Our Vision for the New Year
Welcome to the new year and thanks for joining us on this adventure.
This week we wanted to share one of the rituals we do to focus our thoughts and energy for the year.
A quiet evening, writing prompts, conversations, and vision boarding is where it starts. It’s here that we lay out the map for our personal and couple goals, desires, and the results we seek. An activity that we have been doing yearly since 2015 when our first vision board was full of things like owning a gym, writing a book, traveling full time, retiring from police work and even a picture of an Airstream that looked eerily like the Queen. Several times a year we would revisit it, adding new stuff, updating the progress of the old, and finding satisfaction in seeing dreams become reality.
This year as we worked through the process a common theme kept coming up. “Community and healing” were terms we could not seem to get away from.
Our conversation centered around building caring communities, that are capable of “seeing, hearing, and healing” the people that make them up.
A space where we could facilitate healing through open and honest conversations with people that have different experiences, opinions, and “truths”. Conversations where the goal is not to be right or wrong, but to learn and understand.
“The more you travel, the less you know”
It has become apparent to us in our travels that people desire connection. They want to feel important, valued, and heard.
Few things fulfill this like a great campfire conversation, or a random discussion in a walk about where two paths’ cross. This past month we have been blessed by abundant opportunities to do both.
Part of our Quartzsite crew, 2023
From left to right, Ji, Virginia, Don, Mela and us
Quartzsite, AZ
Sitting around the campfire learning from such great people as Don and Mela, Virginia, Kevin, Mo, Amanda, and Scott were beyond our expectations when we arrived here. Getting to understand their “why” for choosing a nomadic lifestyle. Better understanding the “how” each group uniquely makes it happen and the loving the fact there is no right way to live life. You just have to choose too “live” it!
On my daily walk abouts, I befriended a solo traveler, Gary. Each morning, I would see him sitting by his fire looking at the mountains to the east. As I walked by, we would both say hello and go on about our days. Then one evening, when Andrea and I were on a walk together, Gary called out to us as we passed by. He wanted to know if we had ever seen the “Sleeping Indian”. Unsure of what he meant, we hesitated with our answer, to which he quickly pointed to the mountains and said, “the Sleeping Indian”. In our first few days here, and all the walks we had been on, we had never noticed that mountain to the east, indeed did look just like a “Sleeping Indian” thus its name. As the days continued to grow, my conversations with Gary on my walks got more personal and we grew to enjoy the few minutes we would share each day. One day, he asked if I wanted to know why he was alone. You see Gary’s wife, died four months ago, only a year into their dream of being full-time travelers and shortly after his retirement. Now instead of having coffee with her each morning, he makes a fire, sets his chair facing east, and talks to his wife while looking at her favorite mountain, the “Sleeping Indian”.
At most points in our lives our paths would have never crossed, or if by chance they did, both would have been too busy to stop and learn from one another. It fills our cups to listen and learn from the experiences of others, to hear their story, and we love the feeling of a great conversation with new lifelong friends.
As we worked through our vision for 2023, it became clear that if we focus our energy on community and healing, we will find abundance. Abundance that comes in many forms, if we slow down enough to recognize and enjoy it.
Our ukulele jam session
What will you focus on in 2023? Have you ever done vision mapping to help guide your energies?
Let us know. We’d love to hear from you.
See you down the road!