Episode 212: The Power of Vision Boarding with Melissa Meredith Wells
When I was a kid, I loved cutting up magazines and creating collages of things I wanted. Little did I know that I was creating a vision board!
In this episode, I’m joined by artist, author, teacher, and visualization expert, Melissa Meredith Wells. We have a conversation about how vision boards can be a tool to integrate our Human Designs into our daily lives.
You’ll hear us discuss:
What is vision boarding
Why vision boarding and what it can teach us
Tips and best practices for vision boarding digitally and the old fashioned way
Listen to the Episode:
Mentioned in the Episode:
FREE WORKBOOK: Your Human Design, Discovered
Connect with Melissa Meredith Wells:
Share the Episode:
“Vision boards are a subset of creative visualization, which is really where you’re reframing your mind. The brain has neuroplasticity. This, we know now. The fact that we can change our neural pathways, and we can change our beliefs, and we can change the things that are blocking us from getting what we want is really the aim of doing visualization.”
Read the Transcript:
Naomi Nakamura: Hi there, my friends and welcome back to The Live FAB Life Podcast. I am your host, Naomi Nakamura and I am so humbled today, to be joined by my friend, Melissa Meredith Wells. Melissa is an artist, an author, a teacher. She is a visualization expert. Today, she is joining me to talk about vision boards.
Now you might be thinking, "Huh, vision boards. How does this have to do with what you normally talk about?" One of the most common questions I'm asked from my clients as well as from other people on Instagram is, "How do I bring human design into my day-to-day life?" Then after a reading, "Okay, great. It's wonderful to have this information. How do I then lean into my design?"
There's a lot of different ways to do that. There's a lot of different tools out there. We might look to meditation and journaling and affirmations, but for those of us who are really visually oriented, those things might not land. So I want to have conversations on different tools that we can use to do that, that we may not ... It may not be the first thing that comes to mind. To me, vision boards is one of those things.
I used to do vision boards as a kid, and in our now digital world, I haven't done it in a really long time. Melissa is here to talk about, first of all, what is vision boarding and how it can it be used as a tool in our self-growth journey. How it can help transform us. Then she also shares with us practical tips on how we can create vision boards, both analog, in the classic way as well as digitally.
We talk about some really deep topics and some really light topics as well. I'm so honored that she joined me. I continually learn so much from her every time we have a conversation. With that, let's get to the show.
Hi, Melissa. Welcome to the show.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Thank you, Naomi.
Naomi Nakamura: I'm so excited for this conversation. I think, gosh, we met, what? A year, a year and a half ago. We were in the same mastermind group with Sarah Morgan, who's a past guest on this show. Yeah, I've been hearing about the work that you do.
As I've expanded my work into human design, although what you do is a really good complement to the work I was doing even before human design. I just wanted to have you on, to have that conversation and explore.
I have questions for you. Now before we get into all of that, why don't you introduce yourself and what it is that you do.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Okay. My name is Melissa Meredith Wells and I'm a creative visualization and vision board expert, and teacher, trainer, coach, author, and just a huge enthusiastic of people making, creating things that can change their life, and that reflect more of who they are.
Naomi Nakamura: I love that. My human design cognition is outer vision, so I'm very visually oriented. I personally have ... Well, correct me. I'm sure you will correct me, but when I think of vision boards, I think of myself as a child, and I used to take all of the magazines that I had and put together these collages.
I still have some of them in my storage unit, but why don't you explain to us what is vision boarding.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Well, so I'm going to pull back on that a little and go into creative visualization.
Naomi Nakamura: Okay. Great.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Vision boards are a subset of creative visualization, which is really where you're reframing your mind. The brain has neuroplasticity. This, we know now. The fact that we can change our neural pathways, and we can change our beliefs, and we can change the things that are blocking us from getting what we want is really the aim of doing visualization.
In addition to, if there's a more spiritual component to yourself, you can connect to source and that kind of thing. It's a very powerful exercise. What happens is that creative visualization can be done with visualization, using your imagination and your ability to see things, but there are some people, some actually are learning style specialists, there are some people who can't really do that, or don't do well with it.
