Mapping Out Your Journey – Creating Your Map

This is the final part of the Mapping Out Your Journey series.  Now you will create your map to your future.  If you have completed every part of the process, you will have a good idea of where you want to go in life.  In this part of the process, you will create a vision board that will help you visualize and focus on your intentions for the future.

If you missed the other parts of the Mapping Out Your Journey series see the below links:

• Mapping Out Your Journey – Introduction
• Part 1: Journey to the Past
• Part 2: Journey to the Present
• Part 3: Journey to the Future

For this final part you will need the following supplies:

• Large Tag Board
• Magazine Clippings that reflect your life
• Markers, paints, pens
• Creativity, imagination

Review your answers to the questions on your past, present and future. Your tag board will be arranged in 3 parts.  A suggestion for how you can arrange your images would be: placing your images from the past on the left hand side, the middle will be the present and the right hand side will be the future.  To help create your path, draw the past and draw the future.  When you have completed each side, draw the present.  Fill in the blanks from your past and the steps you want to take to create your future.  As you connect your past to the future, fill the present with images and words that inspire you, motivate you and will empower you when you are afraid to make changes or feel unsure of your life’s path.  The future portion should reflect how you want your life to be next year, 5 years from now and overall vision for your life.  

 Don’t be afraid to create the map for your life.  You can decide where you want your life to go and set the intention of what you want to create.  The more detailed your vision the easier it will be for you to create it and the less mystery and fear there will be about your future.  

If you have any questions or need help with any part of this process, please contact me.

Mapping Out Your Journey: Visualizing the Future

This is part of the Mapping Out Your Journey – Introduction Series.  If you haven’t already please read the introduction and then complete the questions about your past in Part 1: Journey to the Past and present in Part 2: Journey to the Present

The below questions will help you record the experiences from your journey into the future.  Answer as many questions as you wish.  What do you want to create that is new, healthier and better for you, including new habits, choices and ways of living? Below are some questions to help prompt your thought process and jar your memory.  Remember to be honest and detailed, as the more details you write out the better you will be able to create your map for your life’s journey.  Below are further questions to help guide you.

Take a few moments to visualize your best future.  The sky is the limit and there are infinite possibilities for you and your life.

• What changes do you immediately notice about how you feel?
• What do you feel in the future?
• Are you filled with wonder or filled with dread?
• What is going on around you?
• Who is around you?  Is anyone missing from your life?
• Perhaps you have some new people in your life?
• Are you still working at the same job?
• Do you enjoy the work you are doing in the future?
• What have you accomplished over the year?
• Is there anything still left undone that you had hoped to do?

Now let your spirit spiral higher again, five years from now.

• What do you see yourself doing in five years?
• Have you made positive changes to your life?
• What are those changes? 

Let yourself trace back to the moment you made that change in your life.  This will help reveal the steps you need to take to make this change happen in the future.

• Was it scary to make that change for the good?

Perhaps at that moment when you decided to make a change in your life, you were unsure or afraid of how it will look.  But looking back from 5 years into the future and seeing the result of your change, it provides you with a sense of security and hope that you can make a positive change in your life.

• What kind of home are you living in?  Has it changed much from your current home?
• Had you wanted it to change? 
• Who is around you?  Are they supporting you and loving you?
• Are you having the same fights and arguments?
• If the people around you in the future aren’t loving and supporting you, why are they still around you?
• What can you do to change your relationships from hostility and distrust to love and peace?
• Who do you have fun with in the future?
• What do you do for fun?
• Is it something you have always enjoyed throughout your life?  Or is it something brand new that you have never tried before?
• How does your body feel in the future?
• Are you healthier than you are now?
• Is your body in pain or filled with disease?

Really look yourself over, examine every aspect of your mind, body, heart and soul. 

• What images or feelings stick out to you?

Let yourself explore the possibilities of the future.  Create a mental image of what is going on around you.  Feel free to explore and see what you have created with your life.

• Do you feel proud of who you are in the future?  If not why not?

Mapping Out Your Journey – Reflecting on the Present

This is part of the Mapping Out Your Journey – Introduction Series.  If you haven’t already please read the introduction and then complete the questions about your past in Part 1: Journey to the Past

Below are questions to reflect on your present.  Take time to be in a quiet place, relaxed and at ease.  Review the questions and then meditate quietly, allowing your spirit to travel back in time over the past year, particularly the past few months.  If any stress or painful emotions arise from your meditation or reflection, breath through them, remember that you are safe now.  You can choose how you react to any situation and it holds only as much power over you as you allow it to have.  If you avoid answering a question, that is a signal that there is a deeper issue held within you to look at and figure out why you want to avoid answering the question due to past experiences that may have been painful.  Take the time to figure out why you are avoiding any questions.

