's lives with and without medication. He initially trained as a physician in India. In Ireland he got training in psychiatry and hypnosis.When psychotherapy was considered quackery, he set up his practice in Dublin. Now many years later, he is still ahead of his time as psychotherapy has become a recognised part of psychiatric services. He has presented many original papers in international conferences. He has been published in mostly alternative therapy journals. He has appeared on radio and television. He is the author of The Stress Barrier- Nature's Way to Overcoming Stress published by Blackhall Publishing, Dublin.