Target audience and function
Wouldn’t it be great when you could create an overview of everything that is on your mind to see clearly what it is all about and where your priorities are? The poster shows a collection of landscapes and weather types. It works like a mirror, it’s function being to represent how a person thinks and feels, what he/she believes and to facilitate ideation. The landscape poster is meant to represent life, work or a situation. It is your story that gets depicted on the poster. The map which is created shows overview and coherence. The process of filling in the poster with stickers is felt as a real experience. The landscape poster is self-explanatory and easy to work with. It can be used by many different target audiences.
The landscapes
Each landscape on the poster has a meaning which relates to the mood it evokes. This is clarified in more detail below. The descriptions of the landscapes serve as illustration. You can use them when your associations correspond to the descriptions. Naturally, it’s also possible that a particular landscape evokes a completely different image for you or completely different feelings in you. In that case, just start from your associations with the landscapes.
- Dense pine forest: dark and overgrown woods. You can easily get lost in them. You can’t see where you’re going and you don’t know what awaits. You can’t see the wood for the trees.
- Ice with a hole in it: you can slip on the ice and fall. There can be holes in the ice. It demands constant alertness.
- High cliffs: imminent danger. You can see big problems and risks ahead.
- Stormy sea: the sea is vast and unpredictable. During a storm, you discover the huge power of the wind and waves. It makes you realise how small and vulnerable you are as a human.
- High winds: no chance to stand still, you’re swept along by events and changes.
- Swamp with sinking sands: you don’t know where the ground under your feet will bear your weight and where you will sink.
- Rainy landscape: gloomy, dismal, sad, shivery, chilly. That’s how it feels when the rain has been frequent and lengthy.
- Cave: you can retreat here in safety. The cave symbolises a moment in which you want to be on your own for a while. The cave symbolises reflection and contemplation.
- Uphill path: the path symbolises development, a path of growth. You can choose the point in the path at which you are now. Mind you, the bottom and the top are different, but there is no ‘worse’ or ‘better’ in the journey.
- Hidden lake with spring: symbolises emerging potential, new inspiration or insight bubbling up. Something new is happening or there’s a change brewing at the inside.
- Misty area: you can see very little in the mist. Everything is blurred and mixed up. You don’t know which direction to take.
- Rolling green hills: hills and dales stand for a pattern of alternating up and down, plus and minus. They symbolise a ‘normal’ variable existence.
- Meadow with flowers: you feel at ease here. Spontaneous, fun, you feel alive and happy. Everything is just right.
- Hot desert: it’s arid and almost nothing grows there. Life in the desert is tough. If you have to cross it, it’s a gruelling journey.
- Open, empty expanse:you have a lot of questions and no idea what’s going to happen, but you are open to it and neutral: you just don’t know (yet).
- River: flowing and meandering from the source towards the sea. Water symbolises awareness or flow.
- Palm beach: a tropical climate, rich and diverse nature. Well-being and satisfaction.
- Calm sea: enjoying a panoramic view that brings tranquillity; it’s lovely to float or sail on a tranquil sea.
- Island: a place to be alone with no distractions and a wide view. It can be bare rock or a fertile place. You can feel isolated and/or enjoy the freedom and simple life.
Landscapes of the here & now
The landscapes on the map represent the here and now. Are you asked in the lifemap to indicate which landscape represents your happiness? Then that question is about your happiness at the moment. If you are asked about opportunities in your life, then you choose a landscape that represents the opportunities that exist now, not in the past or future. When you are asked what your freedom is like, you choose a landscape that tells you what your freedom is like at the moment and where you live and work now.
Choosing landscapes
Take a look at the landscapes with the explanation above in mind. What mood does a landscape evoke in you? What do you feel about it? What thoughts does a landscape evoke in you? What do you see in it? What do they stand for? On the basis of questions you will choose landscapes yourself while working with a lifemap. Keep the following points in mind:
- When choosing a landscape, there is no wrong or right, just your representation of how you think and feel about something.
- In some cases the landscapes overlap each other. Do not worry about that, it will not affect your choice or the outcome.
Impact landscape poster and stickers.
- There are too many stickers to cover everything; you cannot help but use your intuition to choose.
- The landscapes take you out of your mind and bring you into your feelings.
- You portray the reality of the here and now; from there you can easily see the next steps.
- You create an overall picture; everything you find important is charted.
- You have your feet on the ground and you have the opportunity to visualise goals, dreams, ideas and next steps – on the same poster.