Intro to the Imprinting Method
Do you ever wish you could take a full “snapshot” of precious moments in your life?
Like, not just the image, but also the sensory details attached to that image.
~The smells and glimmer from inside the wedding hall.
~The brief first smile of a newborn with that new baby smell and tender skin.
~The cool wind brushing against three generations holding hands, a tiny child in the middle, as they walk across a breaker to a lighthouse.
Those kinds of moments.
That’s what imprinting is all about:
Taking a “snapshot” in your mind of all the sensory details of memorable occasions.
I wrote about ropes course experience when I was on a youth group retreat in high school.
There, I was introduced to this process I call imprinting I use to this very day.
My camp counselor had me tune in to the forest around me, to smell it, to feel it, to taste it.
I remember the experience in vivid detail to this day because of the focused time we spent on each detail of it.
How to imprint an occasion in your mind
- Take a moment to capture the visual image in your mind. Take a 3D “picture” in your mind’s eye of everything around you.
- Then, close your eyes and take in all the sounds…the voices…the cacophony of footsteps, swishing fabric, sniffles, background music, etc.
- Try to give those sounds quick descriptions like I just did above.
- Then, switch to the smells. Again, try to give them quick descriptions.
- Finally, switch to your sense of touch. The feelings in your body. The feeling of the air against your skin. Your contact with external objects.
- Give ample time to each sense, and use quick descriptions to make them come alive even more.
- Now, take in the full mental picture and laser imprint it into your mind.
- Try not to force yourself to remember all this in fine detail. Just ask your consciousness to hang onto them.
A few notes…
I love using the quick two-word descriptions for smells and sounds because they “give words” to what you’re experiencing. They should help you remember the occasion even better. Feeling into the moment is crucial, and those descriptions add fuller context to the experience, they help you process it more fully.
You can repeat this process when you’re in the woods to capture an epic fall landscape, a turtle burying its eggs, the look inside a deer’s eyes.
After all, you probably go to the woods to unplug, not take an epic Instagram pic.
So, use your brain’s own Instagram filters to capture the moment in its fullness just for yourself.
Here’s a Livestream I filmed in the forest bathing Facebook group about this process:
Tell me, have you ever imprinted memories in your mind, on purpose or not? What details do you remember.