Creative Visualization

This past weekend I saw two movies on television starring Robin Williams. I watched Patch Adams and The Night Listener in order to motivate myself to do some leaf-raking. Let's face it, raking leaves is hard work, so I decided I would rake leaves during commercial breaks. Trust me, that was sufficient cardiovascular work-out for me. The only shortfall in my plan was that I knew it would take me several months to get the job done at that slow pace.

Intending to do more yardwork this week, I planned on getting up early Tuesday morning. Well, I had a bout of insomnia that night. Since I couldn't rake leaves in the dark, I decided to count leaves instead of sheep, so to speak. Recalling that I had purchased a leaf sweeper several years ago, I lay in bed and visualized myself walking behind the red sweeper, which gobbled up all the leaves. Effortlessly. Visualizing myself doing yardwork in this manner was rather pleasant. Soon all the leaves disappeared, and I drifted off to sleep. I woke up three hours later. Unfortunately, when I looked out the window, the sea of leaves was still in my yard. But at least my creative visualization had provided me with some temporary relief from my insomnia.