Aryn Henning Nichols

About four years ago, each member of our family (there are three of us: Aryn, Benji, and Roxie) made Dream Boards. Sometimes called Vision Boards, they’re meant to show a visual cornucopia of your littlest-to-biggest desires.

We were having so much fun, we filled both sides! (FYI: this makes it difficult to display…) This process was pure Big Dream Energy: digging through old magazines, calendars, and journals, cutting things out, and finally gluing them together to create a collage of ideas that were just on the cusp of what could be, if we just believed (and took the next steps). 

Roxie’s board was about 70 percent dogs. And, I tell ya, these things work! Not one year later, much to Benji’s and my surprise, we said yes to letting a 60-pound animal (Athena the bernedoodle) live inside our house and become a member of our family! I wonder what Athena would put on her Dream Board? Probably treats, toys, squirrels, and scritches.

Winter is a great time for Big Dream Energy. We come to the year’s end and start a new one, all in the same season. And honestly, Big Dream Energy goes hand-in-hand with “Defining your Enough” – because maybe your enough level should include more in the fun arena (big dreams!), and less in the vacuuming the floor arena, eh? 

No matter what your days hold, remember: All you can do is all you can do.

I said this to Roxie one day, and she said, “Oh, I like that much better than, ‘Do your best.’” To which I replied, “I know, right?! Because sometimes we don’t have our best to give!” 

So: We encourage you to build your dream board with your enough in mind. Be honest about how much you want to give to yourself and others to achieve these goals. Then get after it. You are inspiring and amazing!

Making your Dream Board:

We’ve made some Dream Board prompts to help inspire your own board at home (and make it look pretty cute). Download them here, then have fun!

Inspiration:

• What have you achieved recently? Looking at this can help you focus on what you are actively trying to improve in your life.

• Don’t go over(dream)board. Too much can be overwhelming. Consider your biggest strengths – play into those. 

• Consider different aspects of your life – home, work, relationships, passions, hobbies – and build your goals / dreams around what’s most important.

• Ask yourself what you want to: try, learn, experience, accomplish, start, stop.

 Creation:

• Choose your base – poster board, construction paper, one side of a cardboard box.

• Choose your items for your board – are you cutting up magazines or using real photos or drawing things on? We did a combination of all of the above for ours.

• Arrange your items – Maybe you want to put your biggest dreams front and center? Or items that aligns with your strongest values? There’s really no right or wrong. Glue, tape, or staple them on, along with the coinciding labels we made, if you like.

Note: We encourage you to use paper because paper is awesome, but you could also make your board online with Pinterest or Canva or a vision board-specific app (there are many).

Display & Visualization:

Display your board somewhere you see it regularly. Each day, pick one or two images and imagine your life if you achieved those goals. What steps do you need to take to make it happen? Try to bring yourself one step closer, and always believe it is possible. 

Happy creating and dreaming! xox – Aryn

Lagom. It’s a Swedish word meaning “just the right amount.” “Not too much, not too little.” “Just enough.” The Swedish proverb “Lagom är bäst” literally means “the right amount is best,” and is also translated as “enough is as good as a feast.” Enough is as good as a feast! Leave it to the Scandinavians to have just the right phrase to encompass my feelings for this winter.
In a time and world where the mantra is so often more, more, more, I encourage you, this season, to say, “Better, not more.” Make choices that count – shop local, show up for your community, be present with your loved ones. Define what’s enough for you.
A lot about defining enough is being creative with your resources.

Artist Diane Knight used a piece of wood from a friend’s scrap pile to create the art on this cover. Diane considers some of her greatest work to be bringing people together in her bank-turned-home in Whalan, Minnesota (pg 15).

Shaundel Spivey wanted to give more to his community so that they had enough. He co-founded BLACK – Black Leaders Acquiring Collective Knowledge – an organization that is fostering the next generation of community leaders and organizers (pg 20).

In Hillsboro, Wisconsin, Marnie Hofmeister-Pooley opened Let’s Shine Coffee in order to let the people of her town shine and gather, face-to-face, to build community.

This issue’s Sum of Your Business features one of my favorite people, Gabi Masek at Wildcrafted Acupuncture & Herbs. She is such an inspiring business owner. Plus, lucky us, she shares Five Chinese Medicine Tips for Winter Wellness (pg 31)!

We introduce the work of Defining Enough through my infographic on page 33, leading up to Olivia Lynn Schnur’s Mental Health piece. Olivia walks us through the process of Defining Enough following Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – first comes survival needs, and you move up from there.
Feel like you don’t have enough – yet – in a certain area in life? Let’s manifest that destiny! The first step is believing you can do it. The next step is…taking the next step. Check out our Paper Project Dream Board prompts (pg 40), and get dreaming!

