World Leading Psychologist: How to Manifest Anything & Create the Life You Want

25:57Mel Robbins:I'll give you another example because I think this is such a useful tool because what you're also fighting against is your own discouragement and your excuses and fear. So let's just take the example of you're moving to a city and it's hard to find an apartment. And you're worried about not being able to afford it. I did this actually when we were looking for our first house because we could not afford a house in the town that we wanted to live in because they had great public schools. And every night I would write down, we are going to find an old house and we're going to be shocked and it's going to be beautiful and we're going to have to paint it ourselves.

26:33Mel Robbins:And, you know, it's going to be a magical thing where we find out. And it took six months of doing that. And sure enough, we found a house that wasn't on the market yet that had a lawn that had like grass that was 27 inches high and was completely abandoned and locked up in a battle between the people that were still alive from the person. Like it was just on and on and on. But I think what it does is it doesn't make the house magically appear. Right. It makes you have more tenacity and belief that something's possible. That's right. I love that. Yeah. It reminds me of when I first moved to the Bay Area for grad school, we couldn't afford to buy anything in the Bay Area even back then.

27:19And so I imagined this little tiny house and behind it was this ocean. And I'm like, Cassie, how are you going to get an ocean view? You can't even afford, right? So we're looking everywhere. What did we find? We found a 640 square foot houseboat floating on the ocean. That's what we moved to. No way. Yeah. So I was like, oh, okay, it wasn't the ocean view. It's going to be literally on the ocean.

27:44Mel Robbins:Dr. Vietan, I love the way you are explaining these topics, and I cannot wait to share this episode, particularly with my two daughters. I need to hit the pause button so that we can hear word from our sponsors. And if somebody is coming to mind in your life who deserves to see a bigger possibility, share this incredible conversation with them too. Just drop it in your family group chat, share it with a friend, and don't go anywhere. Because when we come back, Dr. Vietan is going to go even deeper into the science of manifestation and imagination. So stay with us. We're going to be right back.

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31:49Mel Robbins:Welcome back, it's your friend Mel Robbins. Today, you and I are here with Dr. Cassandra Vieton and today she is teaching you how to manifest anything and create the life you want using her extraordinary research around imagination, consciousness, visualization. So Dr. Veeden, for the person who's feeling stuck and now is leaning in because they're starting to imagine something else might be possible, what is the first step to starting to use the practice of manifestation in their life to get unstuck? Yeah. Well, here's one thing that I find very useful. This is a tool where if you can't do it inside yourself initially, you can imagine someone who loves you tremendously, like really has your best interest at heart.

32:41This could be someone who's alive. It could be someone who's passed away. It could even be a fictional figure. I'll volunteer.

32:48Mel Robbins:I'll be the fictional person in your mind. Well, I guess I'm a real person, but I could be the person. What would Mel tell you? What would Mel tell you is possible? Yeah. So you are sitting there and you explain your whole situation to this person and ask them, what do you see is possible? What do you see is possible for me? And you'll be surprised at what you hear back from that person because it just kind of tricks your mind into getting out of the tyranny of your critical judging mind and allowing this person who's a million percent behind you and believes in you, in your imagination, to tell you, here's what I see.

33:29And you can recognize, again, as we were saying, it's not going to be harsh. It's not going to be an argument. It's not going to be a ton of questions. And it'll probably be something really short and pithy that you'll hear from this person, as well as feeling the love and the cheerleader in that person. Like, I'm 100 % behind you. This is what your next step is. That's one. What does manifesting change about your life? So when you decide that you are going to pursue a dream and that becomes the orienting principle of your life, you become motivated in a different way. You have access to energy that is not coming from fear of consequences.

34:17It's not coming from your anxieties. It's not that you're being, have you ever had that feeling where you're just pushing so hard that you're just running low on energy? That was last week, but yes. Well, yes, we have that, right? Even when you're driven by purpose, even when you're driven by vision, you can have that. But there's overall a different sense of motivation, energy, direction, momentum when you have that. It's more about what you're going toward than what you're going away from. Whenever you're trying to get away from something, there's kind of a mad dash and a scramble and it's all defined by what you don't want.

34:54When it starts to become defined by where you're going and what you do want, then there's this sense of walking into the future with energy and with commitment. I like to say Martin Luther King Jr. did not say, we have a problem. He said, I have a dream. And he invited people into that dream. And more quickly than anyone thought, at least a lot of that dream has been realized, there's still a long way to go. That's what motivates people, is imagining a future that's different. And I think this is very important for those of you who are listening. When you criticize yourself, when you punish yourself, when you focus on what is not working and how you need to do it better and the weight you need to lose and all the stuff, I would spend about 10 to 15 percent of your time accurately seeing what are the issues, what are the problems, and then the rest of your time on what are potential solutions and what is my vision for the future should those solutions come to pass.

