Create a collage of your values to support and fuel your intentions.
The page spread from my visual journal (shown in the photo above) is something I created recently to visually remind me of my values and what I want to emphasize in 2023.
What values do you want to focus on for 2023?
The values that I listed as my focus for this year are:
- Expressiveness/Creativity
- Connection
- Impact
- People of Color being healthy- physically, mentally, spiritually
- Joy/Fun/Sparkle
- Love
While I chose three words to write in the spread: To Create, Connect and Have Impact, once I had completed the spread, I noticed that I had chosen imagery that expressed the other values.
- A Black woman held in a loving hand, given permission and space to rest deeply, radically, surrounded by trees and golden light.
- The performer and activist Josephine Baker, sparkling and radiant, quoted: I shall Dance all my life.”
- The fierce Tibetan Buddhist deity, Mahakala, who overcomes obstacles to enlightenment, reminds me that living my values is not light fluffy fare, but requires commitment, support and yes, fierceness.
And the mantra, breathe in, breath out, ahhh, reminds me, speaks to my commitment this year to be aware, daily, in all of my activities, of my breath, to soften, to breathe, to relax, to exert less effort, to allow, to notice, to let go . . .
Choose your Values focus for 2023, sit down with some magazines and tear out images that inspire and speak to you.
The techniques I used: I painted the pages, then collaged and used gelli printed newsprint on which I’d painted stenciled flowers. I used tissue paper too. I used photos from magazines and then wrote the words using my posca paint markers. I emphasized the words by using black posca between the letters, and outlining them in white posca marker.
