Friday, January 30, 2009

Turning thoughts into things and experiences

Visioning® is magic. It is a process for turning thoughts and dreams into things and experiences. The photo collage tells the story of how I created my dream house. I did it without having to buy the land, hire an architect, draw up blueprints, find a contractor, and so on. The house already existed. All I had to do was picture it, find it, buy it and move in.

This collage is one of three panels (18 x 24 inches each) portraying the home of my dreams. Here I pictured living and dining rooms and a studio with gothic ceiling, and much more. I eventually found the house 5 months later, and have lived here for almost 16 years. Notice the photos of French doors with a view of tree tops (lower right and upper left). Then look even closer and see the skylight above the French doors in the upper left photo.

Now take a look at the real thing: my dining room. The only major difference between the door, windows and sky light in my real home are the natural wood trim (which I actually prefer to the all white ones in the collage).

If you visit my website, www.VisioningCoach.org, you'll see the other rooms in my house: studio with gothic ceiling, living room adjacent to this dining room (with a picture window view of a pine forest), a master bath with a jacuzzi tub under windows. Every room in my home is just like the one in the collage. When I entered my house for the first time I knew this was it! I'd come home.

Visioning® takes the guess work out of the big decisions in life. When you look at your collage every day - many times a day - the dream becomes more and more real. I had walked through the rooms of my collage so often, had strolled along the nearby coastline pictured in there so many times, that the reality was more like a memory than something new. I didn't have to think twice when I told the realtor, "I'll buy it."

Wake up to your dream life! Do it now. Your fondest heart's desire is waiting for you to claim it. (VisioningCoach.org)

Don't take my word for it alone, visit the website of Dorothy Segovia, a veteran of Visioning®: www.writeinside.com. On her website, go to the Writings page and click on her blog.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Yes you can! Visioning® Renewal

The New Year - 2009 - is a great time to start Visioning®. We have a new President and are beginning a new era in our country. Sure, we have lots of challenges, but in America you can feel change in the air. And apparently this has spread around the globe. At my website, I've received lots of good wishes from readers in different countries representing many nationalities, races and religions. They are excited and hopeful about America turning over a new leaf. But hope is not enough. Bringing about renewal is something each individual must do. That's where the Visioning® process of life design comes in.

As Walt Disney said: If you can dream it, you can do it! So let's start with you. And let's start now!

What you will need:

Visioning® begins with finding your true heart's desire and creating a photo collage to illustrate your dream. You'll need art paper or poster board (18 x 24 inches or larger), scissors, glue, magazines (and other sources of photo images and words). You will also need a bound blank book (unlined pages) for keeping a Creative Journal (preferably 9 x12 inches). I recommend a set of felt pens in 8 or more colors for writing. If you are serious about making your dreams come true, get a copy of my book Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams (Tarcher/ Putnam). It describes the process in detail, complete with photo illustrations. Set the mood for each step in the process with the musical CD, Visioning (music by recording artist, Jessie Allen Cooper (available only at LuciaC.com and coopersoundwaves.com).

You might be wondering: What's unique about Visioning®? What sets it apart from from all that other stuff like The Secret, visualization, life planning, affirmations, treasure maps, and so on? First, the 10 steps of Visioning® follow the stages that all designers, inventors, architects pass through when they create in the material world. These are the folks who designed the computer you are using, the chair you are sitting in, the desk, the floor, the room, etc., that surrounds you. Why not learn from them? These creative people are trained, skilled and experienced at taking thoughts and turning them into things? That's exactly what you do in Visioning®.You apply tried and true design principles to your life and work. Believe me, they work!

When a designer gets an idea she puts that inspiration, idea or mental picture into physical form immediately (sketches, blueprints, renderings, etc.) In Visioning® we do this by fashioning a collage - a sort of storyboard - similar to the ones filmmakers use in mapping out their story. We don't use the cartoon strip format of linear pictures, rather it's an all-at-once impression, a collage that conveys our dream. It might have words in it, too. The goal is to illustrate the heart's desire, what it would look like and feel like. It's a preview of coming attractions, how we want to feel once the dream is realized. That all shows in the Visioning® collage board. This is not about accuuilating things. It's about how we want to grow and who we want to become.

Visioning® can be done by individuals, couples, families, groups, organizations, work teams, and companies. We've used it in public schools systems (team teaching groups), corporations, hospitals, non-profit organizations, church groups, and more. Collages can be done as individual boards or posters or in group applications as a combined mural. They can also be created as individual boards all fitting together to create a shared Vision. Shared Visioning® boards are photographed and each member of the group gets a picture of the whole while keeping their own collage. Sometimes shared collage murals are displayed, as in the case of one elementary school in Texas. The teachers doing team teaching posted their group collage of the "goals for the year" on the walls outside their classrooms for themselves and their students to see. The school had high scores and great morale.

