Hold onto hope through with a vision board

About four months after my daughter was stillborn, I had an overwhelming desire to create a vision board.

Why? Well because my dreams felt like they were slipping away. We’d lost a child, one I’d been dreaming of for a decade.

My future felt cloudy and faded. 

I desperately needed a visual reminder that the future could look different than my current reality. 

I needed a way to remind myself that someday life wouldn't hurt as much.  

So I created a vision board.

I took all the ideas my husband, and I had for our future, put them on a board, and hung them in our bedroom.

There’s a lot of information on creating a vision board, but mine was different.

Most of the information I’ve read talks about visions as a place to get, a destination.

I wasn’t trying to reach that vision.

I intentionally gave myself permission not to do anything to achieve that vision. I didn’t have the energy to do anything anyway; grief was all I could manage at the time.

What I did get from it was twofold.

1) I documented our vision so it wouldn’t get lost or forgotten.

2) I found I could use it as a beckon for hope.

My vision board allowed me to freeze our dreams in time. I captured all our plans, all the places we wanted to see, and the things we wanted to do. This hung next to our bed for about six months. It was the first thing I saw when I got up in the morning and the last thing I saw when I went to bed at night.

It just hung on the wall, a future not forgotten but frozen in time, until the storm passed.

It was my compass at a crazy and confusing time in my life.  It reminded me "why" I should get up in the morning.  

It provided me with hope, hope for our future, and for what could be someday.  

A future where the pain no longer ruled our days. A future where the plans we'd made could be realized. A future where I'm able to take something positive from our experience. 

My vision board hung on my wall as a reminder that I was still here for a reason.  

I knew the world had more plans for me; I just needed to pause for a little while and not lose sight of what could be.

It’s been several years since I created that vision board, and yes, over time, I allowed myself to start making progress toward this vision, and I’ve adjusted the vision as life went on.

But for a while, all it represented was hope for better times, which was enough.

Are you feeling stuck, have little energy, but can’t see a better future?

Try creating a vision board, not to get to a destination but to create hope in your heart that someday things could feel different than they do today.

Let me know if you do and what that experience felt like for you.