36:01What will it feel like? What will it look like? Where will I be? What colors will be around me? What kind of people will be around me? What language will I be using toward myself or toward other people? How much further could I go with just that one change?

36:19Mel Robbins:That just gave me a visual, speaking of imagination. Because in periods in my life where I have been in utter survival mode, don't even know how I got through the day. Young kids can't pay the bills. So many of us have been there. It's like you're treading water in the middle of an ocean with no land in sight. Yeah. And that's why it feels like you can just keep your head above water and that's all you can do. And these tools have really helped me because what they've done is by using tools like your imagination, visualizing a future state, starting to manifest and intentionally program your mind for where you want to go.

37:07Mel Robbins:It's almost like a lighthouse in the distance appears. And now, even though you're still just barely able to keep your head above water, you now have a direction to move toward. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, absolutely. And for me, sometimes it goes back to story. So I'm drowning. I'm exhausted. I can barely get through this. One story is to say I can see myself drowning. The other is I'm on mile 19 of a 26-mile marathon that I volunteered for, and I am going towards the finish line. But mile 19 sucks, right? It's painful. It's hard. But I am the runner who's doing this. What do I need? Sometimes I need my pit crew to hand me some water along the way, all of that stuff.

37:57another is you know even when you are facing something that is so difficult so hard so even shameful that you feel like you have to keep it a secret one of the things that i'll work with people on is imagine that there are 1 000 women in a semi-circle behind you and they have all faced the same thing i have a kid in trouble i lost someone you know that you have an entire group of people throughout history who have faced the same thing, and now they are walking behind you and helping you make your way through it. So yes, going towards the vision, going towards manifesting the future, and also using these other metaphors to help you navigate towards it.

38:49What's the difference between manifestation and magical thinking? Yeah, so magical thinking often has to do with the stuff that I want other people to do or the stuff that I want to have. It has to do with things I don't have any control over. I just want these things to appear in my life. and manifestation as i understand it is more about how do i want to show up how do i want to be as i move into the future i want to be honest i want to be supportive i want to be empowering of other people i want to lift other people up with me i want to be genuine i want to be authentic i want to set boundaries i want to have a different energy level those are things that i can actually do.

39:38And so manifestation, I think the best use of it is to picture who and how you want to be and what results that might have. Because a lot of times when we think about things we want in the future, it's because we think they're going to give us a sense of freedom or vitality or love or connection or worthwhileness. And they may, and it's good to move towards those. But the other thing you can do is flip it and say, what could I do today to give myself a sense of those things that I think the future thing are going to bring me? What freedom can I bring into my life today? What vitality? What are the things that I could do right now that would bring me what I think that future thing is going to give me?

40:25Mel Robbins:What's a daily practice or routine the person who's listening right now can start to put all this into their life? Like one thing, yeah. Yeah, when I wake up in the morning, I do my meditation practice, and then I take myself through my day. I imagine it. I look into what am I going to do? How am I going to get there? What am I going to eat? What are the meetings I'm going to have? Where am I going to be sitting? So that's that simulation form of imagination of just walking through the day. And then how do I need to be today? What do I want to bring to that? and then looking into something in my past.

41:06And when did I feel what I want to bring in today? So if I want to bring balance into today or emotion regulation, or I want to bring a warrior spirit and some firm boundaries, or I want to bring compassion and empathy, when did I last feel that way? Embody that completely and then move into your day with that quality.

41:29Mel Robbins:Dr. Veeden, I want to take a step back because all the things that you've been teaching us about visualization and manifestation fall under the larger umbrella of your research around the science of imagination. So can you explain what exactly is imagination? Imagination is the way that we simulate, reconfigure, and transcend reality, sometimes through visualization and oftentimes through other forms of imagination. What do those words mean? What do you mean it's simulate, reconfigure, and transcend reality? Okay, so simulate is when I think about something in my mind, I bring it into my mind's eye.

42:16Let's talk about, let's just think about your house right now. Imagining your house, when you open the door, when you walk into it, what rooms are in it, where's the kitchen, what do you love about it, what do you still want to fix about it, what's in the yard. That's simulation imagination. You are like a copy machine. You're just trying to copy what things are like so that you can game things out. What am I going to make for dinner tonight? What am I going to say to my kid tonight? That is very important. Like us being able to simulate reality, and you and I are sitting here right now. As far as we know, there's nothing outside of this room.

