Plan on your dreams

At "Singing a New Song" we discuss and write about what appears to be a wide range of life experiences, from finding yourself and healing from abuse to learning to dream again. We can't stop there though. We hopefully can find ourselves somewhere along this continuum but let's not leave out an important step in SEEING OUR DREAMS COME TRUE...and that is PLANNING on your dreams.

Personal experience has taught me that just having dreams isn't enough. I rarely "gave into" my dreams because realizing that NOT living my dream caused me to be so dissatisfied with the life that I was living. I was just barely emotionally holding onto my life in an abusive (christian...and this is a whole other story in itself!!!) marriage and my dream "took me back" to a younger and more loving time with my First Love. Who wouldn't DREAM about love that was lost when you feel no love around you??? Well, I admit that I DID give into it, sparingly, but his image, love and my longing for him was so strong that I confessed to a good friend that I had a "bad/good" dream about "him" last night. I knew after this had gone on for some time that I was still in love with him and that my "real dream" was to be with him.

Before we can PLAN out our dreams we need to identify what they are. What do you feel and think when you hear the phrase "dream come true"? I knew what it was for me. I lived with it many years, believing that it was impossible to ever be with him again and to live out the rest of my life loving him and being loved by him. I thought that mainly because, though I was married, it was an abusive marriage with no end of the abuse in site. He had denied it infront of counselors, discounting what I said and felt. He even mocked the tears I cried but one thing he did not do...he could not say that I was unfaithful to him, though I had been "loving" my First Love in my dreams for years!!! I truly believe that I had only done that because I had emotionally been so damaged that I detached myself from my then-husband and did not feel guilt about "loving my First Love and being loved by him" in my dreams. There was NO guilt at all. I was not unfaithful to him; to NOT acknowledge my love for my First Love would have been unfaithfulness to myself and to my First Love.

Put your dreams into words or images. Write them down in a safe place, entrust them to a best friend/confidante and write poetry, sing songs, paint pictures, create collages or anything else that creatively expresses your dreams. Start LOOKING at them. Thinking about them. Bring their reality into YOUR reality. I wrote my First Love a song...I sang it all the time, hoping that I would stop loving him. It didn't happen. It was even a "goodbye song" and I couldn't say "goodbye" though we had not seen each other for 25 years. Though it did not do what I had wanted, it was expression of the dream that I had held in my heart for many years but would not acknowledge. A dream has a way of making itself known to us...we need to listen to our hearts.

Once your dreams "have a life of their own", it is time to "clear the way" to making room for your dreams (check out this blog entry: Making room for your dreams: Singing a New Song )...it is time to look at your life and allow yourself some deep soul searching and ask yourself "what do I really want in my life" and start "rearranging". In my life, I saw no way to bring him into my life, I would have to leave this life; my job, location, friends, even family and GO AFTER my dream!!! One day, my dream was made real to me in an epiphany. There was a tragic death of a coworker and through her sudden passing, I realized that it could happen to either me or my First Love and that could "end my dream" of ever seeing him again. I was motivated as I was never motivated before...I contacted him and within a week, we saw each other for the first time in 25 years. We are both older and a bit wiser and both had wanted "this dream come true".

The fact is: DREAMS DO come true for those who PLAN ON MAKING THEM COME TRUE. I hope that you will "find yourself, heal from abuse and learn to dream again" as I have. I can show you the way. I have been RIGHT where you are, right this very moment. No matter if you are single, married, divorced and wanting more for your life...I know where you are. You deserve to have the kind of life that only you can dream of...put some plans to your dreams.

NEVER give up on your dreams...they will never give up on you and neither will I.