Dream Nurturing:
Getting Excited About Your Dreams
By Ilya Dinov
It is clearly important to find a lifestyle coach who is right for you. Someone you connect
with, someone you instinctively know can help you, rather than someone who gives a
session around how to part with your money.
Coaching gives you a chance to step back from your everyday life, and take a good look
at yourself, what is working and what is not.
A good coach will recognise the balance you need for a better support in your life, and
will challenge you on your limiting beliefs. Above all he/she will be on your side,
coaching you to gain personal power around whatever your agenda is. This gives you the
freedom to find out more about who you are and how you work (or play) best.
Even though Coaching brings different benefits to different people, most importantly it
gives you a space to be heard. The responses will be non-judging yet challenging and
encouraging. This is where a process called Dream Nurturing begins. This is in stark
contrast to our day-to-day pacey environments where we are often confronted with
people who are dream fakers and dream takers - people who are not following their
passions at all. We live the great promised dream in hope, and end up being hit by reality.
So create your own!
I put this to you: be a Dream Maker! Not a Dream Faker! This article will help you
continue moving forward in living out your dream, after you have set some goals with
your coach.
We often experience self-sabotaging behaviours even when our dreams excite us. We set
realistic and achievable goals to reach our Preferred Lifestyle, and set mechanisms to
measure these - and yet this may only be the very thing that reduces the excitement
factor, and increases stress.
So try the following 5 step Dream Nurturing techniques, and get excited!
NURTURING DISCIPLINE
Discipline has all the connotations of punishment and limitation. No wonder it's a rarely
favoured phenomenon. To discipline oneself authentically, one may choose to abandon
the critical inner voice that stops them from experiencing their passions in everyday life
and fulfilling their life purpose. After all, this is the voice of fear that has its pay-off in
keeping you in a comfort zone (I call it the NERD Zone: Never Ever Reaching Dreams!).
Discipline requires a positive outlook on where you are taking your lifestyle, from its
current displacement. Trust that you are moving forward. Discipline is about being
steadfast in your vision of your Preferred Lifesyle, as well as in carrying out your goals
that put it in place.
Here are strategies for you to try:
* Reflect on past actions as successes, by taking the lessons behind them! Remove
'Failure' from your dictionary
* Honour all experience. Thank all experience for reflecting your consciousness that
you either have chosen to block (resulting in stress) or accept (resulting in learning).
It's never late to learn and move beyond past conditioning
* Keep connected to your goals by enlarging them, having placed them visibly. Stay
connected to the energy of your Preferred Lifestyle as you perform each exercise, and
any activity you may be currently doing. Keep moving towards your Preferred
Lifestyle by applying trust in what you and the Universe co-create
* Monitor the above through the use of an acknowledgement book. Frame it in terms of
your Preferred Lifestyle. Eventually self-acknowledgement will become automatic
CHANGING YOUR INNER DIALOGUE
Being aware of Nurturing language is important in programming yourself into living out
your desired experiences. So catch yourself out when utilising Negative Reality
Statements. 'Reality' can not be negative or positive - both are constructs of the mind.
Therefore Negative Statements are those comments we keep replaying to ourselves, that
do not work for us.
It is a known fact that it isn't what other people tell us that determines our life outcomes,
but rather what we tell ourselves. Every time you delay an important action in your life or
postpone a Lifestyle Coaching strategy, you are using negative or non-nurturing
language. It comes from an underlying belief system that you are unworthy of your
personal power and happiness.
* Find out what your inner dialogue actually is. What do you actually fear? (see
strategies in "Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway" (1987) by Susan Jeffers)
* When you find yourself breaking your own word around getting into action, change
the language (I will not achieve my goals, I can't achieve my goals) to empowering
language (I choose to accomplish my goals by __/__/_) in real time.
* Learn from your past self-sabotaging behaviours, seeing them just as stepping stones
of the journey to your success. Reframe your Current View of your Life Situation, to
a Divine View, where everything is perfect
ENVIRONMENT CLEARING
Now that you are in your energy, you may notice that some of the people in your
environment do not share your new-found positivity. Don't let this put you off, as they
are just scared about how powerful they can choose to be. From now it is important to see
all the people in your life-movie (including family) as your jigsaw pieces nurturing your
path to your dreams.
* Challenge people
If somebody chooses to not speak their truth and tries to force their opinions on you,
challenge them - come from love! Acknowledge the consciousness they are blocking, that
is creating their fear.
* Acknowledge a person's game to them
When you acknowledge something you can have power over it. Once you call someone
at their game (Eg. Dream Taker) you can offer them a better game by encouraging them
to find their Preferred Lifestyle and Life purpose.
* Join together with people who have similar goals of a Preferred Lifestyle, and do
these Dream Nurturing Exercises together or see a Lifestyle Coach together
* Sever ties with people who do not provide a nurturing space for your goals.
