I have been playing this month with the idea of responsibility in my creative work. To what and whom am I responsible in my art? Here, I share some thoughts, findings and inspiration for your own creative, soulful life.
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You Can’t Always Get What You Want, But. . .
Following your dreams is something you are called to do. Each of us is called to follow our heart’s dreams.
Yet following your dreams is often approached in a totally wrong-headed way. A way that produces a great deal of suffering.
Your dreams are here to lead you on your heart path. Each of us must walk that path if we wish to live our fullest, richest, most fulfilled lives.
We are encoded with these dreams to such a degree that we cannot be truly joyful, if we refuse to follow them. That would be like an acorn trying to be something other than an oak.
Yet, following your dreams is not about getting everything you want.
Despite what so many “manifestation” teachers try to tell you. Trying to get everything you want is just grasping. It leads to immense suffering, as the Buddha taught.
Following your dreams is not about trying to be the “perfect” you or live a “perfect” life. It’s not about trying to fill up a deep sense of inadequacy or lack that can never be filled. Because those are lies.
You are already whole. You are enough and you have enough.
Yet there are things your soul longs to be and do, to express and experience. And these lead you on your heart path to make your contribution to our world.
Give Up the Dream of Control
Following your dreams is not about “manifesting” your desires in the sense of controlling your world.
The acorn gets no assurances of the future of the oak tree, how big it gets to grow, whether a storm will split it in two, whether anyone will ever see it.
Walking the path of your dreams does not mean you will get the girl or boy, the big house or fancy car, or even the book deal or art show—although you may get all those things and more.
This is the shocking truth many new age teachings don’t admit:
There is no guarantee of actually realizing the dream as you first imagined it.
There is no promise of success, abundance or safety.
But the surprise we discover on the path of dreams is: That’s not what it’s all about. There is something better.
Your Dreams Lead to Your Greatness
Your path of dreams is your heart path. It is about following your soul’s callings, giving what you uniquely have to give, playing your part in the whole.
Following your dreams is about growing into the fullness of who you are and can be.
Your path of dreams will ask you to shed the false beliefs and wounded self, to face your fears and shuck your laziness, all your clever subterfuge.
Your path of dreams is here to lead you to your greatest self.
It is here to challenge you and push you to grow, to heal and to shine. You cannot hide out on this path or play it safe or keep everything easy and comfortable.
Much Will Be Required of You
Your true heart’s dreams will ask everything of you.
Our true dreams require tremendous courage, devotion, care and persistence. They require inner strength, love, creativity and willingness to partner with others of like mind, to find your place.
They require your willingness to partner also with a field of Life greater than your small self, to recognize the limitations of the small self, the false self, and to live from something far deeper and more magnificent.
Many new-age teachings promise that you can get everything you want. They encourage you to feed your fear-based ego desires for money, possessions, prestige and, most of all, control.
But that is not the path to freedom and joy.
The path to freedom and joy comes from listening to, and following, your heart’s deepest desires, those yearnings that may terrify you even to admit.
And following them not out of the promise of arrival, so much as out of a willingness to go on the adventure.
You follow your dreams out of a love for the journey, the process and all the rich gifts it brings, gifts you cannot predict at the outset. There is no arrival point. That is one of the things you discover on the path of dreams, one of the many things that will set you free when you follow your heart path.
You follow because you have to, because that is who you are at heart.
You Get What You Need
I’m not saying that you will not realize those dreams that are in your heart.
With a combination of clear vision, commitment, devotion and attentive care, along with a healthy dose of surrender and partnership with the All, you can co-create extraordinary things in your life. Things that will bring great blessings to you and our world.
When you get clear on your heart’s true desires, you are in partnership with a force of Life larger than you, a force that is supporting you in unfolding in your gifts. When you clear the path to those desires by doing your inner work and taking steps to bring them to fruition, you greatly increase your chances of actualizing your dreams.
Using the processes that I teach, I have been able to realize remarkable dreams and create a life of passion, purpose and deep play that has been astonishing in many ways.
It has also been full of challenges and hard growth. Many times it has brought me to my knees, and still does.
