I’ve never thought of myself as being very good at visualization. Elite athletes talk about it all the time. (I even read not too long ago that Russell Wilson uses Google images to help him visualize stadiums he hasn’t played in yet so he knows where the play clocks are. Man, I really do marvel at him.) But that’s the idea, right? You see yourself in the situations you might encounter and envision yourself making the play, hitting the home run, nailing the perfect set.
But whenever I tried to do that in sports, I could only see myself messing up. I’d try to envision success and I’d see myself drop the ball or miss the serve. I’ve always assumed that this was one of the big reasons why I was a pretty average athlete in high school and college. I wasn’t terrible - usually good enough to make the team and play a decent amount. And I figured what I didn’t have in talent or mental toughness, I could make up for in passion and intensity. I was usually right enough about that.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea of visualization and how that plays in with your own intuition. Ever since the diagnosis, I’ve gone in to every test I’ve had to do with an incredibly high level of anxiety. I’ve been absolutely convinced I would get more news of the worst case scenario. It makes sense. The biggest news of all blindsided me. So why wouldn’t my mind start trying to prepare me for the worst so I wouldn’t be surprised anymore? But it has been brutal and has wreaked havoc on my mental health.
I started worrying that this was the next version of my inability to visualize success. I know how important staying mentally strong through this process will be. But here’s the bright spot: I have been able to visualize what I wanted, at two very important times now. The first was during the MRI and the second was during my PET scan.
During the most recent, the PET scan, I had about an hour before the test to try to relax while the contrast (i.e. radioactive glucose) did it’s thing. The entire time, and all through the scan, I kept repeating my mantras to myself. I suppose they were my request to the universe. The first was “the scan results will be really clear. The doctors will know exactly what the results are telling them.” And the second was, “The cancer is only in the spots we already knew about. It’s nowhere else in my body.” I kept repeating it over and over. And then as the table moved through the scanner, I visualized the part of my body it was scanning and visualized: “Now it’s scanning my calves. And it’s okay because there’s no cancer here. And it will be really clear to the doctors.”
I felt really calm through the entire process. And then later in the day, I got the call from the oncologist with the results. And her words were almost verbatim what I had been using as my mantra. “The cancer is in exactly the same spots that we already knew about. And nowhere else.” Later she also said, “It’s really clear on the scan. I can see the spots we already knew about all lit up and glucosey.”
Look, I know the difference between correlation and causation. But I also know that there are a lot of things that happen in the universe that are magical and inexplicable. Both/and. And what I know for sure in this process so far is that I’m better at visualization than I gave myself credit for. Especially when I really have to. So there’s that.