Every now and again a client asks me, Should I meditate? Should I visualize? Which should I do—meditate or visualize?
Well, first, there is no “should” about it. If you are meditating because you think you should, there’s likely friction in your vibration around doing it. Same goes with visualizing.
So I would start by asking, Do you want to meditate? Do you want to visualize?
Want is always a different and better energy than should.
Beyond that, though, I want to talk about the difference between meditating and visualizing and a few reasons why at any given time you might lean in one direction or the other.
Of course, having both meditation and visualization in your LoA toolkit is ideal. This is certainly not either/or.
That being said, meditation and visualization have different purposes. The reason you would meditate is different than the reason you would visualize and vice versa, and so knowing which to do when can be helpful.
What I hope to offer is a way to think about the role of meditation and the role of visualization in relation to Law of Attraction and manifesting. As always, take what you can use and leave the rest.
Let’s begin with a significant distinction between meditating and visualizing.
Meditation is about quieting the mind and changing the frequency, including stopping resistant thought, while visualization is about deliberately offering thought and thereby offering your vibration on purpose.
A shorter way to say this: Meditation is about quieting the mind and visualization is about intentionally directing your mind.
Law of Attraction 101: Your thoughts cause your feelings.
- When you quiet your mind with meditation, you are not offering thought. Therefore, you are getting the sweet relief of no thought.
- When you visualize, you are offering your thoughts on purpose. Therefore, you are getting the vibrational lift of using your imagination to think about things that feel good to you.
As you think about this difference, can you see why meditation could be really ideal in some instances for tending to your vibration while visualization would be really ideal in other situations, also for tending to your vibration?
But, not the same situation.
- Visualization is not about quieting your mind. It’s about directing your thoughts.
- Meditation is not about using your imagination. It’s about quieting your mind.
And so you could ask yourself: Would I benefit from quieting my mind or would I benefit from using my imagination?
You intuitively know which of these would benefit you in any given moment.
Let your intuition be your guide. Quiet your mind or use your imagination? Listen to your intuition and then either meditate or visualize.
Next, I want to connect the dots from meditation and visualization to the Law of Attraction.
Let’s look first at meditation in relation to LoA.
“Meditation is a powerful tool. If we were standing in your physical shoes, we would meditate on a regular basis for the sweet relief of a quiet mind. There is no better way of stopping the momentum of something unwanted, and to allow the momentum of something wanted, than to meditate-other than getting a full night’s sleep.” —Abraham
The most important part of Abraham’s quote is that bit about momentum. Meditation is a fantastic way to stop momentum when you are headed in the wrong direction with your thoughts and corresponding vibration.
Let’s say I’ve started to worry about something. As I’m thinking one worry thought after another, each worry thought attracting the next, I can get some real momentum in the direction of mis-creating.
If I were to try to visualize in this moment, it would not be successful.
If you were to try to use your imagination in this downward spiral of worry-based thinking—gaining more and more momentum—you would likely be using your imagination against yourself. You would be using your mind to imagine even more things that could go wrong, more things to worry about.
That only adds momentum to unwanted. Clearly that is not what you want.
Meditation is a way you could slow this momentum down.
“In sleep, there’s a stopping of momentum. In meditation, there is a change in frequency.” —Abraham
When you meditate, there is a change in frequency.
The reason being when you quiet your mind you are not offering thought. If you are not offering thought, there you aren’t offering a vibration.
In other words, if there is no thought, there is no corresponding emotion, no corresponding vibration. That is a change in frequency from worry to the relief of a quiet mind.
“The reason that meditation is a good process is because when you meditate, you quiet the mind. And when you quiet your mind, you stop all thought, which means you’ve stopped resistant thought too. And when you stop resistance, your cork naturally floats to the surface, or your Vibration raises.” —Abraham
I’ll remind you of one of the core tenets of Law of Attraction: Well-Being is your natural state.
“There is only a Stream of Well-Being that flows. You can allow it or resist it, but it flows just the same.” —Abraham
If you’ve disconnected yourself from this Stream of Well-Being because you are offering resistance, then meditation is a fantastic way to quiet your mind. Meditation is a pathway to allowing.
“Well-Being is the basis of All-That-Is. It flows to you and through you. You only have to allow it. Like the air you breathe, you only have to open, relax, and draw it into your Being.” —Abraham
There is only a Stream of Well-Being that you are either allowing or resisting.
Now you could be thinking all kinds of high vibe thoughts that have you feeling good. In which case, you are allowing. You are allowing the Stream of Well-Being. You are connected.
On the other hand, you may not be thinking high vibe thoughts. Instead, you are thinking thoughts that feel bad to you. Thoughts that cause you to feel anger or disappointment, thoughts that cause you to feel fear or doubt. You are disconnected from the Stream of Well-Being.
Meditation is an easy and effective way to get back in the Stream.
Remember, there is always a Stream of Well-Being. You are either allowing or disallowing. You are either letting it in or not. You can certainly connect to this Stream of Well-Being with good-feeling thoughts. And, you can also connect to it through meditation with the sweet relief of a quiet mind.
