Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway offers her insights on love, relationship and how to feel like a hot tomato with wisdom and humor. As our Love and Relationships columnist, this author, interfaith minister, wedding officiant and love coach covers the gamut between marriage and menopause, romance and dating, and sex and spirituality.

She is author of 12 books, including: The Goddess Pages: A Divine Guide to Finding Love and Happiness (Llewellyn, November 2008); Pet Prayers and Blessings: Ceremonies and Celebrations to Share with the Animals You Love (Sterling Books, September 2008); Wedding Goddess: A Guide to Turning Wedding Stress Into Wedding Bliss (Penguin, 2005); and Release the Seductress Within: How to Seduce A Man and Thrill You Both (Random House, 2004). She is also author of  the e-course Find Your Spiritual Soulmate.

Laurie Sue has a very active wedding ministry in New York, marrying couples of all faiths and backgrounds. And she is coach and creator of The Soulmate Project on Beliefnet.com. She is editor of Wedlok.com.

Prior to being ordained, she enjoyed a colorful career as a journalist writing for women. She was editor-in-chief of Playgirl and Single Living, and managing editor of Women’s News. She's written for NY Daily News, Denver Post, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Ladies' Homes Journal and Woman's World.

She returned to school - seminary school - at 40 to become an interfaith minister. It was there that she met her husband, Rev. Victor Fuhrman. She married her true love at 48.



Wisdom and Humorous Insights on
Love and Relationships
from
Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway
The NYC Insiders Guide
for women who aren't kids
Books by Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway
************************************************************
Sign up for our insider newsletter
Email:  
Share/Save/Bookmark
Editors note: If you missed Rev.LaurieSue's last article, read it now. One of our favorites.
"My Eduring Relationship with the Man of Steel"
Create Your Own Treasure Map for Love

I love creating treasure maps, or vision boards, as they are called these days. They are like visual prayers and road maps to the life we want to living, and the dreams we want to make come true. 

Treasure mapping supports visualization by placing images that represent our goals, dreams and hopes right in front of our faces! It stimulates conscious awareness and conscious creation of our goals, and it acts as a visual message board for the brain. In a gentle and quite way it feeds images of our desires and goals to the subconscious mind in a way that draws us closer to our dreams.

You can create a treasure map for anything--a new job or home, for new opportunities or to travel to places you have always wanted to visit. You can use them to put forth ideas and wishes for the life you would like to live, and how you would like to look and feel.

Since Valentine's Day is coming up, it is great to use the treasure map concept to enhance your love life. Whether you are married or have an ongoing romance, if you are looking for love or want to pep up your sex life at home, a treasure map can help you focus on your goals and desires. It can be a light-hearted and fun way to discover more about the kind of relationships we desire, to improve the ones we are in, and to inspire and motivate us to bring our dreams to life! It is tool for creating the life your choose.

I don't remember where I first learned how to treasure map but I know I have been creating them in my own life since the eighties. I have been incorporating treasure mapping into my courses on attracting your soul mate since the nineties.  I found this helpful video by workshop leader Christine Kane about the modern approach to treasure maps/vision boards that can help you.




















Inspiring images tend to provide one of the fastest and most direct routes to making a dream come true. Although some people refer to this as using the law of intention, others would say it is calling upon the power of the subconscious mind to draw our desires to us. Other would say it is just about going for it!  If you add prayers, and taking action, it is a very powerful mix. So gather some gal pals and enjoy some relationship arts and crafts.   Here's how to make a “Soul Mate Treasure Map.”

1. Get the supplies ready. Buy a nice big piece of oak tag poster board and grab some scissors and stick glue. Then just sit down at a big table or on a floor with all your pictures and have a blast creating your personalized collage.


2. Create a new reality. Begin by cutting out photos, pictures, headlines, sayings from magazines and other sources that represent the images you associate with the ideal relationship and the relationship of your dreams (including any ways you would like to enhance and existing relationship). Include images that reflect the way you want to look, feel, be, behave, travel and live, such as: couples that are happy and loving, in the way you want to be with your beloved; images of life experiences you would choose as part of your life together with your soul mate.

3. Create the blueprint for your life. Just the act of looking for the pictures you want to place on the treasure map will heighten your visualization skills – and begin to stimulate images of the love you choose in your mind. As you mount them into a collage, begin to imagine – and sense -- that you are literally constructing a blue print for your life. Make sure the images you choose truly represent what you want – from couples dancing romantically, to a happy couple cooking in the kitchen … from a bride and groom at the altar, to an older couple looking happy and serene growing old together (if that’s what you want!). And get an image in there that also represents family life.

4. Look at it often. Keep this visual reminder of the love and love relationship you choose in your bedroom, or any place you can gaze at it regularly. If you are an extremely private person, or want to keep it out of the reach of others, your treasure map can be done in a low-key way and kept in a closet, or, it can be done on a smaller scale, on a journal book or a loose-leaf notebook. This is relationship arts and crafts, so be creative and have fun.

I have learned over time that we can use treasure maps to create what we truly want, and, they can also inspire into existence things we may not be a hundred percent sure about. For example, you would not want to place any images of couples fighting or not having fun. By the same token, you wouldn't want to speed up anything you are not ready for -- like images of a vacation home for retirement if you are not quite ready to retire. So use your treasure map wisely! It is a blueprint to a new reality.

Add in some inspirational quotes on love to make your treasure map even sweeter!