Are your dreams about to come true?

Tenderfoot Yogi Podcast and Audio Blog: Perspectives and Insights for Ease in Your Awakening

It seems there is but one thing between you and your dreams. One thing between you and all that you desire. One thing between you and all that is meant for you. It may not be the answer we would hope to hear but don’t worry, there are things that we can do. The one thing that is between you and your dreams, and it’s true for every human being on Earth, is you. Well, not you exactly. More so it is all of the beliefs, attachments, stories, and the personality traits that we have come to identify as part of us and as part of our reality that actually aren’t true. But we can begin to undo all of it and get at the truth. As we do, our dreams start to come true. For real. Here is what I’m learning…

Listen to the Podcast version of this post below

Mother’s Day

Yesterday was Mother’s Day and I led a Sunday morning guided meditation for a few of the lovely moms here in my community. I had prepared a chant to include in our meditation and practiced on my guitar all week. I even spent some time practicing outside under the sunshine in a park. I was quite comfortable with the chant. Leading group meditative chanting with my guitar is something that I do regularly, but not something with which I have years of experience. It still feels new each time that I do it and I learn something new each time. I love it. It’s a beautiful and incredibly effective meditative experience, but it occurred to me yesterday just how easily we get in our own way and sabotage wonderfully perfect moments with our undisciplined, runaway minds. This is relevant beyond singing. As a matter of fact, it is the gateway to how our dreams come true.

Get out of the way

You’ve heard this before. All that we need to do is to “get out of our own way.” What does this really mean, and how do we get out of the way? The instruction is actually quite clear. When I was leading my little group through our chanting I found myself thinking about what I was doing instead of just doing it. I was thinking about the people in the room and whether they were enjoying themselves. I was wondering if they would experience all that I hoped they would experience. I self-consciously thought about whether they really wanted to be singing or if they were just being polite. I was thinking about the next verse and when I should move from the soft finger picking into the more deliberate strumming. The operative word here is that I was thinking. I was thinking myself right out of the moment, and this is the sabotage. This is how we get in our own way. But what about our dreams?

Relaxing

At some point during the chant I allowed my mind to quiet and relax so that I could enjoy the chant and lead my new friends in our heartfelt prayer. I eventually accepted and smiled at my silliness and was able to invest in the chant as I was meant to. I know and trust that with more practice and experience this relaxation will be more present and happen sooner. But it really is an excellent example of what we do to ourselves in virtually all aspects of our lives. We THINK ourselves into limitation. And then it settles into us to the point where we don’t even need to think about it anymore. Limitation becomes the knee jerk reaction to most or all of what is actually possible.

An expansive question

Throughout our lives we inherit and adopt ways of thinking, perceptions, beliefs, views of how things are and just as importantly how things are not. This awareness leads to an expansive question. In our lives to this point we have thought and processed and analyzed and assessed the information with which we have been presented. We did this both consciously and subconsciously with information that was both right in front of us and also below the surface of our experiences. This thinking and processing has led to entire belief systems and foundations of our personality with which we identify. So, the question is, “What if we got it wrong?” and further, “What if none of it is true?”

Some relief

Even as I write this it feels a bit unsettling. None of us truly enjoy having the ground beneath us shake, but if contemplating all that we believe is actually false does not shake the ground, it must at least shimmy the curtains a little. Regardless, there is tremendous power in this realization. It’s a realization that leads to your dreams coming true. Because the reality is that most of what we adopt as truth over time serves to limit us. It limits us because it is UNtrue. In this awareness we can begin to shed light on these untruths and start to unfold their effect on our potential. We can release their hold on our dreams, one dream at a time or all at once.

Questions and answers

Let’s play with just a few of the most common and wide spread beliefs that have made their way into our belief systems. Many of these are deep down beliefs that we don’t even know that we have, but that does not prevent us from undoing them. So, what if you ARE good enough? You are. What if you CAN do it? You can. What if you’re meant to be wealthy? You are. What if you deserve to speak and be told the truth? You do. What if you don’t have anything to be ashamed of? You don’t. What if you’re smart enough? You are. What if you deserve it as much as she does, as he does? You do. What if you are just as creative as the most creative person you know? You are. What if work and joy are not mutually exclusive? They aren’t. What if money is not hard to get? It isn’t. What if ‘no pain no gain’ is bad advice? It is. What if you are both loveable, and loved? You are. What if you are meant to be in extraordinarily good health and physical shape? You are. What if you’re not tired? You aren’t. What if you have abundant energy? You do. What if your dreams are meant to come true? They are.

