This week’s topic:
In this episode of the Feel Good Podcast, Kimberly Snyder engages in a deep conversation with Joanna Grover, co-author of ‘The Choice Point.’ They explore the concept of choice points—split-second decisions that can lead us closer to our goals or derail us. Joanna discusses the power of imagery and sensory experiences in shaping behavior and overcoming challenges, emphasizing the importance of engaging multiple senses for effective change. The conversation also touches on real-life applications of these techniques, including overcoming instant gratification and visualizing future goals, such as relationships and personal achievements. In this conversation, Joanna discusses the transformative power of imagery techniques in personal growth, stress management, and improving relationships. She emphasizes the importance of starting small, overcoming limiting beliefs, and aligning one’s head and heart to navigate life more effectively. The discussion also highlights the potential of these techniques for children and their application in everyday situations, including stress and sleep management.
About Joanna Grover
Joanna Grover, LCSW, is an executive coach with two decades of experience as a cognitive behavioral therapist specializing in anxiety. She’s worked with the US Department of Commerce, Olympic athletes, and C-Suite executives, and she is a board-certified coach and member of the International Coaching Federation and the Harvard Institute of Coaching. Joanna lives in Miami. Her new book, co-authored with Jonathan Rhodes, is THE CHOICE POINT: The Scientifically Proven Method to Push Past Mental Walls and Achieve Your Goals, published earlier this year by Hachette.
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Guest Resources
Book: HE CHOICE POINT: The Scientifically Proven Method to Push Past Mental Walls and Achieve Your Goals
Episode Chapters
Chapters
00:00 Heart-Led Living and Wellness Introduction
01:52 Understanding Choice Points in Daily Life
06:03 The Power of Imagery in Overcoming Challenges
09:52 Sensory Experiences and Behavioral Change
14:03 Real-Life Applications of Imagery Techniques
17:55 Using Imagery for Instant Gratification and Long-Term Goals
22:04 Hydration and Wellness Practices
23:56 Visualizing Relationships and Future Goals
25:22 The Power of Imagery in Personal Growth
30:07 Overcoming Limiting Beliefs and Negative Thoughts
35:21 Applying Imagery Techniques in Everyday Life
39:52 Imagery for Stress Management and Sleep
42:54 Aligning Head and Heart for Better Living
46:38 The Transformative Impact of Imagery on Relationships
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KIMBERLY’S BOOKS
- Chilla Gorilla & Lanky Lemur Journey to the Heart
- The Beauty Detox Solution
- Beauty Detox Foods
- Beauty Detox Power
- Radical Beauty
- Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life
- You Are More Than You Think You Are
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- How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard EP. 877
- How Not to Age with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Michael Greger [Episode #873]
- How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo [Episode #867]
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Transcript:
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (00:00.238)
Welcome to the Feel Good Podcast, which is all about heart led living and wellness. When we awaken the power of our hearts and let that guide us through our daily choices and decisions, through our four cornerstones, food, body, emotional well-being and spiritual growth, we will experience the most incredible results and create more vitality, health, strength, peace.
abundance and love in our lives. I am your host, Kimberly Snyder, New York Times bestselling author, founder of Saluna, creator of the research-based Heart Aligned Meditation, wellness expert, nutritionist and international speaker. I am passionate about supporting you on your unique heart and wellness journey. Let’s get started.
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (00:57.304)
I’m so excited to share my conversation with you today with Joanna Grover, who is the co-author of the book, The Choice Point, The Scientifically Proven Method to Push Past Mental Walls and Achieve Your Goals. She is a cognitive behavioral therapist, specializing in anxiety. She’s worked with Olympic athletes, executives and the US Department of Commerce.
And I have to say that I loved speaking to Joanna because whilst the book and her work is very scientifically based, it also feels very holistic to me. feels very spiritual. And a lot of it is based on this idea of holistic imagery and using our imagination and using that to propel us into the future that we want. So I’m very excited to share the show.
with you in just a moment. Before we do, little reminder to check out our website, mysaluna.com, where you can submit questions for the Q &A shows, where you can find more podcasts, articles. I’ve written thousands of blogs over the years that I think you would enjoy. There are also thousands of plant-based recipes that are simple and delicious, meditations and more. Everything is over there, so please be sure to check it out.
