Thank you for this. I've been teaching this process for decades, and yet it's still difficult to do at times, and even more difficult for your students to believe in it wholeheartedly. Keep teaching it... Keep talking about it. People forget how much power they have.
Totally agree that it’s a challenging to believe it and I think the more we share the results and stories the more people will try it on. Thanks for reading!
In psychodrama, this process is called Future Projection, and it is a very powerful way to work through many problems. It’s easier to “solve” a problem when you are looking “back” at it from a place of success, and then “retrace” your steps. Great for career planning too. (Pick a time multiple years ahead, say 5 to 10 years, write down everything that you really love about where you live and what you are doing, even describing the house/apartment you “now live in,” and then what your favorite thing is about Mondays when you get to work … and then you “look back” at how you arrived at this happy place. You’d be amazed at how powerful this is.)
Dear Jessica: Thank you so much for introducing me to the concept of Future Projection. I will definitely read and lear more about this process - sounds absolutely fascinating!
I use something like this in my coaching. I call it the unsolution exercise. I mind-map with the student about their needs, blockers, and accelerators. I skip “solutions” and instead next mind map what it will look like a year from now if their needs are met and they are flourishing. I then flip it around to what will it look like if your needs ARE NOT met and you are languishing. It’s important to envision both where you want to be and where you don’t.
Love this! I’ve used mind mapping for decades, too, and taught it to my kids (now adults with kids of their own), and it was transformative for my son, who had dyslexia. (Tony Buzan, the great proponent of mind mapping, and perhaps the “father” of it, too, had a great focus on kids with reading/writing difficulties, and I read all his books in the struggle to help my son.) But I totally love your “unsolution exercise”!!! The unmet needs are so important.
Mind mapping is a game changer for ADD and dysgraphia, which I have. If you haven't heard of it, the TL;DR is that it is the written form of dyslexia. I tell people that I am "letter order impaired" instead of "I can't spell to (literally) save my life." Yet, because of computers, I've written over 19 books. There is hope.
If I had mind-mapping when i was in high school (even if on paper) I would have been able to actually take notes with far less distraction.
I am so glad that schools have at least begun to be more agile and student focused. When I was young with neurodivergence, ADHD, and dysgraphia, I was just told I didn't work hard enough, was too loud, was too easily distracted, or I was just too stupid. I was a C student as a result, despite the fact that I have always loved learning.
Psychodrama is a powerful form of psychotherapy, using role-play and action, developed by the psychiatrist Jacob Moreno (1889-1974) and his wife, Zerka Toeman. (This description is embarrassingly far from doing it justice, I hasten to add.)
This is probably the best thing I’ve read all year! 🙌🏻
You wrote: “Does this work if you’re skeptical? Yes. Actually, maybe better.
“A study from NYU found that people who approached structured visualization exercises with skepticism but followed the protocol anyway showed similar cognitive benefits to true believers. Why? Because the mechanism isn’t belief—it’s attention.
“Your brain doesn’t care if you think this is silly. It just does what you train it to do.”
Remote Viewing (the psychic data collection technique) is done with a pen, about 20 sheets of blank white paper, and utilizes a structured system of sketches and descriptor words.
I completely believe this because Remote Viewing training of new students works the exact same way! And frequently, the skeptics make the best students. They are convinced it won’t work anyway, so they have nothing to lose by ‘humoring’ me and following the structured data collection protocols.
As long as they follow the structured system, their nervous systems eventually (within a day or two) starts delivering shockingly accurate data about people, places, and events they know nothing about (consciously).
Natural psychics frequently struggle with training because of performance anxiety, where the skeptic “knows it won’t work”! 🤣
It’s a complete inversion of what one would expect.
Thank you so much! 😊 Our brain and nervous system truly are miracles! 💫
Dear Epic Mercury: Let me start with a huge thank you! As a writer there is nothing more rewarding than hearing that "this the the best thing I've read all year!" I so appreciate you!. And as for Remote Viewing, there is increasing amount of research that support this approach and I'm thrilled to see and read more about the successes of that method.
Hi Casey, RV training is labor intensive to teach and a little challenging for natural psychic’s to learn because it’s so counterintuitive intuitive: you have your eyes open the whole time and are documenting the data in real time with a pen and paper.
I’d be happy to teach you, but it would involve payment and about 20 hours of class time without many breaks in between.
So for instance, we could not do a four hour class on a Saturday and then another 3 weeks later. That twenty hours would need to be completed with a week for your nervous system to get it.
