Your Personal Treasure Map
‘No self-respecting, swashbuckling buccaneer would set out in search of buried treasure without a map. Why should you? A personal treasure map is a collage of your ideal life that you create as a visual tool to focus your creative energy in the direction you wish to go.
First of all, you’ll have to visualize your ideal life. Take a moment to get quiet and go within. Close your eyes. Now see how you live and who lives with you. What does your dream house look like? What part of the country is it in? Do you have children? How many? What type of garden do you have? Is there a gazebo in the backyard? A swimming pool? Do you have any pets? What kind of car is parked in the driveway? What kind of job do you have? Are you publishing your own newsletter, directing a feature film, or raising thoroughbred horses? Now see if you can’t find pictures in a magazine to match your ideal ones. Cut them out and create a collage on an 8×10 piece of poster board. If you can’t find images to match your dreams, tap into the creativity deep within and draw a picture. When you’re finished, find a photograph of yourself that you especially like. Make sure it’s a picture of you looking radiant and happy. Cut yourself out and place yourself in the center of your treasure map collage.
When making your personal treasure map, think fun. Think delight. Think seven years old. This not not an intellectual exercise in existentialism. This is a wish list to your universe. Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves. We must learn to respect them. We must learn to listen. “Put your ear down next to your soul and listen hard,” the poet Anne Sexton advises.
Above all, remember that no one needs to be privy to your personal treasure map but you. Our wishes for the future, our hopes, our dreams, our aspirations are our truest treasures. Guard yours in the sanctuary of your heart. Keep your personal treasure map in the back of your illustrated discovery journal and look at it often. When you do, give thanks for the fulfilled life you are leading. The greatest secret to living a happy and fulfilled life is the realization that everything is created in our minds before it manifests itself in the outer world. We must believe it before we can see it. You have to know what you’re digging for, before X can mark the spot.’ -Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
My ideal life… I have no idea what my ideal life would be. I think the answer would change given on the time of day you ask and how many children are home and behaving badly.
Remember, do not ask me these questions at 9:00 pm at night on a school night. My car would be a two seater sports car and a home in Paris where I write novels all day long…. by myself!
My personal treasure map…. not sure what it will look like.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. -Matthew 6:21