All right, all that being said, let’s get into our interview today with Joanna Grover. Joanna, thank you so much for joining me here today. I loved your very interesting book, The Choice Point, and it’s been sitting in my living room for some months. And I’m really excited that we were able to get our schedules work and for some time to chat today. first of all, thank you so much for coming on our show.
thank you. I’m delighted to be here. And as you pointed out, the choice point, it’s a book that takes some time to sort of percolate because it challenges, you know, our daily routines. It’s interesting when you even boil it down to these moments, these choice points, do I do this? Do I not? Because sometimes, as you know, Joanna, we get so many thousands of thoughts, we don’t really
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (03:16.601)
think about the ones that are truly impactful in our future and moving our lives forward. So can you talk a little bit about defining it more clearly, what these choice points are and how often they come up in our days and in our lives? Well, I’m glad you brought that up because the way we see choice points is there are these split seconds decisions that we make usually right before a challenge.
Am I going to go for a run or am I going to stay in bed? Am I going to order dessert or so these decisions that either take us closer to the life we want or they derail us and take us further. So we have them all day long. We don’t want you to think of every one of these decisions. Just drive yourself and the people around you crazy. But the ones that are attached to your goal and to your life purpose and meaning.
Those are the real, those are the choice points that we’re talking about. So we’re going to get into all the imagine, you know, the imagination and the imagery, which I thought was really fascinating. And it was also interesting that your forward was from Martina Navruchalova, you know, with athletes, this has been something that we’ve heard about before, but we don’t necessarily apply it to our lives of those of us who are non athletes.
But before we get there, Joanne, I wanted to ask you, there’s this part in the book where you talk about spontaneous thoughts. And I think most all of us can relate to things coming in. And like you said, maybe they’re aligned with our values. Maybe they help us. A lot of times they don’t. How much of that is informed by trauma, patterns from the past? And are we, I mean, we hear a lot about neuroplasticity and there’s so much around trauma now with your work and going into the,
the imagery again, which I’m simplifying here, but we’ll talk about in a second. Is that a tool for helping us to overcome some of these past patterns of trauma? Absolutely. Yeah. This, theory that behind the choice point is a body of science known as functional imagery training. And to boil it down to its essence, it’s basically what we elaborate on will shape our behavior. Okay. So if I’m going to elaborate on
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (05:34.977)
a negative event that happened to me in the past. mean mentally elaborate. Yeah, mentally elaborate. So in our work, what we do is we teach people that you can’t monitor the thousands of thoughts you have a day, but you can monitor the images that come along with that, the imagery. You can actually learn to change a channel.
So moving away from this, going down this road, so to speak, sometimes it feels like we’re having these conversations in our head. It’s very audio based. So you’re saying we can create a new picture, an image and move somewhere else. Exactly. Yeah. And before I did this work with Choice Points and with imagery, I was a cognitive behavioral therapist for almost 20 years.
So I dealt a lot with things. My specialty was anxiety. And what I found with this is, yeah, like instead of all the talking, images are powerful, they’re emotional and, and emotions drive our behavior. So it’s a really quick way into the mind. So one of the things you talk about is the mental mutiny versus cognitive control. What’s in the line with my values, my long-term goals.
And so I think about if I had access to your work, Joanna, how I would have used it. I healed my own eating disorder years ago when I was in high school. I was bulimic and I just went on and then I remember one day I said, I just don’t want to do this anymore. And it was really that battle of will. And it was hard, but I was able to overcome it. think what you’re mentioning here, this cognitive, the long-term goals, I don’t want to be this self-abusive person.
But let’s say in that example, and I know eating disorders, so many complexities. The mental mutiny was, this is an easy way to self-sue, this is my pattern. How might imagery have helped me or in your work with the choice point? I mean, it’s like that moment, am I going to binge and purge or am I not? I mean, this is kind of a dark example, but when I was reading your work, thought, hmm, this isn’t, it was a pattern I was in for over a year.
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (07:58.127)
So I think about all the many patterns that all of us have, whether it’s abusive self-talk or self-doubt or whatever it is, going into having unhealthy relationships, so on and so forth. Well, the first thing, it’s great that you’re having that awareness, right? That you have a choice, right? You can do this or you can do that. through your imagination, we take you. The first thing we do is we take you to a future where you continue this behavior.
And what would it be like? Seeing yourself in the future. Your future self. But not just seeing, but what does it smell like? What does it taste like? What sort of things are you telling yourself? What emotions are there? And that’s usually for most people a pretty heavy experience. So then we contrast that immediately following with, okay, let’s imagine that you did tackle
you know, changing this behavior. And little by little, you got better and better. We take that future. And that future feels, for most people, a lot less heavy, it feels lighter, they feel a sense of like satisfaction or success. So now we’ve created a choice point with imagery. Again, it’s not words, because words, we can lie to ourselves all day long, right? Yeah.
But our talk is cheap. But the imagery is very powerful. And that’s really how we shape human behavior. mean, advertisers know this. now we’re really using this for improving our own behavior. it also sounds, you’re saying imagery, but it also sounds sensory because it’s not just visual. You’re talking about smells and tastes.
So it’s more like a full body. Yes. Thank you for bringing that up Kimberly because it really is. It’s not, it is, you know, it is sensory. In fact, it’s seven senses. So it’s a five that, know, plus emotion and motion, you know, seeing yourself moving in the future. How will you handle this? How will you handle this? Whether it’s a relationship with food or a person or yourself.
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (10:17.807)
You know, it’s really up to you. What I love about this work is it gives someone a sense of agency so they have control over their life. And it takes hold like really quickly, which is amazing too. Yeah. So that’s like, it’s not something that like, oh, you’re to have to stick with this therapist for a long time. What we see is in six sessions, it takes hold. Really? It’s quick. So, um,
Another thing my mom used to do when I was starting to read your book, thought, is this related to back in the day Oprah used to promote these vision boards? Do you know what I’m talking about where you cut out pictures in magazines of sort of the house you want or the shape of your body or whatever you want and then so you’d see these images every day? Is that like a, know, kindergarten version of your work and research or complete?
Well, we just had a conversation the other day with Dr. Hacker, who is an Olympic coach, mental skills coach. And she she said, if anybody says visualization, someone’s going to get hurt. You know, that’s her like visualization and vision board is different than imagery, because imagery, as you said earlier, is multi sensory. Right. So if there’s a difference in the research, what’s
is if we engage, the more senses we engage, the better the outcome. then why, Joanna, is it, you know, it just seems like when you have an image, it’s tangible. But what you’re saying is all the senses in your brain together is more powerful than, you know, because sometimes we put so much, you’re having a bad day or you want to be reminded, then you can look at that picture and sort of say, OK, calls me back.
What you’re talking about is entirely formless in our minds. Yeah. I mean, a picture may be a cue. We use cues too. So that picture may be a cue to put yourself in that image, in that imagery. So I’m there, I’m in that house or I’m in, you know, whatever it is, I’m in that experience. So the picture can cue up the imagery in your head. Wow.
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (12:37.613)
won’t be as powerful as putting yourself in the experience. then how long do we stay in that experience to enact real shifting? I know there’s a whole chapter here about commitment and. The interesting thing is not long. Not long is the answer. So 30 seconds. 30 seconds. So let’s use, let’s use a real life example. It wasn’t, we’ve given us an example with a client who.
head goal, she wanted to create something different. I don’t know if it’s sports, maybe that doesn’t relate to as many people in our audience, but something that’s widespread, like don’t know, a work goal or a family goal and how you took them through the steps that you mentioned in your book. So this client that comes to mind, it’s a very high performing executive.
And she found that she was taking her work home with her. So she would walk in the door and she had a stay at home husband. And it was like, everyone had to fall in line, but she had little kids. But she was walking into her home as though she was the boss and it was causing problems in their relationship. And, and also just in her own, like she didn’t feel great about it. She didn’t want to be that kind of mom. So,
When we work with imagery, we work with cues. Athletes use cues all the time. So her cue was her front door. And when she saw that and when she touched the handle, you know, the doorknob, she just for a split second went into the kind of mom that she wanted to be. Wow. And then again, it doesn’t take that long. And then she crossed that threshold.
