go to the boards

Lynne Bernstein
Aug 25
3 min read

***2018 sketch of what would become our yard***

Another journey around the sun for me and for my husband, culminating with a milestone birthday and a big celebration to match. Sparing you the minute details of an incredibly eventful year, what I will say is I am humbled, overwhelmed and so grateful for the abundance the last 12 months has brought fo my husband and me and our family. It is with extreme gratitude and a huge exhale that I write this post a month later than intended; as when we hit the end of July we were in the final sprint, creating closure on our massive outdoor project and planning the celebration for Ted's 70 years of life and all of the happenings and accomplishments over the last 12 months.

Last year my birthday post was my manifesto and the consideration of the “simple” question, what do I want to do with the rest of my life. If you missed it or want some renewed inspiration for creating your own manifesto, you can find it here:

So, what did my consciously created life look like over the past 12 months? I chose home and family, creating beautiful experiences and spaces, and fulfilling one of my wild haired dreams – building a labyrinth in our backyard. The space design is both a work of art and a reflection of the things that are important to me -nature, well used spaces, beauty, design aesthetics, comfort, home, family and friends. It took a village, a landscape architect with vision, contractors who are themselves artists, hardworking reliable workers, collaborative vendors, and friends – the list is long. The result, a co-created work of art! While my other artistic endeavors took a back seat, every creative and artistic impulse was poured into this space which now holds and nurtures and heals all who enter (and us every day!).

In my manifesto I reflected on relationships, despite the insanity of construction nearly every day for 11 months I created space for calls, coffees, extended travel, family trips, caretaking, dinners with people who mean the most to me, weekly and biweekly touch bases with friends and colleagues all over the world. These relationships nurtured, sustained, inspired and grew me.

While often knocked off my meditation and morning journaling practice by our hero, Lencho, and his 8am jack hammer, I made sure to find my way back to center and begin again, and again, and again.

Starting in July 2024 we moved at lightning speed from URGE to GULP to GO - and we went!

The year was very much marked by the less esoteric, philosophical, visionary and aspirational. It was the get down to business year, the year of spreadsheets and bank accounts, analysis, investment decisions, project plans, lawyers, accountants, physical labor, just plain old-fashioned execution – we got shit done!

Now What? Many of you are familiar with vision boarding, a great tool for tapping into your dreams and visioning what, where and who you want to be, to aspire and tell the story of the future of you. I love making vision boards and they are often a homework assignment somewhere on the coaching journey for my clients. It’s all too tempting to quickly pivot once the dream is realized and say WHAT’S NEXT and start vision(board)ing it.

However, what I realized is that I'm exhausted. And that before even thinking about visioning from here I need to pause, appreciate, recover and celebrate…celebrate the visions made real, the magnificence of living on purpose, and the people in my life, so to this end I decided to create a celebration board.

Those of you familiar with the Hidden Artist Quest Cards Deck I created, are familiar with the creative challenges designed to crack you open and create literal wholeness through the creative process and making of art. Here’s an assignment for you to do just that:

Step away from the check lists and to do’s
Pick a time frame and create your own celebration board, use your own photos or representative photos or even objects.
Even if there was tough stuff in it and it wasn’t all roses and sunshine, dig deep into your photos, your memories and find the evidence of your life well lived.
When you create it notice the story it tells
What’s it’s impact on you.
Call that out in a word and superimpose that word over your creation.

If when you create your celebration board, you don’t “like” what you see there, if you’ve missed the mark and find you didn’t live on purpose or fell short of realizing your dreams, simply begin again. It's a new year, a new moment, this is where your vision board comes in – create it, find the urge, the spark and get to work making your dreams come true!

in gratitude,