Put Your Vision Board Away

Why It's Not About You Anymore.

A couple of years ago now I had a visitation from my Teacher. Its not unusual, but this visit, during meditation, came with a gravity I was’t expecting. He gestured in front of him with a sweep of his arm, and two paths appeared in front of us. I was at a time in my life where not much was clear. I had committed to a life of listening to my inner wisdom, the result of which was that I’d just left my marriage, and for the first time in twenty years, I was renting a house just for myself, and had a stretch of days alone each fortnight. New ambition had started to emerge from the liminal space in between the bouts of crying, and, on good days, I created lists of things I’d like to happen to me. While I’d been busy making these lists, I’d also been forging a deeper connection with my inner world, with my teacher and the Team I now work with, who I then thought of as just, ‘my guys’.

I was high on possibilities for my life, ideas of writing more, of further increasing my income through the business I then had; for more travel; for some measure of success and stability. It was that day in meditation that everything changed. My Teacher showed me the two paths, and then asked me to make a choice. The first path had everything that was on my list. I could see it clearly - the life I was dreaming of blossomed into fruition before me. There were some slight variations, but all in all, it was intact. A life not that far from the one I was currently living, but, without the financial instability, and waves of self doubt. It was better, brighter, more successful.

The other path was one that my Teacher described as a path of, “no recognition, very little chance of success, a total experiment”. He went on to say, “the work you will do on this path won’t necessarily be acknowledged at all. This path is work for future lifetimes, not just for you, but for others as well”.

To say this was a hard moment for me is an understatement. I’d never heard of this happening to anyone before, and I had no one to consult - ‘is this a thing that happens?’ If it wasn’t such a visceral experience, I was sure I could later talk myself into it never having had happened at all. In my heart though, I knew it was real. I knew it was happening. Everything else my Teacher had ever told me had eventuated.

The first path - the one I could have created on a vision board, was clear and bright. I felt pride, and an easy going lightness fill my being when I looked at it. The other path was less clear. Murky, even. I saw mountains to climb, I saw an image of myself pulling people over a massive canyon, from one side of something to another. I saw a lot of effort, and then I saw myself in future lifetimes, with many of those same people, working together, building things.

What I felt on that path though, brought me to tears. It was something I’d never experienced before but had yearned for deeply. It was’t exactly happiness, it was much deeper than that. The only word for it was purpose. I felt committed to something that was bigger than me. Something I would die for. I felt connected to a group of people that felt like family but were not my family. I wondered who they were, and if I was really going to meet them in this life. It all seemed so far fetched, but here was my Teacher, whom I trusted, offering me both possibilities. Both I would have to work for, but they resulted in completely different outcomes. The first path felt like it would relieve me of my current worries - the worries you have at night, like you aren’t get anywhere in life, and everyone else is surging ahead; and yet, the other felt deep and true, like my soul could acknowledge it as real work. Path number two would give my soul satisfaction.

My Teacher was clear there was no judgement either way. He said I’d earned the choice, and I tentatively, wordlessly asked, if I could maybe, have a bit of both lives? He was clear in his answer that I could not. Stepping on to one path led to the immediate dissolution of the potentiality of the other. It was the first time I really understood the gravity of choices.

I hate to admit that this was a hard decision for me to make. One path gave me a tantalizing vision of everything on the current list, and the other one was complex, confusing, contained far less certainty, and apparently had a high probability of failure. My Teacher had also explicitly shown me, that the tasks inherent in it were not short term propositions. This was the long road in its truest form. Not only did it not necessarily involve any of the culturally recognised accolades for a job well done, he had also indicated that there was every possibility it would also, ‘completely ruin your reputation’. He told me that there was every chance that in this lifetime, if I committed to this path, I would be mocked and derided, or at the very least, be greatly misunderstood.

With a deep breath, and a lot of hesitation, I chose the harder path. I surrendered completely my ideas of what I thought I was here for.

