​In celebration of the New Year I wanted to spend January focusing on how we make our dreams come true and what stops us from doing this.

In the first blog I introduced you to the “Disney Strategy,” which includes a process of creating from three different perspectives—the Dreamer, the Realist and the Critic. Let’s take a closer look today at what is involved in each of these and what gets in our way.

To dream you have to let go of the present and allow yourself to step into the world of possibilities. Because it is the future it is unknown and that’s where some people find the  difficulty. When things are unknown, some people feel fear rather than exhilaration. The unknown represents danger and the possibility of things going wrong. In addition, some people experienced, as a child, judgement and criticism for either dreaming or what they dreamed up.

Is this something that resonates for you? Were you a child that liked to dream? Did you stare off into the sky and created things? Were you supported or chastised for day dreaming? Did you come up with ideas people liked or not? Did you sometimes feel that nobody liked or understood you? It takes very little for us to retreat from sharing this inner world or side of ourselves, especially if we have been criticized. In addition people limit their dreams for fear of failure. What if I take on too much, can’t deliver or, or, or…?

So dreaming is not without it’s challenges or “dangers,” yet it is a critical capacity for allowing ourselves to really flourish and be optimally productive. The fear and baggage from the past needs to be addressed to allow this capacity to really emerge.

The Realist is a perspective many people are familiar with, although it’s very often contaminated with the Critic. What Disney as the Realist was step into what he’d envisioned, and walk around inside the “dream.” He allowed himself to fully experience it and noticed how it felt. Was it as wonderful as he had imagined, or were there things he hadn’t factored in? He fully explored the dream and took note of everything. Notice that the realist doesn’t mean “being realistic,” as in chiding yourself not to get your hopes up. It means allowing yourself to fully experience something, in a REAL way. Clearly if the Critic steps into this perspective it stops a person from being in the experience and takes them into their head, analyzing the situation. People who have experienced trauma often have trouble being present in a situation because they have felt unsafe in the past. Dissociation is one strategy people use to leave the present and not feel too much. Again, we see how past experiences can impede a person.

Lastly, the critic’s role is to assess how well the dream could work and offer suggestion to improve the dream so that it feels, looks, smells, sounds great. Over use and inappropriate timing of the critic is very common. You likely know someone who is always ready to tell you what won’t work and why. This pattern of criticizing often stems from being judged and criticized as a child.

To protect themselves from being criticized the child learns to jump ahead be the first to criticize. As s/he grows they get more sophisticated in how they do this pattern but at the end of the day it is almost always limiting, and often hurtful. The real role of the critic is to improve the dream. There is a very important role for the Critic if it is used well. You may have heard of Dr. Edward de Bono, who identified 6 primary ways of thinking which he likened to putting on different “hats” or perspectives. All of the different ways of thinking are useful but only if understood and used properly.

We each have the capacity to create and make dreams come true. The issue is what to do with the things that stop us.

Our past experiences are memories that can be triggered and create a flood of feelings. Once these feelings, which are a chemical “soup,” run in our system more thoughts are generated that match the feelings.

Let me give you an example. Suppose I have a worrisome thought about dreaming, or dreaming too big and failing. This thought could produce some anxiety, especially if I have some past experiences of failure. When these past experiences are triggered more feelings and chemicals will flood my system, and very quickly I’ll be in a downward cycle of feelings, which generate more negative thoughts, and so on. It will be almost like a dog chasing it’s tail, round and round. This pattern can get locked in and now become solidified into a way of thinking. This is what Dr. Joe Dispenza is talking about when he encourages people to “break the habit of being yourself.” He realized that most of what we think is not new or creative, but patterns of old thoughts that often do not serve us.

Clearing out old patterns of thought is a critical step in moving forward. We want to help people do that and we have two things we are offering to help you with this.

The first is an evening to help you get more comfortable with dreaming and visioning, and where you’ll be guided in a process of discovering what you really want in 2015. This is a key step in moving in the direction you really want to go. As the saying goes, “begin with the end in mind.” In other words, get clear on where you want to be at the end of 2015, before you move forward from there. If you click on the link below you will be able to attend this evening free of charge by using the promotional code BLOG. If you wait and register at the door, there is a charge, so please preregister. Gather your friends, your tribe and come out for this wonderful complementary evening.

And second, we are offering a 2-day workshop at the end of February, called SUCCESS BEYOND BELIEFS. In this workshop, we’ll help you clear your emotional baggage that is not serving you. This is a bit like cleaning your closets! It’s very important to make space for all the new experiences you want in 2015. CLICK HERE for more information. This is a wonderful Valentine’s gift to give yourself and your loved ones. I’ll be talking more about this later on.

Have a great week and I encourage you to start a list of the thoughts, feelings and even patterns that are slowing you down, or hampering you in any way. Having this list will help you know exactly what you want to clear.

and order your tickets today!

We’re really excited about this event, and hope that you’ll be able to join us.

Next Week…

Emotions, Thoughts & Identity

See you then 🙂