A common phrase I hear quite frequently from people is “I have trouble quieting my mind” or “I have a hard time meditating because my thoughts are always racing”. It’s perfectly normal and not an indication of anything is wrong. Thoughts are powerful and they need to be exercised. I might have a good solution for you to connect your thoughts to images. It’s actually something you’ve been doing for many years! It’s also something that is quite natural for all of us since we been doing it from our early stages of life. It’s reading a book!

Reading a book is an extremely effective form of meditation. Reading and meditation share 99% of the same characteristics. The goal with Meditation is to relax the mind and body, focus, balance, listen to your inner voice, charge your batteries, connect with images that the mind is producing. Align all these qualities together and you will obtain better mental and physical health.

You can insert “the goal with reading a book” with all the list of qualities with “the goal with meditation” as mentioned above. They are exactly the same thing and can be interchanged to produce the same result.

When you read a book, you are sitting down in quiet place. Focused, relaxed your inner voice is talking while you read the words. As your inner voice reads the text the third eye is generating images. That right there is the key link. Practicing quieting of the mind and simultaneously allowing the mind to feed you visuals. That’s why I think reading is not only a gateway path to your strong meditation practice, but a beautiful form of meditation right in itself

So in conclusion, if someone were to say “I have such a hard time meditating” my advice would be “read a book everyday for a week or two”. Let’s say you get into the habit of reading a book every night at 7:30 PM to 8:00 PM. You are laying the ground work for a healthy routine, creating a pattern, training the mental and physical body. Reading creates muscle memory. After two weeks all you do is remove the book at 7:30 PM and now your mind is the text. The connection between thoughts and visuals will flow and feel so much more natural to you.