Visualize Your Success - Creative Visualization Techniques with Vision Boards

Creative visualization is a mental technique that uses the imagination to make dreams come true. Used in the right way, creative visualization can improve our life and attract success and prosperity. It is a power that can alter our environment and circumstances, cause events to happen, and attract money, possessions, work, people and love into our life. Creative visualization uses the power of the mind, and is the power behind every success.

By changing our thoughts and mental images we change our "Reality"; we change the "illusory" world we believe we live in. We are not employing magic or supernatural powers when creating and changing our life and circumstances. It is not something "Material" that we change; we only change our thoughts, which shape our world. All this is like dreaming a very realistic dream, and then changing the dream. We are not awakening from the dream, just changing the dream.

Your thoughts can come true! Not all thoughts of course, but those that are concentrated, well-defined, and often-repeated often; thus, the benefits of utilizing a vision board. It becomes a tool that allows us to repeatedly impress our thoughts and desires into the formless substance which then responds in kind by bringing forth the manifestation of that concentrated thought.

The Vision Board
A vision board is typically a poster board on which you paste or collage images that you've torn out from various magazines. It's actually pretty simple. The idea behind this is that when you surround yourself with images of who you want to become, what you want to have, where you want to live, or where you want to vacation, your life changes to match those images and those desires.

Vision boards add clarity to your desires, and feeling to your visions. There are several methods you can use for creating your vision board. You can choose which one works best for you, depending on where you find yourself on this path of creating your life.

Supplies you'll need for creating a Vision Board:

• Poster board.
  
  
• A big stack of different magazines. Make sure you find lots of different types. If you limit your options, you'll lose interest after a while.
  
  
• Glue. Not Elmer's. (It makes the pages ripple.) I like using Glue or Rubber cement. Glue sticks are my second choice because they don't last.

Before you begin your Vision Board:
No matter which method you're choosing, have a little ritual before you begin your vision board. Sit quietly and set the intent. Ask yourself what it is you want. Maybe one word will be the answer. Maybe images will come into your head. Just take a moment to be with that. This process makes it a deeper experience. It gives a chance for your ego to step aside just a little, so that you can more clearly create your vision. Put on soft music to keep your mind quiet or play the isochronic frequency CD's in the background.

The Five Steps of Creating a Vision Board

Step 1: Go through your magazines and tear the images from them. No gluing yet! Just let yourself have lots of fun looking through magazines and pulling out pictures or words or headlines that strike your fancy. Have fun with it. Make a big pile of images and phrases and words.

Step 2: Go through the images and begin to lay your favorites on the board. Eliminate any images that no longer feel right. This step is where your intuition comes in. As you lay the pictures on the board, you'll get a sense how the board should be laid out. For instance, you might assign a theme to each corner of the board, such as Health, Job, Spirituality or Relationships. Or it may just be that the images want to go all over the place. Or you might want to fold the board into a book that tells a story.

Step 3: Glue everything onto the board. Add writing if you want. You can paint on it, or write words with markers.

Step 4: (Optional, but powerful) Leave space in the very center of the vision board for a fantastic photo of yourself where you look radiant and happy. Paste yourself in the center of your board.

Step 5: Hang your vision board in a place where you will see it often.

Three Types of Vision Boards:

1. The "I Know Exactly What I Want" Vision Board . Create this vision board if:

* You're very clear about your desires.

* You want to change your environment or surroundings.

* There is a specific thing you want to manifest in your life i.e., a new home or starting a business.

Instructions for creating this vision board: With your clear desire in mind, set out looking for the exact pictures which portray your vision. If you want a house by the water, then look for pictures of your ideal home. If you want to start your own business, find images that capture that idea for you. If you want to learn how to play the guitar then find that picture. Following the five steps above create your vision board out of these images.

2. The "Opening and Allowing" Vision Board. Create this vision board if:

* You're not sure what exactly you want.

* You've been in a period of depression or grief.

* You have a vision of what you want, but are uncertain about it in some way.

* You know you want change but don't know how it's possible.

How to create this vision board: Go through each magazine. Tear out images that delight you. If it's a picture of a teddy bear that makes you smile, then pull it out. If it's a cottage in a misty countryside, then rip it out. Just have fun and be open to whatever calls to you. Then, as you go through Step 2 above ask yourself what this picture might mean. What is it telling you about you? Does it mean you need to take more naps? Does it mean you want to get a dog, or stop hanging out with a particular person who drains you? Most likely you'll know the answer. If you don't, but you still love the image, then put it on your vision board anyway. It will have an answer for you soon enough.

The Opening and Allowing Vision Board can be a powerful guide for you. I like it better than the first model because sometimes our egos think they know what we want, and lots of times those desires aren't in alignment with who we really are. This goes deeper than just getting what you want. It can speak to you and teach you a little bit about yourself and your passion.

3. The "Theme" Vision Board. Create this vision board if:

* It's your birthday or New Years Eve or some significant event that starts a new cycle.

* If you are working with one particular area of your life e.g., Work or Career.

How to create this Vision Board: The only difference between this vision board and the others is that this one has clear parameters and intent. Before you begin the vision board, take a moment to hold the intent and the theme in mind. When you choose pictures, they will be in alignment with the theme. You can do the Theme Vision Board on smaller pages, like a page in your journal.

Some Things To Remember About Vision Boards:
You can use a combination of all three types of vision boards as you create. Sometimes you might start out doing one kind, and then your intuition takes over and shifts into a whole different mode. - Your vision board might change as you are making it. You might find that you have little epiphanies from making a vision board.

Make a Vision Journal
Another option is to use these same principles in a big sketch book. Get a large sketch book and keep an ongoing vision journal. This is especially effective if you're going through many transitions in your life.

A Final Word About Vision Boards
This process is part of a technique known as visualization. Because the brain thinks in pictures and can't distinguish real from contrived, it is a powerful adjunct to the affirmations you've initiated in your morning dialogue and evening gratitude practices.

By Dr. Richard A. DiCenso