They're much more auditory. They need to talk it out. They need to listen to things. They need to listen to visualizations and be guided that way. Other people are more into journaling and reading as opposed to seeing things. Some people are more kinesthetic. They actually need to interact, need to move in order to get this going.
I want to say, in general that, visualization is the broader umbrella here. Vision boards are a part of it. I happen to love vision boards because I went to Tufts University Museum School of Fine Arts. I started off as a fine arts painter and art historian, and then got into art therapy.
I worked with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and did some life-death transition workshops with her, and she uses art therapy with a lot of her terminally ill patients. I was so moved by how, when people create and they're doing it either with crayons or collage, all kinds of wonderful things come up.
That alchemical process, to me is amazing. That's why I focus on that with vision boards, but I just want to be clear that there are other ways of getting your vision realized. You don't have to cut out pieces of paper and glue them on a board, which is basically what a vision board is. It's a piece of paper cut out.
Naomi Nakamura: I appreciate you pulling back and providing that perspective because that very much sounds like a lot of the variables of human design.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Oh, really?
Naomi Nakamura: Yes. I'm glad you made that distinction about how we all have different ways of being creative and having things resonate, because like I said, I'm a very visual person. As we all work to our personal growth and whatnot, and we hear about, oh, affirmations and journaling.
To a degree, I'm a very strong advocate of journaling as well, but I've come to let go off what I perceived journaling to be, and to welcome if there's other different ways. That being said, the most impactful thing that comes to me is when I'm able to visually create something.
There is many different ways of doing that, whether that be photos or whatever, vision boards. Point being is that we all have different ways of going through the process. Maybe because I am such a visual person, the work that you do, it attracts me.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Yeah. Well, and I'm glad because for me, it's the easiest thing to talk about and teach. I do think that there is, when you create anything, whether you're creating a piece of art or you're doing a vision board, or you're just drawing with crayons that, there is a magical thing that happens within this.
The unconscious speaks in symbols. Our inner child gets out. We're able to get in touch with desires and wants that we really didn't know were there, especially ... Vision boards are made from getting magazines, although you can print things from the internet and this kind of thing, or you can buy my book, books.
Naomi Nakamura: We'll get into that in a little bit.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Yeah, but anyhow, the whole thing is just discovery of images that you're attracted to in the moment. As you cut them out and put them on this board and arrange them, there's often a sense of surprise about what you're attracted to. Keeping that freshness is really important.
I suggest, especially people who are visual, to do vision boards more often than just once a year sometimes. It's just good to check in and see what you're attracted to, especially if you've had some sort of life-altering experience. It's good to check in and say, "Okay. What do I really want? What are the symbols that I'm attracting in my life now, and what do they mean?" Then, "How do I get what I want?" That's the part too.
Naomi Nakamura: Right. How did you go from being this fine art professional to really focusing in on teaching vision boarding?
Melissa Meredith Wells: Okay, so-
Naomi Nakamura: I feel like this is a long journey.
Melissa Meredith Wells: No, I'm going to try to make it quick. All right. This is one of my sad marketing story. They say, "Come up with a sad marketing story." Well, that was easy for me to do because I was a fine artist. My parents were not thrilled that I chose to do art as a vocation, but I was an artist. From the beginning, it's just who I am. I'm a super creative person, artist and musician.
I chose art because I thought there would be money in it. Right? Yeah. Anyhow, I go to school, and throughout the whole thing, I started to learn about vision boards and visualization back then. I needed it so that I could stay in school, because I was paying for it. I was working a lot and then going to school, doing the academics in addition to doing all this studio work.
I used vision boards and visualization to remind myself that what I was doing was important, that it was valuable, and that I was going to somehow be okay. I wasn't going to die of overexposure and starvation, which was basically the messaging back then.
I really leaned on that stuff for my own survival, in a way, and I continue to lean on it as technology got better and better, because I was a graphic designer at the time, to make ends meet. My vision boards became more and more extravagant and beautiful.