and after taking a deep breath. And then she developed rituals like, well, I’m going to hop in the shower first and change my clothes, get on my work clothes, like really be in this, be present with my kids. But that cue and that imagery was really important to like, okay, how do I want to show up for my family? And it was all the senses. So she would feel it was tactile and smell. Yeah. And there was a certain Bush,
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (15:01.419)
outside of her home that was fragrant. when she was imagining the front door, she could like smell the fragrance, she could feel the temperature. know, again, the more senses we involve, the more powerful it is, because we’re wired to resist change. Right? No one really wants change. We say we do, but it’s temporary. if we can actually be in an immersive experience in our mind’s eye,
It’s almost as if we’re tricking the mind and body to believe that change happened. Wow. I remember the research you mentioned about obesity and how this was used with, you know, how we can make choices. Because as you said in the book, we all know we’re supposed to exercise and drink water and eat healthy, but those choices come up. Am going to eat this? Am I going eat the box of cookies? That’s true. Now we have a member of our team who,
She just, you know, through osmosis, she’s been sort of like, she doesn’t work in coaching, but on the team, but she does support work for us. And she shared that for the first time ever, she usually is so tempted by Halloween candy. Like it’s in her freezer, know, she’ll open that door and then she’ll, and she said now, cause she’s been using our method, she said she opens that freezer.
And she has no desire. She’s like really dumbfounded by it, but she has no desire to eat it because she’s elaborating on, you know, what she wants to fit into and how she wants to feel. And so the chocolate, whatever bar, Snickers bar isn’t nearly as enticing. So in your work, Joanna, would you say that elaboration happens?
as she opens the door and she’s staring at the candy or is it happening before she opens the door and exposes herself to that very, you’re like, on the edge of the decision. Do know what I mean? Versus a couple seconds before. Yeah, both, both. We’re always elaborating the earlier you can do it. so if she, she basically has like trained herself, she’s rewired her brain in a way to like, I’m not going to, you know, cause when
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (17:25.763)
When we hear or smell or taste something, we’re elaborating on it, right? If someone’s eating a pizza or we see a box pizza, we’ll start to elaborate on, well, how good that would taste or what’s on that pizza. So we’re in that experience, but we can change to anything else that we want. The decision is ours. The choice is ours. But the cue for
for a lot of people is the refrigerator door handle. That’s when they’ll begin elaborating. But the truth is we’re elaborating all day long. How do you deal with such a strong pull for instant gratification? Let’s say it’s someone’s like, I really need this glass of wine after work or the cookies or whatever it is, because the imagery and I know you talk about this and training ourselves, but it’s kind of, you know, not tangible or it’s future based versus
This is here right in front of me. So I’ll give you another story. When I was, I was the first person trained in this method in the U S and I came back and I, where, where were you trained in the United Kingdom? Oh yeah. So functional imagery training was born in the university of Plymouth in the United Kingdom. And as a therapist and a coach, I read about it and I was like, this is what I’ve been looking for.
I want to help people change. And so often as coaches and therapists, people get only so far. And the research here was like, they continue to get better. They continue to achieve. It was incredible resiliency. So I came back from my training and I asked for some volunteers that I wouldn’t charge for my services and they know that I’m learning this. So one of them was a neighbor of mine who wanted to quit smoking.
No, I had never helped anyone quit smoking before. wasn’t my jam. So I, I was like, okay, I’m going to use this method and see how it goes. And I can tell you it’s been almost five years and he’s still not smoking. And what it came down to is a sensory experience of eating a strawberry. And that’s going to sound so weird, but the choice came up.
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (19:51.831)
Yeah. So, and this is his own imagination. Like we never know where someone’s imagination is in a go as coaches who work in this realm. It’s not like you have a script because people go to different places. And in his imagination, he went to a strawberry and the taste of a strawberry after a cigarette was really ashy and kind of like it, it just was a terrible texture and he couldn’t smell the strawberry and
without a cigarette, the strawberry was, it brought up like a childhood memory and he could really enjoy the taste. So that’s as simple as it was for him. Wow. And she used that over and over again. It strengthens with the one image becomes even more powerful. And he reinforced it with other things. He started to like watch other videos about quitting smoking, but over and over again, he’d come back to the strawberry and I was his neighbor. I, you know,
drop when I dropped strawberries off at his front door with a little note. So, you know, he was constantly using his, his imagery around this and being reminded. So I, that blew my mind. It was like, wow. how simple was that? You know, I didn’t have to say if you don’t stop smoking, do know what your chances are for lung cancer? Do you know what your chances are? I didn’t have to give him any data. There’s none of that.
simply gave him a sensory experience his own that was very compelling to him wow that is amazing
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (21:37.129)
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Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (23:56.296)
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Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (24:34.014)
Let’s say someone has their limiting beliefs, whatever they’re projecting out in the world, they want a relationship for instance, right? Let’s say someone has been single and they’re struggling to meet somebody. Can they use this work to visualize themselves in a relationship and the kind of person they would be and they could call that in or is your work more based on the decisions that are here and now, which of course would help you.
you know, feel empowered, you know, in any case, I think to be the kind of person you want to be, which would help with that. But do you know what I’m saying? visualize that. Yeah. So I think maybe what in part what you’re asking is, will it help you manifest that relationship? Yes, yes, exactly. Can you create a different future based reality of what you would want, whether that’s work or in relationships or whatever?