I also have a friend who has an automated video course that I would be happy to refer you to. These automated classes are extremely affordable (more affordable than I can offer for sure). However, I do find that because of the counterintuitive nature of the technique, most students seem to do better with a human instructor who’s available for their questions. A lot of theoretical questions come up during training.
You could also take his online course by yourself first, and come back to me when you have more questions. I don’t mean to be snarky, but I phrase it that way because you WILL have more questions. 😉
Dear Teri: Thank you for reading and Dear @Mary Bates - thank you for the introduction! It's super interesting to hear that you've done the process and that it worked so well for you. Would love to hear more about your success with this approach!
My need is personal, and it may be too trivial even to worry about, but My need is time, not money. I am retired, I recently moved with my husband to a community, and I thought I would have loads of time to learn a form of art; I want to make friendship cards decorated with Celtic art.
My life is complicated by by the fact that we are both being treated for cancer, which means more than 100 medical appointments per year before we even think about the ordinary checkups, vaccinations, and old people "stuff."
I, nevertheless do have free time, and when I use it to learn new art skills or to try out card-making, I feel as if I could fly.
But far too often, I fail to use available time wisely. I don't want to ignore my husband or my friends, but I seem not to have the character to use wisely the time I do have.
I hope your example will help me to think differently about time and my "dream." I will set aside 20 minutes and see what happens.
Dear Katherine: My heart goes out to you! Thank you so much for reading and such a powerful, honest, authentic share! What you said about the need for time really resonated with me! I do hope you will give it a try and share with me and the community your experiences! Would love to hear/read about your experience! Cheering you on! M
Katherine, maybe it will help you to know one other person in the same circumstances. I am retirement age, my wife and I have lots of doctor appointments. I do all the cooking and laundry. I want to produce creative output, a training course in my case. I struggle to make use of the open spots in my day.
I don’t have a solution of my own for you. I just wanted you to know I think your struggle is normal.
I am going to take the 20 minutes right now to write out what success feels like. What do I have to lose?
I have changed my attitude and behavior in the past when challenged with exactly those words, “What do you have to lose?”
I really really enjoyed reading this and have never found an article breakdown so succinctly. I have seen the RAS work for me and I have written down previous year that this was the year we would buy our home that we were renting. This was the year we would celebrate our twins Bday big 10 in Denmark and Sweden. I wrote it all down into present moment. I have witnessed the power in doing detailed visualization. The problem is too many people get stuck in the what ifs and not what's possible. Thank you for such a beautiful share!
Dear Humaira: Thank you for reading! And yes, you are so right - it does work, however as humans we do get stuck in the what if's and second guessing ourselves. Congratulations on purchase of your home and I would love to read/hear more about your successes!
This is awesome! Thank you for being so specific about the exercise, your problem, and the results you got. And for backing up your personal experience by citing research studies. So helpful, and a welcome change from the (probably) AI-generated broad generalizations about manifesting, goal setting, etc. that seems to be rapidly spreading on Substack (and everywhere else)!
Dear Wendi: Thank you for reading and I'm so glad it resonated with you. I'm slightly obsessed (lol - ok, maybe more than slightly) with this topic and have researched and read many books and studies on that topic - b/c I love it so much! So it makes me so happy to know that it's doable and it makes sense to my readers!
I actually started doing this too, without realizing what I was doing. With my books, I've started sitting to plan ask writing out questions, and those would would either lead to more questions or actually help me figure out the answer because I'd think about already written down things and what I was seeing in my head for that story, and then my brain just form a connection or idea to answer the question.
I need to do this for other areas of my life now that I know it's not just tied to writing my books! Thank you for writing this!
Dear Michelle: Thank you for reading! I'm so happy to hear that you've actually started doing it with your books! That's fantastic! Congratulations! And I can't wait to hear about your successes in other areas of life when you applie it! Would love to read how it's working out for you!
This is such a powerful shift. The most unexpected breakthroughs I’ve seen often came after someone changed how they looked at the problem, not the problem itself.
Dear Veronica: Thank you so much for reading, trying it out and I can't wait to hear/read your success story! I know you will create something totally amazing with it! Cheering you on! With love, M.
Inclusion is the new age replacement for exclusion. We're all reaching for the same reality, and describing it with varying vocabularies, yes. Great comment. 👌
Dear Manuel: Thank you for reading and I love your take on this for sure it's a consideration - the how. I would love to hear about your success stories.