Eventually, they were just absurd. I started to learn PowerPoint and started to make vision boards as presentations. I took vision boards as far out as I could, but in the meantime I'm still working as a graphic design, marketing. Then I became a learning style specialist and started a company in Silicon Valley, et cetera.
At the same time, I was always having my hands in the creative field. I did a lot of training for this company, and consequently ended up doing some training for ... Because I was in Santa Cruz, so we had a lot of woo-woo people.
I did creative visualization training for the Derby Girls and stuff. I was just doing it, but I hadn't thought of doing it professionally until 2015. I moved-
Naomi Nakamura: I know, the years are all blending together at this point.
Melissa Meredith Wells: I know, huh. I moved to Boston. My best friend started an art school called The House of Colors. I decided, "Okay, I'm going teach art, and that's it. I'm tired of corporate." I was done, and I was one of those people that just dropped out, and I became an art teacher. I taught art, but I also taught vision boards and creative visualization to kids, teenagers and adults.
Naomi Nakamura: In your work experience, what are some transformations that you've seen, or how have you witnessed how vision boarding has helped someone with wherever they are in their lives, even at the different stages, with all the different age groups that you've worked with?
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right. Well, I would say, and this is because it's more important to me. I'm going to talk about what happens when you make a vision board. When the vision board starts to talk to you, telling you what you want.
Naomi Nakamura: Okay. Before you go there, I want our listeners to remember, back when you were a kid, because we all did this when we were kids. We all made vision boards, whether we realized it at the time or not.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right.
Naomi Nakamura: Think about when you were doing this, back in the day and continue on, because I'm going back to those moments.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Okay, great. Yeah, because what happens is that, again, this alchemical process occurs. When someone starts to make a vision board, they're free to express desires that people don't normally get to do. We're always having to be very pragmatic.
This idea of giving time to your dreams and to things that come up unconsciously is a very powerful process. I love being the facilitator of that and witnessing it. Watching people go through this process, to me is incredibly ... I'm honored to do it. As you make a vision board, unless you're doing it as a list of to-dos, which some people do, like, "Oh, I'm going to check this box. I want this and I want-"
Naomi Nakamura: "It's the New Year's. It is time to make a vision board." What do you desire? I've actually had many conversations about this, is we tend to go to the things we think of consciously, and not really allowing or opening ourselves up to, like you said, what we might be unconscious of, or what might be lying in our subconscious that, we just didn't have any awareness. That is actually a want and a desire that we have.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right, and it's your authentic self that's wanting to express itself. Again, we have all this cultural stuff, and then we have family issues, and then we have our own BS.
Naomi Nakamura: The expectations of others, and expectations of society, and the things that we're told we should be wanting and we should be doing.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right. The things that I have witnessed from vision boards is not necessarily, "Oh, my vision board came true," because that does happen also. There is a magic to that, the manifestation of things.
For me, the real healing, the real power comes in when you start to say, "Wow, I see that now. That's totally like ... I didn't know how much I wanted that," or, "I didn't know how much I didn't want this." Right? There's these acknowledgements that come along the way when you make it.
When you're done with the vision board, now you have this thing that is talking to you every day, that's saying, "Hey, what's up, sugar? You went with them board?"
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah. It's interesting because I ... Okay. So this is the way I used to do it in my youth, is I had a stack of magazines, which was a combination of my grandma's Better Homes and Gardens and my Seventeen Magazine, whatever was around the house. You opened it up, and you gravitate to something that you're like, "Why am I gravitating to this?"
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right.
Naomi Nakamura: "What is it about this that interests me?" I guarantee you, I wasn't asking those questions of myself as a 15-year-old.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right. Right.
Naomi Nakamura: I can see how that subconscious can come through.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right. I do vision board interpretation, vision board readings. Certainly, when I've done workshops, I'll take people aside and I'll say, "Hey, I just wanted to ask you, why did you put these two things together, or why is this over there and that's over there?" because again, from art therapy, reading artwork is something I do.
I can immediately see what's going on symbolically, or maybe I'm just intuitive or trained or whatever it is. It's pretty amazing. Then when they see what they've put on there, and they get it, it's just-
Naomi Nakamura: That dawning. That awakening.
