A mid-year visualisation (five minutes, eyes closed)
The world feels hectic, worrying, and (here in Switzerland at least) really, really hot. It also happens to be the exact midpoint of the year. And the more hectic things get out there, the more I find myself wanting to concentrate on the essential.
What do I mean by essential? Most of what fills our days is urgent: things that need doing, and they get done. But the essential stuff, the things that hold more weight, that matter more deeply? No alarm, no clear deadline. However important they may be, they get pushed to the side.
Now, I know it's July, and we're heading into the holidays. But I find it's surprisingly the perfect time to spend five minutes looking back, and forward, and asking: where am I, especially with the essential stuff?
I know that when time off is close, it can feel hard to get anything done. That pre-holiday overwhelm makes you want to throw in the towel and go 'ugh, it'll just have to wait until later.' If that's been your case, I understand. But this message is specifically for you if you carry a project in your heart, or a desire for something you want to see develop. It could be personal, it could be professional, it could be something that simply fulfils you. If so, I'd like to invite you to treat this midpoint as a moment of reflection.
The best place I know to look for that is inward.
So I'm inviting you on a short inner exploration, via the following guided visualisation.
Think about it as a way to consider where you'd like to see yourself by the end of the year.
Guided visualisation
Close your eyes for a moment, or just pause where you are (obviously, if you're in your car, listening to the audio, don't do that).
I'd like you to think about the journey you're on. Not the to-do list, not the logistics of life. The meandering journey that you are on, more metaphorical, perhaps even spiritual.
Turn your attention to the recent past, as if you could turn your head back, and look behind you. Where have you been over the last few months, the last year or two?
What has the terrain felt like?
You may even want to look down at your feet, and notice how your imagination is perfectly capable of showing you the landscape, the ground you're standing upon, the path or road that led you to this moment.
Now turn to look forward. What does the way look like in front of you?
Whether you're on a rocky mountain or a highway, get a feel for how things are looking ahead.
Does it feel hazy, or clear, or is it hard to see in front? You don't need to have the right words, just let yourself discern how things are looking.
Then think about what you're hoping to reach. Not an ultimate goal necessarily, perhaps you see the expanse of the road ahead, but you know what you're seeking to reach.
Think about where you're hoping to get next.
And whether or not you could see ahead, don't worry.
For some of us it's not the visibility that's the problem, it's the movement. You can move steadily even in the fog.
So now explore for sensations. Again think of the last few weeks or months. How has it felt?
I'm thinking about us standing and walking (or running here) but maybe for you, your imagination may show you swimming. So don't worry about the details, just notice what comes up.
Consider: has the movement felt easy, fluid, how has your energy been? Are you able to gain momentum, or has putting one foot in front of the other felt nearly impossible? Is it like moving through quicksand? Or pushing against the grain.
So spend a minute there and see for yourself.
How has it been? How are you 'moving', as in moving through the world? And thinking of that felt experience of how you are gaining ground, or not, advancing in the right direction. Or barely moving.
And here we don't want you to start narrating a story about whether this has been good or bad. This is an exploration of where you've been, how it has been moving toward what we want.
Be kind. Whatever you come across. Be kind to yourself. This is a noticing practice. It's subtle and it's highly informative too.
I can't put myself in your shoes exactly.
But I can imagine what it's like to stand at this point in the year, looking back and looking forward, and ask:
What kind of movement do I actually want between now and December?
Or how do I want to feel like advancing?
If you have felt that things have been a struggle, slow, dense, and you want to find more power, or ease, now is the time to let this desire surface.
If you've moved with ease and you want this to continue, or if you want to gain speed, let this be clear too.
Whatever state you desire, invite it in this moment. Using your imagination, feel for what it's like when things are easy, smooth, flowing, strong, again, these are my words, but make this resonant for your experience, your path, your movement, find your own words if you like, but more important, feel in your mind, your body, how you wish the next few months to feel.
Notice that you can invoke a felt sense of the desired state, and have it become felt throughout the body. See if you can dial it up a notch, as if you could be in this state of gracious or powerful momentum right here, right now.
I want you to remember what this feels like in your body, in your heart. Think 'I can encode this, I want to remember what this feels like.' The feeling is what we are pursuing, not the goal.
