“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not
only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole France
As a child, we all seemed to have had dreams.
We all played games of adventure and fantasy.
When I was young boy, we would many times grow up wanting to
be the noble character of a fireman, or a sports figure, or a doctor. It was a time when many of us simply may have
wanted to be what our father’s had been… a farmer… a salesman… a person that
went off to do whatever it was that they did.
During that same era, the young girls wanted to be teachers… or nurses…
or to be doctors as well…. or they, too, simply may have wanted to be whatever
their mothers might have been.
Growing up in the Midwest during that time was just simpler actually. It was simple… somewhat satisfying… yet…
there was something within us that wanted more.
I remember dreaming of becoming a park ranger. I liked the outdoors… the chance to live near
the mountains… In fact, I vaguely remember a television show that was about
being a national park ranger. It was
exciting… you lived in some amazing places… and did exciting things… and you
got to rescue people because it seemed like every week there was somebody that
needed rescuing. Then I realized that a park ranger in the mountains had to
climb a lot of things; so, I quickly crossed that dream off my list because I
had this fear of heights.
We all have dreams; even now at this very moment.
We have things that we want to accomplish. We have weaknesses that we want to
overcome. We may be facing an illness
that we are working to not only move on from but to regain a life that we once
had or thought that we wanted back. We
may be struggling with a break in a relationship that seems entangled in our
hearts and souls. We may dream of retiring to that beach front cottage or to
travel the globe experiencing the richness of life that we have worked so hard
to develop.
To dream is the life of the inner child within us. It is the simplicity of that child that is willing
to dare the impossible because, as a child, there aren’t any impossibilities. The child within us wants to be courageous
and to do that which is considered risky.
Many times the most colorful of ideas come from the child within
us. Yet, a child needs something to empower
them to act out their fantasy. It needs
security. It needs reassurance. It needs to feel that no matter what happens
tomorrow will be another opportunity to act the dream all over again. It needs an adult.
The adult. We all
know this part of us all too well. The
adult is the one that says that there needs to be order and tells the child all
the time that its fantasy is silly. The
adult in us counts the cost that says it is too risky to do some of the things
that the inner child wants to attempt. It
tells the inner child in the back of our minds to sit down and to buckle up.
The adult…. It is the one that disciplines us sometimes because the mischievous
child acts out a dream on their own. It is the one that sets the boundaries too
tightly because…. Well, it doesn’t want the child to be hurt. Our adult personae tells us to be rational in
an irrational world. All the while, the
adult part of us wants to have freedom to have fun… but we have stifled the
child so much that we lost sight of it.
Then there is the adolescent within us that has the energy
to act upon the dreams of the inner child but still needs the guidance of the
inner parent. The inner teenager says
that they know that it can do what the inner child wants to do… and do it even
bigger. It is the “older sibling” that
is not willing to listen to the parent because it is still deeply connected
with the younger child but won’t admit it.
It is the part of us that wants to discover who we are by trying to do
all that we can. It is the energy
storehouse of all the inner passion… healthy and unhealthy. It is the reckless one that doesn’t mean to
be careless but they are still trying to find their own meaning in life. The inner adolescent is the one that looks in
the mirror every day and says “what can I accomplish today because I am
invincible enough to overcome anything”.
The only problem is that sometimes that internal mirror is a distorted
reflective object that can create some unhealthy imagination.
We all have dreams….
We all have the ability to release the inner child into the
playground of possibilities.
We all have the inner teenager that says that I can do
anything… I just don’t know what it is that I want to do.
We all have the adult that has learned over time how to
protect itself and to plan out a contingency when things go awry.
Sometimes we forget about that inner child and lose sight of
our dreams of desires.
Many times the inner adolescent shows up as our insecurities
of just not knowing what we want to do and questions sometimes if the dream
that we dare to “dance” with will say yes.
Life is filled with risks and dares us to dream… when the
inner part of who we truly are becomes present that is when we can live this
life with the richness of meaning.
Breaking Script… Namaste.
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