Melissa Meredith Wells: It's transformational in that way. Whenever your real honest, authentic energy is recognized, and supported, and reflected back to you because your vision board is telling you this, it's really powerful. It's very powerful.
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah. I hope listeners can see where I've been going with this. I had another guest on last summer. We talked about subconscious capacity work. Just in my own awakening, using the framework of human design, like this is how I've gotten to ... Then the work that you're doing here, it all meshes and it all comes together.
For you listeners out there, if you've been listening for a while, I hope you're beginning to see how all of these parts can play a big role in whatever journey it is that you're on.
I talked about how I used to grab all of these magazines, and got my scissors out, and my glue, and poster board or cardboard, whatever I found, and put things together. What are some of the best tips that you have for creating these things?
Melissa Meredith Wells: Okay. There's three components to vision boards, right? There's the technical, how do I make it?
Naomi Nakamura: Which I have a lot of questions about.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Okay, great. That's the technical, how do I make it? Where do I get the stuff? How long does it take? What do I need? Then there's the content piece. What am I going to have on it? What kind of vision board is this going to be? What's my intention, right? Then the third part is post-care, like-
Naomi Nakamura: "What do I do with it?"
Melissa Meredith Wells: "What do I do with it?" Yeah. Those are pretty intense. I just did a workshop for a library, and the woman was like, "I cannot believe that she worked through this [inaudible 00:16:29]." I'm like, "Yeah, they can be," or you could just-
Naomi Nakamura: Well, so let me ask you this. When it comes to technical, kind of, I guess, a combination of one and two. If I'm someone who ... I want to be open and I want to be, not attached to whatever's going to come out. I want it to come out authentically. How do I know where to source where I'm getting my magazines or whatever it is from, because in my head I'm like, "I want to own a home"?
Is that the way you do it? Then you go out and you get all of these architectural magazine, or is that mean, trying to control, or some conditioning of what it is I'm going to put out there? That's a literal question that has come to my mind.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Yeah. I'm going to answer that by saying there are two types of images. There's discoverable imagery and then there's intentional imagery. Right? It's easy to describe what intentional imagery is. That's the stuff that you would say, "Yeah, I want my own home. I'm going to get pictures of houses. I'm going to print them on the internet or I'm going to get Architectural Digest." This is, yes, it's concrete. This is what I want. It is not discoverable. That was intentional, right? You're really curating content ahead of time.
Naomi Nakamura: That's okay to do?
Melissa Meredith Wells: Of course it is. Yeah. All of this is okay. These are not taxes. This is a vision board, right?
Naomi Nakamura: I just know someone's going to have that question. "Am I doing it wrong? Is that okay? Is that my conditioning coming through?" It's okay to do that.
Melissa Meredith Wells: It's okay to make a vision board any way you want, except with a cork board and pin, and just putting what you want. That to me is like, "Don't bother."
Naomi Nakamura: I've actually done that before.
Melissa Meredith Wells: That's a list of to-dos. It's not a vision, to me. It's just like, it's a list of stuff you need to get done, which is also fine too, depending where you're at. If you're going to do classic, traditional, magical vision board, then having this intentional content, yes. Discoverable content.
Make sure that you have some items around you that are magazines, that are things that you don't really know what's inside. You don't know what you're going to be attracted to. Even if you're on the internet looking for this home, and if you happen to see an image, like an image of an owl or something. "Wow. I really love all of those owls today." Print it. That's a discoverable image, right?
Doesn't mean you're going to use it, but I'm just saying, allow images to talk to you for a while.
Naomi Nakamura: Do it without any self-judgment or any judgment at all.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right, because all of this, these are symbols. They're symbols. They represent other things. One symbol could represent four or five things. A picture's worth a thousand words. If you are attracted to, say owls for a while, well, go with it. Say, "You know what?" I don't know, like owls or horses or whatever.
Then you want some sort of source that has that more spontaneous, "I don't know what it is, but I'm going to pick it." Have magazines, or like my book, or something like that. Then I also suggest that you get paper, colored paper or decorative paper so that you can break up the space, so it's not so image-intensive. Some people want to fill up all that white space on the board, and it can be a lot.