Whenever you combine uncompromising belief with action the universe (GOD) delivers. We are literally co-creators in our own reality. Think of the passage in the bible when Peter begins to walk on water. He then sinks and asks for help from Jesus. Why did he sink because he stopped believing what he was doing was possible. Its a good lesson for us all. He was taking the action without belief. Some believe and don’t take action. You need to do both.
You might also find that if you sit down and write out or describe the problem EXACTLY, nothing left out, both sides of it, (a problem to be a problem always has two opposing sides), you might find that it magically solves that way, too.
I have had friends who got their perfect mate this way also. Just sit down and write out exactly what traits/qualities you want in your mate. Several ladies have told me he showed up soon after!
UPDATE: Your article was so compelling that I did the exercise IMMEDIATELY. And then I did the exercise again on Thanksgiving.
Throughout the next 10 days, I experienced unpredictable synchronicities and a whole new realm of joy, freedom, peace, calm, and confidence. It all unfolded EXACTLY as a created it in the exercise. It is really unbelievable, and I am SO grateful to you!
You are on to some serious MAGIC here...thank you so much for sharing this with the world!!
Dear Tom: WOW. Congratulations on taking action immediately and congrats on all the amazing and magical results that you've got out of doing the exercise! Keep going! Cheering you on, M!
Thank you for this. I've been teaching this process for decades, and yet it's still difficult to do at times, and even more difficult for your students to believe in it wholeheartedly. Keep teaching it... Keep talking about it. People forget how much power they have.
Totally agree that it’s a challenging to believe it and I think the more we share the results and stories the more people will try it on. Thanks for reading!
In psychodrama, this process is called Future Projection, and it is a very powerful way to work through many problems. It’s easier to “solve” a problem when you are looking “back” at it from a place of success, and then “retrace” your steps. Great for career planning too. (Pick a time multiple years ahead, say 5 to 10 years, write down everything that you really love about where you live and what you are doing, even describing the house/apartment you “now live in,” and then what your favorite thing is about Mondays when you get to work … and then you “look back” at how you arrived at this happy place. You’d be amazed at how powerful this is.)
Dear Jessica: Thank you so much for introducing me to the concept of Future Projection. I will definitely read and lear more about this process - sounds absolutely fascinating!
I use something like this in my coaching. I call it the unsolution exercise. I mind-map with the student about their needs, blockers, and accelerators. I skip “solutions” and instead next mind map what it will look like a year from now if their needs are met and they are flourishing. I then flip it around to what will it look like if your needs ARE NOT met and you are languishing. It’s important to envision both where you want to be and where you don’t.
Love this! I’ve used mind mapping for decades, too, and taught it to my kids (now adults with kids of their own), and it was transformative for my son, who had dyslexia. (Tony Buzan, the great proponent of mind mapping, and perhaps the “father” of it, too, had a great focus on kids with reading/writing difficulties, and I read all his books in the struggle to help my son.) But I totally love your “unsolution exercise”!!! The unmet needs are so important.
Mind mapping is a game changer for ADD and dysgraphia, which I have. If you haven't heard of it, the TL;DR is that it is the written form of dyslexia. I tell people that I am "letter order impaired" instead of "I can't spell to (literally) save my life." Yet, because of computers, I've written over 19 books. There is hope.
If I had mind-mapping when i was in high school (even if on paper) I would have been able to actually take notes with far less distraction.
My son has dysgraphia, and we’ve been fortunate enough to live in a school system that recognizes this neurodivergence (he also has Autism and ADHD).
He is permitted to do video presentations on subjects where writing would completely overwhelm him. It’s been a game changer.
I am so glad that schools have at least begun to be more agile and student focused. When I was young with neurodivergence, ADHD, and dysgraphia, I was just told I didn't work hard enough, was too loud, was too easily distracted, or I was just too stupid. I was a C student as a result, despite the fact that I have always loved learning.
I’m right there with you! Super happy that more and more schools, organizations and institutions are more willing to accept neurodiversity.
What is psychodrama?
Psychodrama is a powerful form of psychotherapy, using role-play and action, developed by the psychiatrist Jacob Moreno (1889-1974) and his wife, Zerka Toeman. (This description is embarrassingly far from doing it justice, I hasten to add.)
This is probably the best thing I’ve read all year! 🙌🏻
You wrote: “Does this work if you’re skeptical? Yes. Actually, maybe better.
