Visioning® Retirement

Lucia recently gave a presentation on Visioning® Retirement at a  retirement community in Daly City, California, called Peninsula del Rey. The next day she conducted a Visioning® Retirement workshop. Some  of those attending were individuals living in the retirement community  where the events were held, located near San Francisco. Others were  visitors from the general public who had seen ads and announcements  for the event and decided to explore their retirement options. Here are Lucia's comments about Visioning® Retirement.  NOTE: All images from the workshop.

 
In my many years of conducting workshops and lectures, my groups have been comprised of about twenty to thirty percent seniors on average.  Occasionally, as much as half of the group has been seniors. This  makes perfect sense. Retirement years lend themselves to self- reflection, hobbies, activities like art and writing (especially  memoirs family history scrapbooks) and things you want to do in the  years you have left on the planet. Long before the movie, The Bucket  List, I created a journal exercise called: What Do You Want To Be When  
You Grow Up? It appears in my first book The Creative Journal: The Art  of Finding Yourself. It was intended for all ages, but I found that  seniors really warmed up to this activity. Here's the journal prompt.

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

1) Make a list of what you wanted to be when you were a kid, no matter how wild or crazy the wish was. Write it down with your non-dominant  hand. Did you want to be an astronaut, a movie star, teacher, lawyer, athlete, singer, scientist?  

2) Check the list over to see if you  actually did any or all of the things you listed, even if it was done  as a hobby. Make a list of the things you actually did using your  dominant hand. (For example, I wanted to be a ballerina when I was a  kid. Instead, as an adult I took expressive dance classes at age 39 as  a result of doing this journal exercise. And I continued studying  
dance and movement therapy for many years after that. 

3) The last step is to make a list of all the things you want to experience during the rest of your life. Write the list with your non-dominant hand in order to access your true heart's desire via your right brain. 

4)  This list will yield a focus phrase for a "Visioning® Retirement" collage, which is the next step. You could use the whole list from  step #3 as your focus phrase. In other words, illustrate your "bucket list" with magazine photos and words.

 
I have observed that many seniors in my groups have not thought much  about what they wanted to do in their retirement years. They hadn't  really pictured what retirement would look like. They just knew they  wouldn't be working at their old jobs. When I introduced Visioning® in  my workshops in the early 90s, I heard seniors sharing their collages  and saying, "This is about what I want now that I am about to  retire."  "This is what retirement looks like for me." "These are the  things I'd still like to experience in my life." In other words, they  were creating a visual version of what we now call a "bucket list."  Some common themes in Visioning® Retirement collages have been: health  and vitality, travel and vacations, hobbies (new or continued), time  
with family and friends, gardening, scaling down and moving into a  retirement community, field trips with groups, outings to museums, spending time in nature, etc. 

So why not illustrate your "bucket list" and make it come to life.  It's never too late to have a happy childhood. Call it a second childhood, if you will, in the best sense of the term. Retirement can  definitely be time for your Inner Child to shine and lighten up your  life. Go for the fun!!! Happy Visioning®!

To attend one of Lucia's upcoming workshops or to purchase Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams visit luciac.com.

Retirement and Visioning®

by Chris Shirtcliff , Certified Creative Journal Expressive Arts Consultant & Certified Visioning® Coach

Phone (413) 323-6653, Belcherton, MA
email: cfssmain@charter.net

website: www.thecreativedoorway.com.

I made this collage while contemplating stepping down from my executive hospital administrator role. Many life changes would be necessary to make this possible. There were three components. The bottom of the collage for each section had current images that evolved to the top images of where I wanted to be.

First of all I needed to launch my adult daughter who was just graduating from art college. The most fascinating part to me was the picture of a young woman holding her hands up triumphantly at the water’s edge. I thought this had to do with the fact that she lived a few blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. Instead, it materialized as a triumphant moment on the Pacific shore as she celebrated having ridden her bike cross country. She was part of a support team for a man in an electric wheelchair on a ventilator rolling across America to raise money and awareness while seeking the Guinness World record for this feat. It took them four months. She is now working in her field, taking a lot more responsibility and nearly financially independent.

The second component was my health. I do eat a more balanced diet, find time for play to de-stress, and don’t get sick as often. I had eye surgery to improve my vision. Weight loss and being more active still need attention. Curiously, my husband has really taken charge of his own health, hitting the gym almost everyday. His health, of course, increases our ability to be active. Friends who see me lately say that I look ten years younger. So I have probably made more progress than I realize in this arena.

The third component was all about actually changing jobs. I began exploring options shortly after completing the collage. A year later I had worked out an arrangement with my employer of 33 years. I stepped down as the hospital president, had a three month paid leave, and then returned to work part-time. I work three days a week as a Professional and Organizational Development consultant focusing on educational collaboration for the same health system. I am also formalizing my Creative Journal Expressive Arts and Visioning® Coach consulting business and offer monthly workshops. We are still adjusting to the lower salary, but refinanced our home for some added financial security. During my leave I took a weekend voice workshop and have recently begun Spanish lessons.

I found it amusing that the phrase “Run Away Right Away” underwent some change in transport. Letters fell off making it “Run Away Right”. I thought this represented my very well planned transition. When the plan was in motion, another word fell off. Then it said “Run Away”. About that time, I did!

Visioning@ Your Bucket List

Re-Creating Yourself Later in Life

Beverly Staley is a therapist and graduate of the Creative Journal Expressive Arts Training Program in which we certify professionals to teach and counsel using my methods, including Visioning®. Here is a report from Beverly about a recent Visioning® workshop she conducted for life planning. Beverly writes:

"I did a small Visioning workshop with five of my networking group, two of whom were high achieving, very accomplished men in their fifties. They had very different reasons for attending the workshop.

One man had just been laid off from a very lucrative position. His collage showed the path he had been on (very small area of the collage) and a potential path for him. With the inner critic journaling he realized how much fear he had because his critic kept telling him he was too old (53) to do these things. But, in the sharing afterwards, he got support from three of us who spoke about how we started careers in our 50’s. The sharing turned out to be very helpful to him.

The second man continues to be extremely successful and told me he wanted his focus phrase to be ‘my bucket list.’ I loved that idea and so in the sharing he talked about how he had lived and taught all over the world, Africa, Europe, South America, etc. and now wanted to return to some of his favorite places and take his wife of 20-some years. I could tell he was excited to share his collage with her (he already knows that she is very interested in traveling to some of these places).

Something else that came out of sharing that was surprising was an elegant woman in her 60’s with a vision of working with gang members. When asked about that by one of the participants, she said she was a former gang member and wanted to get across the message that they could be like her. We were all very surprised.

For this little group, a lot came out in the sharing which is always my favorite part."

Beverly Staley, M.F.T., C.J.E.A. (California)
bevstaley@cox.net

For more about Creative Journal Expressive Arts certification go to my website: www.luciac.com