But the path of dreams is not about trying to control life or handing the Universe a shopping list of your small self’s desires and expecting them all to be fulfilled. It is not about safety and security from the perspective of the limited self.
Following your path of dreams is about a deep sense of fulfillment, about connecting with the joy and freedom that are your true nature, and giving the gifts that only you can give.
If you would like to learn the time-tested tools and practices I teach to walk your own heart path, and get expert help on that path, check out my Creative Life Coaching & Creativity Mentoring, and sign up for a free Discovery Session with me.
Dreaming in the Age of Uncertainty
How do we follow our heart’s dreams in this age of imminent destruction of our planet, our familiar ways of living? Why even dream in such a dire, uncertain time? What kinds of dreams? And how?
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Living Life as Prayer
Sometime this past year I set the intention to live my life as prayer.
I have carried this intention, less clearly named, for most of my life.
I remember a summer when I was around 15 or 16 that a young homeless man granted me three magic wishes.
I wished to become a great musician, and to grow closer to God. I don’t remember the third wish.
What amazes me about the two wishes I do remember is they are still my heart’s deep desires, to be a great artist, to dwell in union with the Divine.
My Beginnings
I grew up in a largely non-religious household. My parents were agnostic, philosophers and intellectuals, questioning everything. We kept a few of the major Jewish holidays.
Then, when I was about 10, my parents started attending a very open-minded congregation that was just forming. I did eventually go to Hebrew school for a couple of years and have a bat-mitzvah.
But, throughout my childhood and beyond, my connection to the Divine was allowed to develop on its own in a very pure and personal relationship that my parents found both mystifying and enviable.
Although I have carried a deep closeness with the Divine since I was a child, naming my intention to live my life as prayer has given a clarity, a shape that brings the commitment more fully into my daily life.
What Does It Mean to Live My Life as Prayer?
That is an open question, a generative question, one to keep asking and living into the answer.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” —poet Rainer Maria Rilke
Some Answers
To live my life as prayer means:
To live in deep devotion and connection to the Goddess (the Divine Feminine that we need so much in our world now) and All That Is.
To be a prayer for peace, for love, for wonder, for beauty, for Grace. To embody that in my being and doing.
To infuse what I create with that intention. To listen deeply to the song of the world, the wisdom of the world, and move in accord with it.
To offer up all that I do for a larger purpose and to live in alignment with my highest values.
I think about the life of a monk or nun, but out in the world.
How can I be a beacon of that which matters most to me? How can I serve the Divine in all things, in all moments?
How Do I Practice Living My Life as Prayer?
I aim for devotion in my actions, for deep care, for alignment with an understanding of the sacredness of all things.
I aim for presence, awareness, awakeness.
I cultivate gratitude and appreciation, a sense of the abundance and grace of this life.
And I also let myself feel the deep sorrow, the rage and fear, at all the lack of care and respect for life, all the dishonoring.
I keep repeating my intention to myself to remind myself of it. Almost always when I remind myself, it is a moment in which I find myself forgetting, caught up in the daily and the small self. By repeating it, I hope to return to a deeper connection and intention in my being and doing.
What Does It Mean to You?
Does it resonate with you to live your life as prayer?
What does it bring up in you, inspire in you? What questions does it raise?
If it doesn’t resonate with you, what do you live in service to? What matters most to you? What guides your life?
You might want to explore this topic in your journal.
Remember, these are living questions. Meant to open us into deeper inquiry and awareness, deeper being and living.
May they inspire your life to take on greater fullness and depth and joy.
I’d love to hear your responses here in the comments. Let’s be real with one another, because life is precious and we were given these amazing hearts to connect with.
If you are curious about working (and playing) with me one-on-one in my Creative Life Coaching to help you walk your heart path, I have space to take on a few more people right now. You could set up a complimentary Discovery Session, and we’ll explore together whether we are a good match at this time.
Maxima Kahn is a poet, creative life coach and teacher. She works with heart-centered artists and dreamers, helping them to unleash their creative brilliance and create lives of passion, purpose and deep play. She blogs about the creative life, writing, and artful, soulful living at www.BrilliantPlayground.com.
