I have always been a believer of the universal law of attraction. That whatever one thinks about, they bring about. I stumbled across this through movies like The Secret, You Can Heal Your Life, and many religious texts from various spiritual traditions around the world. At first, the concept that my thoughts form reality baffled me as I couldn’t see how my negative thoughts actually created more misery in my life until I gave it a try on practicing gratitude. The more grateful I thought, the more miraculous my life became.

For example: I have fibromyalgia and mornings are always the worst. I would grumble often trying to get out of bed. So I decided to try gratitude instead. For every step I said and thought ‘thank you’. For every task I could do like getting dressed, I said and thought ‘thank you’. Within a few days I physically felt better and knew the truth, thoughts form reality.

I really, truly, and gratefully began to change my life that day going forward.

As I started looking into ways to bring about more positive in my life, it was suggested by a friend that I make a vision board of where I want to see myself in a few years. Wildly, many of the things came true as I am now sitting in my new apartment and had unknowingly purchased furniture that had been on my vision board for years. Something I had completely forgotten about.

So when in my Art Therapy Applications course, we had an assignment of making a vision board of what I want my life to look like as an art therapist. This took a lot of thought and a lot of heart as I had to really be honest with myself on what I really needed and desired to achieve in my journey of being of service to God and others.

I knew that I wanted to work in textiles predominantly. So I used a favorite fabric for a background on my cork board. I put up some quilting items of graph paper and a stencil. I added a swatch of blue fabric to that. I put up a thank you card I received from The Til Val Halla Project to focus on my need to help veterans. Also, wanting to honor my Cherokee heritage I put up a handmade papercraft Indian necklace from last semester. There are tons of affirmations all over the board. Even some of the slips I save from fortune cookies. I have an image of a dress with colored pencils that I wish to wear when I graduate with my master’s degree. 2 pieces are comics to represent the desire to help others switch their thoughts from negative to positive. A doormat as I wish to create a textile program that I could teach and travel to help others know they are not doormats. And lastly, I sun with the number 100,000 as that is how many souls I hope to help heal for the rest of my life and career.

When I had this finished, I sat and looked at what I was trying to envision as a life as an art therapist. I felt so overwhelmed at first wondering if I will ever achieve what I wish to as this vision board showed me. Then I looked around my apartment and remembered that the law of attraction is already at work and I felt extremely happy and full of gratitude knowing what I will be achieving.