How to Coach Yourself and Others Better Coaching Through Visualisation | Page 46

view them as they descend through the network of arteries,
arterioles, and capillaries and then, they are at the sites that need
healing. I like to visualize the right and left sides separately, but if I
am tired and start fighting sleep, then I pull my perspective back and
watch both sides at the same time. I see the rbcs leaving oxygen and
glucose at the base of the lesions. I see the antibodies surrounding
the areas to prevent infection and I see the wbcs backing up the
antibodies.
I then pull my perspective back and gently stroke each arm
separately and visualize more blood going to the areas to help them
heal. The last thing I do is to take several deep breaths and tell my
body that I do not want it to show me evidence of my anger,
frustration, or stress. I tell it that there is no need for my body to hurt
itself. Then I take three long breaths out and with each exhale I say
(imaginally): “With this breath, I breathe out all of my anger, with
this breath, I breathe out all of my stress, with this breath I breath out
all my frustration.”
Case example 2
Sandra has been asthmatic since childhood. Despite using a variety
of approaches, she has always felt enslaved to her disease. She has
tried both ignoring her condition and catering to it. Though
everything seems to help for a time, nothing gives her the release
she seeks. Feeling drained and confused, she seeks out a clinician
trained in the use of mental imagery as a treatment of last resort.
The therapist asks Sandra to close her eyes, turns her senses inward,
and does some reverse breathing (exhaling first though her mouth,
then inhaling through her nose). With this simple preparation,
Sandra enters the world of her imagination where anything is
possible – for here there are no rules, no diagnoses or prognoses, in
fact, no limitations of any kind. Using an imagery exercise called
“Liberation From Slavery,” Sandra sees and feels herself chained to
her illness which appears to her as a large beast pressing her down,
46