Do You Remember What It’s Like to Dream a Dream?

I haven’t been able to let go of a coaching session I had last week.

I saw her so clearly.

Like an old soul, a deeply feeling soul. A beautiful soul that touches the earth and feels everything it encounters.

Her obstacles were practical, logical, tangible, and undeniably so.

I couldn’t put a finger on it … yet. Until she revealed to me that this way I saw her so very clearly, the description I provided her with what I was seeing when I looked at her, when I heard her, when I truly listened, was all news to her.

"But that’s not how I see myself." She said.

I don’t know what I want. I don’t know how to get what I’m looking for when I’ve never had it before. I don’t know what it will look like, I don’t know how to have that. I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t know what makes me happy. I don’t know how to change where I am.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

And then the words came out. The words that brought it all home

“I don’t know how to dream.”

I don’t dream. Maybe I used to dream. Yes, that was who I used to be and what I used to do a long time ago.

“But not anymore.”

Suddenly, it was becoming clear. What I couldn’t quite put a finger on. What I hadn’t been able to figure out through all of our earlier coaching sessions.

No wonder she seemed so sad and yet had every reason to feel anything else instead. No wonder the disconnect I had picked up on between all the beautiful potential I saw in her and the reality of the extreme lack of potential she felt.

No wonder she could only see obstacles and no way through.

Here was a deeply sensitive, feeling, exquisite woman who had buried that part of herself somewhere along the way, and found herself going through the motions lifelessly, methodically, practically, logically, relying on sound reason and method, and black and white thinking of what was good and what was bad, disregarding what she truly felt about anything.

"I think I’ve left that side of myself behind."

Her words would haunt me.

How do I dream again? How do I hope again? How do I believe in anything again? How do I dare to when none of my dreams have ever come true? How do I set myself up like that, when all I know is dashed hopes, broken dreams, and the inevitable hardening of our hearts that so effortlessly follows?

I left her with some ideas to get started but what I was left with was a lingering feeling that maybe this is what conflicts  us all. Maybe it’s what so many of us struggle with. Maybe this is our only problem.

And maybe more than anything else, our balm is found not in following someone else’s rules or directions about how to live our lives, or any other "should" along the way, but maybe it’s simply in recognizing the value of the dream, the value of the girl inside us with a dream.

The value of a dream when we’ve given up on the idea of ever having a dream worth dreaming – worth believing in – worth hoping in – again.

Come dream with me, Beautiful.

Come hope again. Come believe again. In something.

Something not practical, not logical, not dream-killing, not safe, not “right”, not “good”, not the thing you “should” dream, not the ones someone like you is “allowed” to.

I’ve never been more convinced that all that ails us has nothing to do with a shortage of men, or a lack of beauty, or anything else we feel we missed out on, but everything to do with a soul-crushing, “good girl” epidemic that puts our culture’s needs and requirement of us embedded deeply in our psyche to ensure that we do and be everything – and not one thing more – that we are expected to do and be.

Let’s find you again. The dreamer, the believer, "the world is my oyster" kind of you that dreams a new dream when you outgrow an old one, rather than dismissing it as bad luck or personalizing it as proof that there’s simply something wrong with you.

Yes, there will always be logical, practical, irrefutable knowledge that you can’t deny exists. That will always be the case.

But what will also always be available to you is your truth, your reality, your beliefs, your pushing through the “shoulds” kind of living your life that defies all logic.

The kind of living that puts what’s always been the way it is to the test of what kinds of dreams come true and what kinds of dreams can still come true when you put into motion the ideas of what might be possible, what might become reality given a belief in yourself, a belief in a loving God, a beautiful Universe, a spiritual meeting of souls when you set an intention, follow it up with action and refuse to let anyone dim your shine or tell you otherwise.

I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what you’ve been through, I don’t care what you’re going to tell me is going to be the reason you simply cannot do this thing I’m asking you to do.

Never, ever, underestimate the power of a girl with a dream!

She's always been you!

Love,

Jane

What about you? I see you there. Pondering these words. Feeling something that resonates with you that seems so far away from where you are now. Or maybe this is why you’ve come here today, because there’s been something calling you here for a while. I’d love to hear from you in the comments below today!