42:51We're imagining. We're simulating all of it, and so it's very helpful to simulate. I think a lot of us simulate negatively.

42:57Mel Robbins:Right. We wake up, we think about the day ahead, we start bracing, we start thinking about what's going to go wrong or the thing we're dreading. And you're saying that you can first start training yourself to simulate having a good day or showing up a certain way. And then the second thing you said was reconfigure. Now what am I doing? Reconfigure. Yes. So now what you can do is say, I know what it's probably going to be like, but I know I'm going to have some hard meetings in the morning and I know I'm going to have another tricky situation in the afternoon that I have to face. What would make me feel vital?

43:35You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go out and get my favorite sushi. I'm just going to go out, get it, bring it back, sit with a cup of tea, eat the sushi, and know that that is me taking care of myself. I need a little bit of extra care today. So you're adding something to the reality. You're adding something to what you're imagining. Another way of reconfiguring goes a lot further than that, and it's reconfiguring your story about who you are and how you want to be. The third part you said was transcending. So transcending is the most fun, which is what can I do that's completely outside of what I think is possible?

44:17I have a client who went through the unimaginable, which is that she lost her son to an overdose. And this was quite a long time ago. And she has suffered since then from extreme guilt because she also had an addiction at the time. And she's sure that her addiction caused his addiction and that his overdose was completely on her shoulders. And so this was really, really entrenched. And she felt like punishing herself was the right thing to do. And so as we worked together for a long time, we started to change the story into we both suffered from the disease of addiction. And it went far back in their family, totally genetic.

45:07and we started turning it into a story where our family and my ancestors, it's almost like we live in a village and every now and then a dragon comes in and breathes fire and lays waste to the land. We lose people, people die, it destroys things. But that has been happening in my family for many, many generations. And the dragon came while I was there with my son and it got me and we lost him. And so now what I do in my life instead of punishing myself is I help other people who are facing the unimaginable because I've been through it and I can be by their side while they go through it. Totally different story.

45:50The dragon metaphor really, really helped. And so when we talk about transcending reality, it's not always about going into a complete la-la land. It's about finding a story that's big enough to match what's actually happening in your life and help you transcend that and have it be different for not that the situation was different, but the way you look at it is different.

46:15Mel Robbins:Well, it's a super helpful image, especially for anybody who's trying to break generational patterns. Yeah. Why is the skill of imagination critical to creating a better life? Well, the only thing that has ever led to inventions or breakthroughs or things that have changed the world, both individuals and in our society, like cell phones or electricity. Going to the moon. Right, going to the moon, right? Somebody somewhere said, what if? What if we could go to the moon? What if we could talk to each other using a machine? There's a super cool story about Alexander Graham Bell and the inventor of the telephone.

47:04And so he actually had this experience where he somehow knew his sister was in trouble. And this is before the phone. This is before. This is like, you know, mail was on the Pony Express, right? He just had a sense something's wrong with my sister. Something's not okay. And he did find out through letter like three weeks later she had had a carriage accident. And he said, you know, I wish we had a machine that would let us communicate with each other. And he just dedicated his life to making that machine. And so that's a big one, right? But in your own life, there are things that you could create or invent, solutions that you could come to, that again, can only begin in your imagination.

47:51Imagination is like the workspace in your mind where you can simulate, reconfigure, go beyond current reality and say, hey, there's probably a different way to do this. I want to find out what it is. Is everybody capable of imagining? A hundred percent. So when people say I'm not very imaginative or worse, they're told you're not very original, you're not very imaginative, usually what people mean is you don't know how to visualize things in great detail. You can't seem to visualize things that are different in great detail. The good news is there is a neurodiversity of imagination where each of us has our own particular unique brand of imagination, like a fingerprint.

48:37We each have our own profile. So you may not know that you are actually less of a visual imaginer and more of a social emotional imaginer. Those kinds of imaginers might not have very vivid images, but they sure can tell you how someone feels. They can tell you how someone across from them might be feeling or thinking, or if I do this behavior, this is how it's going to come across to the other person, or this is the response you might get if you do that. They're just really good at that. Then there's other senses besides vision, like even smell imagination and gustatory imagination. You know, chefs are really good at imagining what something might taste like.

49:23and it's part of how they imagine their new concoctions that they make. So what I want people to know too is all these imagination profiles are strengths. We need every type of imaginer. We need the fantastical, visual, vivid imaginer, but we also need that practical imaginer who knows exactly how things will fit.