Naomi Nakamura: That's what I used to do.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Yeah. Yeah. It's, again, people who are very creative and holistic thinkers can manage that kind of mind mapping stuff, but other people can't make heads or tail of it. They just wanted to get everything in there, and now all of a sudden they have this vision board that's explosive. It's too much.
I love to have paper there just so people can say, "You know, this is really important. I'm going to put this orange piece of paper here and cut that word out, and put it on there." It helps you organize this space. It helps you to not have to feel like you have to fill it all, because there's white space showing through. Yeah.
So anyhow, those are the two types of contents. Getting magazines can be challenging.
Naomi Nakamura: Yes.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Yeah. Yard sales are terrific.
Naomi Nakamura: I was going to say, they're not cheap these days. They're kind of pricey.
Melissa Meredith Wells: I know. The print, it's getting more and more challenging. Next door, just putting a shout-out, "Hey, neighbors. Don't recycle those magazines."
Naomi Nakamura: "Anybody have old magazines you want to get rid of?"
Melissa Meredith Wells: Yeah. I used to go to yard sales, and I did next door and freecycle for all the magazines for the school. I was always on magazine hunt.
Naomi Nakamura: No, this is great. This is really practical, actionable tips that people can use.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Yeah, and if you are just doing it really on the internet.
Naomi Nakamura: That was my next question.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Okay.
Naomi Nakamura: I don't mean to interrupt you so don't lose your train of thought.
Melissa Meredith Wells: It's fine.
Naomi Nakamura: Your thoughts on creating a vision board on Pinterest or even on Instagram.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Okay. I'm all for digital vision boards. I am. You are missing the alchemical creative process. I always suggest, do a classic vision board if you can because it's a very powerful act.
Naomi Nakamura: That is with the scissors, and the paper, and the magazines, and the glue.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Correct. What I like to do is have my vision board, my big vision board. Then I have little smaller vision boards about specialized areas because I make vision boards a lot, but that's just my thing.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Here's the thing with digital. I have Pinterest vision boards and PowerPoint vision boards. What happens is that, I find the digital stuff really great for urgent care. Right? Let's say someone just smashed your dreams, right? Someone just said something or you heard something, and you are feeling-
Naomi Nakamura: It happens.
Melissa Meredith Wells: ... a panic attack. Yeah, like, "My dreams are never going to come true because this is ... Oh, geez." What I love is having these boards on my phone, so it becomes a place to go when I need to be refreshed or I need to be reminded, "Okay, this is what I want."
Even with the Pinterest boards, you can have a bunch of quotes on there that are inspiring. You can design it in a way to help you in case you had an emergency or in case you're waiting in line at the supermarket and there's just the nonsense on your phone. It's that slot machine. Why not make the slot machine of personal growth?
Naomi Nakamura: It's a first aid kit.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Yeah, and it's also making your phone more positive. Right? It's not about Zuckerberg anymore. It's about Naomi.
Naomi Nakamura: Oh, yeah. Let's not even go there. This week has been ... He's not been my favorite person this week.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Anyhow, why not have some vision board material on there that's specific, and that will get you out of, especially if you're on Instagram and you see one more perfect-looking person and you just need help. Well, get on your phone.
There's nothing like an actual classic vision board, but there also is nothing like a good digital version of a vision board. I say, do both. It's not going to hurt you.
Naomi Nakamura: That was my little tangent. I tend to have a lot of them.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Okay. I want to talk though, about Pinterest vision boards. I mean, about, sorry, PowerPoint vision boards.
Naomi Nakamura: Wait. I was going to ask you about this. You talked about the digital and you talked about the classic. Talk to me about the PowerPoint vision boards, which, honestly, it never even crossed my mind that PowerPoint can be a tool for that.
Melissa Meredith Wells: They're amazing because the thing about PowerPoint is that you can change the size of the slides, right? Let's say I storyboard what I want, and you're able to put all kinds of stuff in there. Here you go. You can have the quotes, you can have reminders, you can have images. It's infinite. Right?
