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. Find a place where you can sit down or lie down. Relax and try 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? A swimming pool? Do you have any pets? What kind of car is parked in your driveway? What kind of job do you have? Are you publishing your own newspaper, directing a feature film, or raising thoroughbred horses? Now see if you can find pictures in magazines to match your ideal ones. Cut them out and create a collage on an eight- by ten-inch piece of posterboard. 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 photo of yourself that you especially like. 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 is not an intellectual exercise in existentialism. This is a wish list to the 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 wonderful 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.