“A study from NYU found that people who approached structured visualization exercises with skepticism but followed the protocol anyway showed similar cognitive benefits to true believers. Why? Because the mechanism isn’t belief—it’s attention.
“Your brain doesn’t care if you think this is silly. It just does what you train it to do.”
Remote Viewing (the psychic data collection technique) is done with a pen, about 20 sheets of blank white paper, and utilizes a structured system of sketches and descriptor words.
I completely believe this because Remote Viewing training of new students works the exact same way! And frequently, the skeptics make the best students. They are convinced it won’t work anyway, so they have nothing to lose by ‘humoring’ me and following the structured data collection protocols.
As long as they follow the structured system, their nervous systems eventually (within a day or two) starts delivering shockingly accurate data about people, places, and events they know nothing about (consciously).
Natural psychics frequently struggle with training because of performance anxiety, where the skeptic “knows it won’t work”! 🤣
It’s a complete inversion of what one would expect.
Thank you so much! 😊 Our brain and nervous system truly are miracles! 💫
Dear Epic Mercury: Let me start with a huge thank you! As a writer there is nothing more rewarding than hearing that "this the the best thing I've read all year!" I so appreciate you!. And as for Remote Viewing, there is increasing amount of research that support this approach and I'm thrilled to see and read more about the successes of that method.
Thank you! I’ll endeavor to be informative.
Of course Remote Viewing works! It’s all about non-local consciousness… the mainstream is slow on catching up 😌
I’d love to get my hands on the remote viewing technique you’re referring to 👀
Hi Casey, RV training is labor intensive to teach and a little challenging for natural psychic’s to learn because it’s so counterintuitive intuitive: you have your eyes open the whole time and are documenting the data in real time with a pen and paper.
I’d be happy to teach you, but it would involve payment and about 20 hours of class time without many breaks in between.
So for instance, we could not do a four hour class on a Saturday and then another 3 weeks later. That twenty hours would need to be completed with a week for your nervous system to get it.
I also have a friend who has an automated video course that I would be happy to refer you to. These automated classes are extremely affordable (more affordable than I can offer for sure). However, I do find that because of the counterintuitive nature of the technique, most students seem to do better with a human instructor who’s available for their questions. A lot of theoretical questions come up during training.
You could also take his online course by yourself first, and come back to me when you have more questions. I don’t mean to be snarky, but I phrase it that way because you WILL have more questions. 😉
I’m pretty curious. Could you send me the online course link?
Thank you @Mary Bates for introducing me to this article. You're right, Magdalena and I would probably be good friends.
i've done this process before, and yet I keep forgetting that it exists and how well it works. Thanks for the reminder!
Dear Teri: Thank you for reading and Dear @Mary Bates - thank you for the introduction! It's super interesting to hear that you've done the process and that it worked so well for you. Would love to hear more about your success with this approach!
My need is personal, and it may be too trivial even to worry about, but My need is time, not money. I am retired, I recently moved with my husband to a community, and I thought I would have loads of time to learn a form of art; I want to make friendship cards decorated with Celtic art.
My life is complicated by by the fact that we are both being treated for cancer, which means more than 100 medical appointments per year before we even think about the ordinary checkups, vaccinations, and old people "stuff."
I, nevertheless do have free time, and when I use it to learn new art skills or to try out card-making, I feel as if I could fly.
But far too often, I fail to use available time wisely. I don't want to ignore my husband or my friends, but I seem not to have the character to use wisely the time I do have.
I hope your example will help me to think differently about time and my "dream." I will set aside 20 minutes and see what happens.
Dear Katherine: My heart goes out to you! Thank you so much for reading and such a powerful, honest, authentic share! What you said about the need for time really resonated with me! I do hope you will give it a try and share with me and the community your experiences! Would love to hear/read about your experience! Cheering you on! M
Katherine, maybe it will help you to know one other person in the same circumstances. I am retirement age, my wife and I have lots of doctor appointments. I do all the cooking and laundry. I want to produce creative output, a training course in my case. I struggle to make use of the open spots in my day.
I don’t have a solution of my own for you. I just wanted you to know I think your struggle is normal.
I am going to take the 20 minutes right now to write out what success feels like. What do I have to lose?
I have changed my attitude and behavior in the past when challenged with exactly those words, “What do you have to lose?”
