Visions of a brighter future

My first experience with visioning (imagining a particular outcome in order to motivate you to create said outcome) happened, quite accidentally, when I was about 14. The combination of living in a pretty scary neighborhood (which kept me stuck inside the house) and watching my parents' marriage, never a very happy one, fall down the tubes caused me to gain about 20 pounds a year since the age of 8. By 14, I had gotten up to a size 18 (at 5'6"), and although I desperately wanted to lose the weight, it was near impossible to get motivated to do so, in part because my home life was - well, let's just say less than ideal - and in part because quite frankly, I had nobody around me telling me that I could do it. I did, however, have plenty people who were happy to put me on insane diets (have you ever tried measuring your food? What the hell IS that?), or calling me fat, lazy, and whatever other thing they could think of to de-rail my self-esteem. High school can be messed up that way.

So, at this point it's safe to say that my formative years - well, they kinda sucked. But this one day, quite randomly in the middle of doing something that I don't even remember now, I had this brief and instant flash of myself - but not the me I was in that moment. I was wearing a pair of paleish blue jeans and a red button-down shirt, and I was, for all intents and purposes, THIN for the first time since the age of 7.

I wasn't sure what to make of this moment, but it stuck in my mind, and would come back in random flashes every once in a while over the next few years. I was thin - I could be thin. It could actually happen for me, even if it hadn't seemed possible before.

The following school year, my class found itself in the unusual position of getting to choose our activities for gym class that quarter. Having never been one for sports, I chose the relatively innocuous sport of street hockey for the first quarter, and learned pretty quickly that I was actually a pretty kick-ass goalie. Later that year, given a choice between basketball and weight training, I decided to try weight training. Over the next 9 weeks, I spent 45 minutes a day using the various weight machines, and I noticed myself getting stronger each day, and even a little thinner. During the last quarter of the school year, I decided I wanted nothing to do with softball, and went for the walking class. Not only did I end up as the fastest walker in the entire class, I realized at the end of the school year that I had lost somewhere around 15 pounds. Without really thinking about it, I was starting to come even closer to my new vision of myself. And I was enjoying it every step of the way.

That summer, I moved in with my mom (she had left my dad at this point), became a vegetarian, and spent an hour each morning walking around my neighborhood, using the time to meditate and explore the area around me. By the time I went back to school the following year, I had lost a total of 50 pounds, and spent the next year walking home the 3.5 miles from school, which lost me another 15 pounds by the time I finished out the year. One day, hanging out with my sister and a couple of friends, I noticed in the mirror that I was wearing a red button-down shirt and light blue jeans. I had officially, and without really being aware of it, become my vision.

Everything I've ever achieved in life, everything that's ever happened to me good or bad, has been accompanied by some sort of vision - not necessarily some new age psychic picture of my destiny, but more a subtle yet unmistakeable (and rarely wrong) intuition of how a situation is going to turn out, and that intuition ends up unwittingly leading me to the successful realization of my vision. I've had moments when I could tell within 5 minutes whether a relationship is going to end well or badly; I've had flashes of myself thin again after gaining back all 65 pounds I lost when I was 16, and that vision motivated me to start working out again (and lose 40 pounds by the end of that year). When I was frustrated working at an in-house contract that paid well, but sucked up my entire life and forced me to spend at least 2 hours a day stuck in traffic on the Mass Pike, I had a flash of myself running my own studio, and within a couple of months, an opportunity presented itself and I jumped on it.

While all of these visions have been wonderful ways of motivating me towards my goals, the one common thread that ran through them was that they were accidental - I never sat down and actually wrote out a vision; they just came to me in a random daydream and somehow, my life started falling into place around my vision.

Now, I'm in a new place. 16 years after that first flash of a new me, I've had my own studio for 8 months (NOT a small accomplishment for someone who's just turned 30), but the stress of starting my own business has caused my weight to spiral back up to over 200 pounds (which has led to breathing problems, as well as loss of confidence in my body), and my home office is, well, a mess. So while I have many things in my life to be happy for - a loving boyfriend, thriving business, and great apartment that I can afford and has enough space for me to have my own office - there are still some changes that need to be made. I need a new vision, and this time I can't leave it to chance. I have to create it myself, and use that vision to motivate me to start living the life I WANT - not the life I think I should have, or feel that I'm stuck in.

So here's the start of my new vision:
~ I envision myself having a time for exercise and a daily yoga practice.
~ I envision myself easing into my mornings instead of rushing around because I woke up too late.
~ I envision my studio growing, and myself feeling more comfortable and confident as a business owner without feeling like I have to work insane hours to get ahead.
~ I envision myself getting more done in less time and being able to spend more time doing things I love to do, including spending time with friends and family.
~ And yes, I envision myself as a size 8 - not because I'm trying to fit into some ridiculous preconception of what I'm supposed to look like, but because I want to respect and honor the body I've been blessed with by taking the best care of it I can.

Oddly enough, I'm already taking steps towards my new vision. I've been exercising at least three times a week for a little over a month now, and I spent this weekend re-organizing my workspace to make it more efficient, and I created a designated workout area outside my office so I can do yoga and Pilates. With time and a bit of commitment, I think I'll be able to make my visions a reality.
---Dani Nordin is the founder of the zen kitchen, a graphic and web design studio in Somerville MA that specializes in eco-friendly marketing communications and standards-based Web design for non-profit, commercial and corporate clients. To learn more about the studio, visit http://tzk-design.com.