Change the dream

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world" Oscar Wilde

When we try and shift an idea that we have had for a long time, it is very difficult. When we know that it is really important to move forward and change the direction we are going, it is crucial that we examin where we are beginning from in the first place.

Where do our ideas come from? Where do our patterns emerge? When the dream no longer fits, we need to change the dream.

I have started to really question my ideas, to look deeply at where these notions come from and I realise that these ideas are so deeply embedded, they are easy to miss. Ideas like I think stability means owning your own house, having a full time job, etc. And yet all around us people lose their houses, their jobs. This is not stability. I had a dream that when I grew up I would own my own house and live with lots of land around me and have a job that I went to every day. Now that I have children I want to be home with them and going into school and spending time with them so a full time job doesn't work. And we want to live at the ocean so owning our own house is questionable right now - but we can still live there.

The real dream for me is about freedom. The freedom to move and explore as I want to. The freedom to listen deeply to another's heart. The freedom to sit with my daughter as she reads to me on the boat and tells me all about her friends and their life at school. The freedom to understand my husband and the way he wants to communicate with me. The freedom to take my time. I am a slow learner. But this is now my dream. And when it is no longer relevant I will throw it out like all the rest. Precious and not.

Free your mind and the rest will follow ( yes that's all!)

I am woman hear me roar...

Sometimes we try to hide inside ourselves the very things which make us most appealing. The parts of us that really want to dance on the countertops when we hear Donna Summers singing 'hot stuff' on the radio in the local shop at 9.30 in the morning. Or maybe it's the part of you that wants to get out and go running or bike riding or skiing and you feel too ashamed of your present body or just can't work our how not to look ridiculous. 

I think of these shadows within us as our freedom fighters. The bits of ourselves that constantly niggle away at us hoping that one day we will crack and break out. The break out doesn't have to apear on national television or go viral on the internet. It just has to go viral within oursleves and embue our world with more colour and liveliness than we previously thought possible. 

A big shadow I have hidden is that I am a writer. I am getting it about with me more often now. It is with me at the shops, in the library, I am beginning to say it out loud and it feels like the most natural thing in the world. Much more natural than when I rolled the die for roulette, surved beers on tap, poured ice water while taking a dinner order, etc etc etc. All of these were helpful and a way to make a living and extremely honourable at the time, but I had to convince myself. 

What will you do today, that you didn't know you would do?