Learning To Dream Again

There she was, my daughter, a miniature version of me both in appearance and spirit. And she had just uttered the words 'I hate myself because I am damaged.' At that moment, I knew I had to make a change. My children would NOT learn this from me; instead, that they would see someone resilient and determined in her efforts to be the best version of herself. To break the stereotypes. To dismantle the limiting beliefs.

When I last sat down to write my story, we left off with my promise to share about the work I did. That to simply say, "I made a decision to start loving myself, and now I do," would not only be doing my journey a disservice but would be disingenuous to you.

The work is not easy - it's not easy because it's not surface level. Trauma affects us DEEPLY. Its roots are long, thick, and entwined into so much of who we are and what we do. And so, to move forward, I had to make a decision. A decision that the discomfort of stepping into the unknown was better than staying in my current situation.

So now, let's start talking about the work.

I had to get brutally honest with myself - challenging my thinking and my internal dialogue. I had to re-learn who I was, who I wanted to become, and how I wanted to live. In short, I had to learn how to dream again.

Remember when we were younger and encouraged to have an active imagination? We were actually praised for it. Somewhere along the line, we started to hear "pull your head out of the clouds" or "be realistic, how are you ever going to do that."

What happened to me happens to a lot of people. We become re-conditioned to ignore our dreams, to make them smaller, more realistic, based on someone else's perception and limiting beliefs. We stop dreaming and only pay attention to our current circumstances and the conditions surrounding us. We chastise ourselves when we spend time "dreaming" and deny ourselves time spent in imagination.

One day we wake up in a "funk," wondering how we got there. More importantly, though, is how we get out of it.

The greatest thing I did for myself was learning how to dream again and make it part of my everyday routine. It empowered me to completely reshape my life, my identity, and my happiness.

To build a life that I love, by design.