Are you dreaming big enough?

I was talking to someone the other day who was telling me how stuck she felt when trying to decide whether or not to start a family.  She could see the advantages to both decisions and neither one felt quite right.  Then a friend of hers joked that she should have 4 kids, and all of a sudden, a lightbulb went off!  She immediately knew that THAT was her destiny and a clear vision of her future family immediately took form.

She needed a bigger dream to arrive at clarity and action.

I had a similar experience a couple weeks ago.  For years, I've been dreaming about taking a solo retreat and getting some good one-on-one time after 6+ years of active parenting.  But everywhere I looked something felt off or some excuse prevented me from taking action.  Until suddenly an offer for an international retreat to Glastonbury led by a favorite luminary of mine arrived in my inbox.  I immediately knew this was the one, even though it seemed the most far-fetched to actually attend, and before day's end, I had received a generous gift to make it possible to go.

I had to dream bigger to receive clarity and opportunity.

We are so often taught, from early childhood on, to be realistic, to get our heads out of the clouds, to reason and rationalize and evaluate, to practice convergent thinking, as I wrote about a couple weeks ago.  But if creativity is imagination made manifest, then dreaming is absolutely vital to the creative process and to fulfilling our purpose as creative beings!

And the bigger the dream, the more potent and inspired it may be, resulting in greater clarity, synchronicity, and courage to move forward.

For I do not believe we travel this life alone.  I believe the Universe is constantly conspiring with us and one of the ways she communicates with us is through our dreams - day and night, imaginary wanderings and even nightmares.  Those dreams may serve as nudges to lead us down a certain path or may signal our deepest desires.  We do not need to know how our dreams will be realized, we need only to trust that our dreams are vital, sacred, and will be supported in one way or another.

So if you're feeling stuck somewhere in your art or life, ask yourself,

what would be a bigger dream? 

What is the dream beneath the "I-can'ts, I-shouldn'ts and I-don't-know-hows"?

Allow yourself to dream big and what happens next may just surprise you!