Three-panel Vision Solutions

While Visioning® a dream is an amazing process, collage also works when seeking solutions to daily stress. For instance, I work a full-time job, a part-time job and also care-take the ranch where I live. My life is completely opposite from my recent two-year stint as a pet-sitter. Needless to say, I've struggled to maintain balance.

I've endured shoulder, arm and hand difficulty as I've acclimated to computer work most of the week. I've learned to say “no” to many friend invitations in order to say “yes” to me. I've become bad at returning calls. While I know it is vital to create a schedule that includes  creative time, I'm struggling with time management.

Now that my body is used to my work life; thanks to my stand up desk and willingness to try a variety of keyboard, mouse, and chair combinations—my stress has taken the form of an eczema breakout. And it is no big surprise that it's happening on my shoulders and arms.

In order to accept and listen to my symptoms, my go to solution is the three-part collage. 

Image courtesy of http://youngmommymemoirs.blogspot.com

Here's how it works.

Take a large rectangle paper (18 x 24 inch) and fold it into three equal sections. (Three pages of 8 1/2 x 11 works too.) Lay the paper on the table in front of you and number them as follows:

The left section is Number 1: where you are now.

The right section is Number 2: where you want to be.

The middle section is Number 3: the solution.

Take several minutes to breathe, grab a magazine and go. The key is to work quickly, only using a few images per section depending on the amount of time you have. The process is focus on one panel at a time in number order.

Rip out a few images that grab you, trim and glue (or tape) to the page. Then work the next panel. In between each section, take a few minutes to breathe and look at the images, but don't stop to journal.

For example: I just took a break to complete a collage on 18 x 24 inch paper in 40 minutes.

Regarding the eczema question, my surprise about section 1 is that I don't have a picture of skin anywhere. Instead I have the truth-telling phrase:

“I'm aging and panicking. Where can I find peace?”

Gulp. This really is where my head has been at: I've been feeling my age in all aspects of my life.

Panel 2 depicts a sleeping woman and the phrase OWN every Sunday.

Sunday is my one day off and basically, sleeping on Sunday is exactly where I have been for the past several months.

The middle section, representing the middle path between worrying about aging yet wanting to sleep my time away is an image of two horses standing in a field with the word Soulbringer across the photo.

So. Without picking up the pen I've already discovered two things: my stress has to do with growing older and that my sleep through Sunday solution is no longer working. I have an inkling about what the horse images are, but I want to spend time gaining clarity before I share!!!

NEXT MONTH: My favorite techniques for discovering the secrets of my vision board.

If you don't want to wait that long to learn how to work with your own collage, check out Lucia's book, Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams. The chapters are loaded with journaling methods you can use to gain insights to your vision.

To purchase Lucia's book or information on her 2014 workshops, click here to go to her website.

Dorothy Segovia is a certified Visioning Coach, writer and musician who practices the art of collage in all of her creative projects. To find out more, visit her at www.writeinside.com

Visioning Step 3: Focus on the Vision

So. You're sitting amidst piles of images and words. You've gathered them because your heart has sent you on a quest. You have made a wish, you have a focus phrase, now it's time to focus on the vision.

"It is said that Michelangelo described sculpting as 'getting rid of everything that wasn't the sculpture.' That's what you are about to do. Step 3 emphasizes the next phase in the creative process: discrimination, elimination, editing, refinement, exclusion." -- page 84, Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams.

Now it's time to sift and sort. This step is often overwhelming because I want to take everything with me. So I break down the process further with three piles:  Yes. No. Maybe.

I need to do this because three other words are blocking the way to my collage creation:
Discrimination. Elimination. Exclusion.

These are harsh words. I believe that more of anything is better, especially creative ideas.

This third way of  "yes, no, maybe" creates breath and space. It makes way for fun so I can enjoy the  process. After all, Visioning(R) is fun!!!! Remember???

Gratefully Step 3 applies to the collage after it is created as well:

 

I live in a safe and sacred home in Ventura.

I can apply the discrimination. elimination. exclusion word revelations to my current vision of moving to Ventura. While my collage has manifested in amazing ways, I'm still....not....quite.....there: renting a room and working.
PHOOEY!!!!

But phooey creates the opening for the Saboteur to step in and give up on the journey when I may have only 500 yards to drive.

Looking at my collage, I focus on the phrase "Today is the day I write my own story." Yes. No. Maybe.

Yes, I still want to move to Ventura.
No, I'm not willing to give up on my dream.
Maybe if I send out an email to everyone asking specifically for what I want--my own room in Ventura, even temporarily--so I can practice living my Ventura life.

Bingo! I am happy to report I am staying for several days in a fabulous guest room in Ventura on a beautiful sunny ranch with two dogs, three cats and four amazing new friends.

"Your heart may show you things your minds is not ready to grasp. Keep your eyes open for new possibilities. If you knew everything there is to know about yourself, you wouldn't be weaving a new dream or following your heart's desire. Your creative self is leading you into new territory. Will you travel there?" --page 85, Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams.

