Opening
≈ 3 min
Breath and Light. Settling and arriving.
A mental rehearsal of the movement that starts easily and stays full-sized — the reach that doesn't shrink, the rising that doesn't stall — practised in imagination to sit alongside your medication and physiotherapy.
Bradykinesia — slowness of movement — is one of the core features of Parkinson's, and it shows up in two ways that this practice speaks to. There's the hesitation: the pause between deciding to move and the movement actually starting, as though the first step of an action has gone missing. And there's the shrinking: movements that gradually become smaller and less forceful without your meaning them to — the reach that falls short, the writing that tightens, the gesture that fades.
Finding Flow rehearses the opposite: movement that begins the moment you intend it, and that stays generous and full-sized. Because imagined movement draws on the same circuits as real movement, mentally practising an easy, ample action may help make that quality a little more available to the body.
This is mental rehearsal — do it seated or lying down. You'll be picturing movement, not performing it. This is not a technique to use in the split-second of a stall, and it is not a substitute for the strategies your physiotherapist has taught you or the walking aids you rely on.
Medication does the heavy lifting here — mind its timing. Of all the Parkinson's symptoms, bradykinesia is among the most responsive to medication, and it often eases and returns with your dose cycle. This practice sits alongside that; it does not replace a dose, change your schedule, or substitute for a conversation with your neurologist about timing. Many people find imagery easier and more vivid during an "on" period — that's a fine time to practise.
Settle comfortably. You'll be rehearsing the feeling of movement that starts easily and stays large — nothing to hold, nowhere to go.
Guided audio, approximately 15 minutes
Audio placeholder. This narration has not been recorded yet. The finished recordings will use an ElevenLabs voice clone of Jeremy's own voice, and that will be disclosed here and on every practice page — so that you always know you're hearing a synthesised version of a real person's voice, not a stranger and not a hidden machine.
The same four-part shape as the rest of the programme. Phase I uses the figure technique in full: a figure of easeful, ample movement, watched and then stepped into.
In Phase I, a figure appears and is seen moving with ease — reaching, rising, beginning an action without hesitation. As with every practice here, this figure is not you before Parkinson's, and not a self to get back to. There's no going back, and the practice never pretends otherwise.
The figure is only an embodiment of easeful, full-sized movement — shown to you so you can study the quality of it and then feel it from the inside. When the figure steps into you, you borrow the feeling of movement that flows, and find where it lives in your body as it is today.
The words below are the script beneath the audio — read them slowly to yourself, or read along while you listen. Every line is an invitation, never a command.
And you're here now, settled, with a little time set aside. Nothing to begin, because it's already begun. Nothing to reach for yet.
Let the chair or the bed hold your weight completely. Your hands can rest wherever they've come to rest. There's no movement being asked of you here — only the rehearsing of it, later, and gently.
You're breathing, without having to start it or steer it — the breath simply arrives, and leaves, and arrives again. You might notice how it needs no effort at all. How it flows on its own. Let that stay quietly with you: movement that happens without forcing.
And a soft warmth, somewhere easy — the hands, perhaps, where so much of our movement lives. Just resting there, for now.
A little way off, there's a figure. You may see them clearly, or simply sense that someone is there — either is right. And this figure is doing the most ordinary things: reaching for something, rising from a chair, beginning to walk. But notice how. Each movement begins the very moment it's intended. No pause, no waiting for the body to catch up with the wish. Decision and movement, arriving together.
And notice the size of the movements. Full. Generous. The reach goes all the way. The step is a whole step. Nothing shrinking, nothing held back — movement at its natural, ample size, as though there were plenty of room and plenty of ease for all of it.
Take in the start of it once more. There's the intention — and there's the movement, right behind it, smooth and immediate. And again: the thought to move, and the moving, flowing one into the other with nothing caught in between. This is the quality to stay with — not speed for its own sake, but the ease of starting, and the fullness of what follows.
And now the figure turns, and comes closer, and steps into you — gently, so that being near it becomes being it. You're the one moving now, from the inside.
Take it in however it comes to you: a movement beginning the instant you intend it. Perhaps a reach — and it goes all the way, full and easy. Perhaps a rising — and it starts smoothly, no stall before it. However it feels today, you've rehearsed the flow: intention and movement together, and the movement staying generous. That rehearsal is yours to keep.
Deep in the brain sit clusters of cells — the basal ganglia — that help launch movement and keep it at full size, running quietly beneath awareness so you never usually have to think about starting. In Parkinson's, these cells lose some of the dopamine they rely on, and so the launching falters: movement hesitates at the start, and quietly shrinks as it goes.
Here's what helps. This launching system responds to intention, to attention, and to rehearsal. When you clearly prepare a movement in your mind, you give that system a running start — priming the pathway, so that when the movement comes, more of it is ready. It's a little like warming an engine before a cold morning start.
So bring the easy beginning to mind once more — the intention, and the movement arriving with it, full-sized and flowing. Not forcing it. Just laying down the pattern of an easy start, quietly, so the pattern is there to be found again. Your medication does much of this work in the body; the rehearsal simply keeps the pattern warm.
And when you're ready, in your own time, let the room return — the surface beneath you, the light in the space you're in. No rush to move, and no test to pass when you do.
Carry a little of it with you, however much came — the sense of a movement that starts when you ask it to, and stays full. It's a pattern you've rehearsed, and it will be here to rehearse again.
There was nothing to get back to here, and nothing to prove. This practice sits gently alongside your medication and your physiotherapy — a rehearsal of ease, offered to your body as it is today. And whenever you'd like it, the easy beginning is here to find again.
Phase II works with the basal ganglia — the dopamine-dependent structures that help launch and size movement — and their loop to the supplementary motor area. The illustration below is a placeholder only.
This practice was once a candidate for a stronger badge, because bradykinesia had produced the most encouraging early outcome data. The most recent evidence has walked that back, and honesty means saying so plainly.
A 2025 meta-analysis pooled the randomised trials of motor imagery and action observation that used the standard whole-body motor score (UPDRS-III) as their main measure — the very scale that captures slowness of movement. It found no significant improvement, whether people were tested on or off their medication. That is the most direct test of the question this practice asks, and the answer, for now, is a null one.
The earlier, more hopeful trials — where motor imagery added to physiotherapy improved bradykinesia more than physiotherapy alone — bundled imagery together with virtual reality, so imagery's own contribution was never isolated. A separate, cleaner study showed a single session of watching movement reduced finger slowness, but that was small and short-lived.
So "Emerging" here is the honest badge: a mechanism that remains plausible, a couple of small or confounded positive signals, and a recent meta-analysis that found nothing on the direct measure. Worth trying as a gentle complement if it appeals — but the medication is what does the real work on bradykinesia, and nothing here should displace it.
Full references — Pettenuzzo et al. (2025, the null UPDRS-III meta-analysis), Kashif et al. (2022, imagery-plus-VR trials) and Pelosin et al. (2013, action observation and finger bradykinesia) — are listed on the Bibliography page.
The four-part structure used across this programme — Opening, Phase I, Phase II, Closing, with the figure watched and then stepped into — is Jeremy's own synthesis, drawn from the Ericksonian and solution-oriented tradition he trained in. It has not been tested as a unified protocol in any clinical trial. The individual ingredients (motor imagery, action observation, breath work) have research behind them, as noted above; the particular way they're combined here is a considered personal design, offered in good faith, not a validated treatment.
Please treat this as a complement to your care, never a replacement for it. Guided imagery sits alongside medication and its timing, physiotherapy, and the guidance of your Parkinson's team — it does not stand in for any of them.