“I don’t understand you,” said Alice. “It’s dreadfully confusing!”

“That’s the effect of living backwards,” the Queen said kindly: “it always makes one a little giddy at first—“

“Living backwards!” Alice repeated in great astonishment. “I never heard of such a thing!”

“—but there’s one great advantage in it, that one’s memory works both ways.”

“I’m sure mine only works one way,” Alice remarked. “I can’t remember things before they happen.”

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” the Queen remarked.

– Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

Have you ever thought about the emotional power of memory? How often have you tapped into powerfully positive past memories to lift your mood or help you give you the strength to keep going? By the same token, how often has the memory of a past event you perceive of as negative led you down a path of anger, guilt, helplessness, or apathy?

Our memory has the ability to be an incredible energy source – for both powerfully positive and negative emotions. We can tap into the filing cabinets of our memory to find reasons to believe almost anything good or bad about ourselves or other people.

How often have you tapped into this awesome power to pull you into the future by creating powerfully positive memories of future events? it’s called the power of visualization. By using our imagination in creating emotionally rich, vividly vibrant colorful memories of the future we want to live we are able to tap into the emotional energy of memory. This combination of imagination + memory is what visualization is all about. It is like combining oxygen and hydrogen to create water. The transformation of two elements into a new substance with its own qualities and power.

The more often we use the power of visualization, the more alive the future memories become and the greater their ability to pull us into the future we desire. This emotional energy, combined with the actual future memory image acts like the targeting system on a Tomahawk cruise missile. No matter what happens or gets in its way, a Tomahawk cruise missile will seek out its target with unerring accuracy. Our will can be thought of as a way to focus our intellectual faculties on anything we want. Having a vivid future memory of what we want further increases the focusing ability of the will. A virtuous cycle that reinforces itself.

So let me ask you, is it worth spending 15 minutes twice a day visualizing the future you want? Not just seeing the home, but also walking through the home and smelling the scents in each room? Maybe seeing and feeling yourself behind the wheel of your dream car, or holding your ideal spouse in your arms? What future memories are you creating today? Whether you realize it or not, you are either creating powerfully positive emotional future memories that pull you into your future, or you are creating dark and dreary future images known as fears, uncertainty, and doubt.

It’s your choice. Choose well and move into your potential.

Originally published on Blogger in 2010.