Punishing yourself for living your dream…
Living a dream is a privilege. A privilege that should bring joy and peace. It should give a sense of satisfaction. So why then does it leave me feeling anxious? Leave me feeling unworthy and unsure. A feeling of restlessness. In reality, if you find yourself living your dream, you’ve made it. You are living exactly how you want to.
But to go against the grain is not easy. To hold true to a dream and not get caught up in the expectations of others is hard. Dreams have a funny way of being easier to chase than they are to live. Easier to manifest, much harder to settle into. We chase dreams with rainbow-tinted glasses. Living the dream means we have to take the glasses off.
Chasing a dream is the biggest distraction from living it.
Running after my dream left me unable to recognise it as it unfolded in front of me. As I lived it, it became harder to see. I would see other people still running after their dreams, and think I had to keep running. Or that I needed another bigger dream to continue the chase. I felt this pressure to conform back into what society expected of me. Despite all my hard work to move away from that and towards my dream of living slowly by the sea. Once I got there, my first thought was, “Should I go back?” Not because I wanted to, but because I thought I had to keep running. That I wasn’t allowed to live my dream. But what is the point of a dream if not to live it?
Creating the dream.
Working towards the dream.
And living the dream.
All three are completely different. For me, the hardest will always be settling into the dream once I am living it. Releasing myself from the question, “What next?” and allowing myself to just be in it. Enjoy experiencing the dream.
No dream will materialise like we first envisioned. Maybe that’s why we find it hard to accept the dream when it is in front of us. But we owe it to ourselves to embrace our dreams fully. We have worked hard for them. And living a dream, whether it be a way of life, work, love, family or something else entirely, all deserve to be held and enjoyed.