This is the season to think about what you want.

What do you want for Christmas?

What are your resolutions for the new year?

It’s the time of dreaming and wishing.

A vision board can jump start the process of actually getting what you desire.

Time for some fun!

How to create a vision board

What is a vision board, you ask?

Why, it’s a visual representation of what you want.

It’s your goals on poster board.

You can think about what you want in life, you can write a list of your dreams, but physically searching for pictures, cutting them out of magazines and pasting them on a board moves your desires to and through a variety of areas of your brain.

You are defining your goals using the verbal, visual and processing parts of your brain.

With your whole brain involved and on red alert it will search for things that will get you what you want. You are harnessing your brain power to be on the lookout for what you crave.

Creating a vision board is low tech.

Gather a lot of magazines. It is really helpful if you use magazines with a lot of graphics or photographs. I know that seems obvious, but I always seem to end up with piles of The Economist instead of National Geographic.

Then put on beautiful, peaceful music.  I like using music without lyrics, so my brain is calmed but not distracted.

Start leafing through the magazines, looking for pictures that you are drawn to. Don’t be analytical. You don’t have to know why you are drawn to it. It may not make any sense to you.

And that’s okay.

Try this: Look at the pictures in the magazines with your eyes squinted. You may be drawn to blocks of colors and patterns. We are trying to disengage your judgement and get the whole brain involved.

If nothing seems to tickle your fancy, try turning the magazines upside down so your analytical brain doesn’t edit your selections.

Don’t pick things because they seem possible. No judging allowed.

Don’t edit out an island in the Bahamas just because it seems impossible.

But do be specific.  If it is a luxury SUV you want, don’t use a picture of a car.

Unless the car resonates with you.

Always trust your body’s gut response when making choices.

Allow yourself to wonder when you are tearing out pictures.

“Why am I drawn to that picture of the aardvark?” Hmmm. 

It may be symbolic.

And don’t worry about being embarrassed. If you are drawn to the picture of a guy with abs driving a monster truck, go with it. This is for you. Who knows what drew you to it? Time may tell.

Make a pile of pictures.

Now it’s time to lay out your design.

I like to use poster board and paste things down, but you can use anything. I even use a bulletin board with push pins for a rotating vision board in my office.

When I am leading a vision boarding group, I use poster board you can get from the drug store, scissors, colored markers and pencils, glue sticks, Elmer’s Glue, Yes! Paste, and rubber cement (my favorite).

I recommend laying out all of the pictures and then gluing them on.

But this is not critical. 

The order in which you work and the choices you make are a beautiful metaphor for how you operate in the rest of your life.

Notice the choices you make and the way you judge yourself.

And have fun.

You are done!

Now, what do you do with it?

Some people say you need to look at it every day to be reminded to stay on track towards your goals.

That sounds really rigid to me.

Like a budget I have to adhere to.

Plus, I think our minds are pretty incredible.

Just in creating it, the seed has been planted.

The process of seeking out images that appeal to me and clarifying what I want to bring into my life is priming my brain to find them for me.

It’s like when your refrigerator breaks down.

You don’t notice refrigerator ads or sales until your fridge breaks down, and then they seem like you see them everywhere.

Your brain sifts through millions of bytes of input during the day, and you are helping it to naturally filter and select what will bring you to your heart’s desire.

And it feels like play!

What could be better than that?

I love Thanksgiving. I love that there are no decorations to hang… well, not many… and it’s all about connection and food.

I usually cook for between 12 and 17 people each year, but this year due to my mother-in-law falling and breaking a hip, I am the one traveling.

This year it’s less about the food and all about the people.

Since I am usually in a cooking frenzy, I tend to overlook the thanks in Thanksgiving.
I don’t like to feel obligated to give thanks or feel thanks when it’s not organic. I am thankful in the moment.

But I know that you can’t feel fear and gratitude at the same time.
Gratitude rewires your mind to see abundance rather than scarcity.

This is huge.

So I am all in.
Let’s go waist deep in gratitude.

I realized that the challenge for me is conjuring up the things and situations I am thankful for.  So I thought I would put together some prompts.  Because once prompted, I certainly have multitudes I am thankful for.

Prompts:
Gratitude for food. I just saw statistics for my region. The percent of folks experiencing food instability this year was higher than I expected. I am thankful for the food I eat. I may even try making an indigenous food recipe for Thanksgiving. I feel lucky that I get to make that choice.  

Gratitude for relationships. I am thankful for my husband and kids and extended family. And friends that feel like family.
I am thankful we all made it through COVID year two. And I am thankful for people who aren’t in my life any more who have helped me become the person I am.

Gratitude for pets and other animals. Who loves you no matter who you are, what you do, or how many servings of pumpkin pie you eat? I am thankful for all living creatures.  Nuff said. 

Gratitude for elastic (pants on Thanksgiving), sunshine, air, computers, refrigeration, reconnecting with old friends, a focused purpose, medicine, science, a great movie on Netflix, time in nature, walking, struggles, good memories, birds, music, the ER doctors and nurses, and clean socks.

And last but not least, gratitude for a full range of emotions. Happy is good, but it’s just scratching the surface. I am grateful for the whole bucket of emotions. Joy and humor and connectedness, but also sadness and anger and fear. Without fear I would not be daring. Without anger I would not be spurred to act on some things that are important to me. And the depth of my sadness measures how deeply I have felt about people I have lost.
I want the whole range of emotions that comes with a messy wonderful human life.

I think I need to drop the mic there and pick up the fork. After all, it’s still about the food too. 🙂