You have all this space. It's not confined to 14 x 22 poster board, it's infinite. The thing about it is that you can move the slides around. As you're moving them, it's starting to tell the story about what you want. You, kind of-
Naomi Nakamura: Oh, like a slide deck.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Correct.
Naomi Nakamura: Got it. Just to clarify, this can also be done in Keynote, Apple Keynote as well as in Google Slides?
Melissa Meredith Wells: Absolutely. Yeah. You can do it in Canva too, because everything behaves like this. I happen to like Keynote over a PowerPoint just because I'm-
Naomi Nakamura: So do I.
Melissa Meredith Wells: The interface is so sweet, so clean. The thing is, you can create a storyboard with all these different things that you want. In a way, you can start to see which things you really are resonating with at the moment. Right? It's a way to test drive what you really want, and to prioritize it, to move things around, to create some benchmarks.
Now we're getting into more goal making, and we're getting into creative visualization, because what happens here is that once you get this storyboard mapped out or your slide deck of what you want and why, depending on what kind of information you need, then you can export it as a video with music.
Naomi Nakamura: As a PDF.
Melissa Meredith Wells: As a PDF. You can resize it to 8 1/2 x 11, because you can resize.
Naomi Nakamura: You can make it your screensaver.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Make it, yeah. Right, so you can have it moving. Yeah. Actually, that's a good idea. Hadn't thought of that.
Naomi Nakamura: Thank you.
Melissa Meredith Wells: But you can make any size you want, and it's flexible in that way. Yeah, if you have Google Slides on your phone, you can do it that way. You can actually, and this is what I do for my Pinterest vision board is, I make it in Keynote first, 612 x 792. I make it like 8 1/2 x 11, which is 612 x 792 pixels. Just FYI, save yourself some time. Then I export it as JPEGs. I upload it to my Pinterest secret board.
Then that's how ... I can move things around, but I can use that PowerPoint slide deck for multiple media versions, which is why I really like it, because you can have it available to you as a PDF booklet. If you needed to print it or if you wanted to, again, just keep it as a deck, fine. Look at it on Google Slides, put it in Pinterest, put it in Instagram, make them squares.
In the old days, Google+ used to be great for online vision boards. Tumblr is terrific because it has the blog post thing, because you can make each thing a blog post.
Naomi Nakamura: You know, as you're talking about that, I just had this thought come to my head because, like I said, I do like to journal on occasion, but there's been so many times where I open my notebook and the page is blank. I'm like, "I don't even know what I'm supposed to write here."
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right.
Naomi Nakamura: I could look at my vision board, and take something from it and use it as a prompt.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right.
Naomi Nakamura: Then let the words spill out.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Absolutely. Yeah, because it changes, you know?
Naomi Nakamura: Day-to-day.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Yeah. Your feelings about, and it could be like, "I don't want that anymore. What was I thinking?" I wanted to add this too, just because I think it's an important thing to talk about in terms of the content side.
Basically, I like to use these two words for all this stuff. You're either self-actualizing or you're manifesting. I think they're very different.
Naomi Nakamura: I'm glad you're having this conversation. Yeah. No, because I was literally thinking about asking you the point about, making a vision board is not just about manifesting, because not everybody might be into that. There's many different purposes. Sorry to interrupt.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. No, absolutely. That's key. Manifestation, to me is more about physically manifesting objects or a degree. To me it's more about goal-ish things. I have a series of refrigerator magnets I made, and a T-shirt. I have this thing. I totally manifested this refrigerator. It's a magnet, and I have this series of stuff.
To me, totally manifesting is, I totally manifested my dog. I totally manifested my boyfriend. I totally manifested $10,000 or whatever. That means you're making something in reality. Right? It's popping through.
Actualization, to me is more about inner transformational process where you're self-actualizing. You're actually expressing more of who you really are, that authentic self. That to me is way more important because when you're more self-actualized, the things that you're going to manifest are going to be more true and more valuable to you. Again-
Naomi Nakamura: Again, tapping into the unconscious, the subconscious. Less about external expectations and more about internal desires.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right, and then the why and just realize, there's more and more ... I'll just make this other distinction too. In terms of manifesting your vision board and getting stuff on it to be in reality, make your vision board more real, what happens is that, there's two different ways of doing visualization.