Secondly, Visioning® provides psychological tools for clearing obstacles. Creating the Visioning® board is only the beginning. Big dreams always bring out big inner blocks. It's part of the game. Inevitably, when we start reaching for new goals, the Inner Critic or Judge jumps out and chatters away in our brains. "This is stupid. How ugly. What a waste of time. You'll only be disappointed. This is a pipe dream and will never happen. Who do you think you are with these grandiose ideas? And anyway, you have more important things to do right now, like paying bills or laundry or mowing the lawn or doing your taxes or......."(you fill in the blanks)

One of the keys to success with Visioning® is the time tested technique for dealing with this universal voice of self-criticism and self doubt within. I've written whole books about this, most notably, The Power of Your Other Hand (Career Press). The Visioning® process provides journal activities for writing your way through these internal blocks of self-judgment and skepticism about the Visioning® process. If I hadn't developed this technique I would never have written 13 books. Here's how I did it.

While attempting to start my first book, The Creative Journal (Career Press/New Page), I was plagued with a crippling writer's block. I spent two to three days a week staring at white paper in the typewriter. Finally I practiced what I was teaching in my Creative Journal classes (which was the topic of the book, ironically enough). In one journal session, I cleared the block in two pages of writing. I wrote what the Inner Critic said with my dominant hand (the one I normally write with), and answered back with my non-dominant hand (the one I don't usually write with). Within two pages I was done, felt utterly liberated and energized. I rose from my journal, went to my studio and completed the book within three months by writing two or three days a week. I had a "real job" as a college instructor and art therapist while becoming an author on my own so that's all the time I could afford.

But wait, that's not all. Breaking through my block also gave me the courage to put the word out to friends (step 9 of Visioning®), get a support system around me, and find a mentor who referred me to his publisher. They said yes right away. Better yet, the book needed no editing. In spite of what my Inner Critic had said, I'd written a perfectly acceptable manuscript! Over the years, The Creative Journal has become a best seller, been published in three different editions and formed the basis of an entire method of journal therapy being used all over the world.(LuciaC.com)

Dream it and do it. I've done it, and I know you can, too. See more on VisioningCoach.org.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Visioning® the New Year

Welcome to the new year with Visioning®.

My name is Lucia Capacchione, originator of the Visioning® Method for turning dreams into reality. The method appears in my book Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams (Tarcher/Putnam, 2000).

Using Visioning® I have created the life, the house, the relationships and the career of MY dreams. You can do it, too! As Walt Disney said: "If you can dream it, you can do it."

In my first career as a graphic artist and designer, I worked for world-famous chair designer , Charles Eames, and later for Mattel and Hallmark. As a therapist and corporate consultant, I was retained for 10 years by Walt Disney Imagineering (theme park designers) to train managers and creative folks to maximize their potential. At Disney, I got to stand back analyze the design process. After observing in depth how "thoughts become things", I applied the design process to life in my practice as a life/career coach and art therapist.

You can find the "designer within" and learn the process that all designers use. It's simple, fun and powerful. It's hands-on and brings out your creativity. There are lots of methods for manifesting out there. None of them are based on solid design principles. Remember this: Designers never create by sitting around visualizing or repeating affirmations. Never! As soon as they get an idea, they start working with their hands. Combining collage with journaling, Visioning® applies the ten steps used by successful designers, architects, artists and inventors. Visioning® applies the design process to life. It works for all areas of life: career, relationships, home, health, hobbies, travel, you name it.

More importantly, with Visioning® you can learn to get out of your own way. That is another thing that makes this unique and sets it apart from other methods of manifestation. Imagining what you want is not enough. We all have an Inner Critic who rains on our parade. As soon as we want to venture out into new territory, push the envelope and reach for the sky, it stops us. Visioning® provides proven "block busters" (journal exercises) for confronting your own "inner saboteur" who prevents you from realizing the life of your dreams. These "block busters" came from my 35 years plus of work as a therapist. Believe me, they work! If they didn't I never would have been able to author 13 books (2 of them bestsellers), find the house of my dreams, travel all over the world, create an international training program with graduates from all over the globe. I could go on and on.

Using Visioning®, hundreds of people have created happy marriages, loving families, better health, weight loss, prosperity, dream houses, fulfilling careers, exciting travel and more. They have attended my workshops, used my book, and done private coaching with me or a certified Visioning® Coach. Many of these people tell their story in my book, Visioning.

In this blog, I'll share these highly effective tools for manifesting and finding your true heart's desire. I'll share my experiences as well as the stories of people who enjoyed huge success with this method. You are invited to post a question or comment. Join me in the Visioning® adventure.

Create the life of your dreams!

Lucia

For more about Visioning® go to www.VisioningCoach.org

Be sure to visit www.LuciaC.com. There you will find general information about my 13 books, a calendar of my workshops and training, CD's and other products for sale, as well as essays, picture gallery and more.

At www.LuciaC.com purchase the book, Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams, and a set of 2 CDs, Visioning, by Jessie Allen Cooper (musical accompaniment for the Visioning® process).