The new year should come with a new road map, according to Pati Velasquez. No, not of the Old Pueblo’s streets, but of a life to be well lived in the coming year.
It’s a lofty ambition but maybe some people don’t know how or even where they want to end up.
Pati Velasquez has an answer and is ready to teach it at her vision board workshop at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 18. These boards help articulate goals, dreams and aspirations for 2025. Visualizing goals and dreams helps manifest them.
“You have to know what you don’t want so that you know what you want,” she said. “A lot of us are unhappy where we’re at and we want to be in a different place. However, we don’t know where that different place is — especially after the holiday season.”
Personal and spiritual worlds can become confusing and painful.
“We know what we never want to feel again, what we never want to go through again, so then we know exactly what we do want,” Velasquez said. “Going through that stuff eliminates the confusion.”
Velasquez’s workshop includes poster boards, adhesives, stickers, affirmations, glitter, scissors and magazines to fire the imagination. She said she hopes to bring out participants’ inner child, reminding them of the days when they used scissors and paste.
“Everything is at a touch of a finger on social media,” she said. “With a vision board workshop, it’s old school. You might have a stack of books or old magazines at your house or your nana’s or tía’s home. You get those and flip through them and anything that catches your eye or catches your heart, you cut it out. You come to the workshop with a collection of things.”
She said using these old tools might awaken memories of what participants once thought they would like to do or experience. The process can also help heal old wounds.
“I think a lot of people’s wounds are childhood wounds,” she said. “I want to come in with old-school materials and put everyone back into their childhood self so they see the world as what it could be before the world (expletive) on them, before they had a heartbreak, before they lost a parent or before something really traumatic happened to them.”
Velasquez is her own best advertisement; she can attest to the power of a vision board.
“I’ve done one when I was in a different state of mind and I ended up getting everything that was on there without realizing it,” she said.
Velasquez, who specializes in floral design, also hosts learning experiences around traditions or the seasons, like a crown made of flowers for Day of the Dead or an Easter table decoration.
She offers private workshops, too. For example, she will teach bridal party members how to make their bouquets. Velasquez can customize workshops for any individual or group, and she is willing to travel.
“I can gear workshops to the needs of every specific person, whether it be a private event or a group of women who lost their husbands, or a group of women who are finding their way after a divorce,” she said.
For the vision board workshop, Velasquez is hopeful she can help participants find their way into the new year.
“Let’s visualize and put it into a physical form where you can see what you want every day because the way the universe works — I like to think it works — with manifestation and affirmation,” she said. “The energy goes where you put it.”
Vision Board Workshop
WHEN: 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 18
WHERE: El Chinito Gordo Restaurant, 2920 N. Oracle Road, Tucson
PRICE: $30, which includes all materials. Participants may bring their own photos, too.
INFO: To make a reservation or for more information, text 520-405-9360 or email 77lotusdesigns@gmail.com. Once she receives the reservation, she will call to confirm.
