Pursuing Your Dreams

Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, I have a question for you. What would it look like if the pursuit of your dreams could enrich your life as much as their attainment? What would it look like if the pursuit of your dreams enriched your life as much as their attainment? I think a lot of times when we're moving toward our dreams, we feel a lot of contraction along that journey, waiting for the moment where we get to that end point and we can finally relax and be at ease and celebrate. But maybe you've also gone through that at various stages of your life. Perhaps not the ultimate dreams, but goals that you were working toward, where there's a feeling of once I get that, then, then things will come together for me, then I can relax, so then I can be happy.

And what happened for you in those moments? I'm sure there was some, some celebration and some joy, but was that the permanent refuge? Did you feel that joy forever? Did you no longer need to do anything else in order to get that? Chances are, right, we feel it for a bit and then it subsides and then, you know, it's off to the next thing. And I don't think that's wrong. It's okay to feel, a, a big rush of joy in those moments, but I'm more interested in those in-between moments. And what happens while our head is down and we're working toward our dreams or we're working toward our goals. Are we living our lives in those moments? Are we feeling fulfillment in those moments? Are we banking on those future moments to be the thing that does give us that permanent refuge? That is something I'm a little more wary of.

And so this, this question, this curiosity, what would it look like for the pursuit of your dreams to enrich your life as much, if not more, as their attainment? That might require some reorienting toward what is it that's being asked of you as you move toward your dreams? What parts of you get activated that you're excited about? Can you connect to the excitement of working towards something, of aspiring towards something, of becoming a version of yourself that, that inspires you and excites you in order to get to that place? In that way, the process itself. We can feel into the enrichment of that. We can enjoy the enrichment of that. And then when we get our attainment, if we do, then that's a great as well, but it wasn't like we just kept our heads down and didn't do anything and we're miserable along the way. I think there's a possibility here for us to really envision a life that we're excited about, to really try to work toward that, to develop that and to really enjoy the process along the way and all the goodness that has that it has to get pulled from us in order to get to that place.

So it's something to consider on your journey. Thank you for your practice and let's settle in for today's meditation.