“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” —Joseph Campbell

That dream that keeps dancing, no, darting ever so insistently to the front of your mind, trying to convince you to pursue it, to stop ignoring it. Those are the dreams we’re talking about today.

These dreams can be wildly imaginative, such as flying to the moon and seeing never-before-seen views of the lunar landscape as the Artemis II crew recently experienced for the first time, they can be the dream of living your life ever-so-slightly differently than you are right now, or anything in between – traveling to a long-dreamed-about country or destination for the first time, finally learning that language that tickles your tongue and your mind, becoming part of your community, opening a farmstand to sell the fruits and veg from your garden, learning the skill of meditation, learning how to cook à la française, becoming more flexible, founding your own business, opening a bookstore, learning how to play chess, attending a favorite singer or band’s concert, becoming financially free, growing a garden from seed and propagation. Wonderfully, this list of what a dream you hold might be is endless because you are the dreamer, and each of us has within us the seeds of the dreams that will bring us to life to showcase our unique gifts.

Dreams begin when our curiosity is tickled.

Because our mind is tickled, we pay attention to what is causing the sensation that heightens our awareness of its presence.

And here’s the evidence that a dream is worth pursuing – if the idea continually presents itself, even when we are trying to stay focused on the life we are living now. Granted, we can choose to hold an idea in our mind, exercising the act of focus, even if it isn’t a dream, even if it doesn’t bring us to life. And this focus is needed in order to continue forward toward realizing any idea. But what I am talking about today are these ideas that, for no reason beyond the initial curiosity flickering across our mind, we continue to see the idea of the dream stand in the foreground of our mind’s attention and plead with us to take action.

Somehow, our inner compass knows where we will most fully come to life. Case in point, to this day, I still do not know where my love of the French culture began. But I know that it did, and I know without hesitation, when I was 20 years old, and the opportunity to study abroad became available to me as a junior in college, I wanted to seize it. Thankfully, I did. Because by seizing that wisdom that seemed to come out of nowhere, my curiosity tapped into an infinite source of energy for my life journey, and it continued to lead me back to France and their approach to everyday life. A way of life where I finally felt at peace within myself as I had never felt before.

“Our truest self is when we are in dreams awake.” —Henry David Thoreau

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Why dreams prompt fear within us

No matter how daring the dream may appear to the outside world, to each of us, based on our life experience thus far, the examples of life journeys we have observed of our parents, siblings, mentors, friends, etc., often, the idea of actually pursuing our dream will fill us with fear. This is normal.

“If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.” —Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Fear arises because we unconsciously understand this dream has the potential to change our life should we be successful in our pursuit. Contrarily, if taking the risk to pursue our dream didn’t matter to our life journey if it worked out, similar to shooting a free-throw in practice as opposed to in an overtime nail-biting final match-up, then the fear would vanish. However, it is because we know that what we will experience will open up our world, teach us something new about ourselves, and as a result, we will be forever changed, we are hesitant to change what we know. This hesitancy arises from something I will talk about in a few paragraphs.

Another reason we feel fear is that we care about what we are curious about. We want it to work out, and because we cannot know with certainty how it will unfold once we begin stepping forward into the unknown, that fear appears. If we didn’t want it to work out, it wouldn’t be considered important to our life journey or self-fulfillment. Even if we don’t know why or how the risk will nourish us uniquely, and we likely will not, our inner compass knows, and that is why we feel fear – we, the conscious person having to make the decision to step forward, do not.

“I have had dreams, and I’ve had nightmares. I overcame the nightmares because of my dreams.” —Jonas Salk

Another way to look at the fear that is arising springs from the quote above. Because we know no other life than the one we have lived so far, even though in our current life we may experience pain, hurt, or be unfulfilled, it is often our dreams that are trying to lead us to where we will heal. What will heal each of us is as unique because it occurs when we align with what brings us to life. And so the dreams are realized, and the fears, pain, and feeling of being lost, confused, or dismissed ebb away, not because we ran away from them, but because we stepped toward our dream.

Neuroscience research backs this up. When we explore something we have never done, the Lizard mind will respond in fear, wanting us to stay put. We have often talked about the difference between the Lizard and Sage mind here on TSLL, and the key difference between thriving and surviving is understanding why our mind may wish to hold us back from trying something new. The Lizard mind wants to know, and it cannot know the outcome of anything we have yet to try, do, or explore. The Sage mind understands this reality, and for those who apply the wisdom of holding their mindset in the company of the Sage mind, they will instead do the homework to give themselves as much knowledge as they can to best prepare, but then, let go and give it a try.

“Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination.“ —Mae Jemison

What to do when others don’t understand or do not support your dream

“When someone judges you, it isn’t actually about you. It’s about them and their insecurities, limitations and unresolved pain.” —Lori Deschene

The friend who doesn’t understand why you would want to live differently from the life similar to their own, the parent who nods in approval yet gives the vibe of disbelief that you will ever take the risk, the co-worker or boss who laughs at your suggestion of what you have envisioned. Hopefully, you have never experienced any of these reactions when sharing your dream with those you felt you could trust. However, if you have, first, I applaud your courage to express your dreams aloud. That speaks volumes of your sincerity. Secondly, take Tiny Buddha‘s founder, Lori Deschene’s shared above to heart.

The lack of support or understanding reflects their life journey and their self-trust in themselves and the world. In such moments, you discover helpful guidance about who to continue to seek out, with whom to share, and who you will celebrate with along your journey to realizing your dream.

