Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams - Brossura

Capacchione, Lucia

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1585420875 ISBN 13: 9781585420872

Casa editrice: Penguin Publishing Group, 2000

Riassunto

In Visioning, acclaimed art therapist, designer, and pioneer in personal growth through creativity Lucia Capacchione reveals a road map to the creative process that can be applied to health, relationships, career, home, and other areas of life. And all you'll need to accomplish your goals are a pair of scissors and some glue!

Using the same principles and steps designers use to bring their dreams into physical reality, Capacchione shows how you can design your very own dream life, home, work, and marriage. Learn how to use the talent you already powwess to:

• Originate a concept or idea
• Feed the idea
• Assemble design elements
• Start the production process
• Refine and complete the design
• Create a dream support team
• Celebrate the final product

Lavishly illustrated with photos and collages to spark the designer within, this book will show you how to make real the notion that if you dream it, you can do it.

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull?autore

Dr. Lucia Capacchione, Ph.D., A.T.R., is an art therapist, artist, author, popular workshop leader, and corporate consultant who has worked for Hallmark, Mattel, and the Walt Disney Company. She lives near Big Sur, California.

Estratto. © Ristampato con autorizzazione. Tutti i diritti riservati.

Visioning

Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your DreamsBy Lucia Capacchione

Jeremy P. Tarcher

Copyright © 2000 Lucia Capacchione
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9781585420872

Chapter One

The Designer Within

THINKING WITH YOUR HEART

Visioning is purposeful daydreaming applied to everyday life. It isabout thinking with your heart and allowing your true wishes tobecome reality. A Visionary's language is images and wordsfrom the heart. Deep within the heart we find the creative self. This creativeself is home to the practical visionary within, our unlimited potential,our spiritual DNA, or life's purpose.

    This creative self is our silent partner. It is always ready and willingto help us express our true desires in the world. The lover of books whospends hours browsing in bookstores, the amateur gardener who losesherself weeding and planting, the hiking enthusiast who can't seem toget enough of nature's beauty. These are ordinary people honoring theimpulse of the creative self in daily life. For although it is our silent partner,it does have a voice. It speaks in images, in daydreams and nightdreams. It sends messages through the body. Sometimes the creative selfexpresses through music, poetry, or art. It often comes through loud andclear in meditation and prayer.

    The voice of the creative self is our creative conscience. It keeps uson track when we:

    · ignore or forget our heart's desires

    · sell out to the demands of others

    · shelve our dream in order to get someone's approval

    · get stuck in a mindless and boring rut

    Without the guidance of the creative conscience it's easy to getoverworked, addicted, exhausted, or sick (or all of the above). When thathappens you know your heart and soul are starving to death. Your creativeconscience must resort to pain and discomfort to get your attention.The pain is there for a reason. You need to do something about it.Veer too far off the path of the heart and you get a pebble in your soul.Life hits you over the head with one of those big lessons: illness, an autoaccident, bankruptcy, the relationship that ends painfully.

    Some of life's catastrophes are preventable, some are not. Indulgingin self-destructive behavior, like addictions or abusive relationships, canbe reversed. But what about circumstances beyond your control? Howcan you predict that your company is going to downsize you out of a job?Or that an earthquake or flood will leave you homeless? Or that yourspouse will die? Whether you are facing a crisis of your own making orone that was thrust upon you, Visioning works. Acquiring the habit oflistening to your heart and giving voice to your creative conscience is agreat survival strategy, enabling you to design and build the life you wantwith the pieces that life has given you.

WHAT IS DESIGN?

Visioning is rooted in the idea that you can design your own life, that it iswithin your power to:

    · take charge of your own imagination

    · become a purposeful dreamer

    · design the life of your dreams

    · Vision your dream into reality

    Visioning begins by naming your heart's desire and translating itinto pictures and words on paper. It is the same process designers, architects,and engineers use when they get an idea and create sketches,models, and blueprints. They know the alchemy of turning thoughtsinto things. There's nothing mysterious about it. It's the process knownas design. And you can learn it, too, by designing from your heart's desires.In fact, in my dictionary, the word desideratum immediately precedesthe words pertaining to design.

DESIDERATUM?something desired as essential or needed.

And the words following design are desirable, desire, and desirous.

Desire and design. Side by side in the dictionary. A perfect verbal road map for the adventure of designing your life. Knowing what you truly desire, you can create your life with intention and make it a work of art.

    My favorite definitions for design from the dictionary are:

· to conceive and plan out in the mind
in Visioning you'll do this through mental imagery

· to intend
setting the intention is the first step in Visioning

· to conceive and draw the plans for
your collage is your plan or blueprint

· a particular purpose
your heart's desire is your purpose

· an underlying scheme that governs functioning, developing, or unfolding
that's Visioning

    As a Visionary, you qualify as a designer according to the dictionarydefinition:

· one who creates plans for a project or structure
the project is your life, the plan is your vision collage

    Now let's explore the dictionary definitions of desirable anddesire and see what they have to do with Visioning.