Okay, you can take one last look around, then take a deep, deep breath in, and open your eyes.
Why your brain treats the change you want as danger
Welcome back. How was that?
Now for some context, here's something worth knowing, which I know I'm writing partly for your sake, and partly for my own.
The oldest part of our brain, the part that kept us alive for millennia, has learned to perceive change as danger. And, cutting a long story short, danger as death.
Change → danger → potential death
Because when you think about it, in changing your path home you may come across a predator (human or animal). For our ancestors, eating that berry they'd never tried before could mean getting poisoned and, yes, dying. That's how our old survival conditioning was built.
But in this modern world, it's important to realise that even when the change we want is genuinely good for us, better for our health, our work, our sense of self, the ancient supersaviour inside us will find reasons to steer us in another direction.
Change is a threat to our survival. The very change you may wish for is likely activating a fear response.
To some it will look like procrastination. To others, a push-pull, tug-of-war style, at times for the good, the hopeful, the new, the exciting, and at times, against it. At times it will be manifesting as self-sabotage.
That’s what I believe that’s what writer and comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell was inviting us to understand when he wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces, where he presented his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero. He introduces the mythical 'refusal of the call', the part of his monomyth when the hero* is called to adventure and goes 'ah, thanks but no thanks', turns on his heels and goes back inside the grotto/man cave/in front of Netflix of his ordinary world.
Perhaps the very reason that the refusal of the call exists is because this behaviour lives in our DNA, one of the most encoded expressions of existence: to seek the safety of the ordinary world above all.
I'm not here to blame our well-meaning reptilian brain, who, I am sure, is dancing in a corner, celebrating its superhero status, for keeping us out of danger.
But if we want to see change in our lives, and maybe, crucially, create impact in the world, we need to pay close attention to the mechanisms holding us back. They're nearly invisible at first (that's their job). But once you know that fear is at play, you can start to spot it: in the procrastination, the push-pull, the sudden urge to reorganise your desk (or your wardrobe, or your fridge) instead. And what you can see, you can work with.
Fear you can see is fear you can work with.
Some of it, you will work with on your own. But here's what I've learned, in my own life and in this work: the fear is most convincing exactly where the change matters most. The refusal you can spot in small things becomes nearly invisible around the big ones, the ones with real stakes: it stops looking like fear and starts looking like reasons. That's not a flaw in any of us. It's how we've been designed. And it's why we've been telling this story for thousands of years: at exactly this point, the guide appears.
It's what Campbell saw in the myths: the refusal of the call is never overcome by willpower alone. What breaks the spell is a meeting. A mentor, a guide, a teacher, who appears, helps the hero cross the threshold, and then walks the road with them.
Think of what the guide actually does in these stories: the guide asks the questions the hero can't yet ask themselves, holds steady when the terrain gets rough, sees the strength the hero can't yet see, and later, helps them recognise it as their own.
In every version of the story, from the oldest myths to Star Wars' Yoda (the one that came to mind as I was writing this), the guide doesn't just take off once the hero has accepted the call.
The crossing is a moment. The guiding is part of the journey. Because the journey isn't meant to be walked alone.
Possibly, what I've shared, written, recorded, has been percolating at the back of your mind. If you've been thinking 'Anne's coaching (or consulting) could be for me, but…', that's not a sign that it isn't. It may be a sign that the fear has started dressing itself as reasons.
And here's the thing about the last six months of a year: they're shorter than they look. Not on the calendar, in lead time. If you want to see something happen in October, the preparing starts now, in July.
Momentum isn't built in a sprint at the end; it's built in small steps, it begins early. So yes, slow down this summer. And, before you do, decide what you're moving toward, so even your slower steps are pointed the right way.
So if you've been telling yourself 'maybe I start in September', this is me, gently, saying: start now. Small and slow is fine. Small and slow is the point. By September, you'll be taking bigger steps because of the quiet ones you took over the summer.
PS. Campbell only wrote about the masculine version of the hero's journey. But one of his students, Maureen Murdock, mapped the heroine's journey (her book of that name is where I'd send you). Male or female, though, Campbell certainly had a point about the shape of that monomyth.
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