An Alternative To The Typical New Years Resolutions

Every year as we approach the strike of midnight New Years Eve millions of people sit down to pen their goals, wishes and intentions for the coming year. A list of things that they want to accomplish. In years past, I would spend anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 days creating my very own list. And you know what, for the most part I did manage to accomplish many of the things on the list.

But as I've grown older and life has become layered with family, work, love, friendship, spirituality, travel, growth (and a few more personal items), the resolution list has either gotten too long or not inspirational enough to follow through upon. And as we all know, a goal is only a bunch of letters on paper until we put action steps and ignite the fire of inspiration behind those steps.

Recently I've honed in on a way to get inspired visually and create an actual picture for my coming year. My tool of choice was the vision board. Which entails creating a visual representation of your goals. Whether using magazine images, words or drawing pictures I would put it all together on a ready to hang canvas and add beautiful colors that I love.

This past year, I've hit a road block. I wasn't really sure WHAT I wanted to do next. I felt like it was time for some kind of change but couldn't really put it into words. Then I found this great method called SoulCollage®. It's similar to a vision board but on a smaller scale. I posted my own collage at the top so you can get an idea of what they are. Here are some instructions on creating your own SoulCollage® from ehow.com:

The process for making SoulCollage® cards was developed by Seena Frost, a family therapist in California. By relying on response to images, you create a set of cards that are significant to your life. Because the creative process is simple and requires only basic supplies, make several SoulCollage® cards.

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Scissors
• Acid free glue stick
• Acid free rubber cement
• Acid free mat board 5 by 8 inches (I used small stock cards from my local art shop)
• Old magazines

1. Create a dedicated, sacred workspace. Set up a table or desk in a quiet location. Burn a candle and play pleasing, soft music.

2. Assemble the materials and equipment in a pretty basket or box. Keep the supplies organized so that work is not interrupted to go and find a glue stick or pair of scissors

3. Page through the magazines at a leisurely place. Tear out any pages that are appealing, whatever the reason. Set the pages to one side.

4. Cut out the favorite images from the selected pages. Spread them out on the work surface and organize them into smaller piles according to theme, pattern, color or reaction.

5. Resist the temptation to bring logic to the process or sorting. Go with the flow. Continue sorting the images until there are just a few piles.

6.Choose one of the piles. Spread the images out over the work area and move them around until the arrangement is pleasing. Glue the images to the mat board to complete the collage.

7. Continue the exploration of the collage with the "I Am One Who . . . " exercises. Understand and integrate the deeper meanings of the collage. Make another SoulCollage®.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!