1. Visualization

I find that visualization gives me the same kind of distance and space that many people find in meditation, but it also engages my imagination in the process. Rather than feeling like I need to sit with uncomfortable feelings or ideas, it allows me to transform them creatively — not to avoid them but to work with them in a generative, dynamic way. I haven’t found great research on the use of visualization as a meditation alternative, but there are anecdotal accounts of nurses using visualization with patients, particularly children, as a method of relieving pain.