Voice of the Spirit

I dreamed a thousand new paths. . . I woke and walked my old one.
Chinese Proverb

To dream… to let our minds, thoughts, imagination and spirit soar high above the boring predictability of our same old day-to-day routine and habits – to dream a thousand new paths as stated in the wonderful Chinese Proverb above: financial fortune, wonderful romance, fulfilling our destiny, absolute health and well being and changing the world for the better!  It all starts with a dream one could say. Just listen to great entrepreneurs; they had a dream, a vision, even a calling and they went for it.  Nothing stopped them, no degree of criticism from others, self-doubt, fear or apprehension could stand in their way; these are the qualities of a winner.  But what about those of us, perhaps most of us, who have dreamed a thousand new paths, but awake only to find ourselves slipping back into the same old comfortable non productive patterns?  Like putting on that old familiar shoe; we know that the fit isn’t quite right but we still put it on anyway — everyday. If we’ve dreamed a thousand new paths, what stands in our way?

Signing along with your favorite CD and dreaming of being Lucianno Pavarotti, tossing the football in your back yard and fantasizing being the MVP for the Super Bowl, thinking of a new invention that solves practical problems in peoples daily lives where you make millions of dollars…  All of these things sound familiar, even wonderful, but then what stands in our way of taking a simple inner dream and making it an actual physically manifested reality?  The short answer is that it is probably us who truly stands in our own way…

Here are 10 points to get out of your own way and make your dreams a reality:

1) – See the big picture

Often, we have the dream, but simply don’t know what to do from there.  It all seems so mind-boggling.  It’s like trying to understand the beginning, middle and end of a movie we haven’t yet seen, or like the massive task of attempting to climb Mount Everest while we’re standing on the ground with our hiking boots on.  We start to feel silly and ineffective, like we’re a child in his or her own little fantasy world who can’t even think their way out of a paper bag. 

Here we need to not feel overwhelmed by the tasks at hand as that provides frustration, confusion and an escape from the dream.  Isn’t it easier to escape then feel embarrassed?  Try and have an overview of the situation in a calm, matter of fact manner.  Nurture your overview consistently; don’t get totally attached to the plan yet as it most definitely will change and evolve along the way and by all means, think flexibly.  Every aspect of the plan doesn’t need to yet be spelled out or written in stone yet.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, they say! Think of the big picture as a rough sketch, but one that takes into account the beginning, middle and end of your dream.  The details will be filled in as you go along, just like an artist who keeps adding details to their painting.

2) – Build your dream step-by-step

We live in a world where everything is instant: from instant coffee to immediate information beamed throughout the world in seconds, to falling in love at a glance.  But what about manifesting our dreams?  Should they manifest in an instantaneous way as well?

It’s so easy to want immediate gratification; meaning “I want it right now!”  After all, we’re rational adults; we should be in control of our lives; let’s just make things happen!  But manifesting a dream is like being a new born baby again:  First we crawl, then we try to stand up yet fall down, then we start walking but still take a spill, then finally – after a lot of time and effort, we walk!

Here’s where the vision of the dream has to be funneled into reality.  Start making a simple step-by step plan.  This is a linear and rational mind set; the opposite of the inspiration of the dream.  Lay it out literally like if you’re thinking of the alphabet: from A to B to C and so on.  Make sure these steps are simple, and don’t require too big of a leap.  Just like walking down the street, keep your pace easy, natural and comfortable.  The key here though, is that you don’t look at each small step and say, “How silly this is, these little baby steps.”  That’s just a way of running away from the dream and failing, which can be quite comfortable!

3) – Don’t run away from success

Failure is so much easier than success.  Think of it.  With failure there is really not much to worry about, except to maybe feel sorry for yourself and possibly wallow in self-pity.  The emotional pay off is sizeable: being a victim which elicits potential sympathy from others, not having to have to try, the life isn’t fair thing, and not taking any responsibility, as victims are never to blame. 

