After all that time of getting into a new routine of starting each day with a walk, today I just… don’t want to walk. I thought of how gorgeous the river trails are, and how it’s a 15 minute walk just to get to them, so 30 minutes to go there and back, leaving me with little time to be ON the river trails until I want to walk all morning…
So I went for a bike ride, so I could spend more time on those paths.
This brought up SO MUCH GRIEF for all the ways the world has changed.
Because one thing I have noticed since 2022 is that drivers are more distracted and impatient than ever, and then each year they are even MORE distracted and impatient. This is a deadly combination for cyclists.
So, I think of how I used to set out and just… be in the magic of cycling. I was careful, I was paying attention, but I didn’t have to be ON GUARD the way I am now, while driving in bike lanes on streets.
Once I get to a bike trail off the roads of course the magic is still there. But while on roads it’s impossible to ignore the way the world has changed and the impact it’s had on us. All of my friends who ride bikes have noticed this.
There are also more people living on the street every year. When the pandemic hit in 2020 we’d had 8 years of conservative governments here, who kept cutting away at social services, and people were falling through the cracks. And sometimes it takes a few years to see the full impact but here we are now. Most of my favourite bike paths along the river have tent cities on them.
So there is all of that grief for living in a world where we don't take care of each other.
This morning I checked the forum before I went out and there was a question about practices to help a person figure out what their new dreams are.
Which is a question that’s been coming up a lot lately and I’ve been thinking about what kind of new tools I can add to support that process and I have some good ideas but that will take a little time still.
(If you’re in that boat right now - the Dream Book 2026 program is good! It gives you space to think about what you want just this year (which is so much easier that thinking of the BIG DREAMS) and you can put “figuring out what my next dream is” as one of the things you want this year. Then the Hello Day practice is PERFECT as a practice for this, there is a lot of mindset stuff in there about getting deeper in touch with your magic and self belief and it gives you a gentle way to get into a Creative Dream Alchemy PRACTICE even before you have a dream… and once you are in process and showing up to practice - magic happens.)
But, as I was being with all of my grief about how the world is changing, I was thinking about how much GRIEVING there can be to do, in the work of finding our new dreams.
And how vulnerable this all is and how it seems to get MORE vulnerable with age and experience, not less.
Every dream or idea or thing that fell apart in your life is RIGHT THERE in that space inside you where your new dreams are. And the longer you live the more inevitable it is that are some hard feelings in there.
This work becomes more profound and more healing with age and experience and that means… it can get HARDER.
So, sometimes the work of getting at the next dream will involve a lot of grieving.
And grief is non-linear!!!!! Grief work is more about MAKING SPACE for our feelings and figuring out how to be with them and tend to all parts of ourselves in the process. We can't control the shape of the path through our grief, the way we try to control the shape of the path to our dreams (though... we don't have as much control there as we'd like either).
My marriage ended very unexpectedly (on my part). I was particularly horrified by the sensation of all of my dreams and plans for the future just... melting into nothing. I wanted a new dream to hold on to and look forward to.
For those of us who are dreamers, having a thing to dream about gives us direction. It can actually help us be more rooted in our lives. We can feel unmoored without one, as I did.
And so I wanted to find a new dream ASAP. But I wouldn't suggest this!! Some people jump too fast into a new relationship, I jumped to fast into a new dream. We're all just doing our best. But these rebound relationships and rebound dreams are a way of trying to AVOID the big feelings, and the way through is always THROUGH them.
Of course, having that new dream (in my case it was to travel in a camper with my cat Bear) did help me have a thing to focus on, it gave me something replace that horrifying blankness that was there in the space where all of my previous dreams had melted away...
But that's not the same as FACING IT HEAD ON.
It was a rebound dream.
And in time as I settled into my new life and felt grounded here, I saw that it's not something I actually want to pursue. Not now anyway.
That's fine!
I think a better decision at that time would have been to have FINDING MY NEW DREAMS be the dream, and doing the Dream Work and Inner Work on that.
Practically speaking I mean - make a Dream Book with that as the dream, and really get in there and look at what's happening there. And to face the big feelings of it all HEAD ON.
Because if FINDING MY DREAM is my dream, then I am really being with ALL of the thoughts and feelings that come up when I acknowledge that I don't know what my dream is right now. And that can be a LOT!
So on the one hand it's very very good because when you do A LOT of Inner Work you create A LOT of shifts and new possibilities...
But at the same time, sometimes A LOT of inner work is just TOO MUCH, so going the route of grabbing onto a rebound dream makes sense too. Or just going in circles for a bit and giving all parts of you some space to breathe and process.
And in the end - it does't matter!
It doesn't matter what path you choose to navigate your dreams or which dream you focus on... it matters that you KEEP SHOWING UP.
The path is so non-linear and weird anyway. Like you can circle around a thing for a year and then suddenly everything snaps into place and it's easy to just step into the dream.
As long as you are IN PROCESS you'll work through the stuff you need to work through. The feelings that need to be processed will make themselves known. The ideas you need will come through. Clarity will find you.
None of that happens when we just... wait. All of it happens when we are IN PROCESS.
The Dream Book 2026 program is the one that helps there, you can do it without a specific "big dream" that you are making happen.
And yes that one is just for 2026, but you can absolutely still start it now!
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Do the Hello Day Energy Clearing + Intention Setting Practice (from Dream Book 2026)
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Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.
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