Now, here’s where we get to, like my co-author who’s a scientist would be like, you can’t measure that. So no. Yeah, right. And that’s why we’re a good team because he brings the science and I bring more of the, you know, the like, complicated. Yeah. Human and dare I say like spiritual, like, you don’t know, you don’t know where this journey will take someone. Right. So, so we do start small. I wouldn’t necessarily start with a relationship. I’d start with something.
What I found is that when people realize that it works, then you get their buy-in. And now, it’s like, wow, what else can I apply this to? And we see that time and time again. There’s a great couple, a husband and wife team that trained with us, and their imagery was to go on sabbatical and travel around the world. They didn’t start there, but that’s where it ended up. And they are. They are traveling around the world now.
Wow. Well, that makes total sense to me because you’re almost, as you say, like it becomes a reality and you shape your world, your actions. have to take inspired action, but then you work towards that. Yeah. Yeah. But it, it’s amazing how simple it is. Like we all have this ability, but no one ever taught us to tap into it. Right. Yeah. We, we, we’ve worked with a number of athletes and high performing people, but
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (26:49.52)
It works for everybody. You know, you don’t have to be a champion in a sport. The interesting thing is a lot of these champions don’t use it in their life. Like they’ll use it to prepare for a game or a match. Then I’ll say, have you ever used it like for your relationship with your partner? No. This is where I think we’ve always heard of imagery with athletes saying, imagine you getting the shot or getting the goal.
And that feels natural. You know what I mean? Like, okay, we wanted to perform the best. But your work is more of this holistic imagery about more sensory. it’s making it much more powerful for the athletes, if I’m understanding it correctly. Yes. Yes. So they are in that moment rehearsing. it’s not just, you know, like this is like, imagine positive things happen and you make the point.
We invite you to imagine difficult things happening, challenges happening. How will you handle it? So no matter what’s thrown at them, they feel prepared. And so fundamentally, we’re trying to shift our limiting beliefs. We all have different limiting beliefs. One of the things that you talk about resetting is this slap.
Right? Because it’s like, I have this image. And then suddenly, you you mentioned dealing with anxiety, that little inner voice says, no, that couldn’t happen. Or what if this happens? Or what if this and it sort of can collapse that beautiful imagery work to create. So how do we combat all of those patterns? Yeah. Well, so slap is a reset thing, right? So
That’s like when you need to stop. Like even if you’re top performing, you know, athlete, musician, whomever, you’re going to have negative thoughts come into your head. Right. And one of the things we do with these acronyms is we, have them stop, you know, take a deep breath. They’re going to locate their cue. They’re going to activate their imagery. They’re going to park unwanted thoughts and they’re going to persevere.
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (29:13.788)
Now the park is really important. There are two P’s in the slavs. And the park is like, I’m going to visit that thought later. And that’s really important. It’s important that when we tell people like, if you say you’re going to visit it later, like, visit it later. Because if you don’t, it’s gonna, you know, it’s gonna become cumulative and as one.
One person said who hadn’t trained with her, she had heard the park method and she was like, my parking lot’s full. We don’t want that to happen. We want you to keep, you know, because these negative thoughts, if you ignore them, they get worse. So just park it. It’s not serving you now. And you’re going to revisit, visit it later. that’s a real skill set. Yeah. But it’s breaking that pattern of ruminating. Yeah. Yeah.
But it works. One of the leaders that we coached was in a board meeting and actually it wasn’t a board meeting, was an executive committee meeting, but someone had triggered him and he wanted to let this person have it because they sort of came ill prepared. I mean, we can all lose our temper, right? But instead he took a deep breath, he located his cue, he activated his imagery.
He parked his unwear and thoughts and he thought about the bigger goal, the kind of leader he wanted to be. So he didn’t lose it. And the meeting wrapped up. And then later that day when he was calmer, after he’d walked his dog, he called this person said, how do you think the meeting went? And did you get what you want out of it? And then that individual took responsibility and the outcome was totally different than being your boss.
