A vision board is basically a collage of things that you want to see in your life. After hearing about them a few years ago, I promptly filed them into my "Things I would have loved in 5th grade" file and steered clear of them. Lately, however, I've been refiling things and came across this one. What would I want my life to look like if it was full of things I'm totally excited about?
Then, a couple of days ago, I ran across a facebook post of a friend raving about her vision board session and she shared this great article from, where else, Oprah.com:
What the Heck's a Vision Board And How Can it Change Your Life.
I won't re-write the article because she does a great and snarky job but, in short, its a pretty cool experience. Basically you just cut things out of magazines that scream "That's for me!" and glue them to cardboard. Then you toss it aside and let some magic happen.
What I will say is that mine was made up of three basic components. Inspiring quotes, Desmond Tutu, and hot men holding babies.
This vision quest, if you will, comes at the tail end of what has been for me a rough past few weeks. I was feeling kind of down on life about a month ago and finally admitted to myself that despite the blessings I have, my health, my friends and a good job, something wasn't quite right in my life. Then, two weeks ago, I strained a muscle in my neck doing a headstand and had to put my yoga practice on hold for a while. That was when the meltdown happened. Walking out of the yoga studio to the chiropractor's office with huge hot tears running down my face I knew that the intense pain I was feeling was not the only reason for my intense emotions. I was letting out emotions that had been festering for a while.
I wailed like a crazy person down Dolores St., sitting down once in a small puddle front of a church to catch my breath, and hoped that I didn't see anyone I knew. The massage therapist opened the door to the Chiropractic office and quickly ushered my crying self into her massage room where she rubbed arnica on my neck and held me to her chest as I let out the last few sobs of the morning. It was then that I knew the process of healing whatever pain I had in my neck and my heart couldn't be done alone.
Over that weekend I talked to my mom for probably 20 hours and talked to my friends who reminded me that I'm going to be ok. I am so grateful for them. I also had a lot of time to sit with a hot pad and think. Tons of things came up in my mind that were frustrating and painful for me: not making enough money, not having a boyfriend, the oil spill in the gulf and human suffering in general. I realized that I'd developed a lot of anxiousness about having everything at once (see Veruca Salt post). About doing everything perfectly (see post about my shoulder injury). About fixing everything (see earlier comment about the oil spill and human suffering).
I also realized that I want a deeper relationship with God and that I want to look for a spiritual community. I've eschewed religion for a long time but the more I practice yoga and delve into its philosophy, the more I realize I love this stuff because it brings me closer to a divine power. Even the strains and the challenges (maybe especially these), when I see them through the perspective that I am a piece of something larger, are ways for me to check myself before I wreck myself.
I'm coming out of the fog that descended when I hurt myself. The lessons I've learned are much deeper than I've explained and I'm not even sure I can do justice to what is now at work inside of me. I do know its pretty miraculous that my neck is almost 100% healed. I can go back to practicing next Tuesday. YAY! I also know that this vision board was a step in the right direction for me. It feels like an act of creation in the midst of sadness. Its not a religion or a spiritual community - though I am searching for one of those - but it is a declaration of what my heart desires. And knowing, thank you Oprah, that its ok for my heart to desire things and for me to feel connected to something larger than myself, even if I feel somewhat broken, is something I can have faith in.
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