I wanted to get up early and write, to start my day from this place of connection with myself, with my dreams, with my voice. And I did it! After months of not wanting to, not seeming able to, I actually woke up before my alarm and here I am, in the pitch black, at 5:30. And it feels good. It feels right.

This connection with ourselves, with our hearts, is so easy to skimp on. We put it last in a long line of obligations and desires. So much easier to simply go online and read someone else’s writing, witness someone else’s connection with themselves. And yet. So much more fulfilling to spend time nurturing our own connection, our own creativity, our own dreams.

I’ve written before about how the words “find your passion” can stifle us, make us feel that our desires must be all-consuming and grand to be worth our time and attention. Perfectionism robbing us once again of experience. So-called “small” dreams are worth our time, too. Some of us find this easy, have no problem rattling off a long list of dreams and desires. For others of us, it’s trickier. We might be scared to admit to such grand, or such silly, dreams. We might not even know what our dreams might be.

Like any muscle, our dreaming muscle needs to be exercised, strengthened, stretched, to be fed good food, to be listened to. We will, most of us by default, exercise the “rational, practical doubting” muscles. They are often strong, possibly overworked, over-developed. In the body, if there is an imbalance in the strength of two opposing muscles, muscles which should work in harmony, we get problems: Injuries, strain, restricted mobility. If your quadriceps are over-developed and your hamstrings incredibly weak, you’ve got problems my friend. I think it is the same with our dreaming and doubting systems. Without room to breathe, to move, to stretch themselves, our dreaming muscles get weak, our doubting muscles take over, restricting our ability to move, creating pain and metaphorical injury. We are left feeling stuck, irritable, our lives somehow lacking.

Listen, I’m not asking you to stop doubting. I’m simply asking you to add dreaming into the mix. Give dreaming some space, some time, some attention. Perhaps this means getting up at 5 and writing, perhaps it means going for a long, meandering walk, maybe a fast, intense run. It might be coffee with a friend you feel safe with and supported by. It doesn’t really matter what the format is, choose whatever works for you.

Why not start a list? Forget about the practicalities for a while, just place them aside for now, and write down any and all dreams you might have. The simple ones, the wildly improbable ones, the ones that will change in a few months, the ones you’ve held since childhood, the ones you just discovered. You don’t need to share them yet - unless you want to - you simply want to listen to them. Give your dreaming voice a little room to talk. Listen to what it says.

Photo by Martha Dominguez de Gouveia on Unsplash

If you find that dwelling on a dream makes you sad, or start to feel its lack, start smaller, start with something less fraught. Increase your range of motion slowly, gently, give your dreaming muscles a chance to warm up, to grow stronger. I noticed, when I began to dream again, that I had a deeply held belief that if I did dream a thing, did imagine it coming true, that meant it never would. Almost as if dreaming of a thing would jinx it. What a bizarre, superstitious belief! I held it without even knowing I held it, felt it like a block in my body, stopping me from imagining the good things. What a relief to recognize and melt that block, to allow the delicious feeling of dreaming back into my body.

Give yourself a sweet gift and spend some time snuggled in with your own dreams. Try not to turn this into a big to-do list. Try not to get all serious about how to accomplish these dreams, simply allow the life force, the aliveness to light you up. Feel the energy in your body when you spend some time with your dreaming, enjoy it, allow it, follow it. Let your imagination take over and picture a dream coming true - notice how good your body feels! Revel in that. Nurturing this energy, giving it room to live in our bodies…how much better that feels than blocking, stopping, negating it. We squash these imaginings in an effort to be “realistic”, but I cannot believe that anything marvellous in this world was created by being “realistic”. All the good things, surely, came out of dreaming.

If you’re interested in coaching with me to help reconnect with old dreams, create new ones, and make those dreams a reality, you can read more about it here, or contact me for a free consultation.