49:44Mel Robbins:Dr. Vietan, thank you for sharing that. I want to hear more, but I have to take a quick break so we can hear a word from our incredible sponsors. but don't go anywhere because after the break, Dr. Vieton has another very specific and simple exercise that you can do that helps you apply everything that she's teaching you about visualization, manifestation, and so much more. And she's going to walk us through it when we return. So stay with me.

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53:35Mel Robbins:Welcome back. It's your friend Mel. Today, You and I are here with Professor Cassandra Vieton, and today she's teaching you how to manifest anything and create the life you want using the science of your imagination, visualization, consciousness. This stuff is so cool. So, Dr. Vieton, let's just jump right back in. When we first got you to agree to come on the show and I started digging into your book and your work, I immediately thought of this quote in Trevor Noah, who I love, his number one New York Times bestseller, Born a Crime. And I want to read to you from Noah's book. It's on page 73, where he's talking about imagination.

54:17Mel Robbins:We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine. And depending upon where you came from, your imagination can be quite limited. Growing up in Soweto, our dream was to put another room on our house, maybe have a driveway, maybe someday a cast iron gate at the end of the driveway, because that is all we knew. but the highest rung of what's possible is far beyond the world you can see. I think intellectually, we know that. But if you're in a moment in your life where you feel very stuck and you feel that there's a lot of evidence that this is all that there is and that this is what your life is and what it's always going to feel like, Like, Dr.

55:08Mel Robbins:Vietan, what do you want to say to the person who really believes that the highest rung of what's possible in your life is where you are? When we feel stuck, it's often accompanied by the feeling of, I don't know what to do. I don't know what's next. I don't, I got nothing. and the linear logical ego mind really hates that does not like it but there's another part of us that when we are in a place of i don't know i have no idea what to do imagination does like that and so you've probably seen the book by pema chodron uncomfortable with uncertainty and i had a teacher that was very important to me angelus arian who would say spend more time in the land of I don't know.

56:03But I don't want to be in that land because I don't like feeling like I don't know. Right? So spend some time there. But also I teach a workshop called The Next You, and we take people to meet their future selves. How do you do that? Right. So first what you do is get yourself into a state, whether it's through meditation or listening to music or being in nature, where you're really open-minded and kind of let go of some of the, you know, busyness and all that stuff. So you might do some breathing for five or 10 minutes. And then what we want you to do is five years, 10 years, 15 years into the future, imagine that you are at your front door and you are about to meet the future you that has already embodied a lot of the qualities and goals and accomplishments that you hope to do.

56:58Now, I wouldn't get too locked down on exactly what it is because if you put an overlay on it ahead of time, you're going to be kind of controlling it too much. Okay. So instead of saying, well, she's got a mansion and she has a Jaguar, you just say this is someone who feels the way that I think the mansion and Jaguar would give me. This is someone who feels free. They have a lot of spare time. They feel balanced. They feel vital. They feel healthy. They have positive relationships. Whatever your goals are, right? Whatever your goals for how you want to be are. Open the door. See your future self.

57:39And then you can ask them some questions. What is the one thing more than any other thing that you did to get you to where you are today? And you'll be surprised at what they answer. You know, they'll give you some direction. The great thing is you don't have to do this once. You can actually have that future self be your ally, your best friend, your golf caddy, you know, sort of like, hey, I wouldn't do that. That's going to get you into a sand trap. Like, they can become a coach for you as you move into your future. It can become a sort of a true north on the compass. And it can help you make decisions now.

58:16Like, is this taking me closer to my future self or further away from my future self? And people might think that sounds, I don't know, you know, frou-frou or woo-woo or something like that, right? But we know from the science that when people imagine their futures, they act differently, they show up differently, they make different decisions. and so there's very interesting data showing like college students and they have them meet their future self and they actually take a photo of them and they age the photo and so they see themselves what they might look like when they're older and then they ask them you know do you want to start a savings account for the future and the kids who saw their future selves want to save more money for the future.

59:05Mel Robbins:What's happening in your brain when you are using the skill of imagination to visualize a whole different reality. The most important thing about what's happening in the brain when you are imagining is that the brain differentiates much less than you might think between something that actually happens and something you imagine. So when you imagine seeing something, your visual cortex lights up. When you imagine hearing something, your auditory cortex lights up. When you imagine moving, your motor cortex lights up. And so when you imagine something, you are actually giving your brain the signal that in a way it's happened.

