Creating 2020 vision through images
This week I held a workshop where we created vision boards. I’d like to inspire you to create your own 2020 vision board too and to learn a little about what to do with it after creating it. I called the workshop Discover 2020 Vision. So, as you can see… the process will be relevant every year from now on. Who doesn’t want 2020 vision about their life direction, every year. Often though, we have to work at it, commit to it, to get our 2020 vision. With our body, that might be by purchasing and wearing updated glasses. With our lives and our heart, perhaps that might include creating intentions, selecting images and shaping words.
I love gathering like-minded people together to explore and discover more about themselves. And, I absolutely love to do vision boards, usually utilizing the process of collage. Collage is a method of gathering and then organizing magazine images. I first learned this technique from Julia Cameron in her well-loved book The Artist’s Way, 1992. Trying out one of her exercise was the first time I experienced restriction, a principle well developed in Expressive Arts Therapy and Coaching. Restriction can heat up imagination and creativity. In this case, it is about restricting time. The exercise back then, was to tear to tear out magazine images for only 20 minutes. This year, I created a 2-hour workshop building upon her idea and adding the expressive arts process. The results were diverse, creative and inspirational. It is a pleasure to be called to do this kind of work.
Here are some of the steps for doing your own vision board to inspire your year, your project or your dreams.
- PREPARE: Gather together at least two magazines that you can tear images out of.Ponder more about what you want for yourself this year (or this project, job, or dream). Gather up some music that inspires you and a timer.
- CONNECT: Ground yourself in the present moment with a few personal exercises. Here are a few examples: select a word that inspires you, create a list of your needs and wants (or talk to someone about them), move your body to music (paying attention to which moves brings you joy or release), visualize what is changing in your life.
- SELECT: Put music on, set your timer for 20 minutes and tear out images and magazine pages that interest you and might be relevant for the year. Allow yourself to be liberal, use metaphor (a battery representing power) or find specifics (three women camping together)
- SORT: Go through the images and sort them into piles. In one pile put images that spark that sensation of “yes I love this”. In another pile place the images that evoke “no, not this image right now”. Throw away the “no” images or put them aside for this year.
- SHAPE AND ORGANIZE: Cut, tear or shape the images and words you love. Organize them on a large piece of paper, your “board”. We used 24 inches by 18 inches sheets of paper. Allow yourself to make the paper smaller, larger or change the shape if you need to. When ready, glue the images onto the paper.
- REFLECT: Put your board up somewhere where you can enjoy, ponder the images every day. After some time, maybe a week, you may want to write something. First, write using the starter phrase “I see” and list as much as you can in as much detail as interests you. (eg “I see a sweater, either unravelling or being completed”) Move into a second writing exercise with the started phrase “As I”…. (for example, “As I allow the light to come into my life, I create places to sit, to store my treasures and magnify what I am good at-the good things”.) Circle words that attract you from this second write and then pull them together into a poem or little story. Rewrite the little story or poem and place it near the vision board.
- ENJOY THE DISCOVERIES