One of the most common excuses or complaints I hear around the concept of following dreams is not having what it takes. Whatever "it" is? We all have dreams and visions of creating something tangible from our imaginations. Thinking about sharing this with others and enjoying the fruits of our labors is intoxicating. Exciting. We can easily envision ourselves living a full and thriving life. Laughing. Exploring. Spending time with friends and loved ones. Working passionately in our chosen vocation. And overall living life on our terms.
Eventually, we come back to our "senses" and sufficiently scare ourselves right back into staying small. The excitement was palpable. The smiles and laughter felt real. Our life was so different. But...but, the doubts begin to settle in. Who am I really to do this? I don't have what "it" takes. This affirmation or mantra plays over and over in our heads reinforcing our belief that the world doesn't need our creativity. We may even come up with the common excuse of, There are already too many people doing it. I don't have anything new to add.
As many of you know by now, I am a huge proponent of following dreams, embracing self-care and living life on your terms.
De la terre a la lune...From the Earth to the Moon. It's not just for science fiction.
I also struggled for years with the dream vs. reality model. What I was doing before wasn't wrong per se, I just needed a tweak. Like so many who hear about the Law's of Attraction, Allowing and Abundance I thought that if I focused on my dream life enough and wrote enough affirmations it would appear. Just like Santa stuffing a bag of goodies down the chimney.
Boy was I wrong! Discouragement and throwing in the towel became common place after a few months of diligent effort. I would then go through a period of being soured on the whole idea of thoughts becoming things and dreaming my life into reality. I would think, who does this... really? Clearly no mere mortals. Most people I knew, even avid students of the the self-care movement, were only able to get so far. What gives?
It seemed people were on one end of the pendulum or the other. Swinging from the state of regular meditation, yoga, deep spiritual work and throwing everything they had into the dream state of living. Or, the other end of the spectrum by embracing the daily routine of life. Work. Laundry. Gardening. Grocery shopping. Family visits. Planning Trips. Watching a lot of TV or Social Media. Eating out. Etc... etc..
Said another way, people were either fully in the throes of playing in the ethers of space or they were in the classic work and to-do list mode. The ones that were addicted to the dream/astral state were often times very challenging to even talk to. I'm sure many of you can relate to this type of person because they are literally spaced out. They are not grounded at all on planet Earth.
Not to say they don't have great ideas and extremely creative imaginations. They typically have both of these in mass quantities. What they are generally lacking is the way to put their concepts, visions and ideas into a container that the rest of us can relate to and benefit from. It often seems they have a strong aversion to the physical realm and would prefer to not even deal with it.
"It is you who must make the effort.
Masters only point the way."
Buddha
I understand the draw. There are times I meditate and become so relaxed that I don't want to come out of this peaceful, altered state. I've also read in many of the Universal teachings that our greatest challenge and gift to the world is to walk between the worlds. Worlds being Spirit and Earth. Live in the day-to-day, yet embrace the wisdom of the Spiritual realm. Not to get overly attached to either one. They each have gifts. They each have drawbacks. How do we know when we've gone too far into one realm? That's where discernment and good judgement come in.
In order to lift off into our dream life, we also need to cultivate a healthy respect for the work that grounds us. Most of the grounding I'm referring to is within the self, not without.
Knowing who we are. Knowing and owning our shadow beliefs 0r parts of ourselves that we've disowned. Do we still cling to old, out-dated ideas? Do we still believe we are the child living in our childhood home that lives with those rules? Do we live our life according to other people's beliefs? Do we live our life according to our own self-imposed beliefs that simply don't work for us any more? Do we even trust ourselves to make good decisions? If we feel we need to get away from it all, we need to ask the deeper question of why? Where is it we feel we need to run off to? We can't out run our problems or ourselves so why not become more comfortable in our own skin?
Bright lights draw our eyes naturally to the rich colors and textures of our surroundings.
When we become grounded in who we are we can effortlessly power up. Preparing and launching into our dream world is a natural next step in our life. We are much less likely to sabotage ourselves. Our choices begin to serve us. We become comfortable with allowing movement forward to take on its own pace and natural rhythm. We see the world as ready for us and our unique ideas.
Balance truly is the name of the game. We come to respect and embrace the qualities of living a day-to-day life and moving confidently in the direction of our dreams-- to paraphrase the great Henry David Thoreau.
The world certainly needs more of us sharing our extraordinary skills and helping to keep each other's lights lit. Together, we can further enhance much needed brightness in an otherwise dreary world.
Are you ready to power up for lift off?
I think you are...
Joanna
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