Hey Dreamers!!

So rolling with themes of the New Year and manifestation, I wanted to tell you guys about a Vision Board Workshop that I had attended last weekend at a small yoga studio in Clark, New Jersey. I had never attended a Vision Board Workshop before. I mean as a teenager, I was always cutting stuff out of magazines, plastering it all on poster board, canvas, or in my sketch book. I mean I would even do this in my sketchbooks well into my 20s. I did a majority of my collage art in my L.A. days, as a way to cope with being so far from home. I always did these collage exercises as a way to express myself and to make some cool art, but I never used it as a tool for manifestation. I feel like it was always something that was super intimidating because it forced me to attempt to figure my shit out and think about what I wanted.

This class was really helpful to me because our instructor taught us a few techniques that are very simple, but really help with getting a clear picture of the life that I want to sculpt for myself. First of all, there were 5 people total in this class, including our instructor. There were 2 other girls in the class besides myself, and my mother, who I dragged along (she enjoyed it though, lol).
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Here are the little activities that our instructor guided us on, and you can do these at home, on your own as well, to make the most of your vision boarding experience.

1. FIND INSPIRING ANECDOTES
​She opened the class with a little story about this young woman, who had caught the attention of news outlets for manifesting this dream she had. She didn’t know how she was going to obtain it, but she just knew that she could see it in her mind, she could FEEL it with every fiber of her being, and she promised herself that if the opportunity arises, she would jump at the chance to make this happen. What this woman had envisioned was opening up a book shop, but here is the interesting twist she put on it:

She would find a bookshop with a flat available for rent on top of the bookshop. She would buy the whole kit and caboodle, and rent out the whole thing (flat AND shop) to guests passing through, and whoever stayed there would be in charge of managing the bookshop, converse with the patrons, and get the whole experience of what it’s like to own a bookshop. One day she went on a trip to Scotland, and what do you know, she found her bookshop and flat situation, and she just knew that was where she needed to be. This Bookshop Holiday experience is now made possible by Air BnB, and apparently there is a waiting list to stay there and have this experience, about 5 years out. How crazy amazing is that! She held this dream for years, all in part to her vision boards.
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Anyway, I digress, so that was the inspiring little example that our instructor had set for us to get us in the mindset that we can absolutely manifest anything we hold in our minds, and dream to be real.

2. YOUR WHEEL OF LIFE
​Now I bet you’re wondering how to even know what kinds of things to put on your vision board? This next exercise helps a bit with that. She then gave us a sheet of paper with a wheel chart on it. The wheel was divided into sections pertaining to the different areas of our lives. We then had to rate each part of our lives on a scale of 1-10 (1 being depleted in that area, and 10 being achievement.) Then after we had filled out our wheels, and rated our lives, we had to connect the dots, and acknowledge the map of our life as it is happening right now.

This exercise kind of helped us physically see, which area of our lives that WE feel is lacking. We could then use those areas to figure out what we wanted to place on our vision board, so that we could manifest more of whatever we were lacking. This wasn’t something we felt glued to during our creative process – it was just an extra tidbit to help us along that journey.

3. GUIDED MEDITATION 
The next thing we did in the class was an audio guided meditation that focused on the Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipura). It’s located just above the naval and below the rib cage.
According to Meditative Mind:

“The Solar Plexus Chakra or Manipura is a center of personal strength, learning and comprehension. It guides you through life by creating a strong sense of self, setting personal boundaries and building self esteem and willpower. The ability to bring change into your life and to the world is born within this Chakra. It is where our Will Power comes from. our ability to achieve, raw emotions, and self-discipline are all governed by the this chakra. The Seed Mantra of Solar Plexus Chakra is ‘RAM’. The color associated with this chakra is Yellow.”
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I couldn’t find the exact meditation that our instructor used in our class, however here is a good one. You don’t have to do it for a full hour, we only meditated for maybe 5 minutes just to get in the right mindset.

