Meditation and Visualization for Performance (MVP) Program
Breathe in, breathe out. Experience excellence. Access flow.
For the last 10 years or so, this program has been growing. From a seed in my mind around the age of 20 to what is now a 1-on-1 offering in our massage studio, a catered experience for teams in the gym, a full virtual 6-week course for basketball players, and a thorough virtual library offering, the MVP Program continues to blossom. In addition to helping individuals and teams reach their highest potential on the court, I’ve supported folks who are preparing to lead retreats, nail their dissertation defense, and overcome chronic pain. Of course, I too use meditation and visualization as a way to motivate, develop, and grow. It’s safe to say that these practices can be applied in a variety of ways, providing the mental-emotional training necessary to tackle our biggest projects and overcome our greatest hurdles. But what is this program all about, how did it come to be, and how do meditation and visualization enhance our ability to show up and perform? Let’s start from the beginning.
At a young age I realized that sport can provide a meditative experience. Consciously I couldn’t explain it, but repeatedly I felt myself immersed in the action on the basketball court and soccer field, thinking of nothing yet making crisp and fluid decisions time after time. Furthermore, the team was in complete sync, intuiting and adapting to each other’s decisions and movements in such a way that our synergy was unstoppable. Our basketball team went 24-0 my senior year and won a state championship, going 45-3 over two seasons. We were clicking. We were in the Zone, and I had a few teammates who always showed up in the biggest moments. I remember clearly one sharing offhandedly that he visualized games the night before; he was always ready for the bright lights.
The Zone, otherwise known as a flow state, is the state of high-level performance. This place we went to is a place often talked about but not taught how to get to. With meditation and visualization, you’ll learn exactly that; I prime you for high-level performance. I help you cultivate a frame of mind that is in the moment, that believes in one’s own abilities, that obstacles are opportunities, and that one can achieve whatever they prepare their mind and body to achieve. In this blog post, I’ll share bits of the science behind the program, the felt experience, and the door this program opens.
Meditation and breathwork, for millennia, have facilitated moments of healing, awareness, and clarity. There are numerous cultures, methods, and philosophies that point to the breath as a catalyst to reaching our utmost potential whether it be regarding our health, spirituality, or performance. And in recent years, Western medicine has begun to realize that the breath does indeed affect our mind and body in a way that nothing else can. Deep, slow, belly breathing through the nose with exhales that are longer than our inhales is the base recipe for calming and transforming the mind, enhancing our body’s systems, relieving tension, and accessing flow states. It really is that powerful. If you seek to deepen your scientific knowledge around this topic of breathwork and the science therein, I suggest the book Breath by James Nestor. He delved deep into the history, literature, and the practices, providing a journalistic read with flair. Moreover, the book Body, Mind, Sport by John Douilliard is another read that covers the breath specifically from a fitness perspective. Wonderfully, these two people combined for a great podcast episode on Douillard’s “Lifespa: Ayurveda meets Modern Science” titled Breath with James Nestor. What they delve into is how the breath affects our body’s various systems, including the nervous system. Specifically, how nasal breathing engages the parasympathetic nervous system which governs our rest, healing, digestion, and calms us. The nervous system, our connection between mind and body, is the pathway of how we navigate and interpret the world within us and outside of us. When we actively engage our parasympathetic nervous system through meditation and breathwork, we mitigate stress and anxiety while enhancing our awareness, decision making, problem solving, confidence, motivation, and so on. If I had to boil these books down to a single sentence, I’d say that nasal breathing is key to meditative high-level performance and an integral aspect of our health. It’s the first key to unlocking the door to flow.
