Do you have a picture of your dream, but feel uncertain-or even afraid-of what it'd take to make it real? Do you feel an inner nudge to do something, but have no clear idea of what it is, let alone what to do? Are you frustrated with seemingly just marking time in your life, but don't know what you really want or what changes to make? Are you tired of wondering why things seem to just happen to you and wishing you had more control over your own destiny? Are you simply looking for a concise roadmap to raise your consciousness in how you live? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, this book has your answers!
REACH Your Dreams
Five Steps to be a Conscious Creator in Your LifeBy Alice ChanBALBOA PRESS
Copyright © 2011 Alice Chan, Ph.D.
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4525-3489-3Contents
Prologue...................................xiChapter 1 Introduction.....................1Chapter 2 Release..........................23Chapter 3 Envision.........................57Chapter 4 Act..............................83Chapter 5 Celebrate........................109Chapter 6 Honor............................129Chapter 7 Conclusion.......................151Epilogue...................................159Appendix...................................171Bibliography...............................175Resources..................................179Acknowledgements...........................181
Chapter One
Introduction
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."
—Henry David Thoreau
The above quote has been my inspiration for many years. These two simple sentences perfectly capture the passion and conviction I feel for the life I want to live — and what I am about to share with you in this book. First, use your imagination to compose the life of your dreams. Then, with unwavering confidence about the life you have imagined, allow it to lead you into action. After all, everything big and small begins as simple figments of imagination on the part of the inspired souls who go confidently in the direction of their dreams. Technological advances and modern-day conveniences all materialize for our edification because, at some point, someone dared to imagine. And, they believed in their dreams so much that not only did they themselves take action, but they were able to mobilize action on the part of many others to help bring their dreams to life on a grand scale. Quite simply, when we combine our imagination with purposeful action, we have the winning recipe for manifesting our dreams, no matter their scale.
I know, many of you are thinking that this is so much easier said than done. If it were so simple, why aren't we all living our dreams right now? Why do some of us feel so bogged down by responsibilities that we either feel that dreaming is frivolous or that we don't know how to dream? Trust me, we all know how to dream, but we have simply forgotten. I stared at the above Thoreau quote for many years to keep myself inspired before I could actually follow the advice. Ironically, when I was a little girl, I loved to imagine things, and spent many hours daydreaming in the privacy of my own mind.
Just ask young children to imagine, and exciting worlds with lively characters are created. Since they have yet to learn to be afraid of failing or to doubt themselves, everything is possible, and the sky is the limit. Of course, we don't have to be children to imagine, and we certainly can get excited about possibilities at any age. However, as adults, we may have to release the fears and self-doubt we have inadvertently accumulated over the course of our lives. We may have to consciously give ourselves full permission to dream, to stay true to our heart's desires, and to take bold action to make them a reality.
Keeping Ourselves Safe vs. Dreaming
From Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, we learn that our most basic human needs have to do with feeling physically and emotionally safe. When we perceive that our core needs are unmet or threatened in any way, all our physical, mental and emotional resources are instinctively directed to achieve or restore a sense of safety. Unless we believe that we are safe at the most fundamental level, it would be challenging for higher-level desires to flourish. Until a solid foundation of security is established in our perceived reality, any inkling of a want — instead of a need — would be over-powered by our survival instincts. As a result, there would be insufficient fuel for the engine of higher-level desires, such as our dreams. What we get are very visceral feelings of I just can't do this.
From my own personal experience, at the lowest points in my life, it was literally a struggle to see even a glimmer of hope, let alone dream. My creative space was totally jammed with fear, and I was completely consumed by being in survival mode. When I got myself sufficiently established and allowed myself to dream, I lacked the confidence to follow through with making my desires a reality. You just read in the Prologue about my challenges in finishing this book, even though it has been a dream of mine for several years. In the end, the good news is that, once the dream was born, there was no denying it. In time, I learned to get out of my own way and surrender to the power of my dream to carry me forward. I finally allowed the calling from deep within to activate the confidence and tenacity within me — which have been there all along waiting to be harvested — to follow the call, to take inspired action to allow this dream to come true.
I want to say to you most emphatically that you, too, can make your dreams come true! I know what torture it is to feel stuck in a life that seems pointless, to feel so blocked that you don't even know what you really want, or to feel scared and powerless to go after what you love. The personal empowerment roadmap in this book — REACH — is intended to help you clear the blocks in your creative energy field, imagine living the life of your dreams, and take confident action in manifesting it.
