When Dreams are Dashed

I believe that there is a knowing of magic, a knowing of miracles and a knowing that all dreams come true. It is intrinsic to our essential nature as human beings.

However, so many times in a person’s life circumstance creates challenges, and those challenges are catalysts for major life decisions that we make about ourselves, the world and other people. Those decisions make us or break us. It seems that way anyway. Really, they alway make us.

All too often, those challenging circumstances appear to shatter this intrinsic knowing of magic and miracles, leaving us in despair and anxiousness. Where once we believed we were secure in the embrace of the abundance of pure love, we now feel unsafe, unsure, and uncertain about what will become of us. 

Instead of living within our divine capacity to dream and live in our dreams, we live in fear, imagining the worst, imagining we are alone with no hope that we can fend for ourselves. This often happens before the age of seven – before we have the language or the wisdom to make sense of reality.

This moment of the shattering though, and the decisions we make based on that moment, all too often gets played out over and over again throughout our lives, unless we can heal that wound, where our wholeness was taken away. I have no doubt that you know what I’m talking about.

One of the circumstances in my adult life where this theme or pattern played itself out was when I was a young adult. I was in my mid 20’s. I was unhappily married for six years. I had two beautiful young children. They were the center of my Universe. All my life, all I wanted was to be a mother. However, when I divorced, for the sake of my children, I chose to leave them in the custody of their dad while I pursued a career path that would inevitably allow me to have my children return to me. Though I lived in hope and trust that they would come live with me, that never happened.

We often draw to ourselves circumstances that repeat the patterns of a life decision in order that we inevitably realize the greater truth, the greater wisdom, the greater realization of our life lessons. Over and over again circumstances arise and return us to those moments where it appears as if that decision we made about ourselves, about others and the world, was "true." 

That "truth" often sounds something like: "The world never works in my favor; Nobody wants what I have; I’m alone; I’m a victim of life; There’s no point in believing I’ll ever get what I want." You may have your own take on this theme. Truly I don’t know a single human being who isn’t living within a belief system which diminishes their trust and knowing of the abundance of pure love. We’ve all given up on our Big "D" Dreams, for the sake of never being disappointed and disheartened again.

A few months ago I finished a series of podcasts Spiritual Immersion – Taking the Plunge, and I published my 13th book I’ve Arrived! Well, Sort Of! Following the completion of these projects I experienced an emptiness, which is usual for people when they’ve finished a significant task. "What’s next?" I asked. After weeks of waiting for the answer to that question, I experienced a sense of a calling to begin a video series on YouTube: Spiritual Dilemmas.

With that calling, I was thrilled and felt that this was indeed a fulfillment of my life’s work. After all, hadn’t I been preparing for this throughout my adult life? As a therapy, as a transformational coach. As a spiritual guide. All the graduate work, culminating in a PhD – not to mention all of the personal and spiritual growth work I’ve done over the decades. I was elated!!!

At the same time, I experienced a deep strain in my back as well as a rib that incessantly popped out of its proper place. It coincided with an almost imperceivable thud within me – as if some iron door quietly shut tight in front of me. It was if there was a part of me saying, "I’ve gone through this too many times already. I’m not going to fall for this again. I’m not going to get all excited about this just so you can rip the rug out from under me again. NO WAY!!" 

Given the timing of physical symptoms of the tightness and aching in my back coinciding with the completion of the book and podcast and the potential of the videos on YouTube, I knew that some patterns of resistance were slowly going to reveal themselves. I just needed to be attentive, patient, and compassionate to the one inside me who was digging in her feet with resistance.

Today she revealed herself. Today she expressed a great deal of anger and hate. She cried and sobbed to God, "You took away my dreams. You took away my belief in miracles and dreams. You took away my hope that life was working in my favor. You left me alone, all by myself. You took away my most sacred dreams over and over again."

A little voice – but a voice of authority replied: "If we had honored those dreams you would have settled for your small dreams. You would have settled for those dreams that were created from a desire for safety, security, fitting in. You would have settled for what you thought was your destiny – mother and wife, therapist, author, painter. You would have avoided and ignored the unhealed wounds that needed attention. The bottom line is, you needed to choose for yourself to believe in and to return to the embrace of the abundance of pure love. If that is your message to the world, you yourself have to return to the direct knowing of that message. That’s it!!"

Okay! I get it! Over and over again throughout my life when circumstances didn’t seem to go my way, I returned to the belief that good things won’t come to me. My intrinsic knowing, that life is always working for me, that magic and miracles are everyday occurrences and that I am embraced in the abundance of pure love, has to be the truth within which I reside – no longer retreating into the old pattern and theme of less than, forgotten and undeserving. Okay!

Now What?

Well, there’s no big anything to do. No big anything to be. Just allow what is to be what is, knowing that I revealed and perhaps brought healing to that child within that lost her truth. She and I are reclaiming that truth through practicing what we knew all along. Love is – no matter what!

Dealing With Dilemmas

Join me on my journey with the Spiritual Dilemmas series on YouTube. Day to day, hour by hour, we are all faced with dilemmas. What you might not know is that all life dilemmas are Spiritual in some way or another. Tune in on Tuesdays and Thursdays for new episodes where I’ll be addressing the Spiritual Dilemmas we all face but often suppress.

Related Posts

Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Thank you for signing up! Please enjoy my Pre-Flight Checklist for Success in Life!
Read daily to check in with yourself & stay on track.