From Vision to Fruition: Vision Boards!

I first heard of the concept of a vision board from some friends in a personal development group I have attended. These women described how they had cut-out pictures, drawings and words related to the things they wanted in their lives, or the people they wanted to become and had pasted them onto a board, be it a piece of cardboard, a foam-board or a cork-board, hung the board in their room, and after a year or more, noticed that everything on that board had materialised in their lives in some shape or form.

I was amazed by this yet somehow it seemed pretty logical; the law of attraction does state that we attract into our lives anything that we give attention to, regardless of whether it is positive or negative. Thus the more I focus on my dreams, the characteristics I’d like to see in myself, the principles I’d like to live by, and things that inspire passion and energy within me, the more likely I am to attract these things and manifest my deepest desires into reality.

One such friend had put the continent of Africa on her board. She is extremely passionate about Africa after spending some time working on a refugee camp there a few years ago. Ever since she returned she has been desperate to go back there insisting that her heart lies in Africa and nowhere else. She specifically wanted to go to Uganda and Kenya so she designed her board to make those places a key focus. Within a few months, she was in Uganda. Out of nowhere, she had received a large sum of money from tax returns which funded her trip to go. She couldn’t believe it! Nor could I, really!

Kenya came into the picture even more magically. This woman has been applying for jobs for nearly two years now. She is determined to work in politics, conflict resolution and/or humanitarian aid in Africa. In January this year, she was losing hope. She couldn't face any more applications and rejections yet she didn’t know what else to do. One afternoon a friend and former colleague, who works for the Commonwealth, told her of a job opportunity in Kenya and urged her to send her CV. At the time, she didn’t think much of it, why would this be any different to the hundred or so applications she had done over the past two years? She eventually sent the CV, after her friend called her up and pushed her into it. Needless to say, she got the job and spent two weeks working in Kenya as an observer for the political elections this year!

Energised by her story and the many others I decided to create my own board.

I started out by flicking through a bunch of old magazines (Psychologies, Marie Claire, Yoga Life...) and cutting out anything that evoked a positive emotional response from me. At first I had words such as, happiness, power, spirit, create, balance, smile, imagination, adventure, sparkle. I found myself getting creative mixing and matching words and ended up with some phrases which really speak to me, and the stage that I’m at right now in my life, “No Limits”, “Throw out the Rule Book”, “Let it Be”, “You can”.

    

Get Snip Happy!

I gleaned as much as I possibly could from these magazines, mainly text, and then moved on to images. None of my magazines had anything that inspired me visually so I pulled out my laptop, thought of things I really want in my life, brainstormed images that I knew would trigger powerful thoughts around those things and searched for them on Google. 

For example, one of my dreams is to be a performing singer/songwriter. The words ‘sing’, ‘perform’ or ‘song-writer’ have little effect on me, even a picture of someone singing would have little effect on me but I knew a microphone at an angle that looked like it was inviting me up to the stage to sing would trigger thoughts of me on stage performing. That’s what I needed. The more I can visualise the scene and tap into the feelings I would have in realising my dream the more energy I am putting out to attract that in my reality. 

Another one of my dreams is to live in America so for this, I printed off an image of the map of USA. This was an easy one. ;)

I also want love and romance in my life. How could I best represent that? I brainstormed on that and eventually ended up with a variety of colourful images of couples who are in love, from a couple walking hand in hand on a beach by sunset to a couple kissing and are clearly leading into foreplay. I emphasise the word colourful as the more colourful the images are the more alive and vibrant they are. It was all about finding the imagery that would activate feelings of being in love, of being in a relationship.

Once I had images of every dream printed off I spread them out on a piece of white cardboard, pulled out my scissors and glue and got creating!

Pasting Images                                              

It can be particularly powerful to choose an inspiring environment and atmosphere in which to create your vision board. I decided to do mine in a bright sunny, spacious room that overlooks a garden full of flowers and the ocean. I considered playing music that inspires me too but chose to go for a peaceful setting instead.

Rather than finish it in one sitting, I gathered words, phrases and images over the course of a few days and did an hour or so of pasting onto the board when I felt drawn to it. This is what worked best for me as it allowed me to mull over it in between times and sometimes led me to add different words or images and scrap others.

I plan to place my board in my bedroom as I spend a lot of time there and it is a bright, happy space for me. It’s best to strategically place a vision board in a location that gives me maximum exposure to it so that the subconscious mind is constantly immersed in its energy which will lead to the realisation of dreams in a shorter space of time.

Overall creating a vision board has been such a FUN experience for me and I am even more excited to see how these things become a reality!! If my next blog post is from America don't be surprised ;)

Almost finished product!

“You think when you’re sixty you know it all, you’re only starting to learn”

81 year old Teresa Flynn, born in Mountshannon, recounts experiences as a midwife in 1950s UK and Chicago, her love for her family and West Clare and how her life took on a whole new meaning in her sixties when she became involved in The Burren Chernobyl Projects and later met her ‘little angel’ Sergei.

Teresa Flynn and "her little angel" Sergei

Teresa Flynn was born in Mountshannon on 8th of December 1930, the youngest of five (three brothers, one sister and herself). “I had wonderful parents” she said, “and life has been brilliant.”

