Maya Raichoora and I sit down over Zoom to discuss her upcoming book Visualise: Think, Feel, Perform Like the Top 1%, an inspiring and motivating look at how we can better equip our brains by working proactively and building brain strength through the practice of visualisation. Maya is the UK’s leading visualisation and mental fitness expert and talks to us about the power to be found in the art of visualising…
The practice of visualisation was one that Maya came to after many years of ill health that left her ‘having lost all hope of being healthy’ and where she had ‘spent years desperately trying everything’ but finding no success.
It wasn’t until conversations with an Ayurvedic practitioner in India that Maya began considering how the brain could help heal the body. The Ayurvedic consultation was the ‘first time [Maya] heard about the body and disease talked about in a very different way’, that the body really was all connected and as such healing had to be approached in a holistic manner. She began to see that perhaps through the mind she could heal her ulcerative colitis, with her mindset being ‘if I want to get better, I am going to try everything I can’.
Rewiring your brain with visualisation
Visualisation is a practice that has evolved with Maya. At the beginning it was something she ‘fell into, not really knowing anything about the tool’, beginning by repeating the image again and again of her walking around freely, rehearsing in her mind what walking would look and feel like. Through this repetition, over time Maya found that it started rewiring her internal dialogue to ‘what if this is possible?’ – what if mentally rehearsing could help her walk and heal?
The technique proved to be so powerful in helping to mentally assist her recovery by helping Maya feel more in control of her condition and able to navigate her symptoms better. Today, she has used the same techniques to improve her public speaking and become a leading expert in her arena. The central theme through all of Maya’s years of practice and research is that visualisation proves the power that lies in rewiring our brains. ‘The power lies in us: we have the control and the ownership to make the change
happen’.
One of Maya’s focus points in her work has been changing the language that we use when it comes to the health of the mind. When we discuss why this change in vocabulary has been important to Maya, she recalls being asked why she believed mental health was important, and her initial answer was, ‘Why are we still talking about this? We don’t ask why physical health is important, and everyone has mental and physical health, so why is the approach so different?’ From school, we are taught and encouraged through PE to be physically fit by going to the gym or workout classes, but ‘we were never taught how to stay mentally fit, and that's a problem because we all suffer the consequences today, where we now don’t have great mental health’.
Mental fitness: a new approach
Maya describes mental fitness as ‘the maintenance of good mental health’. Mental fitness will not be the solution for mental illness, but it will be of support in times of mental weakness, which we all experience daily such as when we are tired. When the brain is not performing at its best, the tools of mental fitness can ‘help you get back up again’.
Mental fitness has three key pillars. ‘It's the way you think, feel and perform. It can be overcomplicated, so I uncomplicate it for people and use the fitness analogy’. When we look at maintaining our physical fitness, we incorporate cardio, consistency, strength, diet and rest, and the same goes for our mental fitness.
We need to keep the brain active and engaged through puzzles and learning. We need to repeat actions again and again to rewire the brain. We need to build strength in the brain, which is where visualisation comes in. We also need to monitor our diet, and for our brains, this involves all of the content that we consume, including social media, news, and the conversations we have. Then, the brain also needs rest, time to switch off and just be.
Maya presents the idea of imagining if we had to pay a subscription fee to use our brains every month. ‘We would want our brains to be the best that they can be’, but we take the brain for granted, not really caring or ‘giving it a chance to be its full potential’. Our lives are set up to train our brains in the opposite way to how visualisation works, to slip into negative spirals and lose our beliefs quickly.
‘Visualisation is for anyone that knows they can think, feel and perform better than I currently am’, says Maya. It can be used and learnt by anyone of any age, and from any background. ‘The problem is that this information isn’t accessible, and that’s what I am trying to do. I am trying to make it as common as physical fitness’.
As we continue to talk about Maya’s upcoming book, I ask what, if any, the role of belief plays in a visualisation practice. Maya takes us back to the metaphor of our physical health and going to the gym. ‘If we go to the gym, after five days you will look at yourself and think “Well, this isn’t working”, but it is important to start small’. Even if for just a few moments a day, thinking about your brain and having a bit more self-awareness will have a major impact. As Maya continues: ‘like with anything in life, if you don’t go in open-minded, you’re not giving yourself the chance’.
With visualisation, ‘you’re actually rewiring the brain and working on the neurological structure of it, so it will take some time’ before any changes are noticeable, so belief doesn’t really have an effect. If you start with an open mind, a sense of curiosity and just try, you never know what you might find. If after a month you see no change, then maybe this technique just isn’t for you – and that’s okay.
‘Visualization (which is routed in neuroscience) is a bit like city planning - breaking down old roads that no longer serve you and building new ones that lead you to your desired destinations. Neuroplasticity means that the brain's ability to rewire itself is much like re-routing traffic in a city’.
Small changes for big results
When starting to work on your mental fitness, Maya suggests starting with your mental diet: ‘unfollow people that don’t serve you, don’t watch the news if you know you compare and feel negative about it’. If self awareness is something you feel you need to work on then ‘spend a bit more time on your own, go on solo dates, and journal to really navigate your thoughts’. Then, when you are ready to strengthen the mind, that is where visualisation comes in. ‘Focus on your character and your goals. Spend five minutes each day thinking and mentally rehearsing on those points’. These character visualisations ‘are so powerful because we get to intentionally choose how we get to show up’.
Rounding down the interview, I ask Maya what her hope for
Visualise is. She says the book provides new information which she is excited about. ‘That champion mindset is valuable to everyone. It’s about not gatekeeping people. It’s changing the narrative’.
Maya shares how, ultimately, it is up to us as individuals to make that change. ‘If you’re waiting for someone to change you, you have to look at yourself in the mirror, because it’s going to be you’. The skills that visualisation brings to us, such as confidence, focus, calm, and emotional agility, dominate all areas of our life – so why wouldn’t you try visualisation, to see if it could be of benefit to you? ‘Change is not some massive breakthrough revolutionary thing. It’s tiny, tiny little changes’. It is not about setting hours aside each day, but rather building up a few moments each day consistently.
Maya leaves us with this: ‘Life is too short not to see where your potential can take you. The mind is the source of your biggest failures, but also your biggest accomplishments. Your mind is either a weapon that will harm you or a tool that will heal you’.
Maya Raichoora is one of the UK’s leading mental fitness and visualisation experts. She is an award-winning entrepreneur, founder and CEO of
Remap Mental Fitness. Day to day she works with global brands such as Nike, Gymshark, Asics, Amex and Lego. She has a decade of experience mastering the technique of visualisation and is on a mission to share it with others. As a two-time TEDx speaker and public figure, her story and expertise has the power to inspire, empower and educate the masses.
Visualise: Think,
Feel, Perform Like the Top 1%, (£16.99, Rider) is available to purchase now.
