Monday Musings ~ 2015, The Year Our Dream Came True!

Hi Friends 🙂

I want to start this blog by telling you something - I literally have no real recollection of what I was doing this time last year. Which is odd for me - I generally have a memory like an elephant. I can remember to pay my dues for my Registered Nutritional Councillor certification every May without writing it down. I can remember pretty much every line to every song I have ever heard. I can remember that thing my mom said in the car on the way to Grandmas house back in 1996. But I have no memory of Christmas day 2014, or New Years 2015.

This blank spot in my memory is making me realize that sometimes in life, on the road to making dreams come true, there are moments where all you can do is go on autopilot and just put one foot in front of the other.

Let me back up a bit.

In 2011, I stood in the yoga room at Semperviva yoga and said out-loud to the universe that I wanted to be using my qualifications as a life coach, holistic nutritionist, Reiki Master and yoga instructor to be making this world a better place, WHILE being able to travel the world. I wanted to work online, so that I did not have to quit my job to go see the world, only to come back and get another job again once all the money ran out. I wanted Marcus to be working remote too.

I wanted to be making an impact while living free.

Now, you must understand at the time, I had ZERO online work experience.

None.

I was also pretty computer illiterate - most people in my generation are pretty intuitive with technology - me, not so much. I had no idea at the time how I was going to make this dream a reality, nor did I realize the crazy trajectory this desire was going to send me on. Had I know, I am not so sure I would have done it.

That is another thing about dreams coming true. I remember spending a lot of my life wishing so badly that I could see the whole path from where I was to where I wanted to be. As some sort of safety precaution. So that I could feel prepared. So that I could feel ready.

The truth is, I am SO freaking glad the universe did not give me a peek into the path that was required for me to get from that yoga studio to where I am now. I would never have taken the first step had I known all that was in store for me.

In a nut shell, here is what happened:

As mentioned above, I decided back in 2011 that I wanted to work online. I wanted to change the world and heal the world, and at the same time I wanted to be totally free to travel and live wherever I wanted whenever I wanted while I continued to work and do what was meaningful for me.

I felt like I was not capable of living the normal 9-5 grind life. I had tried and it had almost killed me. I needed a change.

So, this was the catalyst for what would be the longest saga of my life to this point.

Since then, we have moved 9 times, have lived in 9 different cities, in 4 different countries, on two different continents.

Between Marcus and I we have had 8 jobs, we have quit 4 of them and been laid off twice.

We have given up promises of more money, more security, more stability in the pursuit of more freedom, more flexibility and the power to make up our own minds - assuming the risk paid off, of course.

We have had more fights, more breakdowns, more fits of crying and screaming and fear than I can count.

We have had more than our fair share of devastation on this journey. More times when it would have been so much easier to give up and live like 'normal' people. To simply get a job, get an apartment, eat, sleep, repeat.

There were tons of times where Marcus and I were at odds with one another. Where we were not united in our goals. Where we were resisting life and each-other.

For both Marcus and I, our deepest, darkest, most intense shadows came to the surface. And we were forced to face them, over and over, until we healed.

This journey looked like a journey to a dream life, but it was really a journey of soul healing. To become the people who could live our dreams, we needed to be healed in a very deep and profound way. We could not carry our emotional baggage with us all the way to the top of the mountain. So it came up. Over and over. Until we paused long enough to look at it, love it, and heal it.

There were plenty of nights where we thought perhaps our dreams were impossible. Where the obstacles seemed insurmountable.

If I had seen the whole road, I am not sure I would have taken the first step.

The universe gave me one step at a time, and one step at a time only.

So here is what I learned, and I hope that this will edify you on your journey towards what you want.

1. Set Your Goal On A Feeling: Know that when you set a goal - the first thing you must do is check in to see how it feels in your body to imagine reaching the finish line. For me, standing in that yoga studio and imagining myself travelling, working with people online, having an impact - it felt like the best feeling in the world! I felt light, energized, enthusiastic, excited. These feelings were incredibly important to feel. So before you decide on any goal, spend some time imagining yourself at the end state and really let your body feel into what it would be like to be there. Get to know those feelings.

2. Use Those Feelings As Your Guide: As I mentioned above, I had no idea what the journey from yoga studio to life of my dreams was going to look like. All I knew was how I felt when I imagined myself at my end goal. Without knowing it, those feelings became the bread crumbs on my trail. Essentially I started to chart my coarse taking action on things that gave me the same feeling I had when I imagining myself at my end goal.

Writing blogs for Young and Raw? Felt exciting and energizing, so I did it. And that is what lead me to working online.

Moving to Thailand? Light, energized, enthusiastic. Check.

Taking the Job in San Francisco? Check.

