A Visualization for Freeing Yourself from Images

From: Dr. Frank Gunzburg

If you are having recurring images of the offense and you want to get rid of them, use the following visualization exercise to alter the way the memory is stored, diminish the emotional impact it has on you, and reduce its occurrence. (I’d like to tip my hat to Richard Bandler and John Grinder for their concepts that led to this exercise.)

Start by bringing one image that really haunts you to mind. You might have half a dozen of these images stored in your brain. Perhaps you have only one. Either way, choose one that’s representative, perhaps one of the more hurtful images that you carry with you. Bring it fully into your mind’s eye.

Once you can see it in your mind, start to darken it. Really darken it, as if it were an old, old oil painting. Just like in the museum: dark and dim.

Since you’ve made it into an old oil painting, put a frame around it. Why don’t you do that now? Put a frame around the painting that is in your mind. Make the frame one of those big, heavy gilded frames you would find in a museum. In fact, you could hang it in a museum. Go ahead, and do that as well. Your image is now a dark, dim oil painting in a heavy, gilded frame hanging in some museum.

Nowadays, they have spotlights to light the paintings in museums. Before spotlights were available, they used frame lights (lights that hung over the frame and illuminated the painting). Before that, if we go back far enough, they had to use candles to light a painting in a museum. You want to make this memory really old, so let’s go back to a time before there were even frame lights. Let’s go back to a time when there were only candles to light paintings.

Imagine that your painting is illuminated by a candle. On the side of the candle, opposite the painting, is a scallop shell (so the light is not directly in your eyes) to help direct the light to the image that is now a painting. The lighting is very dim on this dark, dull picture. The candle wavers with the air in the room a little bit, so the light is flickering.

There you are, looking at this very dull, dim picture flickering in a huge, old, antique, gold frame in a museum somewhere in the past.

Now stop, and think about something else. For example, state the current weather out loud: “It’s sunny outside.” This is to put your mind back into neutral. Then go back to the original image that was plaguing you, and as quickly as possible, move it through the steps of making it dim, making it into an oil painting, putting a gilded frame around it, and lighting it with a candle.

Stop your thinking again. Let go of the image. This time spell your name out loud to put your brain in neutral. Now return to the original image that was bothering you; then, twice as fast as last time, change it into the dark, framed oil painting lit by a candle.

Stop your thinking again. This time, name the color of the chair you are sitting in to put your brain in neutral. Then, even faster (twice as fast again, if possible), change it into the dark, framed oil painting lit by a candle.

Go through the process three more times, naming out loud something in your environment to put your mind in neutral between each iteration. Then, push yourself to change your original image into that dark, framed oil painting faster and faster.

Keep in mind that this museum is a place where that thought can’t bother you. It’s framed as a picture somewhere in the distant past, and you are beyond being harmed by it.

Anytime you have a bothersome image come up, before it even has the chance to really trouble you, make it into a dark oil painting, frame it, and place it in the museum, lit only by a candle.

I know this exercise might sound a little strange at first, but I strongly encourage you to try it. (After all, you’ve probably tried everything else, so what do you have to lose?) The exercise is designed to help you alter the way this image is stored and classified as I described above. If you practice it seriously, it can help you do that. I have been in practice helping people in situations like yours for over 30 years, and I have been using this exercise for years because it is one that works most of the time. I know it works because I have seen it work. Try it first, judge it later.

Once you begin to alter these images successfully and reduce their impact on you, you will begin to free yourself from the reign it has had on your imagination. You will move more deeply into acceptance, all the time getting closer and closer to your goal of forgiveness.

Dr. Frank Gunzburg is a licensed counselor in Maryland and has been specializing is helping couples restore their marriage for over 30 years.

For more information about forgiving your partner and working through the past, please visit http://www.howyouforgive.com/

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