Dream a new dream…
Getting started….taking the first step…..staring at a blank page…..this is the hardest part of starting anything new. Those of us who have been on the planet a few years may WANT to go from being frozen to forward motion – but how do we do that? I’ve written before about the need to do something dramatic to get yourself out of a rut. So if you find yourself wondering what happened to the last 6 months and fretting over why nothing has yet happened, don’t feel bad because you’re not alone.
To start something new or to gain some forward momentum in your life it’s important to first think of something you’d like to do. If you’re anything like me, you got caught up in work and family and life in general, and you can’t even remember what your dreams were when you were young. No time to fret over that……just look forward. So step one in a new life is to dream a new dream – think of something new you’d like to do no matter how weird it sounds for a 95 year old to start medical school or an overweight middle aged housewife to begin ballet classes. WHO CARES? I mean really – do you really care what anyone else thinks? And quite frankly in my book if someone else thinks you can’t do it- all the more reason TO DO IT. Use that negativity as a motivating force to get you moving towards your dream.
So step one – dream a new dream. Make a list of all the things you have ever wanted to do and throw in a few things you just realized you want to do. Then review and refine the list by crossing off the things you’re less than enthused about and settle on one or two things that you want to accomplish. Perhaps you want to learn a new language or improve on an old one? Maybe your goal is to lose weight or become comfortable in your own skin (whatever weight that might be). Or maybe you have always wanted to write a book? If so start off with a blog – you can write whatever you want (apparently, ha) and there’s no one to stop you or tell you you’re not good at it. Your dream can and should be anything you want it to be and it doesn’t matter if it seems absurd. Just give yourself permission to dream or to do whatever you want to do. The point is to just dream a new dream and get started on your new life. That’s the first step in the sequence of many steps that will make up your future.
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” Harriet Tubman
Our forgotton connection with the animal world…..
I’ve read hundreds and hundreds of stories about near death experiences and nearly all of them describe a “life review” of all the bad and good things we’ve done in our lives. I’ve heard it’s like a 3-d movie in the most incredible detail…like you’re actually there seeing what you do and to whom. However, it was only recently that I read about an NDE that described a life review where the person involved was shown not only the kind and unkind things he had done to other humans, but also the kind and unkind things he had done to animals. It does make me stop and think.
Please check out this short story about a humpback whale that was caught in a nylon net off the coast of Baja California and some people who came along to save it. Watch them soak up the love that the whale shows them after they spent over an hour trying to release the whale from captivity. Then consider how you interact with animals and what influence they have in your life. (btw not sure why this isn’t appearing as a video here but it’s just a link to You Tube).
Feel like you’re banging your head against the wall?
Have you ever woken up after a long period of time only to realize that you’ve been in a rut? You’re in a hideous feedback loop of doing the same thing over and over and over again? If you haven’t….you might want to reexamine your self and your life, because this is something that most of us do. As most of my intellectual readers know…..Einstein said that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. If you say to yourself, “every time I ask the kids to do the chores they don’t do them” or “Every time I say something my wife (or husband) she/he gets mad at me” or “Every time I order at a restaurant they get the order wrong.” For now I am not going to talk about the REASONS these things keep happening in your life as much as I am going to talk about the fact that they do happen.
My current favorite author (Martha Beck) says that sometimes in order to change we have to go through “The ring of fire”. The ring of fire is any trial or tribulation that we’d rather live without…..but sometimes (or most of the time) when we experience something dramatic we come out on the other side of the trauma (or the other side of the “new experience”) with a new perspective or a new plan for our life. If you find yourself stuck in a feedback loop in life, try doing something totally different…something you’ve never done before or haven’t done for a very long time. If you are a mild-mannered house wife, take a trip by yourself to Paris. If you’re a scientist or doctor….learn to paint. If you’re a “dare-devil”, learn to meditate. If you’re a graphic designer, read a book about quantum physics (I’d highly recommend “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” by Gary Zukav).
It doesn’t matter WHAT you do, but just DO SOMETHING that’s the opposite of what you normally do….something that’s not necessarily comfortable for you to do. Do something to break yourself out of your shell of security and procrastination. By the way….I’m not saying I’ve got it all figured out, I’m just telling you about things that I’ve discovered along the way that I think have value to us as human beings. You CAN change your life. You CAN fulfill your dreams; and by the way, to do that you have to HAVE some dreams to begin with….if you’ve tossed your long forgotten dreams off to the side of an old dirt road, pull the car over and make up some new ones. Start by thinking back on the things that fascinated you most when you were little. Did you spend long hours outside staring at leaves & trees? Did you get excited just thinking about your next tennis lesson? Did you suck at all your classes EXCEPT creative writing? Each of us has something (at least one thing but maybe more) that we’re good at…and those things are your first clue to the question “what SHOULD I be doing?” If you’re stuck in a rut the likeliness is it’s not a rut where you’re doing the thing you love most in the world….rather it’s a rut made up of life’s responsibilities and other pressures that you have had to do at the expense of the things you were BORN to do. To get out of the rut….dream up some new dreams, make sure they’re in line with what you love most (aka your “Gifts” or your “Destiny) and then start doing that thing….even if you can only do that thing one time a month. Break out of the life you’re currently stuck in by taking just one little step in the direction of your destiny (aka God’s plan for you) and don’t get overwhelmed by the fact that 99.9% of the people, that you know and love think you’re crazy for even THINKING of doing those things. That doesn’t matter (as long as you’re not hurting other people by seeking your destiny). Just do SOMETHING….anything that helps you to break out of the rut you’re in and changes abruptly (and sometimes painfully) the direction you’re going. You’ll come out of that depression you’re in or shake off that gloomy feeling you’ve been living with too long and at the same time all those chronic diseases that you’ve got that your doctors can’t even properly diagnose will start to disappear one by one. Living your life free of the shackles of being in a rut and moving in the direction that jives with your destiny is the best way to start on the path to happiness.
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