So that’s the sort of thing like that takes major self-awareness and control, but it’s, you you cultivate it just like in meditation, you cultivate these things over time. And what you’re describing, what’s interesting about that Joanna is it’s happening in real life. It’s not saying, okay, let me go and meditate for 10 minutes here and calm down. So let’s say that that boss is running this board meeting and he’s talking to people.
Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (31:34.526)
Does your work show that you could simultaneously carry on work, a conversation, looking after your children and in your head, it’s like you’re splitting your consciousness and doing the imagery work so that you bring it into that moment without pause? Absolutely. Wow. So let’s say, you know, we’re talking, but part of my brain can be forming a picture of, you know, we’re going to have this great conversation and it can be happening without taking my focus.
away from present moment life. long as what the mind can’t do is hold two opposing images at once. So you can’t have one foot on the gas and one on the brake. has to have synergy. Right. Yeah. And then then that can absolutely happen simultaneously. And it happens pretty quickly. yeah. Very quickly. So then that that
lure or that feeling, the sensory imagery, the holisticness takes us over and the decisions follow. Let me just wait and not scream right now. Exactly. And you said it takes, I mean, it sounds like it takes, and you talk about this in the book, it takes some practice because these patterns can be very deep. Yeah. Yeah. It takes practice, but it’s worth it, right? Of course.
I mean, if you can really change the trajectory of your day, we all know if I’m going to eat that food or this is going to happen, I know the outcome and it’s not going to be great. But somehow we do it a lot. Why do we sell sabotage Joanna in your work? you think it’s just familiar? I think that a lot of people run around on autopilot and then I think that they’re worn down.
by many things and they just reach for instant gratification. You’re right. You know, or they let things build and they’re just looking for a release, whether it’s a drink or whatever it is. Well, I think this a big part of your work is leading people, as you mentioned at the top of our show, to show, to see that there is awareness that there is a choice.
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Because so many people give up and they’re like, well, I guess this is what my life is like, or I guess this is how heavy I’m going to be or whatever it is. Yeah. It’s like living half dead almost. Yeah. And I think they also like set these unrealistic expectations and then give up and then humoring. So in your work, you mentioned starting small. Do you think it’s better to say?
gain confidence with these smaller goals. Yes, absolutely. Like that executive that I mentioned in the meeting, he was good with his golf game. Like performing better in his golf game? Yeah, he would like lose his temper or get frustrated on the golf course. So we worked with him on that.
Oh, not his actual game, but his emotional reactivity. Well, it was his game because he would like lose focus because he got frustrated by a bad shot and then he’d elaborate on that and then he’d for the next shot. So we worked with him on it. And when it worked in the golf, he was like, wow, will it work in other areas? And we said, of course. so yeah, start small, start with something that gives you feedback immediately. And then you can see that it works.
Can you do this work with children? Yeah. Yeah. I think that kids have like, they have a great imagination, you know, and they’re not as layered with defenses as… Well, I thinking your example with the golf when I, sometimes when we go golfing with our seven year old who loves miniature golf, if he hits a bad shot, he really does, you know, the child version of what you’re describing get really frustrated.
and just go off. Yeah. And course, there’s other things in life, at school or whatever. It’d be amazing to be trained in this earlier in life. I imagine then use it all through all the stages. Yeah. That’s her bigger goal is to bring this into the schools. That would be so impactful because all these negative patterns and there’s such low confidence sometimes that stems from that.
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Yeah, one of my colleagues of mine who we trained and she’s in a school we trained her in the the method and she got the the best teacher of the you know, she was voted by the students. The most out of her class. She sort of does like a life skills kind of class. And when they asked what was their favorite they asked the students what was your favorite part of her class, they said the imagery work.
Wow.
So I think that kids, like we, you know, we have to be able to give them some refuge from their, you know, from the constant deluge and realize that they have some control over, over their mind. Well, it seems like a great time to teach it. I know my seven year old spends a percentage of his day in imagination games and he’s jumping over the couches and he’s making noises and he’s
in his own world entirely. this is, you know, for an adult that may be disconnected from being in imagination land, feels like children would be a really ripe subject. Totally. They, they, again, they’re like, you know, they have this active, vivid imagination and the more vivid your imagination, the better you’re to be at this. The problem with, with grownups and some kids now, unfortunately, is the more stress you get,
the less you’re able to access your imagination. Because you’re so in that moment. Well, it actually changes the brain. So when you’re stressed and you’re like constantly thinking about a to do list, let’s say, and you have constant like, got to get it done, I got to do this, I got to do that. Your creative part of your brain, part of it happens in your hippocampus, and that actually shrinks under stress. That’s your imagination.