Visualization or mental imagery is also an ancient practice. Shamanic cultures across the globe have engaged in guided imagery to assist in healing. The Greeks believed the imagination to be as vital to our health and functioning as any organ in our body. Tibetan Buddhism has strong ties to mental imagery, utilizing such practices to deepen spiritual growth. And Yoga Nidra has gained popularity as a means to rest, soften and heal. Moreover, mental imagery has now been accepted and adopted into the medical field to a degree. For example, the American Cancer Society has endorsed the use of mental imagery as a useful means of coping with cancer; it’s found to soften symptoms and increase daily functioning and joy. Furthermore, the iRest Institute has adapted Yoga Nidra and the visualization techniques therein. IRest has applied such techniques to modern life in various settings such as health centers, schools, and military/veteran communities. Endorsed by the U.S. Army Surgeon General, iRest utilizes these practices to help people cope with stress, resolve trauma, improve sleep, and decrease symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. It’s clear that mental imagery and visualization are deeply powerful, human practices that provide a bountiful opportunity induce an increased state of well-being and vitality. While many of these examples above relate to overall health, such practices can also invigorate us in our ventures of sport and career too.
So, what is visualization? First, let’s get the semantics out of the way. I use the terms 'visualization’ and ‘mental imagery’ interchangeably. However, folks will suggest a difference between the two, stating visualization is limited to sight and hearing, while mental imagery includes all five senses. That said, I’ll state that my visualizations include all five senses. Essentially, you can think of visualization as a guided daydream. But you are intimately engaged with this detailed daydream. You see, feel, smell, hear, and at times there’s a taste, as you navigate your craft and environment with expertise and ease. In turn, you’re deeply immersed in the scene as you perform at a high-level. Your confidence in your ability rises. Motivation to complete the task rises. Your cognitive functions improve: adaptability, processing of decisions, spatial awareness, problem solving and decision making enhance as you find yourself in expected and unexpected situations and experience yourself navigating them comfortably. Seeing this poise, your performance anxiety drops. You are calm within the storm. You’re in the rhythm and flow of the moment and cooly adapt to the needs of the moment. How, and why does this work? Well, the same regions of your brain which are active during your performance, whether that be sport, theater, career-building, and so on, are also active during the visualization; the neural pathways which are firing as we navigate life are indeed firing as we visualize. Quite literally, you are training your mental-emotional skills, similar to how you build muscle by physical training. It’s a cognitive workout. Indeed, you are experiencing the whole event, similar to how you experience the action and emotionality of a movie or book. Even more fascinating, the motor neurons telling your muscles to knock down jumpshots are similarly active when you lie down and imagine yourself hitting game-winners, so there’s a physical skill training, a muscle memory, that’s involved in mental imagery too. Of course, you’re not physically imitating that movement, but the motor neurons fire up until the point of movement. With visualization, you are priming your mind and body to perform as desired under the most pressure-packed moments. Visualization is practice for performance yet it requires nothing but time and space to breathe and imagine. There’s no muscle strain, fatigue, or demand for resources. With visualization, you realize and unleash your true potential, rewriting the limiting stories we often tell ourselves, all while lying down.
Of course, you can visualize many things. Maybe you’re playing the perfect game, making the perfect presentation, acing the exam, and so on. You can visualize yourself overcoming the emotional rollercoaster of the championship game, coping with the stress leading up to the presentation, softening the anxiety of the job interview, in broad strokes or in extreme detail. You can visualize mistakes you’ve made in the past and correct them, cleaning up the emotional rubbish around that moment and changing the embedded memories in both body and mind. You can go anywhere, anytime.
With these practices, you can see the opportunity and pathways to desired outcomes. None of this is to say that physical training is unnecessary. Quite the opposite, those hours of practice, training and research are deeply needed to develop strength, skill, and knowledge. But mental-emotional training is needed too, it’s one of the most important components to our preparation and it is precisely what you learn with me. Truly, these practices have provided me the belief, opportunity, and vision to create such an offering. In turn, I’m excited and simultaneously humbled to lead folks through such powerful experiences. Together we’ll find that you are capable of greatness.
Resources Used:
What Is Guided Imagery & How Can It Help Your Clients Heal?
Visualization Practice in Tantra — Study Buddhism
Guided imagery as an effective therapeutic technique - Free Online Library
Guided Imagery - Whole Health Library
That Neuroscience Guy - The Neuroscience of Mental Imagery Podcast
Resources Mentioned:
Podcast Episode 104: Breath with James Nestor | John Douillard's LifeSpa
