Guided Imagery Log

Guided Imagery Log

The first part of the Guided Imagery Activity consisted on thinking about an animal. I asked Sofia to close her eyes, to take 3 deep breaths and to imagine her favorite animal. The directions were the following: Think of your favorite animal What color is it? Is it small or big? What is his name? What is the animal doing? Imagine it with you. See how you play with him. You are enjoying this time. After the activity finished, I asked her to describe what she imagined. She saw a small white cat, with a big tail. She named it "snow". She was plaing with it in the garden. She was holding him and the cat would stay in her arms.
The second part of the guided imagery consisted on thinking about her favorite place. The directions were: Think about the place you would like to be right now. What is it? Imagine yourself walking through it. Look to your right? What do you see? Look to your left? What do you see? What colors can you see? Are you by yourself? If not, who are you with? What are you doing there? After the activity was finished, she described what she saw. She went to a beach with her sisters and her parents. She could see other children playing. She went inside the water and was swimming with her younger sister.
The third activity was to imagine a time when she frustrated sad. The directions were: Imagine a time when you felt frustrated? What is happening? What made you feel frustrated? Where are you? What can you do to feel better? Imagine yourself doing something that is changing how you feel? Now you are feeling happy? She thought about her math class. It is hard for her to understand and she gets frustrated when everyone else is finishing their assignments and she is not. She then thought that someone would come to explain what she was supposed to do and she had more time to finish. So she felt happy when she was able to finish the exercise.
The last part of the guided imagery was to think about a time when she was proud of herself. The directions were: Think about a time when you felt proud of yourself? Remember how you were feeling? Where are you? What is happening? What did you do that made you feel proud? Who is with you? She then said that she felt proud when she performed with her dance group at the end of the year. She was excited and nervous about performing, but when she finished she was very happy. All her family came to see her and she felt proud when all of them congratulated her.

After we discussed the images and how she felt in each situation. I made the LEAP: "Our mind is powerful. We can take control the way we think. Sometimes we think about something that we enjoy and that makes us feel happy, excited, loved. At other times, we may think about something that is going wrong and we feel nervous, frustrated, angry, scared. So what we think affects they way we feel".

I asked her to give me some other examples of when she has unpleasant feelings in school and to say what she is thinking. Most of the times she stated that she thinks that she cannot do it, that she is not smart, that all her classmates are better than her. All this makes her feel dumb and angry. She then stops working. We discussed what would happen if she changed the way she was thinking. If she thinks she can make it, if she thinks that she is good at school. What would she feel? What would change if she was feeling good? She said that she would work better.

This activity proved to be powerful in improving her self esteem and giving her back a sense of control. In students with learning disabilities, they learn to fail and they believe that they are not capable. They give up! This is an easy way to show them how they have control over their minds. Further activities would allow me to explore in more depth her performance in school and her attendance, which is of imminent relevance.