On Despising Goals and Resolutions.

Are you good with Goals and Resolutions? My name is Louise Ingram and I am not!

It's that time of year again. I feel like a school kid at the end of term, trembling with a report card in my hand. Feeling like I'll be lucky to garner a few C's - the rest will be even less acceptable. What makes it all the harder is that I KNOW I should be getting A's -- deep inside I KNOW I CAN get A's.

[caption id="attachment_1102" align="alignnone" width="300"] Hope I'm not getting graded on my 'growing out' hair too![/caption]

I have Leonie Dawson's 'Amazing Year' planners and Jani Franck's planner for 2014 sitting here. These should be exciting, wondrous things to fill out so why am I not looking at them?

I have realised I have a HUGE monster hanging off my back. It's the 'you are just setting yourself up for failure!' monster. He's not pretty, he's loud and he's obnoxious and every year, at this time especially, he starts screaming in my ear.

Any time anything connected with goal setting comes up - he's there - eyes glinting with joy because he knows just how good he is. The worse thing about it all? He's right! Or at least THAT is what I've let myself believe.



Why set yourself up for failure? Why spend the year dreading that final report card that points out the long list of things I fell down on. My monster and I have a much better way - we drift. We drift along, take the good and the not so good and at the end of the year my report card is not so harsh. Since I didn't actually HAVE any goals, I haven't actually FAILED at them and there are even some good things that happened regardless. I may have even made a passing grade!

Of course there's a problem with all of this. I know it, even if my monster doesn't. There are actually several problems - not the least of which is the guilt that comes with not setting any goals. There's probably another monster involved there but I'm ignoring it at the minute. Everyone around me it seems is making lists, setting goals, dreaming big and I'm feeling guilty, beaten and a little scared.

I see what's happening, this monster is taking things and turning them into failures and weaknesses. I have given him the power to convince me that nothing good will come of opening those planners.

There is another voice however, it's much smaller and quieter at the minute - but it's talking to me - not about goals but about dreams. Those planners are for dreams! They are for the day to day dreams and for the really big ones. They are for the things that will make my heart sing when I write them down. The things that radiate joy when I think of them and the things that may or may not happen in the coming year.

The real report card I suspect does not come with admonishments on what we haven't done, but is instead covered with gold stars for each and every dream that we have had the courage to dream regardless of the outcome.



Without our dreams what do we have? If we don't dream we might miss some really important and wonderful opportunities just waiting to happen.

I'm going to try and give that monster a talking to, who knows, just maybe he'd prefer to be a dream coach instead of a Goal Grader.

Perhaps we are dreamers

Dreams are curious things, I woke up this morning with what seemed like dozens of fragments of different dreams in my head.

The more I tried to pursue them the further away down squirrely tunnels they fled.



Sometimes I can remember my dreams clearly, other times I'll be able to grasp at a meaning that seems to make sense, or a dream will impart heightened emotions that bring me to tears or great joy.  There have been occasions where my Dad has visited me, once in glorious HD, hyper real as though I were seeing him through the eyes of an eagle, more real than I ever saw him in life.  He let me hug him to prove that he really was there and he was a solid being as real as any I encounter when I am awake.

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” ― Edgar Allan Poe

Dreams are a mystery. 

Tim Freke suggests also that life is a 'dream'.

Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.
Sholom Aleichem

What is life? A madness. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story. And the greatest good is little enough: for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams.
Pedro Calderón de la Barca

I rather like Tim Freke's idea of living lucidly, I know that when I feel connected a wonderful sense of joy and love fills me and wonderful things start to happen.

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
Traditional.

Several things come together when I think of dreams, fleeting thoughts of how the universe might really be, questions that will forever remain unanswered, in this lifetime at least.



Are we the dreamers dreaming the dream?

The Shapers shaping the shapes?

Energy beings riding the cusp of a wave of creation and expansion?

All of the above?  None of the above?  Will we know the answer one day?  Do we hold the answer now?

Ahhh the mystery of Life.

The Dream - The Blue Sky Caravan

Welcome to the Blue Sky Caravan, come on in, make yourself at home.  Take that cozy chair over there in the corner if you like, the kettle is on and something tasty is just about to be served.

You might be wondering where you are, well let me explain . . .

You have just entered a very special place - my Caravan of Creativity and Dreams!  It sits on the edge of a gently sloping field close to a beautiful greenwood.  Just over that rise there is a path, sandswept by the wind, that leads down to the sea.  Can you hear the seabirds?

My caravan is of the Gypsy style, with big spoked wheels and and a wooden frame.  Its decorated with many colours and carvings of most anything you'd like to see lie waiting to be discovered.  The arching green roof keeps me warm and dry.  Three steps lead up to a little stoop where a cat or two spend time lounging in the sun.



Inside?

Inside wonders await!

A ceiling of sky, blue, studded with fluffy white clouds - you know, one of those perfect summer skies that take you back to childhood days when time stood still and great adventures called.  The rug on the floor is a little threadbare from the coming and going of a great many feet, but its pattern is magical and many stories are woven into it.  A desk sits in front of a big window from which a glimpse of the sea teases the eye.  Excuse the clutter, its almost all creative, pens, pencils, paints, books, music and artist's dreams.  Yes, come on in and stop for a spell.

The Mystery Caravan

Yesterday a caravan pulled into my life. A cozy magical spot filled with dreams and creativity.

It's nestled in a field close to a Greenwood with the
Sea just a heartbeat away. The caravan is green with a red roof and will be anything I want it to be.

How exciting! I wonder will it stay a while? Will it become a permanent fixture in my life? Or will it disappear as easily as it came?

I'm going to have fun exploring it.