what’s your purpose for money?

Wow, January went by fast!   Instead of setting a bunch of goals and resolutions for myself I decided to take a different approach to preparing myself for the year to come.  A big reason for our move to SC is to live the life we have DREAMED of living!  So, I’ve spent the better part of the month digging deeper, visioning, exploring the possibilities and really allowing myself to dream of what my life can be if I get out of my own way!

I love what Kahlil Gibran writes about dreams in The Garden of the Prophet; “You grow in sleep, and live your fuller life in your dreaming.”

I am exercising my ability to open to my dreams is by taking the online Mondo Beyondo Dream Big in the New Year course.  So far we are about half way through and the daily exercises have invited me to explore my hidden dreams.  What I’ve come to realize is that sometime after graduation from college I kind of forgot how to dream!   This may sound crazy but when I left school I had dreams of becoming a well known designer, designing my own line of products (or license designs) and traveling to exciting and inspiring locations.  Part of this dream came true but I also let insecurity creep in and listened to the naysayers until I eventually buried my own dreams in the daily grind.  It’s taken some coaxing but I’m slowly un burying those dreams, bringing them back to the surface, inviting the possibility of new dreams into my life and casting off the ones that I’ve decided I no longer need to hold onto.

Creating a vision board is one powerful way I’m expressing what I dream for my life.  In the past I’ve done vision boards with images but this time I decided to stick with words, which were easier to find and I added my own where I could not find them in magazines etc.  Words are very powerful and now I’ve got this vision board in a place where I can be reminded every day what I’m attracting into my life.

I am learning that allowing myself to dream involves faith and casting aside my worries.  I took this literally and wrote each worry on a shell and cast them into the ocean.  Now, each time a worry automatically creeps in and threatens those tender sprout’s of my dreams I remember that I’m no longer going to feed my worries, they are gone, out of my hands and cast to the sea.

As I’ve been exploring the possibilities of my dreams I’ve met some fantastic people including Business Coach, Mary Anna Lewis.  During a Dreams and Visions strategy session with her I wrote out “my perfect day” which was a truly powerful exercise!  I invite you go give it a try.  You can use any format you like, I used a letter as if I was writing to a dear friend who I hadn’t spoken to in awhile, telling them all about my life in general and explaining in more detail about how I spend a typical day.  I was asked to share this letter with the other participants that day and voicing it out loud gave it even more power!  Eveyone in that room said they could see me living it! 

Allowing yourself to really dream can be a scary proposition for some people.  If you haven’t actively allowed yourself to dream for awhile it might take some practice to get back into that place where you can let go of your own limitations, worries and rules.  When was the last time you sat down and wrote down some dreams?  Isn’t it time you do so?  Don’t let your life go by without really living the life you’ve dreamed of!