Tag Archives: dreams

Just Who do You Think You Are?

21 Sunday Apr 2013

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I’ve been collecting adventure stories from women over the past year or so, and a frequent theme is one of personal transformation. Not the kind that involves turning their entire life upside down. More like ‘I thought I was this kind of person and discovered I was actually this other kind, too’. The ‘too’ being important because they expanded their self-image, they didn’t make some kind of wholesale switcheroo.

This is pretty cool stuff. Monica discovered, after three decades as a nurse, she could be a highly successful CEO of a manufacturing company. Nicole discovered she wasn’t just a straight-up business person, she is also a talented painter. Rachel discovered that she is even more of a knockout as a ginger than she was as a blond. I discovered I can belt out rock and roll just as well as I sing Bach.

Practically every day I hear about someone else who’s expanded their own sense of ‘just who they think they are’. If you have stories, please send them to me! I’m creating a book, using this collected wisdom, to help everyone have the courage to do the things they’ve always wanted to do but haven’t yet dared.

Constipation and Unfulfilled Dreams

02 Tuesday Apr 2013

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I was speaking awhile back with a woman who is very good at making her dreams happen. She said “Unfulfilled dreams are like little points of constipation in our lives”. I found this very eloquent.

But it occurred to me that this phenomenon doesn’t always make us rush to take action. It often just leaves us feeling, well, perpetually constipated.

Dreams are slippery fish. We have a vague notion of some lovely thing, and an even more vague notion of how to make it come true. Maybe it feels scary and risky. The constipation occurs when all this vagueness leaves us with an impression that it’s impossible to achieve, even though we don’t have any hard evidence. We lust after it hopelessly and kick ourselves for not being able to make it happen. What an incredible waste of energy.

Being of a practical mind, this waste bugs me. Here’s a thought: what if you were to examine, now, what it takes to make your dream a reality? What is it really made of? What will it do for you? What are the actual risks and obstacles? How could you overcome them? Once you had done that, you’d be able to say, with conviction, one of three things:

  • Wow, I can do this thing and I’m going to start on it right now, OR
  • Wow, this thing I’ve been harbouring is actually not worth it to me considering the price I’ll have to pay in time, money, energy or whatever, OR
  • This dream is great but I can’t do it right now.

The first one is what we all want to be able to say, but the second and third answers are equally liberating. They’re all answers that allow us to stop wasting energy.

If you go through this planning process and discover your position is ‘not right now’, here’s what you can do. Put your dream, with all its beautiful details, into a box. Pull it out again in 6 months, a year, five years – whatever makes sense – and ask is it time yet? until it is. In between those moments, ignore it. It’s not gone, it’s not dead, it’s just patiently waiting, while you spend your energies on things that are more important right now. 

And you get to kiss that constipated feeling goodbye.

Should Old Acquaintance

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

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At this classic time of year for looking back – and forward – I’d like to cap this year of Godzillavilla stories not with what went wrong, but with what went right about the whole crazy adventure.

People are inclined to lament the passing of the villa from my life. Increasingly, I myself view it as something that can’t, actually, ever pass from me. It’s a dream that I couldn’t see through to completion in the sense of a finished house, but it has gone to completion in the sense that Godzillavilla no longer fits the needs of my family or of me. Sometimes we need to release old dreams in favour of new ones, as live unfolds. That’s not a bad thing.

Godzillavilla’s presence in our lives (and particularly in mine) has been defining in a way that will never be erased. Here are some of the things I’ve gained from my adventure with our monster:

  • A love for the incredible, serene beauty of the landscape,  something that I now understand to be vital to my wellbeing, wherever I may find it.
  • An appreciation for the connectedness of the community and its incredible willingness to help us, peripheral as we were to its daily ebb and flow. Also vital.
  • An understanding of the continuity of history, the tiny blip we make individually on its surface, and the healthy perspective that brings to our daily grumbling and sense of self-importance.
  • A knowledge of Italian life and culture that was different and more intimate than what I got from living in Milan. A crazy, delightful, sometimes frustrating, sometimes mystifying  and always edifying look at how other people find their joy and meaning.

And a deep commitment to continuing to have adventures and dreams, for the richness they bring to our lives, for the heights they inspire us to achieve, the shift in perspective they provide, and for the power those things bring to bear on even the most mundane aspects of our days.

For all of you who have been kind enough to read my tales, I wish for you a 2013 filled with dreams and adventure, and I thank you for joining me on mine. More to come!