Sustainable Wellbeing
One Simple Question Helped Turn My Dreams Into My Reality
Simple questions are never really that simple — are they?
If you were to wake up tomorrow, and the second you opened your eyes you were living your ideal life, what would that look like?
Where would you be waking up?
Would there be anyone with you?
What would you spend your day doing?
What does it feel like?
Don’t worry about how it happened or if it is ‘realistic’ or not — that comes later. For now, it is all about dreaming. Get creative with it, write a journal entry from your ideal life point of view, paint or draw a scene from your day, create a playlist that would make up your soundtrack. Introduce yourself into your ideal future self. Connect with them, bond with them, study them, talk to them.
Removing restrictions from yourself — and putting you in complete control of your dream universe allows you to stretch to the fringes of possibility, of your possibility. It isn’t someone else providing you with their opinion on what you could or should do — it is your unconscious mind connecting with your conscious mind. When you hold your dreams out in front of you far enough, you can start to understand what you actually want for yourself and your life.
When I asked myself these questions I could see a future taking shape, even if I couldn’t tell you what exactly it looked like.
The trouble with dreaming is that if you stay there for too long you miss out on the actual living of life, and you can start to feel frustrated, stuck, and restless. Thinking about your dream life vs your present life can feel overwhelming, how can you possibly get from one to the other?
It’s ok if you don’t have all the steps planned out — I have yet to meet anyone chasing their dreams who does. I have noticed that people who are moving in the direction of their dreams don’t just dream, they dream with intention.
Dreaming with intention takes the power, safety and freedom of dreaming and gives it boundaries, prompts, and guidelines. We ask our dreams questions and allow them to create the answers for us.
Looking Backwards to Move Forwards
Asking myself about what my ideal life looked like helped me to set a target, a moon to shoot for. But that wasn’t really enough to take my dream life and turn it into my real life.
I couldn’t just look forward — it was too overwhelming.
To really harness the power of my dreams, I needed to see how far along the path I had already come. Just because this is the first time my conscious mind became aware of my dreams didn’t mean that my unconscious mind hadn’t worked on them for a long time.
I started taking stock of everything that I already had going for me. I looked back over my life, the choices I had made, the relationships I had formed, and the experiences I had through the lens of my dream life.
What decisions did I already make in support of my dreams? Were there times that I moved away from my dreams? Why?
What skills, strengths, and resources have I already gathered that can help me along my journey?
Am I already connected to anyone living my dream life or some version of it? How many degrees of separation are there between us?
Asking myself these questions helped me see what the next step could be, and that step lead to another step and another and another. Focusing on each step as it unfolded allowed me to let go of the overwhelming distance between my dream life and my real life. Instead of being paralyzed by my dreams, I allowed them to motivate and guide me.
When Dreams become Reality
Am I living my dream life?
No.
Not yet.
Not everything in my life today is as it would be if I was fully in my dream world. I am still shooting for the moon, but the more I explore the stars, the more I’ve come to enjoy them and the journey. I check in with my dreams regularly, allowing them to ebb and flow with experience and knowledge.
Dreaming with intention has given me the gift of connection with my ideal future, and more importantly given me support along the way.
Now, when faced with difficult decisions I ask myself — will this move me closer to the life of my dreams?
For Reference:
Greene, G. J., Lee, M.-Y., Mentzer, R. A., Plnnell, S. R., & Niles, D. (1998). Miracles, Dreams, and Empowerment: A Brief Therapy Practice Note. Families in Society, 79(4), 395–399. https://doi.org/10.1606/1044-3894.701
Moore J. W. (2016). What Is the Sense of Agency and Why Does it Matter?. Frontiers in psychology, 7, 1272. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01272
