Seeing It to Become It: The Power of Visualization
Did you know that simply visualizing yourself lifting weights can increase muscle strength by 13.5% without lifting a single dumbbell?
A study from the Cleveland Clinic found that participants who mentally rehearsed strength training experienced measurable gains in muscle strength, proving what many of us intuitively feel:
The mind and body are deeply connected. That’s the power of visualization. It’s a deeply healing practice that can help regulate your nervous system, access subconscious wisdom, rewire trauma, and reconnect you to the version of yourself you’re becoming.
What Is Visualization?
Visualization is the practice of creating mental imagery - internally seeing or sensing a desired outcome, feeling, or experience as if it’s already happening.
You might visualize:
A peaceful version of yourself handling conflict with grace
Yourself performing with confidence in a sport, event, or performance situation
A future where your creativity flows freely
The sensation of success, joy, or safety in your body
A healed inner child receiving comfort and support
Visualization can be used in coaching, therapy, trauma healing, sports performance, spiritual work, and nervous system regulation.
What the Science Says
Your brain doesn’t fully distinguish between a real experience and an imagined one.
In fact, fMRI studies show that visualization activates the same areas of the brain as actual performance. This creates new neural pathways that help you shift behavior, boost confidence, and heal.
Study Highlights:
Cleveland Clinic Foundation (Guang Yue, PhD): Participants who visualized strength training increased muscle strength by 13.5% over 12 weeks without any physical movement.
Harvard Gazette (2009): Piano players who practiced mentally showed nearly the same improvements in motor skills as those who practiced physically.
Psychology of Sport and Exercise (2016): Visualization helped athletes regulate stress and improve motivation before events.
Visualization as Nervous System Regulation
Visualization is also a tool for trauma recovery and emotional healing. It allows the body to rehearse safety and re-pattern old survival responses.
Activates the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest)
Creates new outcomes for past memories or future scenarios
Strengthens internal safety, confidence, and choice
Trauma lives in the body and visualization offers a somatic way to rewire it.
When to Use Visualization
Before a difficult conversation
During moments of anxiety or freeze
While setting goals or dreaming big
As part of inner child healing or shadow work
To embody your future self
To return to a grounded, safe state within
A Guided Practice: “Meet Your Future Self”
Try this simple visualization as a daily ritual or journaling prompt:
Close your eyes and take 3 slow breaths.
Picture yourself 6 months from now…calm, aligned, confident.
Where are you? What are you doing? What do you feel in your body?
What are you saying yes to now that you weren’t before?
Let this future version of you speak to you. What changes does it encourage you to make now?
Final Thoughts
Visualization is about informing the present, not escaping it. It invites your mind, body, and energy to begin aligning with what you truly want. It’s powerful, accessible… and it’s already inside of you.
Want to explore visualization in your healing journey?
I use guided imagery, experiential tools, and somatic coaching to help you shift patterns, reconnect to your body, and envision a life that feels like you.
Learn more at www.kimkozelcoaching.com
References
Yue, G., Cole, K.J. (2004). Strength increases from the motor program: mental training gains strength. Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
Pascual-Leone, A. et al. (2009). Mental practice produces significant changes in motor performance. Harvard Gazette.
Slimani, M., et al. (2016). Effect of mental imagery on athletic performance. Psychology of Sport and Exercise.
Polyvagal Theory - Stephen Porges, PhD
Van der Kolk, B. (2015). The Body Keeps the Score.