Let your spirit travel to your present home. 

• What do you feel as you enter the door of your home?
• What do you see?  Who do you see?
• Is your space cluttered?  Is your life cluttered?
• Does it feel like it fits who you want to be?
• Do any areas need attention in your home?

 

Go lay in your bed, do you feel relaxed in your bedroom?

Your bedroom is a sacred place, where you are refreshed and renewed. 

 

• Is anything keeping you from feeling refreshed each morning?

 

Review your body in its present form.

 

• Is any area feeling out of balance with who you are?
• Is any are filled with pain or disease?
• What do you want to change about your body?
• What do you want to change about your current appearance?

 

Review the choices that have lead to your body being as it is now in the present day.

 

• Are those habits that have been with you since the past?
• Are they reactions to stress and pain?
• What is causing the stress in your life?
• Is anyone in your life that is not of your highest good?
• Let your spirit travel to where you work or spend most of your days.
• What do you do all day?
• How do you feel when you enter your job? 
• What emotions and thoughts run through your head all day?
• Are you thinking what am I doing here or thoughts of escape?
• Are you thinking that you are right where you are meant to be?

 

Review this last year. 

• Has there been a lot of good times?
• What were those good times, who was there?  Let yourself relive any moment that brought you joy and happiness.
• What happened in those moments?  Who was there sharing that moment with you? 
• What can you do to create more happy moments like that in your life?
• What challenges happened this last year? 
• Were there moments filled with anger or rage?  What were those moments about?  Who were you angry at?  Are you still angry at them?
• Were there moments filled with sorrow or grief?  What caused the sadness?  Are you still carrying some sorrow with you now?
• What moments in your life would you have liked to see happen differently?
• As you watch yourself over the past year, what thoughts are running through your mind?
• Are you being overly critical of the last year? 
• Perhaps you are judging yourself too hard.  Do you think you did the best you could? 
• If you don’t think you did the best you could last year, what would you have changed?  How could you have done better?

 

Now let yourself travel to just this last week. 

• What has happened in the last couple of days? 
• Are you experiencing some of the same emotions and challenges as last year? 
• Are the same issues with family, friends or coworkers coming up? 
• What is going on that is great in your life? 
• Did you have a moment of peace and happiness this last week?
• What can you do right now that can help you increase your peace, happiness and love in your life?
• What is blocking you from experiencing all that is good in life?

Mapping Out Your Journey – Reflecting on the Past

If you haven’t already done so, please read the introduction to this series:

Mapping Out Your Journey – Introduction

 

Part 1: JOURNEY BACK TO THE PAST

Below are questions to reflect on your past.  Think back over every year of your life from early childhood to present day.  Take time to be in a quiet place, relaxed and at ease.  Review the questions and then meditate quietly, allowing your spirit to travel back in time over the years of your life.  If any stress or painful emotions arise from your meditation or reflection, breath through them, remember that you are an adult and safe now.  You can choose how you react to your past and it holds only as much power over you as you allow it to have.    

While you meditate let your spirit travel back to your childhood home.  Open the doors and go explore your home.  Try to answer the following questions.

• Do you feel a sense of being welcomed home?
• What do you see as you walk around?
• What do you feel, are you happy, sad?

Let your spirit wander around your home, visit your old bedroom and revisit your time spent with your family and friends in your home.

•  What words did you often hear from your parents?
• What words do you still hear in your parents’ voices in your head?
• What habits did you start as a child? 
• What were your favorite things to do as a child?  What brought you joy?
• What were your least favorite things to do? 

 Let yourself be carried forward a few years, and watch as time goes by.

•  What moments come up for you?
• What experiences stick out?  Why do they stick out?
• How do you feel you were loved over the years?
• How were you treated throughout school and at work?
• How did your friends or family treat you?
• What successes have you had? What did you do to achieve those success?
• What losses or challenges have you faced?  What do you feel caused that to happen?
• What has brought you joy most often over the years?  Do you still do what brings you joy now?
• If you aren’t doing what brings you the most joy now – what made you stop?

 Review the last 5 years of your life.