I really really enjoyed reading this and have never found an article breakdown so succinctly. I have seen the RAS work for me and I have written down previous year that this was the year we would buy our home that we were renting. This was the year we would celebrate our twins Bday big 10 in Denmark and Sweden. I wrote it all down into present moment. I have witnessed the power in doing detailed visualization. The problem is too many people get stuck in the what ifs and not what's possible. Thank you for such a beautiful share!
Dear Humaira: Thank you for reading! And yes, you are so right - it does work, however as humans we do get stuck in the what if's and second guessing ourselves. Congratulations on purchase of your home and I would love to read/hear more about your successes!
This is awesome! Thank you for being so specific about the exercise, your problem, and the results you got. And for backing up your personal experience by citing research studies. So helpful, and a welcome change from the (probably) AI-generated broad generalizations about manifesting, goal setting, etc. that seems to be rapidly spreading on Substack (and everywhere else)!
Dear Wendi: Thank you for reading and I'm so glad it resonated with you. I'm slightly obsessed (lol - ok, maybe more than slightly) with this topic and have researched and read many books and studies on that topic - b/c I love it so much! So it makes me so happy to know that it's doable and it makes sense to my readers!
I actually started doing this too, without realizing what I was doing. With my books, I've started sitting to plan ask writing out questions, and those would would either lead to more questions or actually help me figure out the answer because I'd think about already written down things and what I was seeing in my head for that story, and then my brain just form a connection or idea to answer the question.
I need to do this for other areas of my life now that I know it's not just tied to writing my books! Thank you for writing this!
Dear Michelle: Thank you for reading! I'm so happy to hear that you've actually started doing it with your books! That's fantastic! Congratulations! And I can't wait to hear about your successes in other areas of life when you applie it! Would love to read how it's working out for you!
This is such a powerful shift. The most unexpected breakthroughs I’ve seen often came after someone changed how they looked at the problem, not the problem itself.
I couldn't agree more with you, Chris! The power of reframing it totally magical! Thank you for reading!
What a fabulous Post and exercise! I’m doing this tonight. I’m so happy it’s doing so well!
Dear Veronica: Thank you so much for reading, trying it out and I can't wait to hear/read your success story! I know you will create something totally amazing with it! Cheering you on! With love, M.
I know manifesting is mentioned. And how this is the opposite. I would argue this is how you manifest.
Inclusion is the new age replacement for exclusion. We're all reaching for the same reality, and describing it with varying vocabularies, yes. Great comment. 👌
Dear Manuel: Thank you for reading and I love your take on this for sure it's a consideration - the how. I would love to hear about your success stories.
Whenever you combine uncompromising belief with action the universe (GOD) delivers. We are literally co-creators in our own reality. Think of the passage in the bible when Peter begins to walk on water. He then sinks and asks for help from Jesus. Why did he sink because he stopped believing what he was doing was possible. Its a good lesson for us all. He was taking the action without belief. Some believe and don’t take action. You need to do both.
You might also find that if you sit down and write out or describe the problem EXACTLY, nothing left out, both sides of it, (a problem to be a problem always has two opposing sides), you might find that it magically solves that way, too.
Dear RobertL Thank you so much for sharing a diffrent approach! I love reading and exploring various angles and deeply appreciate your approach!
I have had friends who got their perfect mate this way also. Just sit down and write out exactly what traits/qualities you want in your mate. Several ladies have told me he showed up soon after!
Dear Larna: I'm so happy that it resonated with you and that you found a gem inside of it!
This is exactly what I’ve been looking for but never had the words to name, thank you!!
Dear Erika: Thank you for reading and I'm so happy that it resonated with you! I can't wait to hear/read about your successes using it.
As a fan of neuroscience, I LOVED this! Fascinating!
Dear Caitlin. Thank you so much for reading! I'm so glad you've enjoyed it and I am as well huge fan of neuroscience!
UPDATE: Your article was so compelling that I did the exercise IMMEDIATELY. And then I did the exercise again on Thanksgiving.
Throughout the next 10 days, I experienced unpredictable synchronicities and a whole new realm of joy, freedom, peace, calm, and confidence. It all unfolded EXACTLY as a created it in the exercise. It is really unbelievable, and I am SO grateful to you!
You are on to some serious MAGIC here...thank you so much for sharing this with the world!!
💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕
Dear Tom: WOW. Congratulations on taking action immediately and congrats on all the amazing and magical results that you've got out of doing the exercise! Keep going! Cheering you on, M!