Then, when options came into our view that did NOT feel like those feelings, if the presented step sounded good in theory, but felt heavy, hard, draining, or made me want to fall asleep - I said no.

This is how we got here - seriously.

All of those steps that felt amazing lead us closer and closer to where we wanted to be. Every step we took that felt terrible took us farther away. This was a learning curve, don't get me wrong. I did not always make the most optimal choice! But I now know that I can trust my intuition, and exactly what it feels like when I do and when I don't. Learn to chart your course by your feelings.

3. Get Ready To Change: Depending on how different your goal is from your current life, be prepared to change internally according to the degree you want the external to change.

This was HUGE for me.

Shifting from not really knowing what I wanted, from being a minimum wage employee with very little responsibility, from living in a safe apartment in a familiar city with an easy routine to being a world traveller who owns my own company and is totally responsible for myself was a MAJOR change.

In a lot of ways I am a completely different person now than I was back in 2011. So even though the journey to get here felt incredibly long and slow at times, I can now look back and see that I was being refined as a human being. I was being moulded and shaped to be able to handle this new life. To be able to have it and SUSTAIN it. In order for my life to change, I had to change. Since my outer world is simply a reflection of my inner world, would that not make a lot of sense?

Be ready to change into the person that can have what you desire.

4. Challenges Are Exactly What You Need: Now, if there is anything you take from my story, I hope it is this point right here. All those long nights of doubt, all those challenges, all those set backs - the lay offs, the fighting with Marcus, the having my deepest darkest fears come to the surface with no place to run, those could easily have been the things that caused us to quit. That caused me to quit.

The fact that we kept going, that we kept pushing, that we faced our shadows and healed - this is what gave us our dream. Those challenges were also exactly what was we needed to become the kind of people who could actually LIVE our dream lives.

My mantra early on in this journey became 'how is this blessing me?' Rather than looking at any challenge or set back as a curse, I started to realize that it was training. Every time I faced a challenge and got through it, I had a new skill that I now use in my every day life.

No challenge was there to fuck with me.

It was put there fully on purpose to give me the EXACT skills I needed to live my dreams. I did not know what was required of me to be able to sustain this life I have now, the life I wanted. The universe did. And it delivered me the exact course I needed within the challenges and obstacles on the road here. Every time I had to quit a job, learn to be more careful with money, break a lease and lose a deposit, face a deep, painful core belief - I was building the muscles I needed.

So when those obstacles come your way, never let yourself look at them as signs that the universe does not want you to have what you want. Instead, look at them as signs that the Universe wants you to have what you want more than anything! That it is giving you the challenges you need to become the kind of person who is capable of having what you want.

5. Yes, You Will Have To Keep Going When You Don't Want To: This is why it is so important to get a clear grasp on how you want to feel in your life, and to hold onto that. There were so many points on our path where it would have been so much easier to just give up and stay put. We could have. We thought about it, many times. The reason we didn't stop, is because neither of us were willing to let the promise of those feelings go without seeing it all the way through. The excitement, the enthusiasm, the adventure - those were the feelings that we held onto in the darkest times. They helped us to continue to put one foot in front of the other. Even when we wanted to quit, those feelings pushed us.

6. Learn To Relax And Enjoy The Journey: I want to leave you with something that took me way too long to grasp - and that I am still not 100% consistent with.

On your way to your dreams, make sure that you allow yourself to be where you are and enjoy that place.

I often got so hell bent on wanting to be at the finish line that I missed a lot of beautiful moments on the path. Regret is a strong word and I don't really feel that here, but if I could go back and do this all again, the only thing I would change would be my tunnel vision.

I would have relaxed a little more. I would have trusted a little more. I would have known that each phase was temporary, and that I did not have to be barrelling ahead at every moment of every day to get to where I wanted to go. I would have enjoyed those long walks in the snow in Montreal. I would have revelled in the free time and naps of San Francisco. I would have snuggled more. Laughed more. Cooked more. Expressed more.

I am learning that now, and starting to do those things. Basically I now totally believe I would have ended up right here regardless of if I were pushing with everything I had, or stopping to smell the roses every once in a while. I could have saved myself a lot of unneeded stress. So I hope I can help you do that for yourself.

Getting to our dream was a crazy ride. And I think it is such for anyone.

Was it worth it? In every possible sense of the word, YES.

Am I done now? Not a chance! I have more dreams, more goals, more things. This journey taught me how to do this dream chasing thing, and I am excited to apply all I learned to our next goal.

So what is your dream? Where are you on your path? Do any of these points resonate with you?

Sometimes you simply have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and keep believing that you can have what you want. Sometimes you will lose track of all sense of everything. That is ok. Your dreams are worth it, and the path is pulling you. Just remember to stop and enjoy every once in a while.

I would love to hear what you think!

<3