In May of 2016 the rug got ripped out from under me and in a matter of minutes my entire life got flipped completely upside down. I had to call on all the coping skills I had learned through years of sobriety and therapy to constructively come through to the other side. While many practices were helping, I kept being called to create a vision board.
A vision board is simply a visual reminder of what you want to accomplish or where you want to go in life. It can be any size and it can consist of pictures, words or tokens that keep your goals in front of you. You usually place it somewhere you can see it daily; keeping your eye on the prize.
The process of creating my first vision board proved to be therapeutic; causing me to focus on how I WANTED my life to look. I put some wild, whatever-I-wanted items on my board, I didn't hold back any desires.
Some of my loftier goals were:
Hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
Traveling to Ireland
Learning to play the piano
Getting a hot tub
Imagine my surprise when after only three years, I had accomplished all that I set out on this board! Once I came to this realization, I decided it was time to create a new board and I involved the whole family. I gave everyone a corner of the board to focus on their desires and we made the center the group goals.
The bottom left corner is Cody's and he has since:
bought a motorcycle almost identical to the one in the photo
learned to do that skateboarding trick
has become a Marine!
I placed "attend Moxi Skate Camp" in my section, which at the time felt like a pipe dream since it was held in a remote area of California. Since then it has come to PA and this past May I was able to attend, swoon!
In the center we placed "Jackson Hole" since we have always wanted to snowboard that resort as a family. Every year I check it out and it is CRAZY expensive, so we have never been able to make it happen. With COVID the airfare and lodging prices were so low we were able to turn this fantasy into a reality in January of 2021.
Our vision boards are HUGE and sit framed in the center of living room where we all see it multiple times a day. This past month I realized that it is "finished," and it feels like it is time to start a new one. Then it occurred to me that the Summer Solstice is almost here and it has always been the time of year that these get created AND it has been three years since this last one has been done. Seems like we are creating a cycle;)
Over the past month I have been pondering what I want for this next vision board. It feels more of a legacy creation; crafting spaces that will live on after I am gone from this earth. I am not sure where these feelings are coming from. Maybe it is because my dad died at the young age of 54, or maybe because in 2020 I lost my best friend (43 years old) AND my brother (41 years old). Regardless of the source, I am feeling my morality and am looking to foster something bigger than me.
The Summer Solstice falls on Tuesday, June 21st at 5:14am EST this year. I am looking forward spending some time crafting this next vision board. What are you planning on doing this Solstice?