Don’t Give Up on Your Dreams!!

We can Be Brave!

We even want to Be Brave!  We want our dreams to come true… but dreams can be scary.

We are afraid they will never come true, never work out and that we are foolish for either wanting to or continuing to pursue our dreams.

However it wasn’t always this way.  As little girls, we dream…Big, Bold, Honest and Out loud!!

We believe “it”will happen and we go all in.

We twirl, sing, create, study, speak life and action into our dreams with an assurance that of course they will come true.  We have no reason to think otherwise!

But then something changes.  We falter, fail, or someone laughs at our audacity.

We might stay brave at first, but eventually we begin to question ourselves.  Doubt, Discouragement, even Despair creep in and weave a tangled web that chokes our hopes and dreams into silence.

But our dreams don’t die.

Not really… they may change, be refined or shift as we grow up, but we are created to dream, to hope, to have impact.

Hope is hard,  it hurts sometimes.  Hope destroys the veneer of “I’m fine and It doesn’t matter.”

Hope fuels our Dreams.  And when we were young, Hope was enough.

Hope keeps our dreams alive.

As we grow older, they whisper to us… “remember when you wanted to… ” or “I thought I would be, do, create…”

And IF we pause and listen, our heart responds, a sliver of hope awakens…

Yet in our fear, remembering the story of what happened last time we dared to dream, we shut down hope and dismiss our dreams, saying”yes, but…”

But:  I tried and failed, and anyway, they were silly dreams… I was just a girl… I will never be able to __ , it’s too late, too soon, I’m too old, young, busy, fat, thin, single, married, overwhelmed with life, kids, financially strapped, too exhausted… too ___ !

And we push our dreams away, relegating them to the secret place we only visit  in wistful moments when we allow our hearts to long for more -when hope stirs in our hearts and minds -and our Dreams whisper louder.

What if instead of saying “yes, but…” we said “Yes, AND…”

Yes! And… I will Be Brave!

Yes AND…I am not going to let my doubts destroy my dreams. AND while I may have gotten sidetracked, I will entertain them again.  Maybe just for a few moments, or maybe, I will let them come and stay…

Yes, AND…  I will do one thing today that gets me closer to my Dreams becoming real.

One small step might mean:  saying  them aloud, making a post it to remind us when we are tempted to forget or squash them.  Yes, AND could be picking up the phone and asking for help, sharing our Dreams with a trusted friend, writing the first three lines of a book, post, poem, buying art supplies and actually opening them up to play with, or signing up for a class… Whatever it is, however small a step… Today I will answer the whisper, “Yes, AND…”

Today I will Be Brave!

Pause for a moment friends and remember your dream.  Gently and kindly say to yourself, Yes!  AND Today, I will Be Brave.  today I will____”

Share your “Yes, And” below so we can encourage each other!  Can’t wait to cheer you on!

My”Yes, And” for today: gather supplies for the mixed media art I want to make, even though I don’t feel talented enough.  If I gather and stack them in my office, where I will see them all the time,  maybe another day, my “Yes And” can be to open them up and begin to play!