Or... I'm planning to do it, but I am also ready to give up and say “No this will never work”
This is a VERY COMMON THING in creative dreaming! We can have parts of us who feel realllllly ready to do this thing... and parts of us who are terrified and will do anything to stop this from happening.
This is a part of the Inner Work and Dream Work of creative dreaming. The Inner Work is where you work with the parts of you who don't feel ready. The Dream Work is where you get more deeply aligned with the parts of you who were born ready.
Let’s look closer at what is happening for me today:
What’s going on with the part of me that IS ready to do this?
This came to me in a Dream Lab meditation. It doesn’t quite feel like part of me, it feels like my dream.. my soul calling from somewhere further on the path than where I am today.
But if I am honest, and there is no point of journaling like this if I am not, even though I am noticing I really don’t want to be honest about this but here goes: it’s an idea I have had many times. I have maybe (probably?) even taken steps towards it. Probably several times. Like, this is an idea that won’t go away, and I keep pushing it away and trying to forget it. And then it came to me in this meditation in a way that it feels like it wasn’t my idea but in the past it was.
WOW what a convoluted relationship I have with the part of me who wants this!
There is a lot to explore there, but I am going to move on to:
What’s going on with the part of me that doesn’t want to do this?
This part of me feels 70% in the driver’s seat right now, steering me away from any fruitful explorations of this idea.
Why?
It’s scared of loosing everything I have. It’s like “don’t upset the apple cart with a new way of doing things!”
And the part of me who wants to do this is like… but Creative Dreaming is ALL ABOUT finding and creating new ways of doing things. And if I want a different result I need to do things in a different way. This whole year has been about BEING the artist I AM, like in terms of how I do things - figuring out what it means to live as the artist I know I am. And that brought me to this place, to this idea. Back to this idea that I’ve explored before, but also I’m seeing it in a new way now so it feels different.
The part of me who doesn’t want this just wants to cry. It’s SO scared everything will fall apart if I make this change.
Oh! Now I see - this part of me is holding the pain and grief of everything that has happened since 2020, even all the ways the world and internet have changed since 2016. It’s not as easy to put yourself out there as it used to be. This part of me wants me to be VERY VERY careful about upsetting anything that is working because we can’t necessarily get it back.
I don’t think we should take un-due risk. We can always take really small steps and experiment first. We can find ways to bring safety in.
AND
There are risks involved which feel terrifying sometimes.
Sometime’s it’s a small risk and a big terror.
It doesn’t really matter - your feelings are always valid and exploring them can help you better understand what you need to do this thing you want to do.
So, if I am VERY VERY careful - will the part of me who doesn’t want to do this, consider doing this and stop throwing wrenches in every idea that comes along?
Yes. I see this part of me putting down her wrenches, though she’s keeping them within reach to pick them back up. Fair enough.
The part of me who wants to do this is HAPPY to go slow and be careful. CAREFUL is not the quality she wants to lead with.
So what qualities does she want to lead with?
EXPANSION, CLARITY, OFFERING, INVITATION
As I show the part of me who doesn’t want to do this these qualities, all parts of me see:
This is the natural next step.
I mean - TRYING THIS IDEA is the natural next step.
Maybe we won’t get all the way there. Maybe we’ll do it and it will be a disaster. Maybe it will exactly what we need. THAT DOESN’T MATTER.
The outcome doesn’t matter.
So when I say that this feels like the natural next step - I don’t mean that it comes with a guaranteed outcome.
The only guarantees in Creative Dreaming are that you can’t get there if you don’t keep showing up.
And while there is still TONS for me to explore about my ambivalence - it also feels clear now that this is the way for me to show up next. This is my next step. It feels scary, so I will tend to that fear (in the Un-Sticking Station) while I also work on taking this step.
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