Stress can be deadly. While short-term stress can create anxiousness and overwhelm, we know all too well, that the cumulative affects of stress over time diminishes both the quality and quantity of life. A 2013  report from the  American Psychological Association, American Institute of Stress, in New York reported that:

• The annual costs to employers in stress related health care and missed work is $300 BILLION!
• Of people who regularly experience physical symptoms, 77%  are caused by stress
• 73% Regularly experience psychological symptoms caused by stress
• 48% Feel their stress has increased over the past five years

What does this mean to you?

• With 48% of those studied feeling that stress has increased over the past five years, you have a 50/50 chance of being a part of this growing statistic.
• If you are a person committed to self growth, you are going to experience stress as you challenge your comfort zones
• Finding tools that are effective, get results and reverse the stress/death connection are imperative
• The ability to do things differently is paramount
• One of the fastest, easiest, most effective tools is the healing power of imagination, and it costs us nothing! Except willingness,  a paradigm shift and a bit of time

How imagination heals

In his book Jung and the Alchemical Imagination, author Jeffrey Raff concludes that “disease is never a purely physical event, but includes the spirit as well.” He  says that imagination can be responsible for the onset of disease, and has a great part to play in its healing. Authors Ann and Barry Ulanov of the Healing Imagination concur; they believe  imagination helps us correspond to grace – that’s how it heals.

This is where it gets personal for each of us so using myself as an example: As a business intuitive I teach  big picture thinking,  as a coach I mentor spiritual healing , and as a  mother, to nurture and guide my children,  I rely on the healing power of imagination in::

• its ability to get my attention
• using all of my senses
• waking me up to a bigger picture of life that includes  healing,  solutions and creativity that I couldn’t otherwise see
• getting me  out of the nonsense of my negative self talk

Simple Strategies to harness the healing power of imagination:

1. Ask yourself, “what would effortlessness do?” to get   out of the stress habit and into pure imagination
2. Breathe into your imagination ….  create some space for it
3. Use Active Imagination (a process that Carl Jung created), as the bridge between the conscious and the subconscious (this includes dream interpretation, visualization, and daydreaming)
4. Whatever stress or illness may be in your life, view it as a movie…. how did it get there? What will help to heal it? Notice the pictures, images or body sensations that you experience
5. Commit to take some form of action…. write down what had the most compelling energy from the above  and use discernment… will action on your part take you further into grace or farther away from it?
6. Do more of what you love… the state changes created from simple things like your favorite song, exercise,  a favorite flavor of chewing gum or fresh flowers take you to a much higher energy frequency which improves corresponding critical thinking and decision making
7. Pay attention to signs, symbols and synchronicity
8. Have a check-in or feedback loop to test and measure the results so you can drop what doesn’t work and expand what does

Embrace Simplicity
Stress becomes ugly, rampant and deadly when we lose our capacity to live from our imagination. Just take a look at the results in your life right now: where there’s shortage, lack or illness, there will be one of two things: lack of positive imagination or undisciplined, negative imagination. Until you become aware, nothing will change… the steps outlined here are beautifully simple. Are they so simple however, that you won’t take them? Imagine what would happen if you did?

Cheryl Brewster is a Personal and Business Intuitive who takes clients from Stress to Success through  Consultations, Coaching Programs and Seminars. She lives in Vancouver, Canada and is a dynamic speaker with leading edge material that captivates and inspires her audiences to greater success in life and business..

Testimonial:
Cheryl Brewster is a valuable contributor to the Business Management Course at Rhodes Wellness College. She is a dynamic facilitator, combining entrepreneurial wisdom and strategies for effective results. The students’ experience of Cheryl was amazing. We are thrilled to have Cheryl Brewster as an entrepreneurial/facilitation resource and recommend her services highly. – Lisa Brown, Operations Manager, Rhodes Wellness College