Whatever

It would be easy at this point to read the questions and answers here and brush them off as empty motivational speaking. The voice that wants to believe this is the same voice that believes the untruths. This is the skeptical voice that says, “whatever” in response to the suggestion that your dreams can come true. It’s in your way. It’s in my way too. But there ARE ways to get out of our way. There is a way to start reading these questions and having the answers instinctively be the truth instead of our needing to convince ourselves of it. Because when we seek to convince ourselves we are trying to convince the wrong part of us. We are trying to convince the part of us that just needs to get out of the way. We need not waste our time here. We can go deeper and start to change, and there are three ways that I see on how to start doing this.

Way #1: Train

This way will be the most familiar to regulars here at Tenderfoot Yogi. We need to both quiet our mind and become mindful so that we can start to get at the truth that is beneath our thoughts and thought patterns. There was truth to be found in the depth of the meditative chanting that I was leading, and I hope that my fellow chanters were able to touch some it. But I touched very little in this particular Mother’s Day chant because my mind was too noisy. Now, in this moment my noisy mind was not blocking my truth directly, rather it was blocking me from the experience of hearing my truth. It’s a subtle but important distinction. We train in meditation and meditative practices to quiet our mind so that we can begin to experience in a real way that which we are meant to experience. The moments of our lives have everything to teach us, but we cannot learn if we are in constant conversation with ourselves and caught up with the surface level concerns of life that can dominate our existence. So yes, way #1 of getting out of the way of our dreams coming true is to simply train our minds.

Way #2: Discover Untruths

This way is perhaps the most fun. This way is the one where we get to astonish ourselves with the realization of that which we actually thought was true. Here is a common one. Do you need food to comfort you? When you are attached to emotions that don’t feel good do you look to food? Do you need to? The answer to all of these questions is ‘yes’ right? Wrong. Now how much freedom is there when you realize this untruth? What does this open for you? What kinds of new options for your health and fitness and well-being become available when you release yourself from this untruth? As we begin in this New Way of Being and become more mindful and aware of ourselves these are the kinds of awarenesses that make their way to us. It’s important that we take time with these awarenesses so that we can sufficiently undo the untruths and the limiting impact that they have on us. You need not assess whether or not you truly believe the untruth – that is a fruitless exercise. Assume you do, and then focus on the truth. This is the second way that we get out of the way of our dreams coming true – to notice our limiting beliefs, smile and laugh at their absurdity if necessary, and invest in the opposite, which is the truth. Pick any area of your life in which you feel limited, identify a belief that supports the limitation, assume that deep down you believe this limitation is true, and then whole-heartedly invest yourself in the opposite – which is the real truth.

Way #3: The trust of it All

When I went through my meditation teacher training there were several quotes from wonderful Yogis that I found inspiring. There was one in particular that I have found not only inspiring, but helpful since the first day I began teaching. Paramhansa Yogananda said, “The instrument is blessed by what passes through it.” I have this quote printed on a piece of fabric and I place it next to me and in front of a candle when I teach. And when I was leading my chant on Mother’s Day I completely forgot about this. All that was running through my mind before I allowed myself released into the music was about me, and not about what was meant to pass through me and to be shared with those around me. This is the third way that we can get out of our own way of our dreams coming true. We remember that there is both something bigger that is meant for us, and something bigger that is happening within us. This is the foundation of our trust. This is Faith. It does not mean that there are no actions for us to take. On the contrary there are many. But as our trust builds and as we simultaneously become aware and free ourselves of limiting untruths, our dreams begin to take shape in front of us. We begin to believe that we can have, do, and be something that we previously thought impossible. Something that we did not even bother to consider for ourselves because it seemed unattainable. Yet here it is – not only possible and attainable but meant for us.

For what it’s worth, and for the knowing that all is well.

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