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big part of where imagination happens. The good news for everyone listening is you can expand it. It’s, you know, because of neuroplasticity, it’s not fixed. It doesn’t mean like, oh, but think about it. When was the last time you made time to imagine? When was the last time you made time to, you know, really be playful? That’s the other thing. Like we can’t tell people you must, you know, you must imagine this way or you must do it that way because the brain just shuts off.
you mentioned worrying anxiety to do list. A lot of people think about that Joanna at night when they’re trying to fall asleep. Can you use this work sitting there? I can’t sleep again to imagine yourself falling asleep and actually put yourself in that sort of Sure. Well, know, sleep is an interesting thing, but yeah, you can imagine different things that will relax, will actually bring your heart rate down and relax you enough to fall asleep. For a lot of people,
It’s about like anxiety around the next day. So we have them run through in their imagination, what’s the next day going to be like? You know, potential challenges and, when they run through it again with another executive, he was running through it and he realized, Oh, I didn’t check to see if the slide was in the presentation. He was doing a major presentation and he couldn’t access the slides. had already been uploaded and they were in the auditorium ready for a speech.
So he used his imagery practice and a few seconds to just be like, okay, if that key slide is not there, how will I handle it? Wow. And he heard the audience. He could hear his voice. He, you know, he felt his heart rate go up when the heart, when the slide wasn’t there. This is all in his imagination. And then the next day the slide was not there. Well, intuitively he knew it.
But he said, first of all, had he not done that, he would have been up all night, like worrying. this slide not there? Instead, he was like, I’ve got this. I plan for it. I know my play. So the next day when the slide wasn’t there, totally, no one even knew. He didn’t lose composure. He said, had he not done that, he could have lost his temper. He definitely would lost his tempo.
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and as a result could have lost the crowd. So that’s the sort of thing like sometimes just running through your next day in your mind’s eye can help give you a better night’s sleep. Wow. Amazing. Well, I am a huge fan of your work, Joanna, and your book. I think it can have a big impact across people’s lives, of course, but definitely on their wellness, right? And the choices that we make.
for our own well-being, which is the big focus here in our community. thank you for, and I also love the science part of it as well, because I think sometimes we want that discerning, know, the discerning mind likes to see the solidity of the evidence as well. We talk a lot about spiritual things here as well. And this feels, to me, there’s this spiritual quality to it as well, with energy and.
creating things in your mind that is both science, as we mentioned, human, spiritual, it’s empowering. So thank you so much for sharing some of your amazing wisdom with us. Is there anything that we didn’t touch on or cover that you love to share with people? Well, because of your audience, I would just say part of the work that this does when you really are in alignment with what you want and your behavior.
and your choices are lining up with that, it brings the head and the heart in alignment. And I think that that makes life easier to navigate.
So say that again, when we imagine in this holistic sensory way, it brings the head and the heart, the thoughts and our true self, our deepest. It becomes an alignment. A lot of us are, you know, our heart and head are in like an argument most of the time. Yes. Right. And that causes stress. That causes fatigue. Some will say it causes illness. Yes. We can really bring, if we really do this work, and this is why I feel so
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honored to do it. If we really do this work, whether with kids or any age, we bring the head and the heart into this beautiful unity. And then life doesn’t have to feel so overwhelming, because you already know what you’re to do before you get to that. You know, you don’t get derailed by people or what they say or what they do, because you like, you know who you are and where you’re going. And even if you don’t, you know, like,
parts of it and the things that are important to you. So we know triggering situations like being around certain relatives or in-laws. There’s a queue, okay, I parked in front in the driveway, I’m about to go in. We can imagine ourselves staying centered, holding to our values, staying kind, no matter what other people are saying or doing. That’s right. And know, breath, we didn’t get into it, but
Breath is a big part of it. You know, taking a deep breath is a cue for a lot of people. Imagine how many less fights would ensue if someone really took like a great big breath and elaborated on what do I really want at the end of this dinner or the end of this, you know, evening? I want to get into this now? One physician we trained, excuse me, who’s in Rochester, New York, an amazing doctor, surgeon.
