Dare To Dream WAKE UP!

It is about introspection, coming to know yourself, and ultimately, coming to trust, to regain that trust in yourself. We all have dreams, and they are important. And, it has come to be my understanding that our dreams cannot be realized until we awaken. Until we wake up!.

As long as we are dreaming, we are still asleep, we are in a state of sleep. It is when we wake up that we can begin to realize our dreams, and that is done in the process of living, of actualizing our dreams…or actualizing who we are.

The actualization of our dreams requires action, a doing, and that doing comes out of a state of awakening, and that awakening is the process of coming to know who we are. So, that awakening, that coming to know who we are, is a process for us. The dream is what informs, or initially defines, the process and it is the awakening that refines the process as we go along, as we live our lives awake.

The approaches that support this process and direction are the ones that I use in my work with others. It comes out of a commitment to the realization of the power of waking up to who we are and what we want in our life. This awakening also involves the reality of our interconnectedness. Part of our seeing with our eyes open, awake, is seeing that we are all connected in this world.

If I am awake to myself, first of all, there is nothing or very little that can go by me, internally, within me, that I do not notice. And the more I notice and become aware within myself, the more I awaken (to myself). Waking up to ourselves is not easy, especially since we have developed and created over time a system that keeps us caught in a dream that really does not work for us. We live our lives caught in a dream, a sort of thoughtform.

What assists in waking up to our inner self is to begin to give time to listening internally. Within us are many parts, with many concerns and fears, and many ways that they come to make up who we have become or who we have come to believe we are. It is by listening in that we come to know our self. And this takes practice, and, in my experience, it takes the help of another at times. That is what I have come to know is my role when I am working with a person: to be fully present for them in their listening, their reflecting out what they know about themselves at this time.

I see the value and importance of this for me on a larger level as one. One of the major problems going on these days is that we are mostly, if not entirely, living our lives as in a dream; we are sleep-walking. And we have come to believe that the dream is true. It has come to feel real to us. We are mesmerized, hypnotized, and entranced by all that we have created as a humanity. And we are blind and asleep to its affects, to some of its reality, that does not serve us. The underlying intention is to wake up, and to help others wake up to what is so that we can move forward in our own personal journey and the collective journey.

In many ways when we enter into our own inner domain, our own inner world, we begin a journey that surprisingly takes us into an unknown area. We think we know ourselves. When we begin this internal journey we come to understand that we do not know ourselves as much as we thought we did. Things begin to unfold, move into clarity, for us. Who we thought we were is not truly who we are. We are still, for one thing, evolving, developing, and changing all the time. Or, at least, we are capable of that.

It seems to me that globally we are moving into a new direction, a new narrative, or story, about who we are and where we want things to go. And not only for our individual self, but for humanity as a whole, the collective. I heard an important and valuable lesson from Pamela Weiss. She talks a lot about coming to hearing and listening to your “calling”. Listening to what calls you from outside of yourself and what calls you from inside yourself. And that from that comes one’s intention. And intention requires courage.

The intention also requires commitment. The commitment to follow through with our calling. To begin to realize it, to actualize that intention born of our calling. We then, in moving forward in our commitment, we confront all sorts of road blocks, diversions, differences, and difficulties. Weiss then brings in compassion. That we have compassion in the face of these differences and difficulties that arise in front of us.

Interestingly enough, she ends with the quality of curiosity on this journey. Weiss equates curiosity with the Buddhist notion of “beginners’ mind”. This quality has always been a powerful one for me. It quickly opens the door for me to my true self. That no matter what I confront or come across, rather than judgment or despair or entrenchment, I meet it with curiosity. This, then opens me to further growth, further expansion, and further evolution.

It takes courage to wake up, especially if the dream we have made for ourselves is in any way or to any degree, found on some fear. It is the fear that also requires us to commit to our intention, to our calling, if we are to live a life based on our true sense of self. And, I have found, it is compassion and curiosity that keep me on the journey no matter what comes in my way in that journey.

The bottomline for me? It is time for us to wake up. To wake up from the dream we have created and begin from compassion for ourselves and for all others, and to begin with curiosity, an open-mindedness, a beginner’s mind. Let me add another quality: creativity. We can bring in creativity and make something very real and beautiful, and true happen for ourselves and for all others. We are creators. We created so much already. Let’s wake up and join the others that have already begun the journey to, what Weiss calls, a new narrative, a new story of what it means to be human.