Challenge people who are dream fakers or dream takers - choose to be a Dream Maker!
Sever your ties with People who continue to judge you and be dream takers after you
have challenged them with love. The challenge must be done so that both parties are
allowed to walk away with dignity. Thank the person for the time you have known them.
This will open up new friendships, relationships, and new areas to flourish in your new
life.
INNER DIALOGUE CHANNELING
This technique assists one to channel their own blocked consciousness. It is based on a
technique called 'Inner-Voice Dialogue', and I recommend you see a Voice Dialogue
practitioner if you resonate enough with it.
If you are not moving forward in life at present, you may be making choices in extreme
measures, ie. you may be too Yin or too Yang, too passive or pro-active and so on, in at
least one of your decisions.
I strongly recommend reading Deepack Chopra's book, "Seven Spiritual Laws of
Success" (1996) as it outlines 7 guiding principles of life that need to be in balance in
order to achieve success and happiness. I know of the power that this book and its
outlined laws contains, so much so that I could confidently say that if you have any kind
of issue, you must be breaking at least one of its laws.
For an assessment of your current journey's health, especially from the Spiritual,
Emotional and Mental side of it, it is recommended you refer to those 7 laws of success,
determining a priority law that you would like to balance. (These laws are: Law of Life
Purpose, Intention & Desire, Infinite Possibilities, Giving & Receiving, Detachment,
Karma, and the Law of Least Effort).
When you establish which law is out of balance in relation to your issue (this is often the
one you might be resisting the most!), ask yourself,
"What part of my personality have I been suppressing?"
"Which sub-personality have I been denying?"
"If my low-energy emotion had a personality, who or what would it be?"
You may choose to conduct this aloud, as an interview, swapping chairs when switching
roles.
Personalities can include: Inner child, parent, disciplinarian, teacher, carer, strategist,
analyst, recreationalist, show-off, and so on.
Acknowledge the inner "voices" you have by giving each sub-personality a voice. You'll
be amazed just how much of who you are you've been suppressing. You may also give
opposing voices a say, to the ones you initially identify. Acknowledge yourself, as the
ultimate choice maker.
Thank each voice, taking the appropriate messages from each. Again, you may find
yourself wanting a facilitated session with a Voice Dialogue facilitator.
TIMELINESS
By this stage you will hopefully find yourself moving forward. However in order to keep
momentum, it may be helpful to bring in time lines to nurture your dreams better.
As you accomplish each goal for your Preferred Lifestyle strategies, set an achievable
and realistic time line. If you do not set realistic goals you open yourself up to failure and
guilty feelings. You also will probably lower your own integrity, thus giving your power
away. Then we often play a Control Drama with ourselves (see "Celestine Prophecy"
(1997) by James Redfield) to justify it all.
Control Dramas are control techniques we use to control and justify our comfortable
space. They always reflect a fear we have. For example, you may be getting into Victim
Mode ("I can never achieve my dreams. Life isn't fair"), a Rescuer ("I can always start
tomorrow"), Persecutor ("Damn it, I am a no-hoper! I can't even get into my action
strategies after a whole month"), or the Aloof game ("What goals? Oh, I will get around
to them soon"). Each of these games distracts you from achieving your true goals, in any
area of your life.
Acknowledge the game you play (it may be all 4 at different times) taking responsibility
for choosing it, by learning the lessons you have created for yourself. For example,
playing the game of the victim often yields the lesson of getting into your power and
watching your diet. The Rescue game's lessons are around permitting yourself to feel
emotions and open up your heart. The Persecutor game's lessons are around finding
security in yourself by following your passions. Speaking your truth is also important.
And finally the Aloof game is around accepting yourself and the world around you. The
world is a great place!
All these Control Dramas produce one common lesson; Self-Love. Loving yourself is
what makes real living at all possible.
Remember it is Okay to play games on yourself - life is a game too! We often play
Control Dramas on other people too, and the effects of them are most costly on ourselves.
Taking responsibility and hence increasing your own power is what I invite you to do.
This requires you to call yourself on the game you are playing. Thank yourself and the
experience/lessons you have allowed to transpire into your life. And of course there is no
need to persecute yourself again for persecuting yourself (unless you so chose to!)
Ask yourself now, "Are my goals' time lines realistic and achievable?" Re-set your goals
and time lines realistically, now. Some goals may not be all-or-nothing activities, and
therefore need to be measured as time goes on. Measure your activities or desired output
against a desired but realistic time-frame. Use an acknowledgement book as your record
for monitoring your progress. Make it a feel-good book - fill it in everyday and celebrate
your accomplishments no matter how small they may seem now. Keep moving along at a
pace that is comfortable to you, until you reach your next preferred lifestyle game. They
are the best games there are!