59:49The great tennis player Billie Jean King said before she went to sleep, she would just imagine the ball coming at her and every single angle and how she would hit it. And so what we know from research is that athletes who imagine practicing basketball game, soccer game, they have better performance than athletes who don't imagine. And so when you add imagination to your rehearsal for life, you're giving your brain the signal, I'm still training. Even though I'm just sitting here next to my window drinking my tea in my pajamas, I'm still practicing in my imagination. And so those parts of your brain are lighting up.

1:00:32The other things that are happening in your brain is if you imagine something that is very scary or threatening or what might go wrong or the worst, you're releasing cortisol the same way you would if it happened. Not quite the same, right? It approaches it. But if you're imagining the worst all day every day, you are giving your brain the signal that those things are happening. There's this great quote that I think comes initially from Seneca, but it's attributed to Mark Twain, and it's like, I've experienced many terrible things, most of which have never happened. And so even though they haven't happened, you're still giving your body the same stress signals as if they did happen.

1:01:16Mel Robbins:Let's apply this. So let's say that the person listening is bracing all day long because they think they're going to get laid off or they're bracing because they're worried that they're going to never meet somebody and fall in love again. Right. And so they're imagining a future state, right? Because if you are driving to your job today, you still have it. And so I take it if you have trained yourself to be somebody that worries, what if this, what if that, this is going to go wrong, what if this person thinks that, that's evidence that you could train yourself to imagine in the positive. That's right.

1:01:54Mel Robbins:And what changes about your life when you get very serious about training yourself to imagine in the positive? Well, I mean, my personal experience is that I have experienced maladaptive imagination. There was a time in my life where I had everything I wanted. I had a beautiful place to live. I had an incredible job. I mean, absolutely incredible. There was a lot of pressure, and I did go through a divorce. And so when the stress increased a lot, I started drinking very heavily. And at that point, I started to tell myself, it's going to be okay as long as you don't ever tell anyone about this.

1:02:34Now, let me stop because that it's going to be okay if you don't tell anybody.

1:02:40Mel Robbins:You imagined that. Is that what you're saying? That's a story. It's a story I told myself. I can do this as long as I don't tell anyone. So it's getting worse and worse and worse. It's having more and more consequences. And still my story is if you tell anybody about this, if you ask for help, you are going to get a black mark on your record forever. Like people are going to think you are the worst, that you have completely lost your mind, you're untrustworthy, you're damaged. So it goes on and on and on. It gets very bad. Finally, out of desperation, I call one of my colleagues and say, hey, I can't stop drinking.

1:03:20And he says, I'll be right over. I said, you know, look, I know I can't take any time off work. There's way too much responsibility. He said, oh, no, you're already off now for the next 60 days. You go take care of yourself. We got it. We are all behind you. Come back well. Did I imagine that would happen? Never in a million years. And so these diseases of despair is what my colleague Lisa Miller at Columbia University talks about, where you begin to despair addiction, depression, anxiety. your mind starts telling you stories that are not true, but you start believing them anyway. And it's very hard to get yourself to tell a different story.

1:04:00But it's partly because you don't know you're telling yourself a story. You just think it's real. And so there's a colleague of mine who's at the Arizona State University. He's at the Center for the Science of the Imagination. And he's doing something called the VIP Project, the Veterans Imagination Project. His name is Bob Beard. And what he does is has veterans come in, and these are folks who have faced severe combat trauma. They've had PTSD. They've had brain consequences because of what they've experienced. And so they're feeling like, I don't know if there's anything for me after all that.

1:04:36He sits them down. He has them imagine their futures. And then he pairs an artist with them who sketches it all out for them in this very detailed painting or drawing. And after they go through this, they're like, I have hope. I have vision. I have a compass. I have a true north. I have a direction. And that is the best gift you can give to anyone. You know, it reminds me of a passage in your blockbuster bestseller, Imagine That.

1:05:10Mel Robbins:It's in the introduction, and I want to read to you from your book and have you dig a little deeper into the power of imagination. You say that your primary goal with your work, Dr. Veeden, is to help people re-enchant their lives, to re-enliven their world, spark new hope, and reveal new possibilities through the science and practice of imagination, to help you escape the confines of your current reality tunnel, and envision hopeful futures while experiencing more awe, wonder, and the ability to chart a new course for yourself and society. Because the antidote to despair isn't just hope, it's the skill to generate hope.

