AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Every New Year's, countless people make resolutions. This is going to be the year we start to diet and exercise, meditate more, save money to buy a house, just be our best selves. But some of us may need to visualize our resolutions to keep us accountable. Lately, social media has been encouraging people to create a vision board to manifest their hopes and desires, either online or the old-fashioned way, with magazine cuttings, a poster board and some glue. To tell us more about vision boards and why they're so popular is author and spiritual teacher Gabrielle Bernstein. Welcome to the program.
GABRIELLE BERNSTEIN: Well, I think I manifested you, honestly.
(LAUGHTER)
RASCOE: Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. We're going to talk about some more manifesting. So, you know, I mentioned the idea of a vision board. When I think of a vision board, I think of, like, magazine clippings of, like, your new career or your new home or your fine husband - like, positive scenes and words glued to a large cardboard poster. But for those who are unfamiliar with the world of vision boarding, tell us more about them.
BERNSTEIN: So vision boards are a place where we can post images visually somewhere - so putting it on a poster board or putting it on a refrigerator. And the idea of creating a vision board is to really claim your desire and to repeatedly see it. Because when you look at something enough, you start to believe it. And I, as a spiritual teacher, will say, when you believe it, you receive it. And it might sound woo-woo (ph) to people here at NPR, but you know what? It works (laughter).
RASCOE: Some people listening may be thinking, like, why do you have to do a vision board? Why not just make a list of things you want? But it sounds like what you're saying is the visual act of seeing it helps you to imagine it more. It helps it to feel more real.
BERNSTEIN: It helps it feel more real, and it also ignites a feeling. So one of the qualities of being a super attractor, as I call it, or a manifester, is to feel the feeling of what it is that you want to attract into your life. So for the sake of vision boarding, when you look at that image, it will ignite a emotional feeling, a connection within you. And that feeling - assuming it's a good feeling, because you want to put the good stuff up on the board - is going to really create momentum behind your attracting power, to really attract that desire into your life. It opens up your awareness of it. You start to see more of that. You start to see it come closer and closer and closer because you're feeling into it. It's really about feeling the feeling of what it is that you desire.
RASCOE: When you talk about this though, like, what do you say to those people who may be more skeptical?
BERNSTEIN: You can't just sit on your butt and make a vision board and expect that everything is going to come into your life. Some things might. Some things might show up. It just could be that synchronistic. But, you know, for years, I would take covers of my books before they would go into print, and I would ask my designer to put No. 1 New York Times Bestseller on the cover. And then I'd put that on my vision board. And it's not like I just sat on my butt and waited for my book to become a number - I - you know, I wrote the book, and they became No. 1 New York Times Bestsellers.
RASCOE: Now, why do you think at this moment a lot of social media influencers are sharing their personal vision boards, they're giving tutorials about how to make them? Why now do you think it seems to really be taking off?
BERNSTEIN: I mean, listen, you report on this every day. We're living in crisis. We're living in constant negative, low vibration. And, you know, if anyone needs a vision board, it's the people in the media. I want to, like, send, like, Vision Board 101 to the entire NPR staff.
RASCOE: (Laughter).
BERNSTEIN: You know, what you focus on, you create more of. So I think that what folks are wanting right now is to focus on the good stuff.
RASCOE: We'll leave it there. That's author and spiritual teacher Gabrielle Bernstein. Thank you.
BERNSTEIN: Ayesha, you're awesome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