There's, using attraction, right? Law of attraction where you're thinking about this thing, you're unlocking yourself, limiting beliefs around it. Perhaps if you believe in the universal, delivering stuff to your door like Amazon, then that's what you're open to. So there's attraction. That's it. You're attracting resources.
Then there's action, like getting yourself to do the things that you need to do, to make it happen, which is a big part of manifestation and self-actualization. You have to act. You got to do in the physical universe. Right? We have to move objects around, which is just, we're built for it.
The things manifesting, like thing are not appropriate for who we are in evolution right now, as species right now. We're still pushing rocks and stuff, which is fine. In order to do that, and to do it as a self-actualized individual, it's important to fall in love with the process of getting it.
Instead of a, eyes on the prize, I'm just going to get my thing. What happens is that once you get that thing, your dopamine levels completely fall. Now you're stuck with having want and desire again, to get the dopamine levels back up. It's actually, it's a chemical process that occurs when you do actually get what you want.
However, if you're into self-actualization, you're falling in love with the process of getting it. Getting it never really ends because the it is you actualizing. There's something to me that keeps you more engaged in growing and changing and having your vision board reflect that, and being okay with the growths and changes that occur in your vision board.
When you do journal from your vision board and you're seeing some different things, and you're writing it, well you've just grown and transformed. Yay, right? It's a good thing.
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah. Going back to something you said earlier about doing your vision boards, and to keep doing them because you may realize that something that you had before, you actually don't really want anymore, or it's not important to you. Sometimes it takes something like this visual process, to come to that realization.
Then also, to give yourself permission that it's okay to let it go, because when you let it go, you're making room for, again, what your true desires are, to come through.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right. Right. That true desire is your authentic self. It's the actual immortal, timeless piece of yourself that is always wanting to express itself. What happens is that, the more, I'm going to say, ego-driven part of ourselves, which is like, "I got to make money for this and I got to ... Whoa, my gosh."
That really does get in the way with why you're here. We're all designed, as you know from human design, to do certain things, and it's clear, right? It's like, you can see it with those charts. It's fabulous. In order to keep true, it's good to reassess what you want, and why, and boards are a great way of doing it. Yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: You also have a new book that you recently published. That's on Amazon. Can you tell us about that?
Melissa Meredith Wells: Well, okay. First off, I'm going to tell a joke about who I am.
Naomi Nakamura: Okay.
Melissa Meredith Wells: I have a YouTube channel and I had my biggest, most popular video was five minutes of silence, because I had these silent guided meditation scripts, because I was really into meditating at the time. I used it for myself.
I thought, "Oh, other people might want this too." I had these timers, and they got a ton of views. My biggest video had no images and was silent. My biggest books have no words in it, they're just pictures. [inaudible 00:32:35] get a little. I think it's so funny.
Yeah, so what happened was, when I was doing the art school, I'd have all these magazines laid out for all these different workshops. People would come and say, "Oh, we don't have magazines anymore. This is so great."
I thought, "You know," and being a graphic designer, former graphic designer I thought, "Yeah, why don't you make some clip art books for these people. Just make some vision board stuff so they have something. They don't need magazines." That's what I did.
The first one came out in 2019, and it was the first ever vision board clip art book, by the way, people. Then a bunch of people copied it. I mean, literally they copied-
Naomi Nakamura: As always happens.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Yeah. I was so afraid, and it was 2020. My life had become undone. I was just over it. I was over all of it. I just thought, "Yeah-"
Naomi Nakamura: Well, imitation is the biggest form of flattery.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Yeah, right. Well, anyhow. I wasn't happy with it, but they were all bad, and they were bad. They're just not ... The images were really cookie-cutter and the words were not that interesting. I tend to be more progressive, liberal, so my stuff had more activism stuff in it. It's a little more intellectual.
I really cull these images. I find stuff that I think has multiple meanings in it. I really agonized over these images because I'm an artist, and these other books were just like, you're just taking this whole genre and you're making it bad.