1:06:00Mel Robbins:So the first thing I wanted to ask you after reading that is, what is a reality tunnel and how do I know I'm in one? Right, right. So this is a concept that came up in the 60s, and this was when consciousness was starting to explode and people were doing psychedelics. And this was like Timothy Leary and his colleagues were like, hey, man, you're stuck in a reality tunnel. So it sounds kind of like, dude, right? But it's true. Like, we are actually stuck in a reality tunnel. And all of us have our own reality tunnel. What we think is real, what we think is possible, what we think is impossible.

1:06:38And part of our job is to break free from these limited ideas about reality, open up our aperture and say, you know, if I'm stuck in a relationship and I'm like, should I stay? Should I go? Should I stay? Should I go? Should I stay? Or a job, let's say. It's only two choices, stay or go. The truth is there's probably 10, 15, 20, 25 possible choices that you could make to break out of that tennis match inside of your mind. And I see people who have been in this tennis match for decades, for years, for months. And so one of the practices they can try is to sit down and write 50 possibilities and don't make them practical necessarily.

1:07:20Some of them can be practical, but some of them can be completely impractical. Like, I'm going to open a cozy bookshop in Scotland. I'm out of here. Or I'm going to join the circus. Like, whatever it is, right? Just don't edit. Write them all down. And what happens then is that when you start to look at all 50, you might notice every single one of them had an element of travel in it. Why is that? I guess I want to travel.

1:07:46Mel Robbins:Or I want to escape this person and this relationship. So traveling means I'm somewhere else. Yeah, but let's say, so maybe you do, right? Maybe you say, hey, you know what? I'm out of here. Or maybe you say, I don't want to be out of here. I want to work on this. I got three kids. I'm not leaving. But you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to travel for a month every year. I'm going to go with my girlfriends. And that is going to change my life. That's practical. That's possible for some people, right? Maybe it's a week. Maybe you just say, I'm not taking a vacation with my family. I'm taking a vacation with my girlfriends.

1:08:17There are small things that are real that can come out of those big, crazy 50 possibilities that you didn't notice before. Well, going back to the very beginning

1:08:26Mel Robbins:where we talked about the fact that 70 % of the people who listen to this show around the world feel like they're reacting to life, what I love about what you're teaching us is so many of us are looking outside of ourselves for the signals when transformation is an inside activity. And these tools help you turn inward and go deeper inward into your subconscious, into your spirit, into your heart, into the things that you can't explain, and tap into those signals for guidance rather than constantly looking outside yourself for them. You are one of the most cited researchers alive on the conscious mind.

1:09:11Mel Robbins:What is consciousness? Consciousness is what you experience, what you believe, what you intend, your intuition, your inner life. It's, you know, at the very basic level, just everything you're aware of. But then there's sort of a bigger C consciousness, where it's what you don't even know that you're assuming, believing, intending. And so one of the things about becoming more conscious is to start to pay attention to what are all of my beliefs? What are my values? What are my commitments? What's inside of me? How do I bring my consciousness into the world every day? And so I worked at the Institute of Noetic Sciences for about 18 years, and this was founded by Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who was the sixth man to walk on the moon.

1:10:04and when he was on his way back to Earth from space, he's viewing the Earth and the stars and the sun and the moon and he had this epiphany where he recognized that my consciousness isn't just mine, but I'm actually connected to the molecules that make up my body are the same as the ones in the stars and in the space capsule and the sun and the Earth and there's this deeper sense of interconnectedness. So there is an outer world, and we all know what that is, this table, the lights, the walls, things that are real. Then there's an inner world, and that inner world is also real. It's our experience.

1:10:49It's what we perceive. It's what we believe. It's what we intend. It's our whole worldview. How do we view things? And that consciousness affects our bodies and our brains, our hormones, our neurotransmitters, the way our brain is built, the way we behave in the world.

1:11:11Mel Robbins:What does it mean, though, to become more conscious in your everyday life? Becoming more conscious in your everyday life means that you are not automatic as much. You are working as you move through your life with intention, with attention. You are, instead of just being kind of a pinball in a pinball machine, deciding that I want to bring a certain intention to this meeting that I'm about to have. I want to bring in a direction that we can go together, and I want to elicit this from other people. How do you tap into the unconscious mind? Well, it's interesting. When I started to do a lot of work on imagination, I went out to the desert in Enzo Borrego, and it's this gorgeous desert landscape, and hiked to this top of this mountain.

