-IBIS-1.5.0-
rx
imagery
body rework
psychospiritual approaches

definition

setting: Five minutes before each meal, sit down as if you are about to eat and do the following exercise.
image: Close your eyes. Breathe in and out three times. On a fourth breath, as quickly as you can, draw the breath back in: see your body from the outside as it sits waiting to eat. Notice that whatever you may wish were different about this body, it is nonetheless a good body and has served you well up to now. Allow this thought to relax you. As you relax, watch each of your body's limbs be reabsorbed. Watch, as the fingers and toes of your body, melt and flow into the hands and feet. It's OK for you to be surprised by what a pleasant sensation this can be. Let yourself smile, as you realize that the feelings get more pleasant as you watch with amusement, while the hands and feet melt and are taken up into the arms and legs and finally the arms and legs melt away and are taken into the main body cavity. Finally, most pleasant of all, the last of the body melts into a perfectly round ball, from which all excess mass flows to the surface like water. Then, just as that breath can be let out, see that all the excess that had come to the ball's surface as water evaporates into the air like dew into mist at sunrise.
Follow this exercise with a three breath rest. On the next breath repeat the exercise. Repeat this four breath cycle of exercise and rest 23 times for a total of 92 breaths, before each meal, for a total of 23 consecutive days. If at the end of this first 23 day set, you have not achieved the full effect of body restructuring that you had intended, wait 21 days and then employ this exercise again for 23. (Chavez)

* Warning: No visualization technique will work well if the visualizer's intention is divided. To use this technique and ignore other elements of body change such as diet reform and muscular exercise will limit the effectiveness of this mental level exercise. (Chavez)


footnotes