I was lucky enough in January to spend a few hours creating a vision board alongside my daughter in an online workshop with the amazing Louise Bartlett.
Louise has been vision boarding for 2 decades. Coming from a creative background it became a very natural & easy way for her to express her emotions & bring her dreams into fruition.
Creating a vision board is quite a simple process of bringing together images, words, whatever resonates with you into a collage that represents how you want to feel or what you want to be. Louise is always on the look out for images & has a folder full of things she’s torn out of magazines together with things from nature like leaves, flower petals, shells, ribbons, wrapping paper, glitter.
You can literally use anything, For example, if you want to spend more time in nature, put some flowers & leaves on your board. Maybe you want to manifest more abundance in your life? Why not stick on some coins? I heard a lovely story about Jim Carey writing himself a cheque for $10,000,000 & his first big movie he got paid $10,000,000.
The biggest push-back to this process Louise encounters is people saying, ‘I’m not creative.’ As kids we are innately creative & playful. Sadly, this gets conditioned out of us with our adult responsibilities. As George Bernard Shaw once said, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
Louise was keen to remind us that we are all creative in our own way. The important thing is not to get hung up on creating the perfect vision board. Just have fun, enjoy the process & the time spent doing something just for the joy of doing so.
We often get so caught up in ‘doing’ we stop having fun & playing. Vision boarding is a beautiful way to do something that lights you up. Channeling fun, creativity & joy raises our vibration & this is another important element of vision boarding & manifesting what we desire in our lives.
You can create a vision board whenever there is a change in your life or you want to manifest a change in your life but Louise went on to explain that creating the vision board is only the first step.
Actually manifesting what is on our board involves creating rituals & habits but these don’t have to be time-consuming. Put your board up somewhere you can see it, make it your screen saver & then commit some time to imagining & feelingwhat it means to you. It doesn’t take long, literally a few minutes everyday is enough. So let’s have a look at the process.
The hardest part is committing to that daily ritual. The next hard part for many people is not knowing what ‘it’ feels like. Try recalling a time when you did feel how you’d like to feel now. Take time to notice what you already have in your life, those moments of joy whether it’s a beautiful flower you notice walking to work, a moment of joyful connection with your kids, the little moments as Jon Kabal Zinn said, ‘The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little.’
So you’ve created your vision board, you spend time daily visualising and feeling into whatever it is you want to create; the new job, a relationship, a new home but it just doesn’t see to be manifesting. What now?
Louise is a big fan of the law of attraction: what you focus on you become. So perhaps you are focusing too much on what isn’t happening, what isn’t working so it is creating more of the same. A simple way is to shift this focus from what’s not happening to what is.
We may not get from A to B in a gentle smooth arch. We may make a detour via F,C,Z & P before eventually arriving at B. Or maybe we aren’t destined for B at all. After all, whenever we are manifesting it’s always this or something better because sometimes there’s a better plan out there for us. But we won’t appreciate it unless we keep a look out for all the beautiful little opportunities & possibilities along the way. After all, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.
We can get really hung up on manifesting law of attraction & creating this ‘perfect’ life. Life isn’t like that. Life isn’t perfect & indeed it is the imperfections that are so beautiful. But Lousie was really keen to stress that we are ALL creative in our own way & creating some time to explore, have fun & play is an act of self-care. There’s no right or wrong, no need to worry about the outcome, just creating some time for ourselves is so important for our own wellbeing, our physical, mental & emotional health.
If you’d like to find out more about vision boarding I can’t recommend Louise more highly. You can contact her here:
Louise Bartlett Wellbeing
IG: @_louisebartlett
FB: Louise Bartlett Wellbeing
URL: louisebartlett.com
Blog on Vision boards:
My course, The Power of Vision Boards (there’s a waitlist)
https://www.louisebartlett.com/the-power-of-vision-boards-course
If you would like to find out more about creating different self-care practices check out Alex’s FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mindfulnessyoga4selfcare
Or on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexbannard/
Incorporate short yoga sequences & meditations as part of your self-care toolkit with guided practices on Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQlKZJ7MeyYc6lqkv6seISw
For more info check out www.alexbannard.com
Alex is based on the edge of the stunning Cotswolds & has been sharing her love for all things yoga & mindfulness for almost a decade, not just in the UK but also around the world. Having used her training & knowledge to navigate her own menopausal journey & create a life in which she is thriving, Alex is devoted in supporting other’s in this life changing transition.