We are often asked by students, family, friends and patients how to find the truth of who they really are. Our lives are so filled with ‘busy-ness’ and the importance of maintaining our facades or masks of how we wish others to perceive us that it’s difficult at times to see through the veil. The exercise of Reversing is an old Kabbalistic technique using mental imagery that allows you to become the observer of your daily actions and perceptions and to come to a better reflection of the truth of who you truly are. Reversing can become like your own personal Time Machine – as in H.G. Wells…. although not as scary.
What is Mental Imagery? Quite simply it’s the mind thinking in pictures – sort of like dreaming while you are awake. With the mental imagery exercise of ‘Reversing’, you can rid yourself of negativity as you become the observer of your lucid dream and rewrite your old scripts with positive healthy ones.
Process of Reversing:
In a darkened room as you prepare for bed at night, lie down on your bed with your eyes closed. Get comfortable and take a few slow, deep breaths; see yourself totally relaxing deeper and deeper with each exhalation. Now review the events of the day in your imagination in reverse order event by event.
Begin with the last event of your day and relive it, then go to the preceding event of the day and relive that. Continue reliving events until the time when you woke up. Remember each event slowly and with as much attention to detail as you can, while at the same time correcting your behavior and attitude in situations which you found difficult. For example, if you had a distressing talk with someone, put yourself in their shoes and hear their voice and perspective coming out of your mouth and your words coming from their voice. This will help you experience what the other person was feeling. If you had a fight with your family member or coworker, imagine the situation from their point of view or where what you said to them is now coming out of their mouths and what they said to you is coming out of your mouth. Would you change anything? Replay it how (now from a more enlightened, mindful perspective) you would choose to respond and see how it turns out.
If you had an injury during the day or felt ill, you may choose to reverse that event. For example, if you burned your hand on a pot handle on the stove while answering the phone during the day, re-imagine the event, and watch yourself mindfully put the pot down before answering the phone. Notice how you feel prior to reversing the event and after you have reversed the event.
If you have a long-standing health issue from a long ago injury, you might attempt to go back to that time in your imagination and reverse that day to see how you feel with whatever change(s) you may decide to make in your thoughts or actions in that day.
Each recalling of an event should be done as an observer without emotion or judgment rather than coming from a reactive shadow self.
When we do this reversing exercise going backwards from before we sleep to that previous morning upon awakening, we have moved from darkness to light. This process may assist us to heal depression and anxiety by moving to the light from a darker space and away from our reactive selves.
Remember, there is no time or space in Spirit or quantum physics. There is no past, present or future. Therefore, we can change our beliefs and stories about the “past” at any time. This is a great exercise to practice entering ‘The Field’ (which has no time and no space) – there we have an unlimited set of possibilities that we can tap into at any time.
Happy Reversing – we’d love to have you share your experiences with us and our other readers 🙂
Marion & Tracy (“The Shift Doctors”)
– Dr.’s Ross & Latz both have their doctorates in holistic healing, metaphysics, complementary and alternative medicine. Dr. Latz is a cell biologist and board-certified psychiatrist. Dr. Ross is a Rohun doctorate and a transpersonal psychologist. Together they have written 4 books (one a #1 bestseller on Amazon), taught at national and international professional conferences, produced >70 YouTube instructional videos, meditation CD’s and instructional DVD’s. They are both certified in intuitive development, hypnotherapy, medical qigong, crystal healing, mind-body medicine, homeopathy and energy medicine from accredited programs. Visit or opt into their website at ShiftYourLife.com to read free articles, listen to free meditations and to receive updates on their classes or events. Contact “The Shift Doctors” at info@shiftyourlife.com to have them teach or present to your conference, private gathering or group.
Great article.
I have experienced the above process unintentionally during random thoughts that come into my mind automatically. I reversed the negative situations like a conflict in family or with friends, or me eating an oily food or sugary drink, with an alternative action. Lot of times it took away from me the stress like you said. Regarding eating, the reversal makes me decide not to consume such foods in future.
Thanks for posting, doctors.
Meditation and yoga practices also helps in getting good sleep.