That choice instigated a great change in me. From the outside it looked like nothing had happened, but internally, I started to take my incarnation even more seriously than I had before. I made everything as clean as I could. By that I mean, I fell in love with my life, exactly as it was. It all felt so precious all of a sudden; like I should be aware of the hours, minutes and days. The house I was renting was not what a lot of people would put on a vision board (ha!), but I made it as beautiful as I could. I appreciated all of it and what it gave me. What money I had, I started to care for and pay attention to. I took courses to learn more about it. I nurtured myself and my body like I actually was really very precious. I nurtured my relationships with my kids and healed a lot of my own childhood wounding, because I could see the child in me really needed it. Without the pressure of “manifesting my dream life”, I relaxed. My life was a dream. I meditated and prayed that when it was time, I would know what to do next. I kept myself quiet during that time.

The thing about the vision board I would have created prior to that meditation, is that it would have been fine, but it would have been created from the understanding of reality I had at that time. We create within the limitations of our minds and our current level of visioning ability and consciousness. It’s our best projection from our current standpoint.

What my Teacher didn’t tell me, probably because he wanted me to learn it for myself, was this - when we are surrendered in a certain way, when we are deeply invested in, and cultivating and nurturing our current lives, good things tend to unfold for us naturally. There are often surprises in store, and when we get too prescriptive with the Universe, we might end up missing the actual point of the incarnation. As the Team say to me so often, when I think I want something, the kind of thing that would go on a vision board, “you don’t even know what’s good for you”. Ouch.

Because most of the time, the agenda of the Universe is to give you what you actually came here for. What you said you wanted before you even got here, and the truth is, that the reason people have incarnated now is to assist the planet in its transition from one age of consciousness to another. This time is about our collective evolution. This time is about, “how am I here to help?”, and when that becomes the focus, our individual needs become met in ways that we couldn’t even have imagined.

Sometimes, if we’re doing everything “right” and things are still falling apart, its because that falling apart is the greatest thing the Universe can give you. Whatever is showing up that is not on your vision board for 2026 is the thing that you need to meet with gracious enthusiasm. We are not always in charge of the ways we are supposed to be elevating. The truth is, if you’re reading this, the Universe needs you for something right now. You’re on notice. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you have a job, a mission, a role.

Things might not show up on your schedule. If you’re sincere in your desire to “live your purpose” (truthfully, your purpose is to do whatever is in front of you right now-, happily) - what I have found when I don’t set the agenda, but take my cues from the actual, cosmic agenda, is that I end up with a life full of very good things. They just keep coming. I have no attachment to them, because I didn’t ask for them, so it ends up feeling like I’m being courted by the Universe, and its lovely. Then when things “go wrong”, I don’t feel personally affronted, or like I’ve done something wrong, I now just know to keep doing what’s right in front of me, and know that energy keeps moving and I will too. The story is never over, there is a surprise around every corner.

I invite you to be open to this being a good thing, even if it doesn’t look like your vision board. There are possibilities available that we can’t even fathom from our current standpoint, and a much bigger picture at play. Question deeply if what you want is what you really want, or something you were shown by the culture you’re living in. Getting what you want might serve your mental ideas of what a good life is, but what I had to question for myself when I was absolutely living the result of everything I had wanted - was it fulfilling the deeper aspects of me?

Years later, after I had dismantled the first life I had built, what ended up really fulfilling me were a lot of things that were outside of my own personal interests. Collectively, the Team tell us this is the evolution of current consciousness, that collectively we are growing past our own self centric states, to serve something bigger than our individual selves. Whatever this path is that I am now on, has stretched and grown me. My heart, my calibre, my childlike belief that everything should fit within my understanding, and if it doesn’t, an error has been made.

So there’s no need to abandon our vision boards altogether, reaching for things is good, lifting our frequency is better than spiralling downwards - but what I’m proposing is an expansion of the vision board that allows room for the mystical turn of fate, the plot twist that changes everything. I’m proposing that we become more fluid, more open to course corrections from the Universe. What I’m really proposing I guess, is that our vision boards become shared Google docs with God. Write your plot, but give edit permissions to the Universe. Let your whole life could be the ultimate collaboration.

We’re all at the beginning of a collective journey that is remarkable, and fraught, and tender. Truly anything is possible right now. All we really have to guide us is the wisdom of our internal vision, the nudges and encouragement from Spirit, and the collective wisdom of all of the elements of the cosmos, beings known and unknown, seen and unseen - all of it is so, so much more than our vision boards can hold.