And he’s using this in five minute interventions with patients. And the first patient he taught the imagery practice to, she lost 10 pounds in a month. Wow. Blown away. And he was like, I wonder, so now he has a pool of six people. He’s in a C and then eventually we’ll see if we can use it, you know, in a very short intervention. this work? Wow.
asked him, like what, I asked him in front of a, it was a meeting of an athletic team who was going to use this because he’s also involved in sport. And I said, do you want to talk about the weight loss? And he said, actually the bigger thing that happened to me by using this is it changed the way it changed my relationship with my wife. Wow. And everyone was like, what?
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And there was a woman there who’s married to an NFL player. wouldn’t say who, but she was like, why isn’t my husband here? and I said, well, how did it change? And he said, I no longer listen to be right. I listened to understand her. he had, he imagined himself to be an understanding person or to have a harmonious relationship. Yeah. I think he, part of it was.
He understood in this work that we have to be those of us who practice it and he practice it now. We have to be really good listeners. Right. And understanding what listening is, it’s listening to understand, not to tell your point of view. Who’s like this program being trained in it changed my relationship. So if we can do that, you know, it’s not just about like, am I going to eat the Snickers bar? Am I going to
You know, it’s much bigger than that. Life is so much bigger than like our waistline or these things that we obsess about that, you know, at the end of the day, is it really what matters? Well, I also think that one of the things that I hear about a lot and I think across society is people really struggling with confidence and people trying to get confident by how they look or the surface. But I think we feel that real authentic confidence when we are living in accordance with our values.
we’re living our truth and we’re showing up in life. Right? So this can really support us in that and the micro moments and the macro moments. Yeah. Once we have that alignment of like who we really are and where we’re acting and behaving from that place and imagining from that place. Like there’s a bit of magic that happens too. I know you asked me about manifesting, but I worked with a young man who, um, he was in college and he.
was imagining his perfect summer internship. he called me, this was like months before summer, he was preparing his applications in like December or January. So summer rolls around and he calls me he’s like, you’re not going to believe it. I’m like, what he said, do you remember how I pictured the first day? And he said to the T, like the way my door opens, like where the
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You know, that way the desk is situated. And then he said, do you remember how I wanted a high five from the president? I like, yeah, I thought that was kind of reaching. He said, well, I found an accounting error that saved them so much money that the CEO came and found me and gave me a high five. my gosh. He said, like, how did you do that? And I’m like, how did you do it? I didn’t, you I just.
taught you something that was always there. But I hear these sort of things over and over again, like there’s a bit of something that’s unlocked that we can’t begin to measure in science. So I’m going to give it to spirituality or the universe, but it’s so much bigger than what we can measure. Yeah, yes. We it time and time again. Yes, we have the science and we can tell you that this works because we’ve measured it. But once you start practicing it, you tap into something else.
I love that a much deeper intelligence that can’t be pinned down to our scientific instruments. exactly. Precisely. Wow. Well, just magical, amazing, Joanna. Thank you so much again. So tell us where we can get your wonderful book, The Choice Point, The Scientifically Proven Method to Push Past Mental Walls and Achieve Your Goals, and where we can get the book and where we can find out more about your work.
Well, thank you. So the book they can get at a local bookstore if they order it or Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, all those great locations. And to find out more if they’re like people listening and want to be trained in it, they can go to imagery coaching.com. And we will soon in January, we will have a course for users. So it won’t just be for coaches, but it will be for everyday people wanting to have something more than the book. It will be a digital
Of course. Wonderful. And we’ll add that to our show notes when that comes around as well. So thank you again so much. I enjoyed it so much and I absolutely love the book. Thank you so much. This has been a really wonderful conversation, Kimberly. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Joanna as much as I loved learning about her holistic imagery technique. I loved learning about the choice point.
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So please be sure to check out the direct links on our show notes over at mysaluna.com. That’s S-O-L-L-U-N-A.com. And as I mentioned at the top of the show, we will link to other shows that I think you would enjoy as well as information, articles, recipes, meditations, and more. You can also check out our many incredible courses and our wonderful digestive-focused supplements and more.
We will be back here Thursday as always for our next Q &A show. Till then, sending you so much love. Have an amazing week. Take great care of yourself. And always reach out to me to let me know how else I can support you. Lots of love. Namaste.
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