Monday, August 31, 2009

Visioning® for the Empty Nest


Visioning® by a Couple Facing the Empty Nest Syndrome

Claudia Jean Hill is a graduate of both my Creative Journal Expressive Arts Certification Program and a recently certified Visioning® Coach. Claudia practices what she preaches at home and in her work. She contributed an earlier blog about Visioning® with her family. This latest story is about Visioning® with her husband Vern as they face their empty nest after raising their large family.

Here's Claudia's report on what happened:


Vern and I celebrated our 36th anniversary this past week, and I asked him if we could do a joint collage about what we wanted for our marriage in this next phase of life. He said, yes!

We put on some relaxing music we both liked while we scribbled our non-dominant hand warm-ups with some rich, creamy pastels. We each wrote our heart's desire with ND hand. Then we each collected a pile of images from magazines.

We each selected 5 of our personal favorites, including a "heart piece". We shared our focus phrases. Then we each selected 5 more pictures from the other person's pile, to fit in as possible.

We each put our "heart piece" at the center of the paper and put them in a compatible relationship to one another. I thought we might take turns adding a piece, but we got into a nice "flow" of selecting a picture and proposing a place. We didn't talk a lot, but we weren't stone silent. It was, "how about here?" or "yes, I like that." It ended up feeling like a dance. It was a lot of fun, and we were both very pleased.

"New Paths, a Colorful Dawn, Together in Love." I've hung it in our bedroom.

There were no kids in this collage, except the 2 of us!

Thank you, Claudia and Vern

For more info on Visioning® Coaching and certified coaches, please visit visioningcoach.org