I Can Read Easily (audio)

Maggie Dent:

Hello, and welcome to I Can Read Easily. This creative visualisation will help you to build your confidence about your ability to read. It will allow you to feel that it will become easy for you, and with practise your mind will believe everything and you will read more easily. And now to begin.

Take three long, slow, deep breaths inward through your nose and outward through your mouth. Then take one more deep breath inward, and if you can, hold it for a few seconds before you breathe out. As you breathe out from this deep breath, begin to feel the body relaxing. Give permission for your feet and your legs and your back and your shoulders to relax. As you continue to breathe in and out gently, allow your head to become quieter and more relaxed. Allow thoughts to just flow in and flow out and don't hold them. Allow your mind to become quieter while still focusing your attention on the words I am saying.

Now I'd like you to imagine that you are either sitting or lying in a place in nature where you feel safe and comfortable. This may be a familiar place for you or it may be a place that you need to create now. Wherever you are in this safe and comfortable place in nature, imagine a ray of sunshine, just gentle sunshine, coming down upon you. Imagine that golden light coming right into the body from the tip of your head, very bright golden light, cleansing. Cleansing the mind and from the head down into the shoulders, down into your chest, down into your stomach. Beautiful, warm, golden sunshine cleansing the body of worries, tension, fear, and doubt. Allow this beautiful, gentle sunshine to flow all the way through your body right down to the tips of your toes.

Then I'd like you to take just one more deep breath, and as you let that breath out, let it come out with a sigh. I now want you to imagine that you can see yourself, and I want you to see yourself as you would really like to be.

I want you now to imagine that you could reach up to the top of your head and find a zip that runs from the front of your head to the back of your head. I want you to unzip the zip and very gently remove your magical brain and place it very gently on the ground in front of you. Now imagine that you have a hose in your hand that has beautiful warm water running out of it, and I want you to wash your brain with this hose. Imagine it's full of all sorts of dirt and grime. Wash out all sorts of painful memories of having difficulty with your reading, of struggling to understand what words mean. Imagine that you can wash out all the old ideas in your brain that stop you from reading easily. Wash out any phrases and ideas like, "I can't," or, "It's too hard," or, "I'll never be able to do this." Wash all those negative things that you have ever heard inside your head or being said by other people. These words and phrases only create negative pictures in your mind that stop you from being able to read easily.

So keep washing your brain and cleanse out every negative thought and image right out onto the ground. When it looks pristine and clean and completely cleansed of all of those negative things and thoughts, I want you to very gently and lovingly pick your brain up in your two hands and give it some new words to put into it. I want you to say, "I can," and, "Reading is enjoyable for me. Every day reading becomes easier and easier." The most important one is, "I like to read." Your magic brain is taking in every single one of these positive messages and believing them.

With a beautiful magic brain full of all sorts of positive thoughts and beliefs, I want you to now gently place your brain back inside your head and do up that zip. Now imagine seeing yourself sitting at your desk at school, thinking that the most favourite subject that you now do is reading. See yourself reading a book very easily. The words all make sense to you. You can even understand how to put them together, and so you can now spell better. Imagine the enjoyment of being able to read just easily, enjoyably.

I want you to see other people in the class really happily enjoying their reading, also. Then see yourself reading out loud, either to your teacher or to your mum or to your dad, and you are able to read each word fluently and easily. Know how good that feels.

Feel that same sense of success that probably was somewhere else in your life before now. Now know that reading will become easier and easier for you, more and more enjoyable. Then imagine that some time down the future, you will be reading big, fat books and enjoying them, being unable to put them down because they are so exciting.

I now want you to imagine that you can take this new vision of yourself as deeply as you can right down into the cells of the blood in your body. Right down to your cellular memory, because this is your new reality. You now can become the person you imagine yourself to be, easily able to read. Every single day you get a little better. You feel happier, and those around you who care about you are pretty excited, too.

So spend a couple more moments seeing yourself reading on your bed, at the kitchen table, at school. See yourself swapping books with friends, and maybe even see yourself helping a new person start to read. With this new sense of excitement at being competent and capable of reading, I would like you now to prepare to return yourself from your imaginary world to your real world. Bring back with you exactly all those new thoughts and beliefs that you have locked away into your mind. Be careful to use positive language as you talk about your reading. And most of all, you need to read. So take a nice, deep breath and take another deep breath. As you're breathing this one out, start to wiggle your toes and your fingers as your awareness comes back into your body. Then take that final big breath that will bring you back into the present moment. And remember that you are a very special human being who is capable, who is positive, and who now believes they can read much better, much more easily.

When you are ready, open your eyes and come back with a smile.