Is there a Road Map to Achieve our Dreams?

Achieving this next dream ...

About 6 years ago, exhausted and frustrated, I stopped what I was doing and started to untangle my life. My life at times is like my hair. Tangled and knotted and very difficult to smooth out.

I set my sights on the kind of life I wanted to live when I was a small and stubborn child: Bee hives, olive trees, healthy, love everlasting, writer, artist…

But life is far more surprising than anything we can plan.

I didn’t plan for my mother to move my sister and I to Canada as teenagers; nor did I plan to become a yoga teacher or an osteopath; nor did I plan to marry a good man and fall out of love and call a marriage over. 

For Canada I am grateful for my step father. For yoga I am grateful to my aunt for the introduction. For Osteopathy I am grateful for the stable profession it has given me and discovering healing forces that stretch my perception of what’s possible. For marriage I am grateful for the years of building a good life and my children and that Ed is a man I can always depend on. 

Here, on the other side of many things, and at the beginning of others, I have created things that feel worth the struggle and hard stuff of their making.

Some people tell you to ‘follow your dreams’. But they don’t give you a road map. The people who tell you not to follow your dreams probably are very smart and know no one has made a good map.

If you’re stubborn and purpose driven like me you think you don’t need a map. You tell everyone you’ll be just fine and that you’re very smart and can figure it out. My step father reminded me of this a little while ago as he helped me out of a mess while also still trusting me to figure things out.

I think there’s a secret about dream creating that’s useful to know:

The secret is there’s no road map.

But.

There IS the next step. You CAN see your next best step.

I dislike (INTENSELY) when people tell you to trust that it will all work out… or have faith…. or manifest…

It doesn’t always work out as you want. Not at all! But, when it doesn’t work out at least you’ve tried, you learn, …. and then… you choose a better direction.

The next step always requires hard work, dedication, good thinking, an open-ness to your heart being broken (and then re-patched), money, community and so forth.

Life is like a river that changes course and you have to let it flow.

What I wanted to tell you about at the beginning of this post is my healing space. I’m so proud, like a parent, of what I’ve created. It’s my latest ‘dream come true’. I have a beautiful space high up on the top floor of my house that is my workshop for treatments, for kids nature classes, and herbal workshops and making art. It’s different than what I originally thought (dreamt) it would be when I began work on my tropical farmstead in Nicaragua. And, it’s better than what I had in my imagination.

The secret to this particular dream has been taking the next step and then pausing when the next step got messy to survey, experience, live a little, wait for the stress to leave my nervous system - and then - only once I had a little time and new clarity - then picking up where I left off.

Thresholds, new beginnings, the journey up a steep hill and seeing the view at last is worth it. But be prepared! Always carry snacks, enough water, some extra cash, emotional self help tools, love, an immense capacity to change direction a thousand times, a safety net, and make sure the people around you are safe as you venture forth.

Don’t hold back. Don’t stall and let yourself dry out like an old prune for fear of moving forwards. But just know, the road maps aren’t any good, you’ll make your own map one step at a time.

For this beautiful new work space I am happy. The doors are open to my healing space - workshops are on - this space is for everyone to love and experience good things.