Nurture your dreams into reality
I invite you to take a nice deep breath in…
Exhale, and let your gaze sink into your heart.
Feel into your desires. If you want to take a moment to close your eyes so you can go a little deeper.
What is it that you desire? What would make your life dreamy and joyful? What makes you excited to wake up every morning and satisfied to go to bed each night?
I am a big fan of designing your dream life. Of creating it and living it every single day.
But there’s something that I see getting in the way for many people.
Sometimes, it seems like we want something so great that our desires make us feel perhaps ashamed of where we are right now.
So instead of loving our way to our desires, we try to shame our way there.
We decide we want something more in life and see what we have as sub-par and treat it as "not enough." Instead of actually nurturing our dreams, we essentially cast the version of it we presently have aside, vowing to do better when we are presented with our desires.
It plays out in many ways. For example:
You want a bigger home, yet you don't take care of your little, yet sufficient apartment. You see your current home as unworthy of proper care (or make excuses like, it just can’t be organized because it’s too small - but when I have my dream home, it’ll be clean and organized and perfect!)
You want a successful, impactful business, so you treat your struggling business like a nuisance. You see yourself as failing and don’t bother to put systems in place or research more efficient ways to run your business. Once your business starts performing, it will be worth your time.
You want a different job, so you slack at your current one. This job is not worthy of your energy. The next one will be perfect and you’ll automatically have the habits and mindset to love and enjoy it.
You want a stronger, more flexible body, yet you say and think horrible things about the body that is carrying you through your daily life right now. This body doesn’t do the things or perhaps look the way you desire. You feel ashamed of it and punish yourself regularly with grueling workouts and food restrictions. When your body performs the way you desire, you will love it.
One of the big problems with this is that we are acting and thinking CONDITIONALLY.
When this happens I will feel this way/put this effort into/feel worthy of/etc.
Thinking and acting conditionally is not really shocking. For most people, it's the way we were raised:
Get an A on your project and you'll get a star.
Do what I ask and I'll give you a candy.
Give me this and I'll owe you something in return.
Perform well and I'll praise you.
Be good and I'll love you.
Conditional approval, conditional giving, and conditional love are generally the default.
If we want to think and act differently, we must consciously decide to do so.
Our thoughts and feelings are habits as much as our actions are. By choosing to change our thought habits to love, gratitude, and nurturing rather than shame and punishment, you can start to actually:
accept where you are in life right now,
acknowledge your part in creating and maintaining it,
build gratitude for where you are now
start to treat the situation you want to change with care.
I believe that we progress along the path to our dreams by treating the version of it that we have right now with such love and care that not only can we help it become our dream, but we also prepare ourselves to live our dream well when it comes.
What's one step you could take tomorrow to better nourish your dream?