Visioning(R) works.

What will you do today to focus on your dream????

Write your answers in the Comments section!!!

Guest blogger Dorothy Segovia is a certified Vision Coach who knows how to  focus on a dream. She is the author of My Body, My Car: How to Coach Yourself Through Life's little Accidents, a book about using Creative Journaling and original songs to move through obstacles. www.writeinside.com.

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

Visioning® For Families

One of our Visioning® Coach Training Program trainees, Claudia Jean Hill of Maryland (lower left in family photo), has been using the Visioning® process with her family for the past three years. She was also Certified by me several years ago as a Creative Journal Expressive Arts instructor. Here is how she describes her experience with familyVisioning®.

Our family of children, including married kids with spouses, have met to create collages of our "Hopes and Dreams for the Coming Year". At first when several family members were reluctant, I made it my birthday party -- they felt a little obligation. But they loved it, and now it is an annual tradition.




Now we have a family (adult) collage session usually on New Year's Day. (The winter holiday makes it easier to include students home on break.) I have work spaces and "mood music" set up ahead of time.

We start with a non-dominant hand scribble/coloring, out of which I ask them to create a phrase that defines, "What is the desire of my heart for the coming year?" We go through the 10-steps of the Visioning® process, including right & left hand dialog with the Inner Critic. Then we have a sharing time before people split up to go home. It's wonderful to share with the people you love so deeply in this very different and personal way. It has brought us a lot closer, to understand what each is seeking in his/her life, along with what each struggles with.

Now that we have done this for 3 years, we have added some sharing time at the beginning, to review or tell what happened with our last year's collage. Last year my son in law had some very dramatic lifestyle and job changes that were right there in his collage long before they began to precipitate in his work! I invite the family to journal with the images on the collage with the non-dominant hand, which they sometimes do on their own or later with me. They all hang the collages somewhere they will see every day. Some of them simply let the collage incubate in their minds and others actively journal with it for the year. We have been amazed at how it affirms and guides our personal and family progress!

In my book Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams there
is a chapter entitled "Visioning & Relationship." There you can read more stories about how people found their mates, planned their weddings and honeymoons, adopted children, and planned their empty nest years in later life.
For more information on the process go to: www.visioningcoach.org.
Books and audios are available at www.LuciaC.com

The family that plays together, stays together. Family Visioning® is just plain fun, and it works!

Visioning® in Community

Creating Group Collage Mandalas

One of the most exciting and fun ways to do Visioning® is with your friends, family, club, class members or co-workers. It is being used in church groups, at conferences, with school children, and in business for team building. Any kind of community can create a shared Vision and empower their dream. There is strength in numbers.

The photo at the right was taken at one of my Creative Journal Expressive Arts Certification Training intensives. We first walked a labyrinth on the grounds of our El Rocio Retreat Center in Mission, Texas (www.elrocioretreat.com)and then went into the studio to make 2 mandalas (8 pieces each) with the focus phrase: "Visioning® my year of CJEA field work." For more information on CJEA training which includes group mandala work, go to www.LuciaC.com and click on "professional training". There are also guidelines in my book, Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams, for couples and groups wishing to "dream together."

Visioning® Peace

A few years ago a group of us in Cambria got together, under the leadership of veteran Visioning® artist, Jennifer Star, a graduate of my Creative Journal Expressive Art Training Program. We were given pie shaped pieces of art paper and, after journaling on the five senses of peace (sight, smell, taste, touch, sound), each woman was asked to create a visual interpretation of what peace looks like. From the combining of these pie shaped collages we created a Peace Pie Mandala. In fact, we created two of them, and mounted them for display.

Jennifer took the mandala out into the community of Cambria and spoke at a Rotary Club meeting where she displayed the mounted mandalas (back to back). Her website, www.peacemandala.com features a kit that can be purchased for $25 (including shipping in the U.S.) consisting of:

• 8 pieces of white drawing paper
• 1 template for an eight-piece 4 foot diameter mandala (like the one shown below)
• 1 sample invitation to participate in a Peace Pie Mandala Workshop
• instructions and list of materials needed for putting on a workshop
• templates for a variety of mandala sizes and numbers of pieces are also included

In the summer of 2007 Jennifer was invited to be a presenter at the Third International Women's Peace Conference held in Dallas, Texas. She presented "Peace and the Divine Feminine" to a group of 20 women from around the world. The group created 5 finished mandalas of 4 pieces each. One of the conference coordinators, Jo, bought Jennifer's Peace Pie Mandala kit and produced a mandala with other conference coordinators which was on display at the event. Many women reported feeling very moved by the experience, especially family members who were there creating mandalas together.

You can see the mandalas from the Peace Conference at the mandala gallery on www.peacemandala.com. For more information about creating collage mandalas with groups of any kind, contact Jennifer Star at jstar@peacemandala.com

If you would like to bring a certified Visioning® Coach to your community to lead a workshop, contact us at:
www.VisioningCoach.org