True Life: My Vision Board Gave Me No Vision
Earlier this year I hosted HNOW's "Seeing is Believing:Vision Board Party". It was great, the vibes were good, and we all left inspired and ready to conquer the year. But truth is....my vision board was super wack! Between hosting and handling behind-the-scene shenanigans, i had very little time to put some lovin' on my vision board. The whole point of a vision board is to portray the dreams you have for yourself, and mine was FILLED with blank spaces. If my life depended on my vision board, I would be setting myself up for a very empty life. Now that we've entered into the half-way mark in the year, its the time to do some reshaping and redesigning with my vision board and ultimately my dreams.
It was a late night in May when I grabbed some scissors, glue, and some leftover magazines from the vision board party and got to work! And I'm really pleased with what I came up with. There are more words than images because I am aware of how powerful my words are. If i speak the words from my board into my life, i believe they will begin to manifest and become a reality. If the power of life and death is in the tongue, I chose to speak life. I wont get into everything (because it's a lot!) but here are a few things that stand out to me:
Mood: Happy & Healthy, Living, Inspire A Difference
I love this section because it tackles my short-term daily goals. Everyday that I'm living I want to be happy and healthy; spiritually, emotionally, and physically. It sounds cliche but I recognize that happiness and health are not owed to me. Not everyday is sunny skies and daffodils. I want to be healthy enough for my feet to take me wherever my happy mind directs me to go. If I live according to those ideas, (and everything else on my board) I want to be able to inspire a difference in the world, even if I only inspire myself.
ALL HAIL THE WOMEN
I have a photo of seven black women (who all look different) smiling and embracing each other. Above that photo reads "It's the journey that matters" and "All hail the women". On the right I have "Black women first" and "Be inspired by your friends". All the women I know are phenomenal. I'm not even exaggerating. They are creative, intelligent, ambitious, beautiful and charismatic. Each of them have qualities that I want to strengthen in myself. They are not perfect, but living this journey that is life is a little bit easier knowing I have them around. If your friends act as a mirror, I absolutely love my reflection.
Amandla Stenberg & Maya Angelou
When I started off my board in February I made sure not to add any celebrities. I was never the type to have posters of people on my walls as a kid because:
- I'm Haitian and my parents weren't having it.
- I hate idolizing celebrities because they're just regular people that everyone happens to know.
But I have Amandla and Maya up there because they represent how I'd like to be in both my young age and old age. Amandla was only 16 when she started voicing her opinions on injustice, black pride, and cultural appropriation. Since then she hasn't stopped using her platform to inform and inspire. I can only imagine where she'll be in ten years. Maya Angelou's Still I Rise was the first poem I ever memorized when I was a child. She was an activist, educator, author, and poet. She lived in Egypt and Ghana when she and Malcolm X met up and he got her move back to the States to help him with the Organization of Afro-American Unity. In 1993 she recited her poem at Bill Clinton's Presidential inauguration. As a writer, her entire legacy is ALL the goals! I hope to leave an impact such as hers one day.
If you made your own vision board in the beginning of the year I strongly suggest you check it out and see what you can edit. Those of you who have conquered some of your short term goals, Congratulations! It's time to set some new goals. If you don't have a vision board, it's not too late! We have 6 months left to make 2016 the best year ever! Time flies and it's easy to lose track of things. It's been a whole six months already! Set your goals, stay motivated and we'll all get there. Can't stop won't stop baby!
Thanks for reading!
Evelyn