Impractical Dreaming
For those of us whose life’s work is metamorphosing. Let’s gather.
Occasionally, I find myself surprised that my youngest child hasn’t yet learned the things my eldest has understood for a very long time, even though my kids are 11 years apart.
Like, don’t splash Mom.
Mom doesn’t like to be splashed. Mom is not encouraged into the water by splashing. How many times does Mom need to shriek and be the cross-no-fun-mom pleading I said I’d get in, please respect my no, please let me go at my own pace for this lesson to be gleaned?
Another yet-to-be-understood truth? If you say you’re bored, Mom will declare this is wonderful news!
“Boredom, my love, is the state that occurs right before inspiration. You lucky duck! Be bored! Be very, very bored. Just another moment or two and your imagination will begin to do its wonderful work.”
My children really, truly, hate this.
But you know what I really, truly, miss about my childhood?
Everything that would kick in after I spent a little bit of time being bored.
Who gets bored these days? So many memes, so little time.
If you can break the digital umbilical cord long enough to experience boredom, congratulations!
If you can, somehow, heave the urgent responsibilities off your weary chest and float off into boredom, please do write a five-step tutorial, post it to Instagram and monetize it while you teach the rest of us.
If you’ve resisted the cult of busyness long enough to saunter into other realms and there, boredom finds you, I bow to you in awe!
Boredom, indeed, is a doorway to imagination, to creativity, to impractical dreaming. Such medicine, our fraught world could do with more of right now. But because time seems so scarce and attention is being hijacked all over the place, most of us can’t rely on boredom to be the door.
We need to create the conditions for creativity to flow, for dreams to seed, for our imagination to expand beyond the landscape of what’s known, practical and possible.
In case you missed it, I’m traversing a season of closing down and wrapping up as I hospice some very prominent threads of a 15-year coaching career. The things I’m pursuing in their wake are enlivening and were born from creative recovery and impractical dreaming.
IMPRACTICAL DREAMING. As in, who do you think you are? As in, how pleasurable can you let it get?
These dreams became pursuits that have grown from seeds to roots to bearing fruit, and while I don’t like telling people what to do, I’m going to take a little liberty here…
Please do not ignore what’s calling you.
That whisper. That dream. The thing that tugs and tugs if only you had more money, time or certainty. Maybe those aren’t the things we need more of. How about more courage and outrageous delusion about what might be possible if you went for it? Bolstered by community support. Now we’re talkin’.
When we devote ourselves to feeding our Calling, even if it’s in small and safe ways (because sometimes it has to be), our experience of being alive usually becomes more satisfying. The trick is realizing that being devoted to our Call is not about getting somewhere, it’s about listening and tending from where you are. The pursuit, not the outcome, is where magic is seeded.
Most of the people I know who’ve made dreams a reality didn’t get there by knowing it was going to work out or because they had a practical plan in place. Often, the truly astonishing experiences or outcomes couldn’t have been predicted. They were unforeseen opportunities and openings that came when surrendering to and following the Call, and end up feeling like a miraculous co-creation with life.
This phenomenon is ablaze for me right now. It’s part of why I’m clearing space with such intentionality. I see and feel opportunities and possibilities rushing towards me. They aren’t things I can plan for; they’re things I need to be open, resourced, ready and available for. I can’t have my space all bunged up with commitments I’m holding onto because I believe I’m needed, or they’re practical and offer me security.
Part of the “closing down” and “opening up” that I’m in is a discernment phase of what’s being put to bed entirely, what’s coming with me, and what needs to be iterated into a new form so that it can live on and contribute without me stewarding it.
If you’re also travelling through a time of what’s next, what to shed, what to lean into and how to best answer your Call, I’m hosting a workshop you may be interested in.
It’s called Regenerate Your Life’s Work, and is an integration of the methods, frameworks and devoted practice I’ve engaged with clients throughout my career. Hosting this online in this way is part of my wrapping up of this season of work. (If you’re local and want to do this in person, reply and let me know, as I’ll be hosting this on Bowen in June.)
In this workshop, I’ll share some personal stories, accompany you through your own reflection and practice and support you to put your Calling front and center, in a way that is both imaginal and practical. If you can’t make it live, there will be a recording, but there are practices that work best live, so if you can clear your schedule, please come!
If you cannot afford the fee, we have scholarship options. Do not let time and money be the things that keep you from saying yes to the Call. In my experience, when we say yes, time and money start to organize themselves in miraculous ways to support us in bringing our visions to ground.
Let’s get imaginative together. Let’s get all courageous about what’s run its course and needs to go. Let’s open the doors to what wants to become and clear the shitty shit in the way.
You’ll leave inspired, more intimately connected to yourself, your gifts and the deeper threads of meaning animating your life and work. You’ll meet some cool new people, cause not to brag, but the people who tend to show up for my things are really rad. Like, smart, funny, deep, committed, talented and generous.
Can you see why it’s so hard for me to be like, “What parts of this should I put down?” Because THE PEOPLE.
C’mon, people, let’s get together and feed some dreams.
Love,
Chela
How do I look into booking?