“Has it ever crossed your mind that not every thought that crosses your mind is yours?” –C.S.Lewis
After last week’s post on Keeping Your Dream Alive, I’ve had several readers ask to continue the conversation of being committed and not attached to a dream. It’s important to see that being committed and not attached really is a way of being for all of your life. So even though we’re focusing in on a way of being with your dreams, you can read this for the day-to-day situations you find yourself in as well.
Your dream is trapped in attachment when there’s a sense that things either must always stay the same (resistance to change) or must change (resistance to the way it currently is). If there is a sense that life must be anything other than what’s actually happening right now, that’s an attachment.
Your dream is trapped in attachment when it can only be attained in a certain way. The attachment is to all the details—the how—of it coming to pass in your life. It cuts off all other possibilities and opportunities regarding who, where, when and what will occur for the dream to be fulfilled.
Your dream is trapped in attachment when attaining it means you’ll finally be loved, happy, whole, successful, etc. This always leaves your wellbeing dependent on your circumstances. You are attached, and desperate, for certain outcomes because your security is on the line.
Consider what life coach, Michael Neill, has to say, “We’re not afraid of what we think we’re afraid of. We’re afraid of what we think.” In the following video, Michael gives a fascinating Tedx Talk on the freedom available when we stop attaching to every thought that runs through our mind.
- Space to be with any situation just as it is, whether changing or staying the same, rather than living from resistance, which only intensifies suffering.
- Space to consider new possibilities and ways of going after what you want, rather than getting stopped when what you tried didn’t work.
- Space to experience wellbeing right now as a chosen stance to live from that is not impacted by shifting circumstances, rather than waiting on life to turn out in order to be okay.
Take some time to get present to the attachments that have left you afraid, disempowered and stuck regarding your dream. Now imagine what would be available if you just give space to (detach from) those thoughts. Let them pass; they’re not true anyway. What would be next for you if you stop letting those thoughts tell you what’s possible?
Becky