“Ask yourself about letting it in: Am I letting in Well-Being right now? Does this thought let it in? Does this memory let it in? Does this statement let it in? Does this discussion let it in? Does this fantasy let it in? Am I letting it in?” —Abraham
If you would answer “no” to Abraham’s questions, as in No, this thought isn’t letting Well-Being in; no, this memory isn’t letting Well-Being in, then meditate. Quiet your mind. Stop the resistant thought. Let in the Well-Being.
Next, let’s look at visualization in relation to LoA.
I want to explore why you might want to add visualization to your LoA toolkit—or if it’s already in there, why might want to use it more often.
“You can offer your vibration on purpose. That’s what visualization is. That’s what imagination is: Projecting thought energy on purpose.” —Abraham
Projecting thought energy on purpose. Thinking on purpose. That’s what visualization is. When you visualize, you are using your imagination to think and purpose, and therefore to offer your vibration on purpose.
It’s so ideal!
“Your creative control comes only in deliberately offering thought—and when you are visualizing, you have complete control.” —Abraham
Complete creative control. This means visualizing gives you complete creative control over manifesting. What could be better?!
When you visualize what you want in a way that feels good, you are being a deliberate creator. You are using your imagination to think about what you want and to feel good. This kind of visualization is truly delicious!
“As you create these scenarios that make you feel good, you activate a vibration that does feel good, and then the Law of Attraction matches that vibration.” —Abraham
This is why visualization is so powerful and why it gives you creative control.
As you visualize thoughts and things and scenarios that feel good to you, you are offering a high vibration to which Law of Attraction responds.
LoA matches you with circumstances and conditions, people and things, events and situations of a similar frequency, of a similar high vibration.
And here’s what is so very cool: “The Universe, which is responding to the thoughts you are thinking, does not distinguish between a thought from your observation of some observed reality and a thought brought about by your imagination. In either case, the thoughts equals your point of attraction—and if you focus upon it long enough, it will become your reality.” —Abraham
So you don’t have to wait until your physical reality is what you want. You can start today, right this moment, using your imagination to feel good, using your imagination to create a fantastic point of attraction.
There are many ways to visualize.
There are two tangible ones that I use on a regular basis: A vision portfolio and a Creative Workshop.
This is from one of my all-time favorite LoA books, Ask and It Is Given:
“As you enter your workshop already feeling good, and then you bring to your workshop specific aspects of life experience that please you, and as you envision these things in greater detail, your life outside of your workshop will begin to reflect the images that you have created within your Creative Workshop. This is a powerful tool that will help you create the perfect life for yourself.” —Abraham
Pretty cool, right? If you haven’t tried a Creative Workshop, it can be tremendous fun.
Ask and It Is Given details the Creative Workshop along with 22 other proven processes that will help you improve your point of attraction. I’ll put a link to the book in the Show Notes if you’d like to add one or more of these processes to your LoA toolkit.
Abraham says: “Let your imagination be a bigger part of your experience and your observation be a lesser part of your experience.” —Abraham
Of course, visualization is supposed to feel good.
That’s the whole point. It’s not even so much what you are thinking about as you visualize, but about how you feel.
Sometimes, though, you might find that visualizing doesn’t feel good. Perhaps you are looking at your vision board or doing a Creative Workshop—and you are not feeling so good.
If visualization is causing you to feel low vibe, here are six ways your vision board could be bringing you down. If any of these sound familiar, you likely have not been using visualization to your maximum advantage, so you’ll have nice opportunity to turn that around.
Let me say here, though, if visualizing—in whatever way you are doing it—doesn’t feel good to you, it is likely because of a very common flawed approach when it comes to visualization.
“When you visualize for the joy of visualizing rather than with the intention of correcting some deficiency, your thoughts are more pure and, therefore, more powerful.” —Abraham
This is such an important distinction when it comes to visualizing. The pre-LoA version of me definitely used to visualize to correct some deficiency.
- As in, I’m visualizing money because I don’t have money.
- Or visualizing a fulfilling job because I don’t have a fulfilling job.
I was visualizing to fix and to get. And so while I was thinking about the money or the job, I was also including in my vibration the lack of money and the job I didn’t like.
Visualizing for the joy of it is different than visualizing to try to fix something or get something. Visualizing for the sheer pleasure of it is what you want.
Abraham says: “If the imagining of it will be enough for you that you will let it soothe you, then it is our promise to you, it will turn into the thing.” —Abraham
That’s what is so powerful about visualization when you do it in a way that feels really good. The imagining alone is joyful and because is is joyfully high vibe, what you want manifests.
Which would benefit you?
- Would you benefit from stopping resistant thought? Then meditate.
- Would you benefit from offering your vibration on purpose? Then visualize.
“Don’t be willing to put up with feelings that don’t feel good. The Stream will carry you. All you’ve got to do is let go of the oars.” —Abraham
Meditation is a way to let go of the oars.
“Your work is to create the feeling in yourself even before you have the relationship, even before you have the money, even before you have the thing, even before you have the property.” —Abraham
Visualization is a way to create the feeling in you even before the manifestation.
