Oh my gosh, I just love both Wendy McDonnell and Alex Baisley. And I’m most fortunate to know them both personally. When I found out they were doing this program on CFRU this sunday I could not wait. Give it a listen. You’ll hear something remarkable. I’m sure of it.
http://compassionatesolutions.ca/show-23-doing-what-we-love-with-alex-baisley/
After launching Dreamstepping in December of this past year with a strong internal commitment to blog about the process on a regular basis, I stalled.
So, I beat myself up about that for a little while (probably four months actually, ouch) and then realized that it was perfect; a perfect example of the difficulties encountered at all the transitions, in this case, the very first transition from dreaming to voice.
Writing about something, especially writing for public consumption is a step toward making it real. Voice is the essential second step that moves our dreams out of the ephemeral and into form. We start to bring dreams into form either by speaking or writing about them. Giving voice to your dreams turns them into sound waves, still ephemeral but with some duration in time-space. But writing about them? That is even more real. Putting pen to paper, or, in the case of this blog, electrons on a disk somewhere is an assertion of the unreal over the real. At each transition your dreams become more and more real until they finally exist in form at which point it is essential to the creative process that you return their creative energy back to the source through enjoyment and gratitude.
But that is the end of the cycle. I’m still, at the beginning.
What is so difficult about transitioning from dreams to voice? First of all, if you’re dreaming you are almost always dreaming about a change of some sort. And change creates a conflict in our species. We both delight in and fear change. Each to our own extent and degree but it is true for us all. Much of our identity is built up around our relationship to change. Think to yourself, do you say, I am a change agent, I am a risk taker, I am cautious, I’m a planner, or I’m comfortable here. It is the “I am”, the sense of fixed identity and all the external worth and validation that comes to us through operating consistently that sets up the fear dynamic. Change puts our sense of self at risk. We might become something different. In fact, it’s almost guaranteed. And when we are in fear we don’t operate creatively. We go on autopilot and execute well worn, familiar at least, if not enjoyable scripts. For me, I stall; I do the laundry; I list all the things I should be doing instead; That’s my pattern, the scripts my own personal guardian against change runs for me. For you it might be different. Look and see, what do you do instead of talking or writing about what you dream for yourself, your family, friends and community? That’s your script. That’s your guardian herding you into the known to avoid the unknown.
And its fine, it’s not wrong, it doesn’t need to be fixed, changed, or eliminated; there is safety in the known. Safety is a good thing. Embrace the guardian. It’s great to have a place to retreat to when change gets overwhelming. What I don’t want to happen though is for the guardian to run the show. I don’t want to be stopped by the fear of change. By the fear that I’ll become something just a little different and all my externally defined worth will be threatened. So, what stops us at transitions is ‘the guardian’ Ego defences, the protections we erect to preserve our sense of identity and fear. In the immortal words of Frank Herbert’s Bene Gesserit ‘Fear is the Mind Killer’. I want my mind, alive, the creative part at least. Because there is also delight in change, in surprise, in creation and exploration. We’re just as pulled to it as we are to safety. And if we languish in safety for too long there are warriors who prod us forward with the weapons of boredom, frustration, that nagging sense of ‘there must be something more’. Embrace the warrior; It will keep you in balance.
The two big blocks then, and I believe they are the same blocks that rise up at each transition, are fear and ego. We deal with those and we’re free to create, free to dream and step into those dreams moment by moment, day by day. Stay with me, learn with me, as I stay with me and deal with fear and ego to make my dreams come true.
And the sense of conflict perhaps is set up by the metaphorical characters I’ve used to speak for this duality that exists in us; the desire for safety and the desire for change. I personified those two impulses as guardian and warrior. I’m struck by the war metaphor and all the destruction that comes with that. I’ve certainly felt that kind of carnage internally as I beat myself up about not moving forward. What if we thought about those impulses differently? How would that change our experience of dreamstepping?
