I spoke with a young woman who has suffered Anxiety and Depression.  This may be circumstantial due to her current situation.

Things will be changing for her in the near future and therefore we had a conversation about that future. First I asked if she could see a vision of the future. She responded that she could see it, and described herself in a car with friends singing away as loud as she could. They were all laughing and having a great time. (Vivid imagination – WOW).

She sounded very happy as she described this scene. I asked her to continue to describe how she had felt and what she heard. She described feelings of joy and happiness. She described laughter and sounds of Joy.

After listening I decided to see if I could assist her to enhance the scene in her mind. I asked her to make the picture she described as big as a house and bright like the sun. I asked her how this felt. She could hardly communicate with me as she imagined the picture enlarged and bright. I then asked her to turn up the sounds in her mind. The music, the laughter and the Joy. I asked her to smell the fresh air coming in the windows. I asked her to imaging she was biting into a strawberry. (Her favorite fruit).

I then asked her to amplify all these feelings in her body that was generated by the used of all of these senses. I then asked her to describe what she would say to herself when this is really happening.

She said loudly, “Life is awesome”. She sounded full of Joy. She sounded full of life.

I reinforced this by confidently affirming, “Yes it is”.

She was laughing and giddy as all this was happening. The anxiety and depression were all but gone.

How vital to our life and our happiness is our imagination?