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Book Review: Re-inventing your life with The Vision Board by Joyce Schwarz

Does The Vision Board live up to its sizzling hype? The online book preview looks like a big budget movie trailer with dramatic music, flashing images, and key points scrolling over a fast-panning image of the ocean. I wanted to find the answer for myself!

When I received the book, I was immediately impressed by the rich appearance of the hard cover with its royal-looking embellishments matching those of the online book trailer. A tasteful variety of font styles and colors are used on the cover. A stunning montage of visionary art is wrapped around the front, spine, and back cover.

I felt warmly invited in to a new world as I opened up the book to read it. I was greeted by colorful photographs (I counted 107 photos throughout the book) and clear, how-to language about what to do to create a new vision and vision board of your ideal life.

The first chapter was stimulating as it explored the ideas of group and individual visioning, the differences between visualizations and visioning, and clarifying your purpose in life. It became immediately clear that anyone with a desire to deepen the quality of their life can do so. Each concept was infused with enthusiasm and a persuasive, you-can-do-it spirit.

The second chapter helps you define the current vision statement of your life. Well, this was enough to get my creative juices flowing as my own new vision statement appeared clearly in my mind. Light blue activity pages began popping up with guidelines to empowering exercises. This chapter continued its inspiring tone with how to choose the most powerful images and words and how to make physical, visual, and auditory reminders of them.

By this point I was writing fast and furiously in my journal as idea after idea flowed to me. The answer was YES, this book lived up to its hype!

I picked up a pair of scissors and flipped through magazines, cutting out my defining words and images as they lept out at me. I grabbed some glue and added the pieces to my vision board, which enlivened and expanded the concepts I already had.

So I was just in chapter two and Joyce Schwarz’s book had already sprung something open in my heart and changed my life, as Jack Canfield had predicted it would on the cover!

The following chapters presented more key elements about the process of making a vision board. I found the many personal stories of people and their vision boards to be inspiring and motivating. Creating vision boards as a couple, a family, with an organization, or for a special event is covered. Effective affirmations and Law of Attraction principles are expressed.

It is not a simplistic book, as it presents the values of gratefulness and embracing the unknown, ambiguous qualities of the human experience as well as the straightforward decisions you can make to empower your life. Again and again, the book coaxes the reader to define and refine their core values and choose action that would best support those values.

The book was so rich and meaty that it took several days for me to digest it. I plan to head back to it many times in the future for fresh ideas.

I found The Vision Board to be a convincingly powerful catalyst to revise and re-vision your evolving life. More than a nudge, it’s a loving kick-in-the-pants to start directing your own life rather than haphazardly drift along. Shift truly happens.

Author: Joyce Schwarz, http://www.Ihaveavision.org
Reviewer: Kelly Athena, http://www.KellyAthena.com

The Vision Board by Joyce Schwarz, 2008
Harper Collins Publishing

Book Review: A Twist on the Law of Attraction: Gregg Fraley's Jack's Notebook

Kelly Athena’s Book Review of Jack’s Notebook, by Gregg Fraley

Through an unforgettable tale of mystery, danger, and romance, Gregg Fraley presents his passionate ideas about Creative Problem Solving. As his story unfolds, the precise, yet flexible process of problem-solving unfolds with it. Challenges on every level of life—personal, business, relationships, health, and well-being—are addressed.

To me, this book is essentially a helpful course in making the “Law of Attraction” and “manifestation” work for you—but in practical, logical language that never mentions those terms. Gregg Fraley shows the reader how to clear away the debris of cluttered thinking and unexamined living, and uncover the passion, clarity, and confidence hidden in their heart.

The lists, flow charts, and spreadsheets at the back of the book serve as excellent guidelines to the CPS process. His techniques can rewire you brain into an exponentially powerful force that can resolve the most entrenched challenges you face—and have a fun, creative time doing it!

Reviewer's website: http://www.kellyathena.com
Author's website: http://www.greggfraley.com

My Book Review of The 99th Monkey by Eliezer Sobel

Navigating the enigmatic terrain of spiritual discovery and self-doubt, Eliezer Sobel keeps us turning the page as he leads us along the razor’s edge of intermittent flashes of glorious connection and his frustration of feeling disconnected and incomplete.

Eliezer’s odyssey takes us from New York to Santa Cruz, Jerusalem to Pushkar, and Actualization workshops to Zen as he is compelled by the call to true enlightenment.

This entertaining, hip memoir intertwines vulnerable sensitivity with intelligent wit. We find ourselves rooting for his fulfillment as he chases his dream of internal transformation around the world with a variety of spiritual teachers. Wending through the oases of satisfying truth and the mirages of anxious seeking, the author mirrors our own yearning for a permanent peak experience instead of the unsustained glimpses we experience.

His heartfelt journey reflects all of ours, and reaffirms the truth that we hold all our own answers, and deep within are “something natural, free, and beautiful.” In bringing this truth home to us, Eliezer proves to be more of a wise way-shower than the stubborn monkey he claims to be!

My VisionBoard


My vision board is a constant reminder of the happy, healthy, productive life I've given myself permission to have! It was fun to make, and I can modify it any time.