· a strong wish, longing
Visioning helps you know and honor your wishes

· an expressed wish
your collage and journaling are the expression of your strongest wish

· eagerly wishing
the passion you feel will create a magnet for opportunity

    The dictionary definitions of the word vision are also worthexploring.

· something seen otherwise than by ordinary sight
this is the "wish your heart makes"

· a vivid picture created by the imagination
these are the mental images you'll portray in your collage

· the act or power of imagination
you'll be developing this power through Visioning

· unusual wisdom in foreseeing what is going to happen
collages have an uncanny way of showing you things before they happen, tapping into your innate intuition

THINKING IN PICTURES

Practical visionaries in any field often say that they think in pictures. Visualthinking is second nature for artists, designers, and architects whohave developed this innate ability as part of their craft. Filmmakers andtheme park designers create storyboards (cartoonlike panels telling thehighlights of their story in captioned pictures). Successful executives,business entrepreneurs, scientists, writers, athletes, and just plain folksuse mental imagery every day to "design in the mind" what they want toaccomplish in the world. This has been true in the field of competitivesports for many years, in methods such as the inner game of tennis orgolf.

    Your Visioning collage will be a kind of storyboard or blueprint ofthe life you want to create. I say "kind of" because it won't be a linear,step-by-step representation of what's about to unfold. Rather it will serveas an intuitive impression, an all-at-a-glance preview of coming attractionscoming from your intuitive creative self. And why is visual thinkingand graphic representation through art so important for a Visionary?One reason is their suggestive power.

    Visualization and other techniques for creating mental pictures arebeing used in the field of medicine. Patients of all ages and walks of lifehave been taught to use their imaginations for managing pain, dealingwith life-threatening or chronic disease, and for losing weight. Carland Stephanie Simonton blazed a trail many years ago in the field ofhealing by using mental imagery. Cancer patients are guided in mentalPac-Man games in which they visualize the cancer cells being gobbledup. Children are especially good at playing these imaginative healinggames through visualizing battle scenes, Star Wars scenarios, copsand robbers chases, and so on. These techniques have been popularizedby physicians like Martin Rossman and authors Shakti Gawain and JeanAchterberg. My Creative Journal, a method of visual diary-keeping,has been used in patient support groups with great success for manyyears.

    What was once considered a highly esoteric pursuit-thinkingthings into reality?has now become quite common. The fact is, we alldo it every day. You may think you don't know how to visualize, but stopand think for a minute. If I ask you to imagine a red apple, what do youdo? By seeing with your mind's eye, you reproduce a mental image of ared apple, don't you? That's why we call it imagination.

VISUAL IMAGERY: HOW IT WORKS

The human brain's right hemisphere contains the centers that governvisual-spatial perception and the ability, to see in mental pictures. Weuse this ability every day, when we remember the route to work or visit afamiliar restaurant or imagine a red apple (as you just did). Actually, wedon't just see with our eves. We see with our brains, too. In recent yearsa great deal of information has been gathered about the visual centers inthe brain through research in pathology and new imaging technologyfor scanning the brain. Observation of stroke victims and others whohave suffered brain injury to the right hemisphere has contributed toour store of knowledge about how the human brain works. For instance,after suffering damage to the visual memory centers, patients cannotremember things and places they have seen many times before. Thisvisual amnesia causes these patients to lose their way in previously familiarterritory or impairs their ability to recognize people or objectsthey have known before.

    For those who think they cannot visualize, who don't seem to seemental pictures or have a vivid imagination, here are some simple exercisesyou can do.

VISUALIZATION: THE MIND'S EYE

Visual Remembering

1. Sit quietly and relax for a few seconds. Then look around and find a simple object in your environment, something that is a basic geometric shape, like a circle, ball, or square. Perhaps it's a piece of fruit, a square table top, or a rectangular door or window frame. Look at the object for a couple of minutes, observing its shape, color, and texture. Then close your eyes and remember the object in your mind's eye. In your imagination see the shape, color, texture, and any other details you can recall.

2. Recall the last meal you had. Close your eyes and picture yourself there. Where were you? What did you eat? In your mind's eye picture the food on your plate: the colors, shapes, and textures.

3. Think of a favorite room in your home or office, one where you spend lots of time. Close your eyes and imagine that you are there. In your mind, look around. What colors, objects, and textures do you notice?

Creative Imagining

4. Now imagine a meal you'd like to eat. Just make it up. Where would you be and what would you eat? Picture the plate in your imagination. What food would be on that plate? See the shapes, colors, and textures of the items you've selected in your imagination.

5. Imagine a place you've never been before but have heard about or seen in pictures. Perhaps you take a mental trip to Hawaii or Italy or Japan or some other place you have never visited. Close your eyes and see what images come to mind when you think of that country or place.

6. Using your powers of visualization, invent a place in nature that you would like to be. Perhaps it's a country meadow, a lush tropical forest, a majestic mountaintop with a breathtaking view, or a beautiful beach at sunset. Use your imagination and picture it just the way you want it.

Continues...

Excerpted from Visioningby Lucia Capacchione Copyright © 2000 by Lucia Capacchione. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Penguin Publishing Group
• Data di pubblicazione: 2000
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1585420875
• ISBN 13: 9781585420872
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 272
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile