There’s a lot in the workshop world these days about abundance and visioning. It isn’t something really new, as teenagers many of us made collages of things we loved. But there’s a lot more talk these days about the importance of visioning – the importance of looking deeply into ourselves, having the courage to write about and picture what we secretly most want. I’ve decided to share my story about dreams coming true, on the theory that it just might help someone else who is doubting that they can have what they want.
About 13 years ago now I became a member of a Quest group. One of the first things the group’s leader had us do was to answer, in writing, a series of questions about our clearest vision of our life – how we would be living it in the coming years, what would feel the most satisfying and truest life for each of us, how our relationships would be, what our work would look like. When I got this set of questions and was told to write an essay about them I was working in a very high-powered, high-stress position. I was not happy doing it, but the money was very good and I had made the decision to do this work for a while so that my husband and I could buy lake property and build a house. I worked 60 to 80 hours a week, travelled all the time, and managed a large group of people. While I was very successful, I was also very exhausted. So, to get this long writing assignment thrown into the mix didn’t make me very happy. I was stressed out, pissed off at working so hard, and already lugging around a bulging briefcase as I flew back and forth to D.C. I really DIDN’T want to spend time answering these questions.
So, in my best “I really don’t agree with doing this” manner, I answered – truthfully but also in a peeved tone. I started the essay by saying that “I had no idea how I would ever get there, but what I really wanted was” — and I held forth for three solid, single spaced typed pages. I folded it up, took it to the next group meeting, and read it aloud, unsmiling, when my turn came. Then, I efficiently folded it into thirds, popped it into the back of my daily planner, and promptly forgot it was there.
Fast forward 10 years later. The exhausting job was long gone. I was home one day, bored, and decided to clean out my now-defunct daily planner (I was on computer now!). I thought the planner was empty, and before throwing it into the trash I held it by the spine and shook it hard. And, out from the last, back, hard to reach pocket fell that 3 typed pages that I had long ago forgotten. I wondered what it was, and opened it up – and to my absolute and total amazement I read three pages of “what I really wanted” – and, point by point, every single one of my wants had come true! It was and is crazy, unbelievable, ridiculous. I sat there next to the trash can, holding what was my most precious possession – my vision for myself, my life on a page, my deepest heart’s desires. And I realized in that moment how wise and special the leader of our little Quest group was. How indebted to him I was. How grateful, fortunate, and lucky I was to have secretly carried my dreams with me for all those years, and how writing them and speaking them aloud to that group had taught me that energy follows thought.
Yes, dreams do come true. And as they do, we add more dreams. There is always forward movement until the moment we give up, and begin to die. One of the reasons I so believe in and support people in visioning is the lesson I learned myself – the one that took me a decade to learn. My small group Visioning fron the Heart workshops are my own way of helping others to Quest now. And my sincere belief is that the same dream coming true will happen to you.
(Credits: With many thanks to my friend BJ Ryan for the use of her painting “Sunset in the Desert.”)
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