I typically create a vision board for myself around the new year and have done it in groups before and find it very powerful so I thought I’d offer one! The new year is a time where many of us are reflecting on the past year and thinking about how we want the coming year to be different. In my experience, setting new year’s resolutions alone can lead to me feeling pressured and overwhelmed or the goals simply fall out of my awareness after a month or so.
What I love about vision boards is that they help us get in touch with what is naturally calling us forward rather than what we ‘should’ be doing to get to where we want to be. Vision boards help us get into the energetic and emotional state of what it feels like to be living the life we want to live by offering a powerful image of what that life looks like, which is important because what we feel now is what we’re going to attract. In my experience, vision boards also help us to align with some bigger, magical process that is calling us towards our greatness.
I’ve been using vision boards personally and professionally for the past 8 years and have seen amazing results as far as attracting what we want to attract. Vision boards became popular when the book The Secret came out that talked about the law of attraction and the idea that when we focus on what we want (rather than what we don’t want) and get really clear, we attract that. I like to use the metaphor of riding a bike and looking at the rock in the middle of the road to try and avoid it, we roll right over it and we’re actually wired to focus on what we’re trying to avoid or what we don’t want. So it takes some intentionality to focus on what we want or where we want to go. Part of what’s so magical about vision boards is they help us get in touch with our creative process around our intentions and help us to open up to what wants to be created in our lives. Someone asked me about the new moon and why set intentions then. New moons are a time of new beginnings and setting intentions and goals right after the new moon gives our intentions a little extra oomph and power. So I’m super excited to be offering this envisioning workshop around the first new moon of the new year!
For folks who can’t make the workshop or prefer to do it on your own, one of my coaches, Christine Kane has an awesome ‘how to’ article where she breaks down the steps to creating a vision board. Here’s the basic run down: you’ll want to take a little time to brainstorm your desired feeling states and other specific things you’re wanting to attract/create. You can use one area of your life like career or relationship or create a board for your life as a whole. I say brainstorm because it helps us tap into our creativity when we just let our ideas flow. Afterwards, I like to set this brainstorming aside, letting these intentions go out to the universe and ask for some divine guidance as I create my board. I also like to put some music on for the collaging part of the practice (I often use something relaxing/instrumental) but you could also experiment with music that connects you to the the way you want to feel. I typically let my intuition guide me as I cut/tear out images, words, colors from magazines and sometimes I choose images that intentionally reflect something I want to create. Then I paste the images/words on a piece of paper or poster board; you may use all of them or leave some of them out or find that you’re missing something and go back to the magazines. There’s no right or wrong way to do this.
Afterwards, I encourage folks to do some additional journaling, reflecting on the vision board, and then choose a word that really speaks to what the board is about. This word helps anchor you to your vision board and your intentions for the year. Then I’d hang your vision board somewhere where you’ll see it regularly and take time to just take it in whenever you see it. You could also get together with a group of friends to create your boards together and share with one another. It’s really powerful to acknowledge what we want to create aloud and have others’ uphold our visions for ourselves.
Hope this sparks some creative ideas for setting your intentions for the new year. Here’s a little more info about my workshop if you’re interested: Women’s Envisioning Workshop Sunday January 10, 2016 from 6-8pm. Cost is $20. Register at West Asheville Yoga. Hope to see some of you there and please pass this info along to anyone else who’d be interested!