Success is much harder: the internal feelings inadequacy, insecurity, self doubt, of not being good enough, the scare of trying to maintain success once you get it, being a target for other peoples envy, jealousy and attacks, fear of the unknown as we’re charting new and unseen territory, uncertainty of change and feeling discouraged by the struggle and effort it will take to get there.

By all means, don’t let your fears get in the way.  Fears are tricky and tenacious and fight tooth and nail to survive, as our fears are all about us surviving.  Yet human fears can be tricky, hard to detect, and well disguised: “I don’t feel like working on my dream today.  I want to watch TV and order a pizza,” you might say, perceiving this choice as completely reasonable.  But why don’t you really want to work on the very thing that will enrich your life and potentially fulfill your destiny?  There’s always a reason behind a decision such as this.  It could be that your fears want you to avoid dealing with this.  It isn’t coming together as easy or fast enough and you don’t feel good enough to achieve it anyway deep down inside. Therefore, let’s just avoid it – only for today – but if you avoid it just for today, that could lead to many days, weeks, even months and then the dream vanishes and probably slips away.

4) – Be committed

At a certain point, you just have to make that promise to yourself to stay with it.  It doesn’t matter if things are going slow, or people are discouraging you.  You’ve got to have that commitment within your heart and spirit to make your dream happen.  We really do see what any of us are made of when things aren’t going well.  When our journeys are flowing and everything is falling into place, the world is wonderful, God is great, and life is miraculous.  But what about when things aren’t moving so well?  That’s how we can evaluate our commitment to our dream and our lives in general.

Ask yourself just how much you are willing to give to your dream?  How much are you really committed?  If you think that you have roughly 8 hours a day to sleep, approximately 8 hours a day at work with a few hours getting ready for work and commuting, that leaves how much time in a day to focus on your dream?  About 6 hours.  Of that six hours, what are you willing to give?  Be honest with yourself, and realize, even if you manifest your wonderful dream as a tremendous success, at any level your commitment may be the strongest force that drives the dream all the way down the line!

You might ask, “How can I be so committed to a dream when nothing seems to be happening with it?”  I would reply with, “That’s exactly why you need to be committed – to make things happen.”  It’s sort of like that old phrase, which came first, the chicken or the egg?  Our internal reality precedes what occurs externally, and when we truly make that commitment to our dream, we give ourselves the ability to manifest, and manifesting is so much more rewarding for any of us than being like a flickering light in the darkness.

5) – Don’t slip into old not so good patterns

Old not so good patterns are clever, causing us often to slip.  Like that friend who says, “Let’s go out tonight.  It’ll be fun.  Hey, c’mon!”  You might tell them that you have to get up early for work in the morning; they still try and convince you to throw the night away and pay for it the next day by calling off work.  These types of patterns are familiar although not productive and through their familiarity, easy to slip into.

That same old song and dance, those past habits, which were probably not healthy to being with; those are the patterns we’re trying to out grow by building our dreams.  But when we challenge these old mainstays by trying to move forward with our lives, they fight back.  Why?  Because there was an emotional pay off for this behavior, a comfort if you will, even though it may have not been at all positive.  By trying to manifest our dreams, we do challenge these old patterns, and those old patterns can tend to feel territorial, threatened, and defensive.

We may find ourselves not following through then with our plans to make our dream happen, sort of pushing it off to the side, just like we avoided work by going out the night before.  It’s easy to look at any of our old patterns that were not so good, and see how they can transfer to making our dreams slip away. 

It usually starts with subtle avoidance and leads to the dream being shelved and / or discarded.  We may blow off putting in the time and effort, zone it out, have fun, and find that old comfort zone; a place where nothing really good ever happened but it feels good.

Make sure to observe your behavior patterns as it relates to manifesting your dreams and by all means, be honest with yourself regarding all you observe.