I’m excited to invite you to join me and Julie Wise as we speak with Wendy McDonnell on CFRU this Sunday morning. Here’ is a link to Wendy’s blog outlining the show on Co-Parenting after Divorce.
http://compassionatesolutions.ca/show-13-co-parenting-after-divorce/
Just back last night from two days of skiing in New York State. Anyone who lives in Southern Ontario or environs knows that the last few days have not been exactly dream conditions for skiers. We’ve had a nice white Christmas with an early snowfall but the last week has been marked by rain, freezing rain, high winds and seemingly ceaseless drizzle. But, this past fall I set an intention, voiced a dream, that I would ski much, much more than I had in the winter of 2008. So, I went ahead and booked the B&B, corralled my two teenage girls into ditching their friends for two days and roused us all at 6am on Sunday morning. We’d packed up the the night before so we ate a quick breakfast, piled into the car and backed out of the garage – into pouring rain.
Now, this is where Dreamstepping comes in. Both the girls were moaning, even I had an escapee thought that went something like this…”What are you, NUTS? It’s pouring rain!” The evening before my once and future fiance had laughed at my optimism and suggested I create an alternate plan. And yet, here we were. Blasting through the downpour, with a car full of ski gear and nothing but the dream of a couple of fun filled days on the slopes. Two hours to the border, pouring rain; The US Customs agent asks the purpose for our trip. ‘We’re going skiing’ says I, jerking a thumb to the gear poking through the split seat from the trunk. ‘Good Luck with that.’ he smirks handing back our passports.
Oh ye of little faith.
This is one of the many transitions where we allow fear to stop us, the transition from the plan that materializes shortly after we voice our dream, to putting that plan into action. And, it seems like we’re bailing on the plan for such good reasons. Really, seriously, it’s POURING rain and it has been for the past two hours. In fact, according to the customs agent, it has been raining for the past 4 days! Nobody in their right mind would continue on this foolhardy mission. But fear is the only thing really that is stopping us. Fear that it won’t turn out like we hoped. So, I didn’t let fear stop us…here we go, down I 190, to I90 to hwy 219, pouring all the way.
And as we pull through Ellicottville just after 9:30 am we see the first blue sky of the holiday season spreading slowly over the crest of the hill at Holiday Valley. No kidding, in the 10 minutes it took us to drive through town and walk into the ticket counter the clouds had parted, the ever present wind had all but dried the parking lot and our two days of sunny weather dawned.
Keri, Tricia and I enjoyed two fantastic days of skiing happily skidding through the almost slush of the non-existent lift line to zip back up to the top for run after corn snow run unfettered by crowds. At dinner, we landed a table at the nicest restaurant in town because everyone stayed home these past few days leaving us to enjoy our mini dreamed up vacation to the fullest.
At each transition, from the dream, to the voicing of it, to the receiving of the plan, to the acting on the plan, to the enjoyment and gratitude of the dream fulfilled we have to trust, resist the hollering voice of fear from many sides and continue on our course. There’s power in the dream, strength to be build in its pursuit, and all manner of delightful surprises on the path. This is the stuff life; what stories, & memories are made of.
These were two days I will not soon forget, nor will the girls. I’m so grateful we stayed the course!
The great thing about loving what you do is that you’re never working. As proof of that I submit exhibit A my Christmas present… This year my mother bought me a book, always a traditional Christmas gift at our house, that has had me mumbling ‘Yesssss!’ and ‘I KNEW IT!” all day today as I read it and connected multiple examples in the text with the design of Dreamstepping. The book (I know you’re dying to know the title)is called ‘Outliers’ by Malcolm Gladwell.
He’s the guy who wrote “The Tipping Point” and “Blink” both of which are sociological masterworks that shake your assumptions to the core. I love that stuff, I really do. With Outliers, Gladwell again gives your worldview a lovely little spin on its axis. This time about success and what it takes to achieve it. You’ll find yourself looking at your success, your ambitions, and the way you set out to reach your goals in a whole new light.
What I like about the book of course, is that it lays out brilliant reasons why a program like Dreamstepping is so necessary for success and why ‘going it alone’ is so incredibly difficult. Gladwell drives home the point of how incredibly important cultural and demographic influences are on how we approach the world AND how blind we are to them.
Working in a group atmosphere with people who support and believe in you and whom you trust is critical for being able to see yourself and your actions in a way that points out your cultural blind spots. Especially with respect to asking for what you need with the expectation that you will receive it and are entitled to it. He goes into great detail about how intelligence and natural talent (the holy grails in our individualistic society) are simply threshold competencies. That is, you need a certain amount intelligence and talent to get anywhere but to succeed with your gifts you need much more. You need persistence, creativity and assertiveness all of which are difficult if not impossible to sustain alone. And all of us have been subtly and thoroughly programmed in the culturally acceptable use of creativity, assertiveness and persistence by our particular cultural upbringing. So much so that it is difficult to even see alternatives to our programmed ways of being and how we trip ourselves up without a supportive system to reflect our assumptions back to us as questions to be examined.
