I recently read this great article about vision boards by the wonderful writer and life coach Martha Beck. I love her humorous writing style and I think she’s nailed some things about how the process works (or doesn’t!).
If you are not a long-term student of the Law of Attraction, you may have first heard the term “vision board” in the movie The Secret. It refers to the process of cutting out pictures of things you want to bring into your life and gluing them down in a notebook or on a large sheet of paper. The idea is that by focusing visually on the things you desire, you will (almost magically) draw them into your life.
Having been trained and certified to facilitate a similar but much more powerful and effective process called Visioning® (created and trademarked by Dr. Lucia Capacchione), I was struck by a number of Beck’s reflections.
- “This whole process [of vision boarding] makes me roll my eyes – as I was trained to do over the course of my very rationalist education – but damn if it doesn’t work.”
LOL! I can so relate to this!! Before I learned the Visioning® process, I had spent over 15 years as a computer programmer/analyst. Talk about rational, logical, linear training! My habitual left-brain view of things had to question how gluing some pictures onto paper could possibly bring those things into my life. But, as Beck says, “damn if it doesn’t work! “
Not only does it work to attract more good into your life, the very process of Visioning® (practiced over time) begins to shift the rigid structure of logical, linear, ego-based, left-brain thinking and awaken the intuitive, creative, heart-based, right-brain modes of thinking that may have been slumbering or atrophied because of a cultural bias for left-brain skills. Visioning® sparks whole-brain thinking, and whole-brain thinking is optimal for problem solving and creating the life you want to be living.
- “To really work, a vision board has to come not from your culture but from your primordial, nonsocial self – the genetically unique animal/angel that contains your innate preferences.”
I agree with this 100%, but I would word it a little differently – AND I think this is one of the major differences between vision boards and Visioning®.
Visioning® works far better than the traditional vision board because the images and phrases that end up in your collage are selected by your heart instead of your head. Rather than already having a picture in mind and then going in search of it, you allow images to select you as you randomly sift through magazines. If you do this correctly, you will often clip images with no idea why you are selecting them. You will just follow your heart as it draws you to a particular image or phrase. Beck hits the nail on the head when she says, “The only responses involved should resemble these:
Ooooh!
Aaaahhhhh.
Whoa!
!!!!
????“
Your final collage may look nothing like what you might have expected it to – because it has been created from your true heart’s desire instead of the programmed messages in your ego-based left brain. That’s exactly the result you want.
When you follow the Visioning® process up with structured journaling, you are seeding the desires of your heart (as reflected in your selected imagery) back into your rational left brain (because language and words are left-brain functions). That’s when the magic starts to happen because you are beginning to replace entrenched left-brain habits and patterns (which have created the life you are currently living) with new, juicy, heartfelt ideas (that can help you to create the life of your dreams).
- “This is exactly what you should do once you’ve created a vision board. Stop thinking about it. Lose it. Recycle it. The biggest mistake [you can] make is continuing to push something [you’ve] already set in motion.”
Now here I have to disagree. Sort of.
It’s true, I have seen manifestations come long after putting a Visioning® collage away and forgetting about it. But I have also seen deep insights and fabulous manifestations happen by keeping a Visioning® collage where it can be reflected upon regularly for weeks – even months – on end.
At the very least, you should keep your Visioning® collage where you can see it and work with it long enough to journal about or dialogue with at least a handful of the most powerful images. This is how you move your heart’s desire into full consciousness and clarity. Without this step, it is too easy for the dreams that emerged to be overridden by firmly entrenched habits and the status quo.
It is true that you need to let go of your attachment to a particular outcome and especially release the need to control the “hows” of manifesting your heart’s desire. Here is where you have to trust in and rely upon your partnership with the larger powers of Spirit. The Universe (aka God) knows far better ways of manifesting your dreams than you do. So don’t think you have to go it alone.
That said, manifesting your dream life will take some work on your part. You have to do more than just stare at your Visioning® collage and wait for your dream to land in your lap. Keep your eyes, ears and heart open to synchronicities and connections that can help you move toward your dream. Take action when action is called for. Just make sure that action is heart-driven and divinely inspired rather than completely left-brain, ego-based or habitual.
- “This is the zone of reality creation: regularly picturing delights that don’t yet exist, emotionally detaching from them, and jumping into action when it’s time to help the miracles occur.”
Amen, Sister Beck! I could not agree with you more!
Feel free to contact me if you’d like more information about the process of Visioning® or you’d like to experience a facilitated Visioning® session. You might also want to check out Dr. Capacchione’s book, Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams or visit www.VisioningCoach.org.
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