Remember To Fall Asleep With A Dream And To Wake Up With A Purpose
Don’t follow your dreams . . . chase them!
– Kunal Patel
Dreams come preloaded with a guidance system. They know the fastest way to bring themselves into reality. Give yourself permission to listen to them, to step into who you are meant to be. As little girls we are taught to play small. Not to be too much of anything, because it is prideful to draw attention to ourselves. Nick names such as “Miss Priss”, “Smarty pants” are designed to make us feel even smaller – like who does she think she is? Little girls who aspire to do jobs in the Stem fields have to fight and work harder, just because “girls are not good at those things”.
Little girls with dreams become women with vision.
– Unknown
Dreams also come with more than one path. I say this, because the fastest way is “as the crow flies” which means it is usually the harder path to take. Most of us would prefer the shortcut. The Staples “easy button”. But the “easy” button doesn’t expand our comfort zone. It doesn’t teach us new things about ourselves. We don’t get to explore the depths of who we are and what we are capable of. It isn’t the path to adventure. The “easy” button is not the way to mastery or to accomplishing any great work. It is about settling and living life in a rut, just a hamster in a wheel, running fast and going nowhere. The harder path is over mountains, down steep ravines. You have to ford rivers at flood stage. You trudge through hot dry deserts and lose your bearings in muggy swamps covered with mosquito bites. The fastest way tests your mind, body and soul. It builds you up, strengthening muscles in places you didn’t even know you had muscles. At the end of the day, you may be exhausted, but it is a happy exhausted. You have proven to yourself what you are truly capable of being and doing.
Follow your dreams even if it means standing alone. Be different but stay yourself.
– Unknown
It might be that we are not confident of your ability to take that harder path. I am a huge “Lord of the Rings” fan. When Frodo and Samwise go forward on the journey with just the two of them, they are definitely taking that hard path. I always thought that if the Eagles could rescue them at the end when the lava was coming to kill them, why couldn’t they have dropped them off at the mouth of the cave? What Frodo and Samwise learned was there was a big difference in setting out on the journey to accomplish your dreams, and actually traveling and experiencing the journey itself. It stretched them beyond every boundary. Responsibility, wisdom, self knowledge, self reflection, fears, courage – every word was dismantled, tested in forges of fire, and rebuilt as they took on new meanings.
Everyone has talent. What’s rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.
– Erica Jong
The reason of course is that Frodo and Samwise needed to learn many things to enable them to win over the power of the ring and truly destroy it. Without those lessons, the ring would have won. The dark places, are the places where we get tested. Both Frodo and Samwise had to go through their own dark places. When you have been in those places, you reach a completely new understanding of compassion. We all have cracks and dents from our collisions with life. The bent and broken places heal, but they are never the same. We think that surviving the fires is what refines us, when in fact, it is what we do with what happened that tells the story. The end is a new beginning – but are we crossing the threshold with the ashes and tattered clothing or are we like the phoenix rising up out of the ashes reborn?
Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters.
– Buddha
So it is with us. The harder path will teach us what we need to win through to the dream and be able to handle the changes that accomplishing the dream will make in our lives. If we take the easy path, the shortcuts, then we may not have the strength of character that has been tested and forged in the fire. Without this, our ultimate dream may not be able to make it into reality. Fame and fortune is full of stories about the rich and famous imploding in a ball of fire. Suicide, Murder, Drugs, Crime, and so on . . . because they could not handle the changes the fulfillment of the dream made in their lives. Their lifestyle burned the candle at both ends. Soon there was nothing left but a burnt broken stub that could no longer hold a flame. Not many are able to restructure their life after the burn out.
We may place blame, give reasons, and even have excuses, but in the end, it is an act of cowardice to not follow your dreams.
– Dr. Steve Maraboli
So even when the dream points us in a direction that we think is too difficult, that we don’t think that we possess the courage or skills to make happen – it is in our ultimate best interest to pull up the big girl/boy panties and go for it. I always tell myself, that if the divine gave me this dream, then he also must have given me the skills needed to make it happen. There are stars hidden in our soul, and only in reaching for the deep dreams can we find them. We need to make space for the wisdom of our soul to emerge.
So follow the breadcrumbs and storm the castle! Be bold and build your life around the answers that you innate soul wisdom gives to you. If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never get it. If you don’t step forward, you’ll always be stuck in the same rut. Let your passion and purpose collide – once in awhile we need to blow open our minds so that we can truly see what life is offering us.
May you follow your dreams, and always believe in yourself. Keep your eyes on the stars and hope in your heart.
– C.M.V.
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