In 1952 she went to England to train to be a nurse in The Royal Surrey County Hospital and later became a midwife at Central Middlesex Hospital. She spent six months in the hospital and six months on the district delivering babies at home. She particularly enjoyed the latter. Four midwives would share a house and someone always stayed up at night to take the calls, which was termed ‘couching’. They travelled on bicycles. “It was a wonderful experience because I would go into very tough areas where the poor mother would be on her own because the husband would be in jail. They were beautiful people. It was a great privilege and I’m glad I did it.”

After receiving her SRN and SCM qualifications she went to Chicago and worked for ‘The Little Company of Mary’ also known as ‘The Little Company of Irish’ due to the number of Irish people there. It was there that Teresa really became aware of racism. One night a black lady was brought to the hospital by two policemen. The policemen apologised profusely for bringing her there. Teresa’s response was “Don’t apologise to me. I’m a foreigner. This woman is American.” The other midwives were disgusted but Teresa delivered her baby and even managed to give her a private room. At the young age of 27 Teresa stood out as a courageous woman fighting for equality.

She was overjoyed when Barack Obama was elected US president in 2008. “It shows huge change in peoples thinking”. The night he was elected she stayed up until 3am praying for a miracle. She spoke with great sadness about the black people not having a vote for so long and the hardship the slaves in South America had suffered. “Thank God the day has finally come when people of whatever race or creed have their rights; that’s what has really made it for me.”

After five years in Chicago, Teresa returned to Ireland to take care of her mother on her death-bed. During that time she met her husband-to-be, Benjamin John Flynn at a dance in Scariff. They were married in the UK in 1962 and after a record eight year honeymoon in Jersey, they moved back to Ireland and raised their family in Nenagh. She has three daughters (Elizabeth, Audrey and Angela) and two sons (Tim and Ben) whom she is extremely proud of. “I’m blessed thank God with a wonderful wonderful family but they couldn’t be any other way because of their father. I certainly wouldn’t be taking any credit for it.” Her husband ran his own saw-mills in Mountshannon and in her eyes, he was the kindest person she had ever met. Sadly, not long after Teresa and Benjamin moved to Miltown Malbay he passed away.

In 1996, a few years after Benjamin’s death, Teresa became involved in the Burren Chernobyl project. One day she received a phone-call; she was asked if she would help to take care of the children who had just arrived to Spanish Point from Chernobyl. Before she knew it she was in Belarus. “The conditions were horrendous; there was a complete lack of love”. Babies weren’t being changed. “Mothers were encouraged to get rid of the burden of their children by leaving them in orphanages.” Visitors to orphanages were rare and Teresa noticed that if anyone, it was the grandparents who visited. A lot of the children had Down Syndrome. “The little angels there didn’t know who they were or where they were.” When a sick child was brought from the orphanage to the hospital, the staff would tell them to go back home. “It wouldn’t look good if there were too many people dying in the hospital.” Many of the carers had alcoholic husbands and some of them were alcoholics too. As always, Teresa viewed this with compassion: “How could you expect too much from those people? They were absolutely struggling to get on.”

It was in 1998 that Teresa met her “little angel” Sergei Ulyanchyk. Sergei was not a victim of radiation but had been dropped as a baby and was severely brain damaged. He was also in the final stages of malnutrition. His mother was in prison for murdering her brother and he had been left in Chervan orphanage. He was very special to Teresa. In 1999 he came to live with her in Miltown Malbay for two years. All of the children from Belarus were eventually forced to return so Teresa went with Sergei and took care of him there until he died in February 2007. “I thank God a thousand times to have done what I did because it wasn’t something I had planned.”

Sergei was given a beautiful send-off. “A group of men from the orphanage went out at 6am and burned tyres on the grave to melt the frost that had gone six inches down into the ground to open the grave.” Ann O’ Sullivan sang a beautiful hymn. His mother was present and at that moment Teresa felt both pleased and sad. “If only the other little treasures that were buried all around us could have had the same send off.”

Thankfully there have been vast improvements in Belarus since the first time Teresa set foot there in 1998. “There is no shortage of orphanages today and some of them are massive.” Teresa spoke highly of Brother Liam O’ Meara, Brother Ned Hayden, and Kevin O’ Sullivan, all of whom are dear friends of hers and are heavily involved in The Burren Chernobyl Project. She also praised Reeny Beeny (their interpreter whose surname she never knew), Breda O’ Connell and Ann O’ Sullivan whom she could not have been without during that time.

Today Teresa spends a lot of time with her children and her eleven grandchildren whom she adores. She continues to live in Miltown Malbay and absolutely loves it. “There is nowhere in the world that an older person can be treated better than we are here.” Her dear friend and home-carer, Breda O’ Connell comes to see her five days a week with something tasty to eat and she has fantastic neighbours.

Unlike many elderly people today, Teresa does not fear death or the traditional God of judgement. “The Lord who died for us is full of love and compassion; there’s no need to worry at all. If you have forgiveness and love in your own heart then that’s it.” Her plan is to be buried beside her husband in Mountshannon cemetery. She believes she takes after her father, who lived until he was in his nineties, and has a few more years in her yet.

To young people today Teresa offers the following advice: “Never bear a grudge because it’s like a cancer. It keeps growing.” As the interview ends she finishes off with the same phrase she uttered when I walked in the door two hours earlier: “Life has been brilliant Thank God.”