•  What have you been up to?

 Review each year and see what you have really been doing with your life.

•  What have you accomplished? 
• What good things have you overlooked or put yourself down for?
• What bad things are you still carrying with you?
• Has someone hurt you in the past couple of years or been conflict?
• Are you holding any resentment against yourself or others?  If so, why?

 Let yourself capture all of the details of the past couple of years.

Visualize what has worked and what hasn’t been working.

•  Why do you want to make changes to your life?

Mapping Out Your Journey – Introduction

Sometimes when we are facing new challenges and developing new skills the road ahead may seem filled with unknown dangers and dark hidden passages. Each new challenge to our new way of living seems harder and harder; making the old path you were taking look easier and well-worn. That makes your old ways look more desirable, easier to do again and again in a cycle that does not end. Until you realize: “Hey, wait a minute! This is how I got here in the first place by making those same choices over and over again. I don’t want to do this any more!!” Now that you are here in this moment, you can decide to quit making those choices and choose ones that will lead you down a better path, even if it is an unknown path.

By visualizing your destination, it will make the unknown path easier to take because you know where you are headed. Much like driving your car to a new restaurant or a new friend’s house, you know where you intend to go, but need to draw a map to get there and new directions to follow. Without knowing where you intended to go, how could you possibly draw a map or choose a good direction to drive your car in, you would just drive around aimlessly until your car ran out of gas or you at last decided where you really wanted to go.

 Clearing a new path in life takes perseverance, each new step leads you out into the unknown, into the wilderness where the trees are so tall and the weeds can be so high that you have to whack them out of your way to even make that next step. You may think to yourself that it is much too difficult to go on, much too hard to make new choices but there is a fire within you that can help you push further on. Use the desire you have for a better life, the passion for what you are trying to create for yourself to keep you moving forward. By having a clear picture of what is desirable and undesirable about your present day life and what you desire to create in your new life, you can find the power within you to make it through the rough patches.

 With a clear picture of where you are headed, you can see over the hurdles that are thrown in your way and know that even though you are struggling you can see the finish line. The destination could be a healthier body, better relationships with others, finishing a college degree, having a greater sense of self-worth or blazing a completely new trail in your life that you have never done before. There is no reason to continue down a path that has not satisfied you or has left you feeling less than the best about yourself. Within you is the ability to remove the fear and blocks that keep you from choosing better habits and leaving the old ones behind.  Don’t let fear of the unknown stand in your way.  Each part of the journey will lead you from the past to the present to the future.  When you have completed each step, you will be able to create a powerful map for a successful future filled with abundance!

Accepting Opportunities ~ 01.08.08

My Aries horoscope today is pretty fitting so thought I would share:  

   

When was the last time you contemplated what your future was going to look like? Visualizing what you want is not a waste of time — it’s a very smart way to plan. Do not assume that because things are going a certain way now that they will continue in that direction forever. Every day offers you an opportunity to mix things up and move things around, and today will present you with a very obvious opportunity. Play the ‘what if’ game and imagine what would happen if you grabbed your chance. You and your appetite for success are doing quite well today and you may find that a big opportunity drops in your lap early on. It’s a good time to jump, especially if you see it before anyone else. 

  

  

Seems like a pretty close description and good advice for today. Taking time to daydream and visualize how you want your life to be is an awesome exercise. It helps you to better understand what it is you truly want for your life. Visualizing without constraint from reality helps you to build a life with infinite possibilities and allows the freedom of the creator’s hand to sweep across your life with greater ideas and blessings than you could ever imagine. The more detail you allow yourself to give and see the easier it will be to create your plan. Start by looking off 6 months from now and what you picture in your life, who you picture in your life, what you look like, what your work looks like, what your home looks like, how do you feel about yourself, what good things do you want to happen, how do you want to relate to your family and friends, what new people do you want in your life. Then reach further out to one year, two years, five years. Once reaching out that far, see how your vision and attitude changes for your present day life. There is no situation that you are in that can’t be transformed or change in the matter of seconds based on your own choice and movement towards your goals. Call out to God for help, to your family and friends, guides and angels to assist you in developing and creating your dreams.  

  

I think I will try to do this myself over the next few days to see what I truly want to build for my life and where this crazy journey is taking me. Always a good thing to do during the first month of the year and especially in a 10/1 year! Also working on accepting the gifts that are given to me with an open heart and receiving all that is given to me in abundance with love and gratitude.