Road Map Back

Hello all and welcome 2011….two months late. I’m ready for spring, that’s when it really seems like a new year! These red gardening clogs will have to do for now.

The completion of a New Year’s vision board is a better indication to me the new year’s started, and finally I finished mine up. Have you all made these before? A friend of mine told me about hers a few years back. Each year she and her friends got together clipped pictures from magazines, and planned out what they wanted the year to look like.  I do mine solo since it takes me two months.

Last year, I created my first vision board. The humble collage of pictures clipped from stacks and stacks of magazines provided a surprisingly strong road map for the year. Pictures of pristine veggie gardens, stunning nature shots, gorgeous dinner parties, and relaxing patios provided a surprisingly strong unconscious reminder of what I wanted for the year, even though I never quite completed the board.

Sorry this is a crap picture cropped and zoomed from behind a persons head from another picture in my dinning room. I destroyed the board, so I could re-use the poster board for this year, and forgot to take a picture before, but you can probably get the idea.

It hung half finished in my dining room, and in late December when I took it down, gazing at the pictures I’d chosen it was stunning how many of the “visions” came to fruition from the haphazard collage of seemingly random magazine pictures I’d deemed inspirational the previous year. The board had provided a visual to-do list, and unwittingly, I had checked off many of the items, without ever writing the list.

• Have a thriving veggie garden.
• Take trips to beautiful places.
• Spend time with friends hosting dinner parties.
• Build a patio for relaxing on in the back yard.
• Start a blog to reconnect to writing.
• Keep a clean organized house to better enjoy spending time in. 
• Live in the present

That is how the list would have read, if I’d spelled the pictures I’d chosen out in words. It seems though ,spelling the list in pictures proved all the more effective.

This year, more time and thought went into making the collage. Alex looked over my shoulder and said, “Wow, this looks much more elaborate than last year.” 

This hadn’t been the intention, but I think because of the peculiar similarities between what was represented on the board matching up to the realities of the year, I looked forward this year to seeing a detailed reminder of what I wanted hanging on the wall.Originally I thought a vision board was a road map to the person I wanted to be, but wasn’t,  and perhaps that was why I was stunned by last years “progress.” Like I had “become” who I wanted without putting in a concerted effort.

This year, however, upon seeing my latest vision board, my ashram/spiritual guidance group pointed out this board wasn’t a vision of who I thought I should be, it was simply a road map back to who I already am.  They told me, this board just sings to what you already are. A “remember me” board as they called it. A daily visual reminder to myself of who I am. The board gives me a road map back to myself for the upcoming year, back to my core being, and what sort of things to do to keep myself in mind instead of getting distracted by all of the things that aren’t me. 

Do you all have things you do to remember yourself? What works for you?  How do you deal with distractions that shift you away from yourself?  What are your hopes and dreams for 2011? I’m so excited to travel the road back to me, and hope to see you on the road back too. Happy 2011 to us all!

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