Gladwell gives example after example of places where these outside forces support success and more than a few tragic examples where they do not. After one story about a bona fide genius who eventually settles bitterly for work far below his potential Gladwell notes
He knew he needed to do a better job of navigating the world but he didn’t know how… There were things that others, with lesser minds, could master easily. But that’s because those others had help along the way and [he] never had. It wasn’t an excuse. It was a fact. He’d had to make his way alone and no one – not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses – ever makes it alone.
THAT is why I started Dreamstepping. Because I know that no one can succeed all by themselves, even if you could it wouldn’t be a very fulfilling success. I sincerely hope you can join us this January in a supportive group of people committed to changing their habits, choosing their culture and creating success by making their dreams come true.
So I’ve had just over 24 hours of true holiday time on my own. Nothing was open, there was no where to go and nothing that needed doing since my culinarily gifted sister has volunteered to cook Christmas Dinner tonight. I got more creative work done in those 24 hours and feel more rested and peaceful and connected with the possibility in my own dreams than I have in months. I’m so grateful for this quiet time this year. I just wanted to connect with that before the kids come home and their energy and delightful presences fill the house again. More to be grateful for there for sure. And it is different.
Dreamstepping is a process. In short, dreamstepping helps you conceive of an idea and gradually move it from the imaginary into its full expression in the world. We work to do this through what I call the 5 dimensions of creation. Though this is a cycle and we can begin at any point I generally talk about the first step being dreaming itself. After Dreaming we make the ephemeral idea just a little more real by speaking it. After the dream has been given voice the next most real phase is creating a plan, Followed by taking action and finally by Reflecting, enjoying and appreciating what we have acomplished.
Dream. Speak. Plan. Act. Enjoy. – Seems simple.
And it is simple, to outline. The challenge though, if you’ll reflect on any passing fancy, dream, wish or hope that you have not yet acomplished, is in the doing. Specifically, I have discovered it is in the transition from any one of the five dimensions to the one following it. At each transition we are plagued by doubts and fears that tend to stop us from progressing to the next dimension. Sometimes those fears and doubts are so strong and so un-conscious that we get stuck interminably in one of the dimensions.
Take a look at the ways we get stuck below and see if you find yourself here.
If you recognize yourself in one of these stuck places then Dreamstepping can help you through the doubts and fears keeping you from a life of accomplishment, success and fulfilment. Visit the events section to discover when the next dreamstepping program begins.
Beginning January 15th 2009 I will be hosting a Group Practice in Dreamstepping. Together, 12-18 folks committed to making 2009 a year when their dreams get taken off the shelves, out of the dusty dark corners of their minds and hearts and brought to life will meet with me three times a month for 12 Months to make Dreamstepping part of their lives too.
I am really excited about this chance to see Dreamstepping work the kinds of remarkable changes in other lives that it has worked in mine.
If you are ready to make your dreams come true then get in touch through the contacts page so that I can fill you in on the details.
It is just before midnight on Christmas Eve. This is the first Christmas eve of my life which I have spent alone. Its a first and at 43 firsts are fewer and farther between. I’m pleased that this first, which I must admit I wasn’t particularly looking forward to, has turned out really wonderfully. I spoke at length with my brother which I haven’t done for ages, regretfully. I played a new CD by Theivery Corporation that I received with love and gratitude from my once and future fiance. (Yes, I realize that’s an odd term, but this is a blog about Dreamstepping and one of the essentials about stepping into dream creation is clarity about where you are and what you want) And I had a stretch of uninterrupted time ahead of me with no pressing agenda where I could focus on creating a site for Dreamstepping which has long been on my mind to do.
For those of you out there who dream of long stretches of agendaless time and who routinely disregard those dreams as impractical at best and selfish or impossible at worst notice this… That when the need for ease and relaxation is sated the impulse to create arises. And the urge to create will serve the greater good. There is no selfishness in desiring time for your thoughts to settle and your dreams to arise. This is an essential step in the cycle that is dreamstepping. I would call it the first step but truly, wherever you find yourself is the first step.