Don’t let your dreams ruin your life

by | Nov 27, 2022 | Joy & Happiness, Personal Growth, Spirituality

When someone says to an eternal dreamer like me that my dreams may be ruining my life, I sharpen. I turn the volume up and prepare to hear something utterly stupid.

But in fact, to my surprise I didn’t hear something stupid. What I heard made perfect sense.

Big and bold dreamer

I have always had BIG and BOLD dreams for myself, and this is part of the fun of life for me. I dream of impossible scenarios, and very often manage to turn them into reality. Dreaming and imagining the future is part of the manifesting process for me – instead of paying attention to the what-is, I imagine new ways of being and new ways of living my life.

But I quickly realized that there might be another way of being.

When we dream, when we come up with scenarios about our lives that we so desperately want to come true, we get fixated. At least that’s what happens to me.

For the past three years I have been fixated on my dream of becoming a successful entrepreneur, and I was convinced it was the ONLY way for me to achieve happiness.

For me it was the only possible way leading me to the destination I thought was my dream.

So I worked hard, day in and day out, and didn’t consider any other options. I didn’t see any other paths because I was determined that a business of my own, THIS particular business, would be the path that would take me away from all the things I didn’t want, and usher me into peace, love and success.

My dream was hot and bright, and nothing could stand in my way. Not my full-time corporate job, not my toddler or my husband, nothing. I would find time to work on my business when there wasn’t any time to give, I would bend space and reality to make my dreams come true.

I’m standing in my own way

Looking back, the only thing standing in my way was me.

I was so fixated on my dream that I didn’t realize it wasn’t the right path for me. I had become stubborn and forgotten all about softness and allowing. I didn’t listen to anyone, not even the Universe when it tried to provide me a better way (I would have gotten a promotion at work, but I proudly turned it down and kept working on my “dream“).

Little did I realize, my dream was ruining my life.

My dream was wasting my money, wasting my time and wasting my energy.

When we fixate on our dreams, we tend to forget that there are infinite ways that can lead to our desired destination. And more importantly, we tend to forget that the destination we imagine for ourselves is not the best possible destination, because the Universe always plans better.

What I also forgot, is that my job is not so much to tend to the details. My job is to dream new ways of being, and let go of the details. Because the essence of my desire can come to me in a million different ways, if I let go of being fixated on the one and only option I can see with my limited view.

I realized that by trying to become something that matched an image in my head, I was actively blocking the version of me that was trying to become the best version of itself.

I was actively blocking the life that tried to live through me.

When your dreams ruin your life

Sheryl Strayed told this recently to Glennon Doyle when visiting her podcast “We can do hard things“.

Sheryl said how her dream was to write the “great American novel”, and the pressure of that BIG and BOLD dream was so crushing that it actually stopped her from writing at all. Her dreams placed such daunting pressure on her that she froze and did nothing.

Until she realized sometime vital.

She could only write her novel. She could only write the best novel she could write, and the rest was not up to her. She had to allow herself to be who she really was, and let go of the results. She had to let go and surrender to the thought that the novel might be great, or it might be mediocre.

But she simply could not be someone she was not.

The same runs true for the rest of us. We can only be who we are, the best versions of ourselves, and we must surrender to the fact that the outcome of that is not in our hands. Are we great or are we mediocre? Are we average or are we basic?

As I let go of the business I was obsessed with, I realise that my dreams were in fact ruining my life. I was trying to become something I wasn’t, while not allowing myself to become who I was meant to become.

As I wrote last time, we are fulfilling our highest purpose when we are being fully our selves. We don’t have to try so hard. We don’t have to strive to such great heights. What if we allowed ourselves to be who we are, to do what brings us joy, and take every day as it comes?

What if there was no pressure to become great, to become successful or grand?

As I let go, the Universe swooped in and offered me the same promotion it wanted to hand me already few years back. As if to say: here, do this instead. This is where I want to have you.

As if to remind me, this is what you ask of me every day in your meditation: 

What would you have me to today?
Where would you have me go?
What would you have me say?
And to whom? 

As if to remind me – if you ask, you must also take the time to listen to the answer. 

I smiled, because I was reminded that what is meant for us, cannot escape us. And instead of pressuring myself with a BIG and BOLD dream to become the best god damn manager my employer has ever seen, I sigh, lower my shoulders and surrender.

I will just be me.

I will be me in the truest way possible, and let go of the rest.

Maybe I will be great, maybe I will become mediocre, it really isn’t up to me. I will simply allow the Universe to live through me.

And that feels like liberation.

 

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Hi, I'm Kaisa

I’m a INFJ/HSP/HSS chasing joy, sensations, experiences, emotions, contradictions, LIFE. I’m here to share my experience of existence with you in the hopes that we feel connected at heart and strengthened by our shared experience.

“May we all know ourselves as the Universe created us. May we all know life as we were meant to live it. May we all love purely, deeply and totally. May humanity discover its divinity, and may we all dwell in the peace of the Universe” – A Course in Miracles