Vision Boards - Manifesting your Vision

Do you know what you really want? How do you release that inner knowing, that intuition and listen to your heart? And when you know what you really want, how do you manifest it? For me, it’s some combination of releasing my inner vision, plus action, plus trust. 

Last March I did a Vision Board with a couple of friends. We started with a short meditation on ‘What I Really Want in My Life’. Then, we flicked through magazines, cut out pictures or words that we liked or were drawn to and stuck them randomly onto card. It sounds very simple but in the process something else happened. The subconscious mind, god, the universe, something else got involved somewhere along the way so that what we really wanted started to show up on the board.

This was not always obvious at first but here are just some examples. I was looking for holiday ideas for the month of August. A friend looked at my board and saw ‘Adventure and Travel.’ She was right so I took action, told everybody what I was looking for and, as a result, I spent last August in a beautiful place called Esalen in sunny California. Esalen is beside the sea with thermal baths, vegetable gardens, good food, great people and an energy of possibility. It runs ~500 personal development workshops every year and I spent 28 days there on the work scholar programme working 32 hours a week in housekeeping, garden and kitchen.

As work scholars we had our own programme called ‘The Ensemble Process’ where we learnt to improvise and move from the heart, from intuition. Magic when it works and well outside my comfort zone. I have always said and known that I’m not creative. ‘I’m good with my hands but I’m not creative’. One day a fellow work scholar said ‘Mary you have got to stop saying that you are not creative because it’s not true. You are the best in the group at verbal improv and better than any actor I ever saw when I worked as an agent in England’. I got it. I have given up this self-talk. It upsets me to even use these words now.

When I came home I found ‘Kickstart Your Creativity’ over ‘It’s time for a holiday’ on my Vision Board. That’s manifesting! The board has the phrase ‘Nice and Slow’ on it. I’m active by nature, broke my wrist playing tennis before Christmas and ended up in a cast taking things ‘Nice and Slow’. Friends dropped in meals, gave me lifts and wanted to be there for me. I found accepting help difficult initially and came up with the mantra ‘accept all offers’.

That was before I saw ‘Let Good Things Happen’ on the Vision Board. Manifesting again! Not everything on my board has manifested yet and I’m confident that it won’t manifest in any way that my conscious mind can imagine. I’m enjoying the journey. It is bringing a lot of lightness into my life. Making a vision board can be a fun, creative process and, when we share the experience with others, we can get insights that are energising and sometimes life-changing.

Maybe this article will prompt you to do your own Vision Board to help you discover what it is you really want.

Creating your Vision Board

1.       You need: Old magazines with pictures, coloured card; Pritt Stick; scissors

2.       Pick your theme:  Your life, your relationships, your career.....

3.       Enjoy the process:  Trust that what you really want will appear on the board

4.       Flick through the magazines and cut out pictures  or words that attract you

5.       Stick the pictures and words onto your board randomly

6.       Reflect:  Look at your creation.  What is your heart telling you?

7.       Manifest:  If possible, put your board somewhere that you will see it daily and observe it unfold.

About the author: 

Mary O'Brien is a career coach who works with individuals and groups to help people identify, plan, and achieve career goals. Mary recently gave a talk at the Dublin Unitarian Church on utilising Vision Boards. The audio of this talk is available here. Mary will be hosting a Vision Board Workshop at the Lantern Centre, Dublin 8 on Tuesday 12th March. See here for more information.

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