1:12:06And at that point, I had this 360-degree view of everything. And I asked what I guess I would call the spirits, but let's just call it the universe, or other people might call it something different. It's like, what does the world need to know about imagination? And the answer was immediate. It was, tell them it's the place where we can most easily talk to them. And I love that because I feel like there is an inner wisdom, a deep inner wisdom that each one of us holds that's not accessible by typical linear logical thinking. It's accessible through imagination. And as we practice imagination more purposefully, as we create the conditions in our lives where imagination is more welcome to spontaneously arise, we start to get messages from that deeper inner self that are meaningful, that are influential, that are outside the box, and that allow us to make fundamental shifts in the way that we view the world.

1:13:13and therefore in the way we show up in the world. And that changes everything.

1:13:19Mel Robbins:All right. So do you have a way that you could show me what experiencing this is like? Yeah. So actually we have created a number of virtual reality experiences for people, especially it's great for people who don't have a ton of visualization ability to have this training wheels of this. But the other thing that's great about VR is it can allow you to go to places that you couldn't ever go in this world. So what I want to show you is putting you into the shoes of Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut, who is the sixth person to walk on the moon, and then have you come back to Earth and have a little bit of the experience that he had.

1:13:56Are you ready? Okay, yes.

1:13:58Mel Robbins:Let's do this. Okay, should I put it on? Okay, so try putting this on. Okay. This is heavy. Okay, you got it? Yeah. Okay. Okay, so I am seeing, like, the moonscape. Okay. Whoa. What's behind me? That's your space suit. I'm seeing a space suit that is next to me. It's like right behind. It's like right here. I'm not in it. It's kind of you're supposed to be. Okay. I'm supposed to be in it, but I'm sort of in front of it. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Whoa. Three, two, one. Whoa. There it goes. Welcome to the Apollo 14 mission. Your journey home begins on the dark side of the moon, which is also an excellent song.

1:14:40Mel Robbins:Astronaut Edgar Mitchell is your co-pilot. All right, everybody. We're on the dark side of the moon. Allow my body to relax. That's a good cue because I was gripping the chair here. It literally feels like you're in Star Wars or in a movie. Whoa. What is that? There's something floating by me right now. And that is the capsule that you are about to marry with to get back to Earth. So we're about to connect to a capsule that's going to then shuttle us back to Earth. And it's like right there. It looks like a D-sized battery floating right there, almost like you could touch it. Whoa. And there's the, you see the flame thing, and now it's shuttling forward.

1:15:27Mel Robbins:And I have a feeling I'm about to grip my chair again as this thing starts moving forward. And as you look around, the stars are so close. As you're kind of experiencing this and now we're moving forward away from the moon, you just can't believe that human beings figured out how to do this. So why have me visit the moon in virtual reality? Well, virtual reality is a way that we can help people with their imagination. So I could have taken you on a guided visualization and said, imagine that you're lifting off from the moon. Now imagine that you're coming closer to the Earth. But putting you in there really gives you a little bit of the sense of what it might be like out there.

1:16:11And so in this particular experiment, what we're looking at is when people have that experience of coming back to the Earth slowly, like an astronaut who describes the overview effect, meaning that once they see the Earth from space and they see there are no boundaries between countries, that it's so small in a sea of blackness, they often come back to Earth feeling like the only thing they want to do is help maintain and make the Earth sustainable and help other people on the planet. And they lose that sense of separation because it's so small. We're all one family. And so we're trying to give people a little echo of that overview effect.

1:16:51Mel Robbins:Well, I'll tell you, it's a very interesting experience because there's no way that you can feel like you're out in space looking back down on the Earth and not understand that you are just a visitor. that in terms of the timeline of humanity, you're here for a blink of an eye. Yeah. And that a lot of the things that you're struggling with right now are not unique to you. That, as you said, you don't see the borders between countries. You just see this massive, beautiful planet. Beautiful, yeah. And you feel simultaneously tiny and limitless at the same time. How can you apply this experience to your daily life?

1:17:38Yeah, well, I think for people who are living in their daily lives, one of the things they can do is absolutely pull back and gain a bigger perspective. So one of the VR experiences that we're producing right now is you all know about the train of thought. One thought after another, just chugging along, taking you to Chicago when you didn't even mean to go there. And so people who feel overwhelmed by rumination or by those kinds of thoughts, what we'll have them do is put their thoughts on the train. And it'll be right up next to them, like going by very, very loud, you know, kind of like our thoughts are.

1:18:16And then we'll have them pull back and pull back and pull back until the train is just like a little tiny toy train in the distance. and they're looking at this grand vista, the Grand Canyon, or, you know, some huge mountain range, and realize that that train of thought, even though it's kind of like the CNN announcer in your mind, it shouldn't really be taking up as much space as it is. It could be that your thinking patterns could be just kind of like a radio playing in the background or a train off in the distance, like, yeah, my thoughts are important, But how about if I was just right here, right now, sitting in the studio with Mel?