4. YOUR VISION BOARD 
So after we came out of our meditation and intense visualization, we slowly came back to the room, mentally. Then it was time to dive into to her array of magazines, washi tape, sticker books, scissors and glue sticks, and start looking for images and words that inspired us. There really are NO rules for your vision board, other than to have fun with it, and don’t feel pressured to make it look perfect, or “what if I can’t find anything in the magazines that pertains to my life”… Trust me, I felt the same way… but once you start looking through the magazines, you just get into this really therapeutic zone, and images start to jump out at you. It might even be stuff that you never even thought you wanted in your conscious mind, but subconsciously you do. You might not recognize it until you happen to come across an image that sparks it. Cut it out, slap it on your board!
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So there really is no technique here, however, if you’re a bit anal like me… I like to cut all of my photos out first, I just got a really good bunch that I felt good about, and I didn’t glue anything down until i figured out the placement. Then once I had a good idea on how things fit on my board, then I started glueing. Once all the magazine cutouts were placed, then I started embellishing with gel pen doodles, inspirational quote and mandala stickers, markers, buttons, and all that good stuff.

Some of the things to note here – the top left is a sticker that says GET STUFF DONE. So, I definitely want to do more of THAT this year. “Do What You Love” – Yes please! A black kitten, always wanted one, maybe I’ll get one someday. A new house, to travel more, to make time for playing my instruments. I really miss songwriting and recording, so that’s something I’d love to get back into this year. The reminder to “GET UP AND GO” – sometimes you just need to say FUCK IT and book that vacation. I still haven’t even taken a honeymoon.

So THAT’S a priority this year. I want to eat better, I need to exercise… and to explain those macarons. I bought a book on baking French Macarons that I took one look at, and felt way too intimidated to attempt. As I was telling this story to our instructor, she was flipping through a magazine and landed on that macaron photo. She handed it to me and we laughed hysterically about it! This is the universe’s way of nudging us! MAKE THE MACARONS! So this year, I will attempt to make those macarons… hopefully in the new kitchen in the new house that I am manifesting as well.
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There are definitely some things that I want to achieve this year that I did not put on my vision board, because well, I didn’t find EVERYTHING in those magazines, and also I ran out of space. But there’s no rule that says you can only make ONE vision board.

MAKE MANY! Make them as frequently as you need to. If you need to buy a sketchbook and do daily collaging exercises to help keep you inspired and going after your goals, then have at it!

The best part of the whole class was really just talking to some new people and learning about their lives as well. The 2 other girls in our glass were professional wine connoisseurs. How cool is that?

So that was my vision boarding class in a nutshell… I hope you enjoyed some of these exercises and tips and I’d love to see your vision boards as well! You can follow me on my Instagram @JustinasWorldOfficial , post a photo of your board, and tag me in it! Also use the hashtag #JustinasWorldVisionBoards so I can find them all easily 🙂

If you have any comments or questions, find me in my Justina’s World group on Facebook!
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Til Next Time…

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND 2018 TO ALL!

As you can see, I have given JustinasWorld.com a bit of a facelift. I haven’t really done much with this website since I launched it back in 2015. It always just seemed a bit cluttered and disorganized – I think my problem was that I was just trying to fit way too much on it. So I have changed the layout a bit, took some topics off. You can now find all of my tarot journals and esoteric talk on my “MAGICKAL” blog over at BohemianMagicStudios.com! Some of my old tarot posts are still floating around in the blogroll on here, which I will probably leave, but I took the TAROT option off my main menu.
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I think 2018 for me is all about DECLUTTERING and ORGANIZING. Let’s clear away some of the noise so we can focus on what it is that we really want. I think I have been spending the majority of the past 4 years or so, trying to figure out what it is that I REALLY want. I’ve honestly been wandering around like a lost little puppy. I’m STILL trying to figure this out, so I thought I would do this blog post, so I can kind of help YOU through the process as well.

HOW TO DECLUTTER YOUR LIFE IN THE NEW YEAR
FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU DON’T WANT
The first step to figuring out what you want in your life, is to figure out what you DON’T want. And I mean this goes for all categories – people, places and things. The new year is a great time to purge everything.

