The short answer: if you can’t see pictures in your mind, calming tools built on visualization can leave your nervous system with nothing to hold on to. When that happens, pain, anxiety and tension can stay loud, or even get louder. That isn’t a sign you’re doing it wrong. It’s a sign you need a different way in: one that starts in your body and the world around you, not behind your eyelids.
What if “picture a safe place” makes you feel worse?
You’ve probably heard it in a meditation app, a yoga class or a pain program. “Close your eyes. Picture somewhere calm. Imagine the tension melting away.”
For lots of people, that works. But if nothing appears when you close your eyes, those words can feel empty. Some people feel frustrated. Some feel a quiet sense of failure. And for some, sitting with eyes closed and attention turned inward actually turns the volume up on pain, fatigue or anxiety.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone, and you’re not broken.
What is aphantasia?
Aphantasia means you don’t voluntarily “see” images in your mind. About 1 in 20 people have little or no visual imagery, and many more sit somewhere on a spectrum, with images that are faint or fleeting.
People with aphantasia still imagine, plan, remember and create. They just tend to do it through words, ideas, logic, movement and the real world, rather than an inner movie screen. I’m JP, one of the founding coaches at Chronic Conditions Clinic, and I have aphantasia myself. For years I assumed everyone was speaking in metaphor when they talked about “seeing” things in their head.
Where anxiety and chronic pain come in
About 1 in 4 US adults live with chronic pain, according to the CDC. Many of them also live with anxiety, poor sleep, fatigue or constant tension. In our work, we see these as signs of a nervous system that’s been stuck on high alert for a long time.
We use polyvagal ideas as a container for all of this. Put simply, your nervous system moves between states: safe and connected, mobilized and on guard, or shut down. Calming isn’t about forcing yourself to relax. It’s about giving your body enough real signals of safety that it can shift states on its own.
Here’s the catch. Most of the guidance for sending those safety signals assumes a mind’s eye. How much aphantasia and chronic pain overlap is still an open question, but the mismatch is easy to spot once you know to look for it.
The visualization trap
When imagery is the default way in, people who can’t visualize often run into the same three problems:
- No felt sense of safety. The instruction never lands in the body, so nothing changes.
- Performance pressure. “Why can’t I see anything?” quietly becomes one more source of stress.
- More body noise. Eyes closed and attention turned inward can make pain and anxiety feel bigger.
Visualization and inward-focused practices can still be useful. They just may not be the best place to start. The trap is treating imagery as the only door, when your system might need a door that opens outward first.
What helps instead
The good news is that a nervous system can learn safety through many routes. The approach behind our aphantasia program starts with the ones that don’t need a picture:
- External anchors. Sight, sound, touch, temperature and the room around you. Regulation built in the real world, with eyes open if that feels better.
- Movement, breath and voice. Gentle, bottom-up work like posture, breath, humming and small movements that help your body finish what it started.
- Words and meaning. Many people with aphantasia think in language, so we use that strength rather than working around it.
- Evidence-informed depth. Heavily inspired by Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy (EAET) and Hakomi, plus a lot of parts work and relational, attachment-informed approaches. Heavily informed by Somatic Experiencing too — that body-based work sits right at the centre of how we practice. We aren’t bound to one modality, because people differ; these are influences we draw on, not a fixed script or a claim of certification.
All of this sits inside the same polyvagal frame: understand your states, notice what helps your body feel safe, and build on it, gently and step by step. You can read more about how the coaching works on the program page.
Is this only for people with aphantasia?
No. The tools are the same nervous-system work we do with all our clients, just with a different way in. Plenty of people who can visualize find these techniques more comfortable, especially if eyes-closed or imagery-heavy practices tend to stir things up for them.
A gentle next step
If any of this feels familiar, it may never have been the wrong effort. It may just have been the wrong tool.
We offer one-on-one coaching (not therapy or medical care) that fits the way your nervous system actually works. If you’d like to talk it through, book a free consultation on our aphantasia page. It’s relaxed, there’s no pressure, and you’ll be speaking with me.