1:18:54Do I also want this massive narration that often tends towards the negative to be there? Not really. I don't want to lose it. I just don't want it to be dominating every moment of my life. So that perspective is what we're trying to train.

1:19:09Mel Robbins:Well, one of the amazing things that you've done for us today is you've taught us how to use the innate skill that we have of imagination, visualization, manifestation to see a world that we want to live in and to see a future that we want to create. For somebody that's feeling very discouraged because the news is horrendous, people are really, really struggling. Maybe you're in a moment in your life where you do feel like things are falling apart. Why is that a moment that it's more important than ever to tap into the power and the science of your imagination to imagine a better future? Why does this matter right now more than ever?

1:19:57I mean, there's not much you can do about the external pressures or the way that so many things seem to be going kind of insane. But what you can do is shift the way that you choose to navigate the moment in time that we are all in. And that requires your imagination. How do I want to show up in the world? Imagination can be framed as an act of resistance. Your imagination is something that no one can ever take away from you. The story of Viktor Frankl, for example, the Holocaust, he's in a concentration camp. The only thing he has left is he imagines himself in the future teaching a classroom of students.

1:20:48They could not take that away from him. And indeed, after surviving, that is where he ended up. That was what he could hang on to. And so I would tell people who feel despair, who feel a loss of hope, what can you imagine that you can put in your home, in your environment, that would make you feel like there is still hope, that there is still contributions that you can make? And then what might that be? Because I know a lot of us are just feeling helpless, and there's almost nothing worse than feeling helpless when you see people you love in trouble or in pain. What is your contribution, small or large?

1:21:27One thing I want to say about imagination is that it doesn't follow the same rules as the logical linear mind. It doesn't care a lot about time moving forward. You can go back in time in your imagination and do some healing work with your younger selves. You can go forward in time. It doesn't care a lot about distance or space. I can imagine being with somebody that I'm distant from. So in the world of imagination, use the different rules. Don't worry about time. Don't worry about space. Don't worry about scale. What are you here to do? And just taking those small actions, even just imagining, is your act of resistance.

1:22:12Dr. Veeden, what are your parting words? I just want everyone at home to know that you have something inside of yourself that is available to you. It's free. When I introduce people to their imagination, sometimes it's like I point out a small door in their house that they didn't know was there and open it and all of a sudden there's a giant new wing. and that wing of your house, your imagination, offers you information and energy that it's not frivolous, it's not just for kids, it's not just for artists, it is for you. And you may as well notice it because you are using it all day every day. Use it more frequently, use it purposefully and also take the time to spend a little bit more time every day in this territory of imagination and it will bring more magic back into your life.

1:23:05Mel Robbins:Well, Dr. Veeden, thank you, thank you, thank you for the work that you do. Thank you for flying here and taking the time to teach us and to explain how specifically we can use these tools to bring more magic back in our lives. And I certainly feel it. And I know the person who's with us feels it too. So thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. And thank you. Thank you for making the time to listen to something that will help you access this skill inside of you. You deserve a better future. And using these tools, you can first start to visualize it and experience it. And that's going to help you actually create it.

1:23:47Mel Robbins:All right. In case nobody else tells you, I also wanted to be sure to tell you as your friend that I love you and I believe in you. And I believe in your ability to create a better life. And maybe, just maybe, if you start visualizing the life that you want and you start allowing yourself to feel what it's going to feel like now, that's the first step to you being able to create it. I actually believe it is. Alrighty, I'll see you in the next episode. I'm going to welcome you in the moment you hit play.

1:24:18Mel Robbins:Here we go. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, what do you want me to say next? Okay, do you want me to do the open first? Do you want me to do pickups? And do I need to have Yuna move her computer? Because I don't know. Sorry.

1:24:39Mel Robbins:Guys, there's like a lot here. I don't know where this is from. But there's a lot of something right here. Hold on a second. Okay. Is that what it is? Actually, it was the salad I ate six hours ago, so I don't know what the hell's happening. Okay. Researcher and psychologist. Hold on. Let me go back up. Okay. Was it okay? For real? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Okay. She's also the director of the Center for Mindfulness and the Centers for... Okay, my, okay. Okay. Baby claps. Okay, coach me. Okay, let's go to the top then. To the pickup? To the top of your dog. Okay, read me those. Just read me them.

1:25:33Mel Robbins:Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist. And this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Sirius XM Podcasts.

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