For the Tlou family in the 1960s, the dream was a United States education at Luther College. They emigrated from Zimbabwe to Decorah, Iowa, where their kids – especially Hla and Joy – always felt at home. After Joy’s unexpected death in 2021, Hla and friends created a memorial scholarship and a rental house in Decorah that they hope will help future immigrant families like hers find the peace of home.

In early 2022, 15-year-old Seamus Schwaba wrote a musical that ended up blossoming into an entire community theatre organization in Winona, Minnesota. He shares his refreshingly optimistic outlook on life in a Q&A on page 56.

Finally, our favorite conservationist, Craig Thompson, gets us fascinated with the Great-horned Owl (one “tuft” bird!) this winter.

And gosh, one of these days we’ll have to do a tally of the number of Probit interviewees who, like Hazel Grotegut in this issue, answered “lefse” as the one thing they could eat every day. I mean, with butter and sugar, how could you go wrong?!

Happy Everything, friends! Here’s to 2023 being the best year yet. Thank you for your continued support – you inspire us!

Looking forward,

Aryn Henning Nichols

In this issue, you’ll find: The Tlou House: Finding Joy in Decorah • Seamus Schwaba + Sugarloaf Theatre • Community Builders: Diane Knight – Shaundel Spivey – Marnie Hofmeister-Pooley • Mental Health: Defining Enough + Hierarchy of Needs • Great-horned Owl • Sum Biz: Gabi Masek + Wildcrafted Acupuncture & Herbs • Chinese Winter Wellness Tips • Dream Boards • Probit: Hazel Grotegut • and more! Read the whole thing online here!

Today, we celebrate 15 years of positive news! Woot! At year 10, we compiled a list of 10 things we had found to be true through our decade of work. We thought it would be fun to keep adding things to this list every five years. Cheers to sharing the good stuff in the world!

Here’s what I wrote in 2017, updated for 2022:

I had my camera out the other day, and Benji asked me, “What are you shooting?”

“Oh, unicorn stuff,” I replied.

It’s all unicorn stuff to me though, really.

As of 2022, we’ve been making this magazine for 15 years! Adding that second digit at year 10 blew my mind (we won’t get to add another digit for another 90 years – at year 100!), but the heft of 15 feels pretty great as well. I’m pretty proud of this experiment in positive news, and grateful for all your support!

…(Try not to cry, like me, right now)……

Driving around the countryside, delivering magazines – literal stacks of positive news – to the amazing people of the Driftless Region, you get some time to think (don’t get me wrong – Benji Nichols does most of the Inspire(d) delivery, but I do a few select routes and love to ponder life, love, and, you know…the pursuit of happiness).

I always think a lot about Inspire(d), what we hope to do going forward, and what creating local, positive news has taught us over the years. What’s important? What is true? What do we need to do to make the world a better place?

Answers to these questions are seemingly subjective, but there are certain things we feel stand out as indisputable truths (hint, people and community are at the root of it all).

Thank you so much for reading Inspire(d), my friends. Let’s keep sending those ripples of positivity out into the world, one community at a time. XOXO – Aryn

In 2017, here’s what we wrote we had learned through our work with Inspire(d).

1. People are what matters. And all people matter.

2. A community of people – no matter the size – is one of the most valuable things we can build. Our relationships and connections and experiences with people will be most important and memorable at the end of our lives.

3. People want to be heard. We should listen. Remember the “response time” teachers use with students. Apply it in life. Pause. Give people time to think and respond.

4. Technology can be useful, but face-to-face time is still essential.

5. No one wants their kids to be jerks. Fostering our kids kindness is the most important thing we can do as parents.

6. Supporting your neighbor’s businesses helps grow local economy and build community.

7. Good food – vegetables and fruit and other healthy stuff – makes us feel good. So does exercise. We’ve got to take care of ourselves if we want to enjoy life, so these two things are top priorities!

8. Travel gives us a new perspective, helping us appreciate where we live, understand how other people live, and remember how amazingly beautiful this region, state, country, and world are. Seriously, we’ve gotta enjoy this life and see as much as possible. Through travel we gain empathy, insight, and experience.

9. Like we need to take care of our house to keep it from falling apart, we need to take care of our planet to keep it from falling apart.

10. Getting outdoors is just as important as travel. Nature is filled with perfect designs and inspiration. Being inspired is on of the greatest gifts in this life.

New in 2022 (15 years!):

11. Just like in kindergarten, when we had to do three put-ups for one put-down, we have to do the same with positive news. Our brains are wired to be fascinated by the bad stuff. That’s okay. We just have to mindfully share the good stuff – times three – as much as possible.

12. There is WAY more good stuff in the world than bad stuff.

13. A positive mindset ebbs and flows. It’s okay to have down days. But remember: the power of positive thinking is big. Believing something is possible will make a positive outcome much more likely. And either way, it doesn’t hurt to try.

14. TRYING – and getting out of our comfort zones – will lead to more fulfilling lives.

15. There will always be problems in the world – but there will also always be solutions. Work the problem; find the solution. It is worth it. You are worth it.