6) – The Power of Believing

What is more important?  The “reality” we see, or what we believe inside?  Don’t forget, there are those who say, “I’ll only believe it when I see it?”  “Seeing is believing!”  But shouldn’t it be the other way around?  We must believe before we see anything because what we believe and feel inside pushes itself outward and into the ether, ultimately manifesting “reality.” While we’re seeing only little traces of our dream coming to life, we still must continue to believe as we’re only part of the way there, like being halfway to your destination on a trip you’re taking.   And then, if our dream becomes a great success and real:  a wonderful loving relationship, making millions of dollars through a business enterprise, building a new home, becoming healthy, or developing a beautiful body for example, we must keep believing once we get there. 

Why?  Shouldn’t we just be able to coast, or let the dream sit there and perpetuate itself once it had happened?  Things never stay the same in the world we live in.  One could say things are either moving upward or downward, but not standing still, even though we may perceive things to be stagnant from time to time.  The premise of the physical plane, the world we see and experience as real is always and forever changing.  Physics can prove that very simple fact!  We must keep belief alive to keep the dream alive and well, breathing, growing and moving forward at each and every stage and step of our dream!

Belief separates us into two categories: those who see “reality” as a beginning and end in and of itself; things just are. There’s no cause behind “reality,” or even if there is, it is not in our control – perhaps it’s God or something like that, but not us who makes it all or primarily happen.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are those who see “reality” as something that is the end manifestation of what we believe, feel and send out into this vast universe.  We are the cause behind what we look at as “reality.”  It’s us who really make it happen!  Everything we believe helps to create everything in our world!

With belief, we are the captains of our ship; we’re steering the ship through the waters, or like a sculptor molding the clay so to speak, and ultimately, building and architecting our magnificent dreams!

7) – Nothing = Nothing & Something = Something

Regarding building your dreams, nothing = nothing seems to make sense.  If you don’t put anything into a dream, nothing will happen.  People say it all the time:  “If you want to get fit, go to the gym.  If you want to find a lover, start meeting new people.”  But what if I told you that nothing = nothing really indicates something much worse than you might think; it actually means to go downhill in life?  Putting nothing in, any effort or energy, really says that you will eventually decline, become lethargic, depressed, just exist and ultimately see your life unravel in many ways.  This destruction can manifest through emotional misery, financial ruin, bad health, alcohol or drugs, just to name a few.  Merely existing is really not enough for any of us to really live our lives and be happy!  Surviving isn’t enough! 

We must never think that we can just expect a dream to drop out of the sky, like trying to pay the rent by winning the lottery.  Or thinking that a flash of inspiration such as seeing ourselves running a huge business of our own gets the job done in realizing this dream.  So many of us want to talk the talk, but not walk the walk.  Haven’t most of us had a dream of something great?  Whether finding a cure for a disease, or changing the world for the better.  But truly, we must take action and not just sit back…

Something = something sounds sort of like quid pro quo when it comes to our dreams.  If you put X amount of effort in, you’ll get X amount back in return.  What if I told you that the return might be better than we thought?  What if told you that putting something into our dream brings us much more than just that initial something we are putting in?

Think of a snowball rolling down the side of the mountain.  It may start with just a single push of a tiny snowball.  Then it gets bigger and faster, eventually rumbling down the side of the mountain like a runaway train – yet it started with a simple little snowball and a nudge.  The natural tendency of the universe is to reward us for our efforts and help us to achieve our dreams!

Even if you’re only seeing little pay offs and small victories, please keep putting “something” into your dreams.  Also, if you don’t see the results with your physical eyes, know that things are moving forward and evolving.  Keep making the journey of “something” is not just better than “nothing” — it can lead to everything we dream of!

8) – Don’t scatter your dream by living in the future

Don’t let your dream become an escape from reality – let your dream build reality.

