Visioning Ten Steps to
Designing the Life of Your Dreams
Table of Contents:
Part 1 - The Process 1
Chapter 1 - The Designer Within 15
- Thinking with Your Heart
- What is Design?
- Thinking in Pictures
- Visual Imagery: How it Works
Visualization: The Mind's Eye
- Dreaming the Impossible Dream
- Block Busters
- Thoughts Becoming Things
Visualization: Picture This
- We're All Designers
Visualization: Reflecting on Past Successes
- The Fear of Art
- Art-Making, Your Natural Birthright
Visualization: Dreams that Came True
- Visioning: How it Works
- Ten Principles of Design
- The Ten Steps of Visioning
- Techniques Used in Visioning
- Two Brains, Two Hands
Journal: Warming Up-Dancing on Paper
Chapter 2 - The Field of Dreams 43
- Preparing the Inner and Outer Space
- Gather the Tools
- Supplies
- Setting Up Your "Creativity Gym"
- Prepare the Space
- Talismans, Totems, and Good Luck Charms
Preparation: Setting the Stage, Creating a Studio
- Prepare your Inner Space
Focus: Creating the Container
Imagery: Symbol for Your Creative Self
- Unfolding from the Creative Self
- Moving from the Creative Self
Movement Meditation: Inner Listening
- The Silent Partner
Journal: Meet Your Creative Conscience
Chapter 3 - Get a Dream, Get a Life 58
- First Design Principle: Get an Idea
- Visioning Step 1:Make a Wish
- The Courage to Dream
Journal: Permission to Act
- Finding a Focus
- Crafting a Focus Phrase
- Focus Phrases: A menu of Possible Themes
Journal: Finding My Focus Phrase
Journal: What's the Problem?
- Reinforcing Your Focus Phrase
Focus: Flash Cards
Chapter 4 Sorting and Shifting 73
- Second Design Principle: Feed Your Idea with Research
- Visioning Step 2: Search for Images and Words
- Explore the Treasures in Your Research Bank: The Art of Gathering
- Image-Finding as Meditation
Research: Grab What Grabs You
- Ad Art as Poetry in the Marketplace
Poem-making: Wordplay
- Third Design Principle: Connect the Research to Your Own Idea
- Visioning Step 3: Focus on the Vision
- The Balance Between Freedom and Structure
- Following Your Heart
Focus: What's Hot and What's Not?
- What's in a Word?
- Magazines as Chinese Fortune Cookies
Poem-making: More Wordplay
Chapter 5 A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words 90
- Fourth Design Principle: Assemble the Design Elements
- Visioning Step 4: Compose the Design
- Design by Intuition
- Lay out the Elements
Focus and Contemplation: Your Symbol Here
- Random Acts of Beauty: Seeing Relationships, Making Connections
- Finding Your Own Style
Focus: Playing in the Land of Make-Believe
- Matching Words and Pictures
Word Jazz: Ransom Notes from the Soul
Chapter 6 Order Out of Chaos 103
- Fifth Design Principle: Mix and Match in Rough Mock-up Stage
- Chaos and Creativity
- Visioning Step 5: Explore and Find Order in Creative Chaos
- Recognizing the Inner Critic
Journal: The Inner Critic
- The Mistakes Myth
Journal: Guidance from the Creative Self
Chapter 7 The Design of Your Life 112
- Sixth Design Principle: Develop the Design
- The Pieces Coming Together
- Visioning Step 6: Create the Collage
Collage: Putting the Puzzle Pieces Together
- Turning Words on Their Heads
- Zen and the Art of Cut and Paste
Collage: Word Weaving
- God is in the Details
Mixed Media: Connect the Dots
- Other Formats for Visioning
Part 2 - Seeing Results
Letting Your Mind See What Your Heart Already Knows
Chapter 8 Talking Pictures 129
Seventh Design Principle: Refine and Finalize the Design
-
Visioning Step 7: Articulate the Vision
Journal: Image Writing
-
If Pictures Could Talk
Journal: Writing by Heart
-
The Story Inside the Collage
Journal: Telling My Story
-
Eighth Design Principle: Start the Production Process
-
Visioning Step 8: Reinforce the Dream
Visual Affirmation and Visualization: What You See is What You Get
- Dealing with Resistance
- Protect Your Dream
Journal: Keeping the Faith
- A Wish Your Heart Makes
Chapter 9 Seeing is Believing 146
-
Ninth Design Principle: Get Help
- Visioning Step 9: Embrace the Reality
- Don't Just Do Something, Sit There
- What's Behind the Dream
- It's About Time
Journal: At the Write Time
- Taking Care of Business
Journal: Thinking with Both Sides of Your Brain
- As Luck Would Have It
Journal In the Write Place
- Reach Out for Help
Journal: My Personal Dream Team
Chapter 10 Let's Have a Party 160
-
Tenth Design Principle: Complete and Celebrate the Final
Product
-
Visioning Step 10: Celebrate the Dream Come True
Journal: Give Yourself a Hand
-
Lessons Learned, Qualities Earned
Journal: You've Got What It Takes
-
Saying Thanks
Journal: Thanks to the Creative Self
-
Credit Where Credit is Due
Letter Writing: Reach Out and Thank Someone
-
Celebrating the Dream
Journal: Throwing a Celebrate-the-Dream Party
Part 3 Visioning in Action
Photo Album of Success Stories; Ideas and
Suggestions
11 Visioning in Work and Career
