See the area of your body that needs to be healed, and form an image in your mind of what it will look like when healed. It may be a realistic image-you may form an image of blood vessels, muscles, bones, and so on. Many people, however, choose more symbolic images. A cut may be visualized as a tear in a piece of cloth or a split in the Earth after an earthquake. A cancer may be visualized as an army of invading soldiers dressed in black or as a piece of discolored hamburger meat. A broken bone might be visualized as a cracked piece of pottery. Once again, the image that will be most effective for you, generally speaking, is the one that comes to you most easily while you are relaxed.

Now that you have an image of the disease process in its present state, imagine how the body will look when totally healed (pottery glued together so tightly that it will not break at that point again, all the invading enemy soldiers dead, and so on).

And now imagine a process by which this transformation to health can be visualized to occur. You might imagine an army of soldiers dressed in white shooting and killing the invading army. You might imagine the pottery being glued together with a super glue. If your imagery is realistic rather than symbolic, you might imagine increased blood flow carrying white blood cells and antibodies to an area that needs to be healed. Let your imagination and creativity work for you. This is essential to mobilizing the full healing capacity of the mind. After two or three minutes of visualizing the transformation to a higher level of wellness, again visualize this part of your body as healed. Form an image of yourself in a place you'd like to be, doing something you'd like to be doing, using this part of your body in some way. Choose an image in which you can see clearly that you are totally restored to health. Allow yourself to imagine very strongly that the healing has already taken place, allow yourself to feel a sense of accomplishment. The more strongly you can let yourself feel that the healing is real, the clearer the model presented to the unconscious. (Five minutes)

D. Returning to Your Usual State of Consciousness
Now form an image of yourself several months or years in the future. Imagine yourself looking the way you'd like to look, feeling the way you'd like to feel, and dressed the way you'd like to be dressed. Imagine yourself doing whatever it feels most pleasurable to be doing. Let yourself into this image, allowing yourself to have the mind, the body, the emotions, and the spiritual awareness that you would really like to achieve.

This is the person you really are down deep inside, and each time you allow yourself to see this person, you will become more and more the person you want to be. When you feel relaxed and at home in this image, then you may gradually allow it to disappear and allow your awareness to return to your physical surroundings. Tell yourself that as your eyelids open you will feel completely wide awake, refreshed, alert, and more and more like your true self. Affirm to yourself that it feels good to know that you have taken one more step on the road to maximizing your level of wellness.

It is helpful to repeat this experience (or use tape 16) two or three times a day during the healing process, especially in case of a serious threat to your health. (Two minutes)