Let’s further explore why someone you thought you could find support from may be reluctant to give it. And keep in mind, it is not our job to change their minds. Our job is to honor our inner compass, to listen carefully and act with courageous wisdom.

Why others may not support you or lack understanding

1. Fear of change in the relationship they have with you

Depending on the type of relationship we have with someone, our dream, when realized, may pull us away from them due to distance, the amount of time we spend together, or the activities we share. Unconsciously, they may simply miss you and may not know how to communicate their feelings.

Also, this will likely mean they have to change their life in some way, and because it isn’t their choice, they may not be confident in their ability to do so or resent the additional effort and time it will require of them.

2. Different values and life priorities

Their lack of understanding may stem from their view of how life should be lived, and while we may not agree with their perspective, just as we want the freedom to live our life as we choose, we have to give them the freedom to do the same. However, just because they are not open to seeing that others may have different values and thus different ideas of how life can be lived, doesn’t mean we should let their lack of understanding or support hold us back or cause us to question our choice to pursue our dream.

3. Instinctively, and thus often unconsciously, they want to protect you

If the reaction to our shared dream is one of worry, it often comes from a parental figure, someone who genuinely loves us and wants our lives to go well, yet because our dream is beyond their life experience, they can’t find the confidence to trust or encourage us forward. Knowing is paramount to their giving us the support emotionally that we may want from them.

This is not to say all parental figures will respond this way, just to say that often, because a parental figure does so, it is not because they don’t love us or don’t want us to be happy. They do. It has more to do with all that is out of their control that provokes their reaction. Do not let their fear hold you back, but also understand, there is love present, even if misguided in its presentation.

4. Your courage reminds them of choices and chances they didn’t take

Sometimes it’s jealousy, sometimes it’s envy, and sometimes it is self-loathing that prompts others to dismiss, laugh, cast doubt, or pass judgment on our shared dreams. None of these has anything to do with our ability to succeed in our pursuit.

They may have harbored a similar dream long ago, and as the years have gone by, tucked it away and put it out of mind. Your sharing your dream triggers a reminder of what they once privately pondered they wished to do in their own life journey. And while it’s never too late to pursue a dream, they may feel it is or would be too difficult to attempt due to their current life circumstances.

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Only you will know if your dream comes innately from within you. And in many ways, when we don’t receive the support we would prefer, we are forced to clarify whether the dream we are seeking is our own. While we must never pursue a dream to gain approval from others, but instead to engage with the world in a way that brings us to life, once we know that our dream is ours, the decision to proceed is a simple one.

As I reflect on my own life journey so far, in those situations where the support I had hoped to receive wasn’t given, I was actually given something else that was pricelessly helpful. Clarity and thus confidence in the direction or action taken I had been pondering. We need this clarification to confirm that yes, we need to pursue our dream because the next big decisions are not as simple – when to begin, how to begin, any details about the dream itself, BUT not the overall dream itself. A couple of weeks ago, Monday’s Motivational post explored the topic of tough decisions and why they are so difficult, and one truth about any tough decision is that we can’t know if it is the right decision until we make it. However, we can know that, within this arena where our curiosity incessantly points us, we need to make a decision that steps us forward.

Why Stepping Toward Your Dream Will Be Worth It

Let’s take a look at the photo below (and at the top of the post) of the small spring creek meandering its way through the forest. When we stand on one side, our boots are dry (or our paws, in the case of Nelle), we’re comfortable because we know where we are and the trail behind us leads us back to what we know. But, take a look for a moment at the photo above (just below Thoreau’s quote), we see that the other side offers something more enriching, beautiful, and nourishing, something that speaks to our predilections, passions, and tickles our curiosity.

Whether there is a bridge or we have to leap across, we still have to decide to do so. We alone have to take action, and we alone are the traveler. We cannot experience the same sights, sounds, or ahas by living through others’ assumptions of what we will find (wanted or unwanted). Our experience will be unique to each of us, and how we prepared ourselves (did we wear wellies or waterproof boots?), did we forge ahead with our whole heart so that we can fully see all that is available to see and discover? Or did we jump or step forward, ignoring the details available to us prior to our journey, or remain tethered to our past while pursuing our dream, and thus lost out on seeing all that was possible?

“If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams.” —Les Brown

Whether we have the support we hope for or not, if we are traveling along our journey with a sincere heart, we will find people along the way who provide encouragement, who see the potential of what is possible. Our sincerity paired with practice reveals the viability of our dream, and gradually, more and more trust in our journey is reflected back to us in a variety of ways – some traditionally – support from friends, family or colleagues; others indirectly – comments on social media, serendipitous moments or even rejections where we had hoped to receive welcome that altered our course in a most fortuitous way.

Along with our preparing where and in what ways we can, as French poet, novelist, journalist, and winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, Anatole France reminds in the quote below, we must also embrace our dreams and believe in our inner compass, our inner wisdom that is pointing us again and again toward this dream that is at the moment unrealized. Yet with our preparation paired with trust in ourselves, the realization of our dream is, to use a French term, a fait accompli, all but certain.

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.“

Whatever your dream at the moment may be, seemingly small or grand to the public eye, it is significant if it keeps returning to grab your attention. Trust your inner knowing and start exploring how to bring the dream into your lived experience. Your life will forever be changed when you do, and in ways most profoundly positive and life-enriching.

Have a wonderful start to the week, and may you start to trust your dream’s validity.

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