Make a Jou aling Vision Collage

How often do you find yourself in need of a motivator? You want to do something, accomplish a goal, embed a new habit, or simply change your life somehow. But actually getting started seems always to be just out of reach.

Making a vision collage can serve to light a fire for you, illustrating (illuminating!) the future so that a path towards it becomes far more accessible. And if you add journal writing to the creation of your collage, you can find yourself on the road before you know it.

You may even decide to use vision collages regularly within the pages of your journal. Who couldn't profit from the psychic refresher that the activity provides!

How do you make a vision collage?

1. Gather old magazines, books, snapshots, newspapers, postcards, calendars, bits of paper and ribbon, anything that can be recycled into a collage.

2. Take a few deep breaths and meditate for a few minutes on the goal or change that conce
s you.

3. Using scissors and a glue stick, arrange your clippings and objects in whatever way is pleasing to you on the page of your journal, or other surface. You don't have to keep your particular issue in mind: let the activity be a response to the issue, rather than trying to make a picture of it.

4. When you're ready, turn to a fresh page in your journal and pick up your pen. This is the time for describing. Give your collage a title, and then write about how it looks to you and what its various elements mean to you. Consider the reasons why you chose these particular items and why you placed them where you did in the collage. Squint your eyes and describe what the fuzzy image of the collage brings to your intellect and your emotions.

Making a vision collage can be a great solitary or social activity. As noted, you may make vision collages often, as a way to enrich your jou
aling practice. Or you can get together with friends, family, or coworkers and enjoy the process and its enlightenments as a group.

As a group activity, making vision collages can be profoundly helpful for almost any purpose. One of the most revealing parts of group collage-making is the moment when each member of the group gives a title to the piece. Following up on the visual activity by finding words to describe the thing you made completes the process. Without this last step, the experience remains vague. Finding the words ensures that your effort to make a change is successful.

Look back the next day at your vision collage and writings, and savor the new energy they give you.