Then I got my strength back. Then last year I made what I call, now it's the Premium Vision Board Clip Art Book. There's just more images. I just think I became a better book designer. Then this year I'll be making more kits, vision board clip art kits, which I think would be great. Guiding people through a specific process for a specialized vision board.
Naomi Nakamura: I will link to that in the show notes.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
Naomi Nakamura: Any other closing words of wisdoms you have for us? I've really loved, and everything you've shared really resonated with me.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Oh, good. Thank you. Well, I'm really happy to be here. No, I think just follow me on Instagram, misswellsmedia.
Naomi Nakamura: And your website?
Melissa Meredith Wells: My website is misswells.com. Yeah. Come to my website, by the way.
Naomi Nakamura: Again, I will link to all of those in the show notes. Like I said, when we think about self-growth and how we can manifest or improve ourselves, we always come back to, we need to meditate and we need to do our affirmations. Those are all great things, but I think we all need to recognize that ... I used to beat myself up because I'm like, "Those things don't do anything for me."
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right.
Naomi Nakamura: Human Design has helped me to realize that I am so much more of a visual person, and I never thought of myself as a visual person before. Now that, again, this awareness of me grew and I realized, "You know what? I really am."
So, exploring other ways to really cultivate that in us is something that I'm curious and interested in hearing about. I think vision boarding is one way that-
Melissa Meredith Wells: It is one.
Naomi Nakamura: I just laughed because this is something that we all did as children. We just didn't even realize or appreciate the powerful tool that we have. We all have access to it. Right?
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right. Oh, yeah. No, it is. It's a powerful process. It's a powerful tool.
Naomi Nakamura: It's so simple.
Melissa Meredith Wells: I know, which makes it better, right?
Naomi Nakamura: Yes.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Yeah. For people out there who are not so visually designed, really I'm going to say, first off, these poor audio people, they do better with dialog. They have to talk to people about stuff. I would give advice to them about just discussing dreams and stuff to another person who's positive, hopefully.
Naomi Nakamura: This would be like the self-projected projectors for my listeners out there.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Thank you, or simply write out a script and read it out loud, because the audio tend to like music too. Use a song and use that as a guide to imagine what you want.
Naomi Nakamura: That's where, also playlists can come. Playlist is like the audio version of a vision board.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Exactly. Exactly, and it's perfect for audio people. Yeah. Then for kinesthetic people, I think it's really important for them. They made the board, but touch it, interact with it. When you look at it, definitely get into these good power pose. Put your hands on your hip, look at it with intent, get grounded in your body, do some toe touches or something. Do some-
Naomi Nakamura: Well, also when you come to touch, it can also be like sewing and cooking and gardening. Again, this all goes back ... There is a place for this in human design. It's called your variables. I've done a whole series on them. To your point, it aligns exactly with what you're talking about.
Melissa Meredith Wells: What's a variable, just because I haven't listened to those podcasts?
Naomi Nakamura: Those are the more advanced parts of human design beyond our type strategy authority. It's called the primary health system in human design and it talks about how we're best meant to digest information. How we best nourish ourselves. What, cognition is. What is our super sense. What is the strongest sense we have. These are all things, like audio, visual, touching.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Right. Does olfactory come into play?
Naomi Nakamura: No. Yeah. There is one for smell.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Geez. I wonder how we're going to do that. We'll have to figure that out. I'll get on that, Naomi. For all your olfactory variables on, I'll get on that.
Naomi Nakamura: Well, thank you so much. I so enjoyed this conversation. I really think it's an innovative way, something to explore, again, that we all used to do. It's so simple, and take us back to our youth.
Melissa Meredith Wells: Exactly. Bring it on back. All right. Thank you, Naomi. It's been great.
Naomi Nakamura: Thank you. Thanks for listening today. Every week there's a new episode here in The Live FAB Life Podcast. Please subscribe and leave a review. I love hearing from you. Head on over to my website at livefablife.com/podcast to submit your questions about finding your energy, and bringing your work and wellness together. See you next week. Bye.
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
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