1. EMAILS – Do you keep getting emails from people who you still don’t know how you ended up on their mailing list? UNSUBSCRIBE. You had the option to opt in, and you most certainly have the option to opt out. The unsubscribe button is usually at the bottom of the email in really small fine print. Click on that and it is that simple to unsubscribe from unwanted emails. To make things easier you can use the app Unroll.me which is completely free!

2. SOCIAL MEDIA – Do you keep seeing annoying Facebook Posts from people you don’t really care to keep up with, but you feel bad defriending them because it will be awkward when you see them in public? UNFOLLOW them! Facebook allows you to unfollow people without defriending them, and the best part is that they’ll never know you’ve unfollowed them!

3. JUNK MAIL – Do you keep getting paper statements from your banks and credit card signup forms? Opt out of those paper statements, most banks encourage electronic statements nowadays! As for those pesky credit card signup forms, I still have no idea to stop those, so I would invest in a paper shredder and do this as they come in. Otherwise, you keep putting it off and putting it off, and then you end up with a laundry basket full of junk mail waiting to be destroyed (I speak from personal experience… I still struggle with this…) *UPDATE: I did a bit of googling, and I haven’t looked into it much YET, but there is this site where you can opt out of junk mail – I’m pretty sure this pertains to physical mail. Also I saw on the site that you can also opt out of cold call lists. SCORE! CHECK IT OUT: dmachoice.thedma.org

4. OLD CLOTHES & STUFF – Do you have clothes or shoes in your closet that you don’t wear anymore? Go through that closet and figure out what you’ve grown out of, not only size-wise, but maybe age wise as well. There’s TONS of crap I had and still have in my closet from even just 3 years ago that I am ready to part with because my style has changed. Give them to good will if they are in good enough shape, or if you want to make some cash you can try to sell them on apps like Poshmark, and even Facebook allows you to post stuff to sell now. If those ripped jeans or that concert T-shirt that has holes in the armpit are that unsalvageable, just chuck it. No matter what you decide to do with the clothes, do something! Clutter is clutter, and progress is progress!

5. PEOPLE – This one is a bit harder to do, especially because there are feelings involved, but sometimes certain friendships & relationships have run their course, and it’s nothing personal, but it’s actually more unhealthy to stick around and remain accessible to certain toxic people in your life. And maybe it’s not completely toxic, but maybe you’ve just outgrown each other, and that’s ok too. People grow apart, and grow out of each other, just like they do their clothes. Aim to find your true TRIBE so then you can truly VIBE!!

6. THINGS YOU JUST HATE OR SIMPLY DON’T FEEL LIKE DOING- Are you continuing to do things for people, simply because they ask? Sometimes you just have to learn to say no. It’s not humanly possible to attend every single event that every single friend invites you to. If you feel like staying in so you can declutter or to save some money, then you shouldn’t have to feel guilty for wanting to do so. This past month, I quit my morning part time gig because I honestly just didn’t feel like doing it anymore, and let me tell you how far that has exceeded its expiration date… I was starting to become bitter about it and really started feeling like I had to pull myself to get out the door to do it. I was feeling a resistance, and it was making me so miserable to be overworked and underpaid. So I quit. After almost 10 years. I have another source of income, and that’s always important to be able to pay your bills first and foremost, so definitely make sure you can make your ends meet before you pull the plug on a source of income.

​7. THINGS THAT ARE BROKEN OR MISSING PIECES –  Do you have a junk drawer with old batteries that are leaking acid, or sunglasses missing lenses or broken arms? What about that bin of missing socks? Seriously, chuck that shit, unless you’re planning on making an arsenal of sock puppets… but seriously… what do you need them for? What about those socks that have holes in them? BAI!  Old medications taking up room in your cabinet? Old hair dye? This is all stuff I have recently just chucked… It feels so much better!

These are just a few of the things that I have began to declutter from my life this year, so I can make more room for stuff I actually WANT to do. What kinds of things can YOU declutter from your life? Do you have other ideas that weren’t on MY list? Feel free to comment below!