Way to See.
If you are above the age of thirty you've likely experienced some level of heartache, have come out alive and probably thrived as a result of it ending. But in the moment, you cannot imagine how anything could be worse than what you're experiencing. There is nothing more wretched than heartache. EVEN, if you wanted the relationship to be done with.
There are so many elements to a relationship that the break-up oftentimes is not even about the person you are separating from but of the current and past context of your own life (your history and their history). But still how can you NOT take it personally? Good question.
What's that saying again? "There's no way out except through." You cannot expedite a break-up except to feel all the feels. And within the feely-feels is fertile ground for growth and thriving potential.
I was in the feels in 2012. In the throes of finishing a long relationship and I didn't know how to push past it. What I did know was I wanted to go after and explore health and wellness in a more meaningful way somehow. So the day AFTER the break-up, I bought a poster board, pulled all of my unread magazines out and created a vision board. (I knew of vision boards from reading, "The Secret"). I knew I needed to see a future that I couldn't see just the day before and I wanted that future to feel clear.
Pretty soon from creating that board, many things started to feel real and fell into place. I had something tangible to reflect upon and I could imagine endless possibilities within this new world in front of me. New colors, new places to visit, new foods to try, new people to meet and new things within me to explore.
I do live in the real world and I knew things wouldn't magically show up overnight and I knew my heartache wouldn't stop hurting immediately. But the board gave me something to internalize by seeing it daily, it allowed something to manifest fully into the thread of my being and it gave me hope.
The board also opened up to me the very idea that we are all creative beings. And that in my pain then, creativity was my way through. And over time, it also became more clear that me not being with this other person was the only way to move forward.
The vision board was (if-I-may!) a spring board for me to jump off of into creating a new life for me that was not so cookie-cutter. I had the chance to be the engineer of my own life and each time I created a board, I was able to add new things and dimensions that related more and more to what I wanted exactly.
The board turned out to hold miracles for me as well. I heard of Marie Forleo, a woman who helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses, and saw that she had a big health and mindfulness event in NYC fall of 2012. The ticket price was $2,000 of which I couldn't afford but I saw that there was an option to create a personal video in the hopes of winning. And I did make my very first video in a very stressed way and I WON! See embarrassing but authentic video here!
I remember someone once reminding me how often we create to-do's lists or outlines or objectives for a meeting or project at work. We spend hours at a time creating these documents, spreadsheets and charts for businesses that we don't even own! And yet we have no blueprint or outline for our very own lives. I think that's a shame. So I invite you to take your turn at a vision board which I do have a workshop on August 12th at The Yoga Shala but you can do this in your own home. I did my first and many more solo.
How do to a vision board
Ingredients:
Get some magazines of a variety that hold culture, food, movement and/or yoga, money or finance magazine, home decor magazines and anything else you know you might want on that board. Collect them from friends and families (maybe take one from your doctors office!)
Then go home with tape, a gluestick, scissors and good tea.
Play some good music or a healing podcast and start.
Directions:
First need to go through the magazines and pull out the images and colors and things that resonate with you. Don't hold back. If something pulls you in a direction, you need to follow it.
Once you have a nice pile, start to cut out the images you might want to place on your poster board.
Then start to place and maybe start to glue stick or tape it to the board.
Fill as much or as little to your hearts desire!
No rules on the structure of the board except to make it all about your wants, needs and desires and not what you think you should want.
Just put what you want out there and it shall manifest!
Namaste!