Watching Joannie Rochette's short program, I found myself coveting whatever sports psychology she does. I wish I had that mental resilience and focus!
Coincidentally, the next day Rosie DiManno wrote a column about sports psychology, and I realized it would never work on me. I know some people who swear by visualization or mantras or positive thinking, but it doesn't work on me because I know that it's just visualization. I'm not actually doing anything, I'm just picturing stuff in my head.
Within my own mind, in terms of the thoughts and feelings I experience, my inability to do visualization come from the same place as my inability to have religious faith. I know that it is powered solely by believing in it, and because of that I'm unable to believe in it.
Elite athletes are obvious able to believe in it. I wonder if this also means that they're more likely to be capable of religious faith?
5 comments:
I was watching this program on dreams the other day and it said that dreams are a way for us to work through problems in our mind. That they may seem abstract but they let us deal with real life fears and actions in a controlled setting. Perhaps visualization works like that to? Practice in the mind so to speak. I don't do it either but that thought came to mind.
What's the difference between visualization and just picturing stuff in your head? I sometimes refer to visualizing something, but I wonder if I'm using the word wrong.
Re athletes and religion, interesting concept. So many elite athletes seem to have faith, but then, so many non-athletes do, too.
I'd assume visualizing is intentional, although sometimes people use them interchangably just to mean drawing up a mental image. I don't think just picturing stuff in your head would get the same alleged results as Visualization, because if it did, many people's sex lives would be far more interesting.
Ha! Yes, but there are those inhibitions between visualizing and doing.
If intentionally creating mental images is visualizing, then I guess that's what I do. When I have a goal that I want to accomplish, I visualize myself completing it. I also use it to recover something by memory - a phone number or conversation.
I am a hardcore atheist, so it never occured to me that this is connected to faith, but I see how it could be.
Do you find it actively helpful to visualize yourself completing a goal you want to accomplish? If so, are you able to articulate why?
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