The future is not real – the past is not real – all that is real is what we have right here, right now.  Today is the only day that we have of course, but deeper than that, today is all that actually exists.  I love the example of this provided by the metaphysical master Florence Shinn when she offered her metaphysical interpretation of who the robbers were on each side of Jesus when he was being crucified.  The robbers represent the robbers of time – both the past and the future.  Those are the real robbers, who rob us of the reality of living in the present tense – the wonderful here and now

Think of how this applies to your dreams.  If you live in the future, fantasizing what it will be like when you have “it,” how happy you’ll be when “that” happens, you help to scatter your energies, therefore, diminishing the possibility of your dreams ever coming true.  Even though we’re building something, we must be focused on the tasks at hand and not live for tomorrow.  Think of it this way; if you were a racecar driver, you would have to focus only on the exact moment-by-moment activity of the race; how you’re steering and maneuvering etc.  This analogy may seem extreme, but it really is the same situation with our dreams; do what you can do this very day and don’t waste your energy in the illusory future.

We must live for today and only today.  Even as we’re building on our dream, which presumably will take time, we must not scatter out energies by dreaming of the future and escaping into fantasy, living in the fuzzy glow of “when” and then” especially because It doesn’t even exist!

Live in the reality of what you can do for your dream today, and things will be able fall into place for you.

9) – Make it happen today

It is scary for most of us to think of leaving this world, especially if we haven’t yet achieved our dreams.  How would we feel if we died today?  Would we be OK with all of our dreams that we brought into being or would we be highly disappointed with the conclusion of our lives, as if we missed the boat entirely?  To think that it really is too late to do anything about it, and that we’ve indeed lost the opportunity to manifest our dreams…

What’s interesting though is that I would highly recommend looking at it in a completely different way by turning lemons into lemonade so to speak. Let the actual realization life is far too short to waste before we live out our dreams actually compel us and motivate us to act to go after our wonderful dreams. 

In my previous blog entry “Should Grown Ups Be Afraid Of The Dark?” I discuss this very premise – that fear is not always a bad thing at all.  Here, for instance, fear can be the very thing that motivates us to truly get up and do something about it.  None of us have forever in a given lifetime to manifest our dreams, yet sometimes and somehow we may think so, as if time is just going to keep rolling on along forever, affording us opportunity after opportunity.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  Regarding our dreams, in any given lifetime, we only have a finite amount of time to do something about it and make our dreams occur.

We must act now, as now is all we have.  Tomorrow is like a promissory note…  In short, don’t put off what you dream of doing.  Never take for granted that a door can open tomorrow or any other day, and if you think of it, why would you wait anyway?

10) – If you can dream it, you can have it

If we operate from the premise that all things, everything comes from higher mind, divine mind if you will, then all that is created, experienced, thought of does not originate with us. If it comes from higher mind, us thinking it is merely an affirmation or acknowledgement of what already is.  Meaning a dream is already a reality in divine mind, then it comes through you, and you perceive it, therefore, you can make it into a dream and actually have it, where we all can see with our very own physical eyes.

I love the concept of nothing is impossible, as it is true.  All things are possible, especially if the possibility you’re looking for is a dream; something that may enrich your life and the lives of others!

We must realize that the entire universe is connected, and the dreams that you feel and desire are from the source, and in synergy with the dreams that others share, as the collective dream is what we’re here to build; whether helping others to heal, financial success, love, health, happiness, artistic creations, or any great achievements, it all starts and ends with the simple idea of a dream.

Remember the very idea of God, nature and the universe we see supports, represents and is really one and the same as our dreams.  How?  The universe around us is forever expanding, growing and building; look at trees sprouting, grass growing taller; observe this entire kingdom continually producing — all species, from insects to animals to humans, constantly and forever attempting to be born and expand!  The concept of your dream is exactly the same – your life with all of its infinite possibilities expanding, growing, prospering with something new being able to be born at all times!  Build upon this expansion, because when your dream becomes an undeniable physical manifested reality, being wide-awake is the greatest dream you can be in!