I am not a person who dreams at night. I rarely wake up feeling like I have been dreaming. I could propose several different theories, but none of them make sense to me - especially given my overactive daytime brain activities! So it was a huge surprise to me last night when I woke up at least 5 different times with vivid dreams. Each dream was different, but there was a common theme: overcoming an obstacle.
For those of you who know me well, the fact that at least 2 dreams spotlighted on spiders will not shock you. What shocked me about these dreams was that I purposefully went to the spiders (and these were not small, easy to kill spiders, by the way) and bravely, if not confidently, killed them. Oh the lessons I could learn from my dreams...
As I have been preparing for 2013, I have been preparing myself for the mental and emotional challenges that have prevented me from finishing goals in my past. The fact that I was brave and confident about achieving a goal is not lost on me, as that has not been my style. I tend to be bold at the beginning and fade at the end, but I am working on changing that. I very rarely face my fears without hesitation and with enthusiasm. (I even more rarely kill spiders without trying to get someone else to do it for me!)
So often, when I talk about dreams, I am thinking about the future and what that might hold for me, if I were to focus my attention on achieving them. My dreams tend to be theoretical and full of possibilities, but there is always an undercurrent of impossibility flowing in my dreams. There is always a sense of fantasy surrounding even my most realistic dreams, and I think, when I dream, I subconsciously accept that the majority of these dreams will never come to pass.
I have been processing how I would respond to someone else if they were to dream big and accept mediocrity. I know I would be there to encourage and support my friends as they pursued a dream...but what would I do if someone with a dream felt they could never achieve it and gave up before they tried? I'm that pushy friend who will ask a ton of questions in an attempt to discover why the dream "cannot be achieved". I'm that cheering friend who will find a way to be present and be positive as even the tiniest of steps is taken. I'm that sensitive friend who will change subjects (momentarily - not permanently) when a setback has come up...but I'm still that same pushy and cheering friend, and I will bring the dream back into focus.
Why is it that I have not done that for myself? Why would I not be as pushy, as cheerful, and as sensitive to me when I would be that for most people I meet? I noticed something interesting as I wrote earlier. When I wrote the phrase "to discover why the dream 'cannot be achieved'", I first wrote "why the dream isn't important enough". I don't know if I can even fully appreciate the implications of my first phrase! Have I been placing subconscious judgments on my dreams? On myself?
With all these questions flowing in my head, I know one thing. I want to be the person who confidently, without hesitation, faces my fears and achieves my dreams. I want to be a fearless dreamer. (I still, however, don't want those dreams to involve spiders.)
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