When I was young I had a dream. I was going to get married by 22. Have my first child by 24, have my second child by 27, and my third child by 30. I had the dream that we would live in a beautiful house.
I saw those milestones and I wanted them. I read Sweet Valley High books and there were twin girls and one of them just wanted to get married. One of them was a little wild and in truth, I was both women.
But the dreams that I let run the show were to get married by a certain age and have kids by a certain age.
I know that that was influenced by the generations before me. My parents, bless their hearts just celebrated 56 years of marriage. When they got married my mom was 21 years old and had my brother at 24 and my sister at 27 and me at 30. And so of course, I saw that and that's what I wanted.
There wasn't anything wrong with those dreams or goals. They were beautiful. But they led me to make decisions that weren't truly in alignment with who I was.
I didn't fully check-in with my whole heart and soul because there was still that wild part of me that hadn't lived. When I got married at 22 there was still that adventure side of me that wanted to travel the world by myself. And the wild part of me that was sensual and sexual. I hadn't fully explored it; my husband was the first man I had intercourse with. So I hadn't fully explored all of myself. And so the goals were not my own.
And that's why so many women, so many of you send me emails, direct messages on Instagram Facebook, or join Goddess On Purpose and say, “I have done “everything” right in my life, I did everything that I was supposed to do. And something is missing. I feel like I don't know what I'm here for. I don't know who I am.” Or, “I feel like I have dreams inside of me and I can't get them out.” Or, “I have this wild side of me.”
Burnt Out
So I want to share with you how to get in alignment with your heart and soul desires. Because there is nothing wrong with having a goal. Goals are wonderful. And there's a lot of science, in positive psychology and in the science of happiness, in which I have my Master's degree, around the power of goals and the power of achieving goals and what that does for your self-confidence for your self-esteem.
The majority of your human mind can only conceive of what it has seen before. That's why it's so important to be in Sisterhood, because we want to expand upon each other. Now, there's also this aspect of our intuition about what we can't see with our eyes.
And what your mind is doing is putting together all of the thoughts, all of the ideas, all of the dreams that you've been dreaming since you were a baby. So whether you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s…, you have this collection of pictures, stories, and ideas. So when you dream, your deepest, most expanded dreams, your brain is calling upon all of the juice that has been collected from every single moment. It's incredible.
Yet, research says that we only tap into about 10% of our potential. So we're not even accessing all that we have been storing up over these years.
Sometimes we can be getting the wrong things done, things that don't actually light us up from the inside out. So you're sitting in your beige cubicle. You are looking at your computer for nine hours straight, barely taking time for lunch, or to go pee, and you're getting a lot of stuff done.
Most women I know are burning out, resentful, feeling overwhelmed, and feeling like they just can't do it for one more day. And that's because we're always doing, doing, doing and it's not in service of our deeper desires, it's not in service of what turns us on and gets us excited.
We are more likely to burn out.
Exercises to Reconnect with Your Desires
- Write down all the shoulds. For example, I should clean the house, I should do the laundry, I should fold the clothes. What are your shoulds?
- Make a list of have-to's. I have to go grocery shopping, I have to clean the house, I have to wash dishes, whatever your things are. They can be things around the house, they can be things about work. I have to, I have to, I have to.
Typically what we do in a day, is attack the should's and the have to's. Because they have to be done, right? And what's missing from the should's and the have to's are the desire to.
- Write about what you really, really, really crave. Maybe that's a walk in the snow, where you do nothing more than just look at the little flakes coming down. What about meditating? What about connecting with friends? What about pulling out a pen and paper and writing the first word of that poem that you've been craving to write for years, even if it feels rusty, even if you feel like you don't have it in you anymore.
Your brain is telling you it's unrealistic. You can't have or do those things because you have responsibilities. But you know that you crave it.
What about the desires? So, desires come from a different place. Your desires are coming from your soul, and from your heart.
I desire for us to live in Europe for three months in Paris or Italy. Right now I'm desiring for us to live in a Tuscan villa. Where retreat women come and go. VIP days with women who spend a whole day with me come and go. Friends come and go. And we are there and it is warm. And we are doing cooking classes and we are doing wine tasting… these are my heart and soul desires.
Desires. Now, if I say it's a goal, which it is, then it becomes in my head. And then I have to put a timeline to it. And then it can even freak me out a little bit. But I want to start with desires with the things that really light me up and fill me with juice and joy.
I want you to really feel into this question, “What is my heart and soul desire? What would light me up or what would turn me on?”
I think one of the things that gets in our way is our brain starts to say, “Oh, that's not possible. That's not realistic. Who do you think you are? That's impossible. Nobody wants to hear that from you. You won't make any money, you'll fail, etc.”
And the next thing you know, we shut it off. We shut it off so much that we don't even remember that those were our dreams and desires. But those are our real dreams and desires. And the truth is, realistic is not truth. Because realistic to whom? It's realistic to my friend Monique that you can take a year off, even as a mother, and travel the world and still have a business and earn money and have a wonderful life.
Because her husband and her daughter had been doing that for a year. And every few weeks on Facebook, I see a different picture of where they are in the world. And her daughter is getting more education and schooling from seeing the world than she would sitting in the classroom learning about the world.
Or you might say, “Yeah, I would love to speak on stage with Brené Brown and write books like Glennon Doyle, but that's not realistic.” It's realistic to Brené Brown and Glennon Doyle. They can do that. That's their reality.
So when you think something is not realistic, ask yourself “realistic to whom?”
Do you see how we stop ourselves from having the expanded dreams?
I don't want you going through another year, where you say, “Oh, I didn't do it again.” I want you to have the ability to go deep, deep, deep, deep into your heart, your soul, your purpose, your whole being for desires.
I want you to have the tools to be able to turn off and reframe what the brain says is possible and not possible. And then I want you to have the support of taking that audacious action because that is the formula, Sisters. That's the formula.
Why You Need to Have a Vision
As you think about your dreams, your desires, and your goals, what you want to do is to first really ground into the dreams and desires.
Then set goals that are based on the juicy desires of what would turn you on and what would light you up. You want the desire of the yummy turn-on that would feel so good, that would make you feel so expansive, that would feel so beautiful, pleasurable, joyful. You want the dreams and desires that give you that.
And you want the goals. You will just want them to be aligned with your dreams and desires. So then you do want the SMART goals. And start to put those goals into audacious action. And then put your feminine juice and desire toward those goals. And then detach from it having to look a certain way because it can be even more magical than you can imagine.
And the reason that it's audacious action is that typically the things that we desire, the goals that we have, require us to show up in our lives in a whole new way.
The vision that you have for your life requires the very best version of you.
So whatever it is that you are dreaming, you are desiring, that future self needs you to show up.
So these steps are doable for all of us. I connect with all my tools and teach all my clients to connect with self-compassion, the tool of having kindness and empathy and so much love for the little one inside you who feels the fear. My tools of fierce action, my tools for anxiety and grief, all of it. And then getting into the juice and the yumminess of the essence of what you're creating in this world.
I want this for you.
For more helpful tips, tune into the PurposeGirl Podcast to learn more.
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