- Problems on the Job: Dealing with Difficult People
Case Study: Marissa and the Manager from Hell
- Job Change and Career Transition
Case Study: Hold Fast to Dreams
- Affirming What You Want
- Collage and Journal Applications
- Illness and work
- You and Your Career
- Visioning in a Support Group
- Organizing a Visioning Group
- Structuring a Group Session
- Group Dynamics
- The Power of Group Support
- Collaborative Visioning for Teams, Companies, and Organizations
- Visioning at Work
- Visioning and Organizational Development
- Activities for Organizational Visioning
- Team Building and Project Development
Chapter 12 Visioning and Relationships 201
- Finding Love in All the Right Places
Case Study: Lisa's Story and Collages
- Wedding Bells and Honeymoons
Case Study: Aleta's Collages
- Baby Makes Three
Case Study: Christine's Story, Collage, and Baby Announcement
- Suggestions and Applications
- Creating a New Relationship
- Improving an Ongoing Relationship
- Collaborative Visioning for Families
- Media for Family Collages
Case Study: Beverly and Tom Vision Together
- A Collage for the Whole Family
Chapter 13 Visioning for Health and Well-Being 222
- Regaining the Self
Case Study: Gayle's Story of Inner Healing
- The Creative Self Diet
Case Study: Susan's Story of Healing, Change, and Weight Loss
- Money, Self-Worth, and the Pursuit of Happiness
Case Study: Mark's Story
- Finding Abundance Within
Case Study: Greg's Story of Discovering True Wealth
- Suggestions and Applications
- Body Image, Self-Image
- Illness and Pain
- Abundance
Chapter 14 Visioning to Find Your Place 241
- A Home for the Heart
Case Study: Lucia's Story of her Dream House
- Dreams for Rent
- Mara Moves to Santa Fe
Case Study: Relocating to a New Area
- Anna's Ranch
Case Study: Anna Finds Her Dream Ranch
- In Closing
Resource Guide 254
Sample Exercise from the
Book - Finding your Heart's Desire
Prepare Your Inner Space
Reaching a place of inner silence that naturally leads into purposeful
activity is an important preparation for Visioning. As my movement
teacher says: "Find the stillness within the movement, and the movement
within stillness." It is easier to do this when you are working
alone. However, alone or with others, there will be your own
chattering mind, the extraneous and irrelevant thoughts that distract you
from truly experiencing with your senses. Here is an exercise for
centering in the present moment and "being here now."
Focus: Creating the Container
Sit quietly in your studio space. Seated at your work area, look at
your arrangement of materials and supplies. How do you feel being
here? How does it feel to be setting out on this inner journey to find
and realize your dreams? Spend a moment reflecting on your physical
sensations. Do you fell anxious or tense? If so, allow yourself
to breathe the anxiety out of your body. On the exhale, simply let it
go. Remember that there is no way you can possibly make any mistakes
in Visioning. There is no right or wrong way to do any of this work.
Check out your work area. Are you completely satisfied with where
it is and how you set things up? If not, take the necessary time to
adjust things the way you want them. You don't need any rational
explanation for this. Just follow your instincts and intuition.
Now focus your attention on the work area or playing field. This is
the magic circle of creativity where you will actually be making your
Visioning collage. Place your hands in the space. Run the palms
of your hands over the paper, tracing the outline of your paper with your
fingertips. Contemplate the Australian Aboriginal practice of each
artist painting her own "dreaming" or element of nature and
thereby co-creating that element. Be willing to co-create, in
partnership with your creative self, the life that your heart truly desires.
Close your eyes and focus your attention within. As you sit in
silence and stillness, allow yourself to become aware for your creative
self, that fount of limitless potential that lives inside of you. See
that you are becoming the conscious container of your creative self.
Ask your creative self to be your silent partner, flowing through you.
Ask it to show its face as you portray your heart's desires in your Vision
collage. Open up your own innate wisdom pouring out through images and
words.
As you get a deeper sense of partnering with your creative self, it is
helpful to allow an image to appear. This is a highly intuitive
process and, again, there is no right or wrong way to do it. The next
exercise is intended to help you allow your creative self to transmit an
image to your mind, one that is relevant for you today. Each time you
do this exercise, a different image is likely to appear. The creative
self has many messages to send us, depending on what we need at any given
time.
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