Visual Journaling (Part 1) with Lucia @ The Painted Lily

Visioning in the New Year

I've been so busy living out my heart's desires that I haven't blogged for some months. My soul mate appeared in September 2009 (or shall I say re-appeared) finding me on Facebook. As with so many Visioning® stories I've heard from students and clients, this was a case of my heart's desire already being in my life but me not recognizing it. Well, as they say, timing is everything. To paraphrase an old dictum about teachers, When the partner is ready, the partner appears.

Of all the topics I have visioned over the years, a soul mate/partner relationship appears the most. There are far too many collages to show here. I will simply say that I focused on how I wanted to feel in a love partnership when selecting my photos and images. I illustrated this feeling state with photos of couples simply being together and also engaged in shared activities, of men who represented the kind of man I wanted to partner with and of settings which I wanted to share with a partner.

The key was focusing on the feeling state. After all, that is what any heart's desire is about. We want to capture a certain experience with its own feeling tone. It might be love, serenity, security, trust, peace, creativity, playfulness, etc. I focused on love. Love is all about mutual acceptance and that is probably the most important "feeling state" I have experienced in this partnership. Being able to be myself! And be accepted as I am. What a gift!

So if you are Visioning® your new year, focus on how you want to feel, what you want to experience. It doesn't matter what the specific content is: housing, career, relationships, health. Just concentrate and imagine what state you want to experience when your heart's desire becomes a reality.

Have fun creating your new year and the rest of your life!

For my upcoming Visioning® workshops: www.LuciaC.com calendar of Events.
For more details on Visioning® see www.VisioningCoach.org

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

Lucia on The Creative Journal at The Painted Lily Gallery

Lifelong Dreams Do Come True

The Koffee Klatch that Turned into an Art Gallery

One of the most exciting Visioning® experiences I have had personally just happened in the last two months. I've told my story about Visioning® my home here in an earlier blog. What I didn't say in that story is that my earliest dream upon visiting Cambria the first time in the mid 80s was to have a gallery here. I'd recently started painting and doing collages again after 20 years as an art therapist.

I fell in love at first sight with the quaint old village of Cambria nestled among pine forests and rolling hills by the sea. But just as important was the fact that this breathtakingly beautiful coastline south of the craggy Big Sur coast is populated by creative people: musicians, composers, writers, artists, actors, etc. Cambria is known for its galleries, little theaters and live music in various venues in town. When I finally moved here, I joined a co-op gallery for awhile. For many reasons, it didn't last. Some dreams have a time-table of their own. I've learned to surrender to the right time and the right place.

As the co-op gallery was ending, my career as an author and workshop leader was really taking off, with international travel, book projects and workshops. I stayed in the flow of that career and put the gallery idea way on the back burner. That was the mid 90s.

Fast forward to April 2009. One of our local galleries was closing at the end of the month. It was located next to my favorite coffee house, Lily's, which has become an unofficial community center. It is a hang out for many locals and an attraction for tourists as well. I went there for coffee one Sunday afternoon in late April looking forward to visiting with friends under the umbrellas on the outdoor deck. Walking through the soon-to-be-vacated gallery which connected to Lily's, I began chatting with a friend, Charles. "Wouldn't this make a great co-op gallery?" he declared. I agreed.

"Well, you're an artist," he continued. "Is that something you'd be interested indoing?" Three other artists I knew immediately popped into my mind. "Yes," I replied. So I joined him and some others in the coffee shop. One of the artists I had in mind, Tim Mayer (cards, calligraphics and whimsical gifts) happened to be sitting there having coffee. I asked him if he was interested. He said, Yes, immediately. Then my neighbor Tess arrived. A retired mediator, she works in a nearby shop part time and has a background in art history. She offered to help in any way she could to support the gallery. Tess called another neighbor, Lydia, who also wanted to help us get started. Another retiree, she'd volunteered in museums and had bookkeeping experience.

Mary Anderson, a retired school teacher who is one of our best-known portrait artists, had been on my mind as we hatched the gallery idea. Within a half hour, she walked into the coffee house. I could see that this project was definitely supposed to happen. The fourth artist, photographer and retired jewelry designer, Sheila Hollingshead, was at home. I called her and shared the plan. She agreed to join us and exhibit her photographs of flowers, landscapes and seascapes. On May 8 - after two meetings and within less than 3 weeks from the day we got the idea - we opened for business. Our gallery is called The Painted Lily. We are on Main Street in Cambria, CA.

It took 21 years, but my gallery in Cambria finally manifested! This one was destined to be. The three of us who are seniors invested our Obama rebate from social security into the gallery start-up fund. Yes, we are investing in Main Street, Mr. Presdient!

I am selling my art work - collages and paintings - and my life-long collection of rare vintage and antique kimono from Japan, as well as jewelry collected on my travels. And of course, the books and CDs I authored are also for sale. Welcome to another dream come true. Come visit us.

For more on the Visioning® process go to: visioningcoach.org and luciac.com

Windows on the Future: Samantha's Visioning® Story

I Love to Vision!

I made my first Visioning® Board at an all-day workshop with Lucia in Cambria, California about 8 years ago. Wow, my life has changed so much since then. It's so beautiful, the process of creating your life with intention, love and art. My life has truly been a series of miraculously aligned events, opportunities, mentors, and friends. I know its from honoring my desires and boldly asking for what I truly want.

The tools I have learned from Lucia I share with my own clients now in my Spiritual Health Coaching work. From non-dominant hand journaling to cutting out the things you love and creating artistic visual aids to keep us connected to our goals.

These photos are of my latest board. I call it a Vision Window.

Its quite large, from a huge cardboard box that ended up in an arch. I love it so much. It lives in my bedroom where I can see it from the bed everyday.
I talk to it, do yoga with it and look at it with love and gratitude.

Thanks, Lucia!
Samantha Huston

*my blogs:
http://www.quantumbiofeedbackstories.blogspot.com/
http://sharethegozo.blogspot.com/

Thank you, Samantha. It's been a joy to watch you over the years as you created the life and career of your dreams.

Visioning® in the Community

Putting it All Together: Team building for Community Organizations

In recent months, I've had the opportunity to speak to many organizations in my community (San Luis Obispo County, California) about the wonders of Visioning®. Among these groups have been: Cambria Unity Church, Morro Bay Chamber of Commerce and Rotary, Central Coast Women's Network anniversary conference (business women supporting each other's success), and Templeton Women in Business luncheon.

Each group responded creatively with ideas for applying Visioning® in their organizations. As a result I've been invited to conduct workshops for groups such as the Natural History Museum in Morro Bay (Board of Directors and staff) and Templeton Community Services (Parks and Recreation summer camp staff). You can see from the diversity of groups listed above that Visioning® can literally go anywhere.

Dr. Marsha Nelson, my business partner and field supervisor of our Visioning® Coach Certification Training has done Visioning® in schools in south Texas (Mc Allen area). In the same area, our certified Visioning® Coach, Elva Villarreal, is doing Visioning® with teen moms in classes for the Pharr/San Juan/Alamo School district. This region, on the border of Mexico, has many high risk youth and is one of the poorest urban areas in the U.S. Visioning® has been received by these young people with great enthusiasm. They are seeing a future they never imagined before. They are dreaming it and doing it!

See the whole process in action at: visioningcoach.org