We are only 11 days into the new year, but I have hit the ground running. Something I didn’t expect, although it makes sense. 2024 is to be the year of action, and I don’t know about you, but I have big plans. After reverberating my 2023 through my reflection workbook, I realized that last year was very much about input. It took me an entire two years to finally heal from my divorce and arrive at a space where I feel like I can breathe again and see the light, so I’m ready to step into my wild life this year.
I brought in the new year with a party, which I hope will be the guiding light for the rest of the year. I traveled to Pharr, Texas, where my parents currently live as snowbirds to escape the arctic tundra that Nebraska becomes in the winter. They don’t just live anywhere. They specifically live in a retirement community, and the residents are anything but typical retirees. I can barely get my mom on the phone because of her busy social schedule. We spent the weekend playing cards, laughing, and eating.
I found myself getting talked into going to the NYE dance at the clubhouse. In addition to my attendance, it was requested I wear sequins. Let me make it clear, if you don’t me that well, I’m not a sequins kind of girl. I only own one sparkly shirt because I accompanied my sister to a Celine Dion concert two years ago, and she insisted at that time, too, that I wear sequins. Do you see the theme here? My sister is the sparkle in my life.
From the moment we walked into the community center until we left just before midnight, I couldn’t stop smiling. I felt like I was standing in my own skin (minus the flashy shirt). We brought down the average age quite a bit, and my sister made the comment, “Isn’t it nice that we can have a good time and not get hit on.” I wasn’t sure that wasn’t going to happen; we looked good! So much so that I was approached by a gentleman who stood too close to my face for my comfort and jokingly interrogated me about where I had found the fountain of youth. I laughed it off, but as I found my seat and sat down, the interaction brought tears to my eyes. 2023 was a struggle for me physically and mentally. I spent the year trying to figure out what was wrong and finding no answers and little relief. I was unable to run, lift weights, or do yoga. Some days, even walking was painful. I put a lot of effort into healing my body, mind, and spirit. So, to end the year in a dance hall, getting ready to get my boogey on with my two favorite dance partners, my mom and sister, and feeling beautiful and strong for the first time in years, I knew I was on my way back.
In 2024 I am going to RISE.
A word of the year is a guiding principle or mantra that helps direct actions, decisions, and intentions. It can act as a reference point for making important decisions when you want to align with your goals, intentions and values. By the time I was in Pharr I had already been mulling around my word for 2024. I go through the process of choosing a word every year because having one word to sum up all the intentionality you place on your plans for the year is truly a lighthouse and easy to remember.
There are 24 intentions I’ve generated to go along with my word RISE, but they all encapsulate the theme. Little did I know, the energy I am directing toward updating myself, rebranding my business, and stepping into my wild life a little more authentically would manifest quite so quickly.
After dancing into the new year, I returned to Dallas and taught a string of vision board workshops.
How it happened…
Back in December, I had an intuitive nudge to host a vision board workshop. This felt like the right year to share the process I have been doing for years. My first “vision board” was created as a kid by grabbing the JcPenney and Sears catalogs and cutting out images of my future wedding dress, husband, children, and more, side by side with my cousin, and taping them into our notebooks. I do believe in the power of manifestation, and it feels like the time you need it too.
It is evident to me that I would offer a VB workshop online for my friends and clients who don’t live locally, but I put a secret wish out there to host one locally. Then I left it alone and didn’t make any plans.
Vision boards are a visual representation of the dreams, goals, and intentions you set for yourself. More than a collage project, you are intentionally setting your energetic compass on what you truly want to pull into your sphere of awareness when you create a VB.
A few weeks later, my phone rang from an unknown number, and a message was left. As I listened, my jaw dropped. A local shop owner has a party room at her ice cream shop and uses it to host not only parties but events for the community. She had the idea to host something for the new year and asked her friends if they knew anyone who could offer an event. I don’t know what angel out there mentioned my name, but she did, and it led to the shop owner calling and asking me to host a vision board workshop in her space. Right before Christmas, we scheduled it, and just like that, my workshop manifested.
When the first class sold out in a day, we added another workshop to the schedule, and when that one filled up, a third was added that eventually sold out as well. My online workshop also began filling up. By that point, I knew 2024 would be big, and not just for me.
A fan of numerology, it does not go unnoticed that 2024 adds up to the number 8. Eight is the number of abundance, power, and bringing the energy of momentum into play. This year will show us that what we put time and energy into will grow….abundantly. If you haven’t yet taken the time to find clarity around what you want this year, I invite you to do so now. Don’t wait. Eleven days into this year and I’m already manifesting more than I imagined possible.
I've included your guided vision board workbook below.