Why It’s Important to Follow Your Dreams
What Are dreams? Why Do They Matter?
Each of us, like a flower or tree, is encoded with who we are meant to be, what we are here to give, our unique beauty and gifts.
Each of us is encoded with dreams, desires, longings and visions that are here to lead us to the life that is meant for us, the life that will bring the most fulfillment, joy, meaning and connection, aliveness.
That path is not arbitrary and neither are the dreams you carry.
Dreams, as I speak of them here, are the visions and yearnings of our heart and soul that call us to our largest life, the lessons and growth we need on our path, the giving of our gifts, the realization of our greatness.
When you follow your dreams, it not only transforms your life, it transforms our world.
However, that is not what we have been told much of the time. We have been told to be practical and reasonable, to follow the status quo, to want what society tells us to want, to settle for good enough, to listen to our minds not our hearts.
Or perhaps we have been told, “You can be or have anything you set your mind to,” rather than being guided to discover the life that is already in our souls.
This leaves us feeling confused and unhappy, even if on the outside it looks like we have a good life.
The Cost of Not Following Your Dreams
So, it is vitally important to listen to your heart’s and soul’s dreams. They are your guidestar, your roadmap to a brilliant, beautiful life. When you ignore them, you feel dispirited, depressed, out of sorts and unfulfilled.
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” —from The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels
Your unique gifts, the callings of your soul, when not brought forth will gnaw at you and harm you.
“How many of us have become drunks and drug addicts, developed tumors and neuroses, succumbed to painkillers, gossip, and compulsive cell-phone use, simply because we don’t do that thing that our hearts, our inner genius, is calling us to?” —Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
It doesn’t just cost your happiness, health and well-being to ignore your dreams, it is extremely costly for our world.
We need you to be the person you came here to be, to shine in the fullness of your brilliance, to believe in the beauty of your dreams. Our world is in a dire condition because of lack of connection to the heart and because people are not finding and using their gifts.
photo by Andre Hunter
The Power of Following Your Dreams
When Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I have a dream,” he spelled out that dream in beautiful, compelling terms. It was a bold dream, a vision way beyond the world he found himself in at the time. Yet he committed his life to help bring that dream about. Because of his daring to dream, the civil rights movement made significant, vital strides toward a more just society. And many people have been inspired to continue his vision.
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” —Howard Thurman, author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader
It is not for yourself alone that you dare to dream and follow your dreams, it is for the huge impact that has on others, on the world around you, even on those you never see or meet. One person following their dreams is tremendously inspiring and enlivening to others, and activates the dreams in them.
“The presence of a vital person vitalizes.” —Joseph Campbell
You Need Help to Follow Your Dreams
Dreaming takes courage. When you choose to follow your dreams, you comeup against what holds you back in many areas of your life. You will encounter your false beliefs, bad habits and illusory limitations.
And so our dreams lead us on our path of growth. They lead us to transform what has been keeping us small and dissatisfied.
That is why we need support when we start to dream big. By big I simply mean outside of what we currently believe is possible for us—whether that is finding true love or sailing around the world, healing your body or starting a charitable foundation, writing a book or becoming a rock star. We are designed to need the support of others to manifest our dreams. We are interdependent beings that thrive in connection.
photo by Jonathan Pendelton on Unsplash
The larger the dream, the more support we need. A big dream needs a dream team of mentors, friends, helpers and allies to support us on our heart path. You cannot do this alone.
So, dreams in the sense I talk about them are not our night-time dreams but the dreams of our hearts and souls.
The dreams I am talking about are essential to who we are, essential to our happiness and well-being, essential to our world.
If you wish to live a fulfilled and joyful life, you need to listen to your heart. You need to follow your dreams, even if they seem impossible or absurd from where you are standing now.
If you wish to give your gifts and help create a beautiful world for all, it is time to believe in yourself and follow your dreams. Take action toward those dreams.
Start now.
Next Steps
To read more about how to follow your dreams and your path of heart, check out:
How to Access the Power of Love to Realize Your Dreams
The Shining Bridge to Reach Your Dreams
To get support on your path of dreams, check out: Creative Life Coaching