Remove the Roadblocks and Take Action
Close your eyes and picture in your mind a path in front of you. Where you are standing is where you are in your life right now. Somewhere ahead of you is where you want to be — when your dreams are fulfilled. You may be able to visualize what living your dreams is like, or you may not have a clue, but simply that there has got to be a better life than the one you have right now. While you may be able to picture where you want to be, you cannot see the path ahead to get you there. Instead, from where you stand currently, what is within view may be only the roadblocks keeping you from where you want to go.
The roadblocks you see in your mind's eye are your fears, worries and self-doubt that keep you from going confidently toward where you want to go. These blocks are limiting beliefs you have about yourself that come in as many variations as there are stars in the sky on a clear night. I'm not smart/educated/experienced enough. I'm too old/young for what I want. I have too many responsibilities at this point in my life to do anything different. Who would be interested in what I have to say/create? I honestly don't even know what I want; I just know that I don't want what I have now. These are just some examples that may resonate.
Limiting thoughts and beliefs often disguise themselves as legitimate excuses as to why we are stuck where we are, why it is practically impossible to be, have or do something different, why it is not prudent to change the status quo — a.k.a. our comfort zone — even if we may be miserable in it. Limiting beliefs carry the voice of our otherwise well-meaning ego, whose noble job is to keep us safe. Remember, fundamentally, we need to feel safe before we can do anything else. Because of that job description, our risk-adverse ego continually cautions us against venturing into the uncertainty of going after our dreams. Instead, it urges us to keep the known status quo, our comfort zone, even though we are unhappy in it.
For most of our limiting beliefs, their seeds were planted in our subconscious when we were really young, based on what we internalized from our environment — home, school, church and community. Over time, these beliefs become the subconscious programming that runs our lives without our conscious recognition. According to Dr. Bruce Lipton, we got the most powerful and influential parts of this programming before we reach the age of six. Our subconscious is the part of our brain that is in charge of responding to things in our environment that don't require conscious processing. It is a million times more powerful than our conscious, rational mind. Therefore, while our conscious mind is busy thinking about big questions (e.g., who we want to be when we grow up) or dealing with things requiring our full attention (e.g., an important work or personal project), our subconscious mind is on automatic pilot, rapidly helping us make decisions without much conscious thought.
Until we become aware of the latent self-limiting beliefs stored in our subconscious — and the life patterns they automatically generate — we will continue to perpetuate the same limiting life circumstances. But, the good news is that, we can retrieve the outdated tape of limiting beliefs that unknowingly runs our lives. In its place, we can install new empowering programming that reflects the truth of who we are, not what we had internalized as children that does not serve us. As Dr. Lipton explains, just like we cannot change recorded programming on a tape by talking to it, we cannot change beliefs simply by thinking positively. We need to become aware of these old beliefs, and replace them with new ones, including the most critical one — that we are so very worthy of everything just as we are, not the least of which is the life of our dreams. Our very first step is to be willing to believe.
To give you an example, a very common limiting belief that most of us have is that we have to work really hard to make money. Does that resonate? When we have that underlying belief in our subconscious programming, our circumstances reflect that. We keep finding ourselves in jobs that require long, stressful hours. For some of us, we may carry the additional grievance story that life is not fair or that we don't deserve better. In that case, not only do we feel over-worked, we manifest a professional life in which we are under-paid and under-appreciated as well. As a matter of fact, I had jobs with all of the above conditions for years. These conditions were mirrors reflecting back to me what I believed about myself, the world around me and the life I thought I deserved. When I retrieved that old tape of limiting beliefs, invalidated and released these messages, I cleared the path for great work-life balance, making more money while working a lot less, and being greatly appreciated for my contributions.
Aside from releasing self-sabotaging beliefs, we also need to take action in order for our dreams to come true. Many of us may have mistaken that the Law of Attraction is just about thinking positive thoughts, and that visualizing our dreams in our minds is enough for their manifestation. Yes, it is important to know our desires and to allow their presence in our belief system to empower us to break through fears and insecurities. But, beyond that, we need to take action. Remember that dreams come true because the dreamers not only have a clear vision of what they want, they are able to inspire and mobilize action — their own and potentially others' — to make their dreams a reality. So, taking action is a key element in the formula for realizing our dreams.
There are different kinds of action, however, and this is a critical point. Acting out of fear that we need to control our environment to keep ourselves safe is fundamentally very different from taking expansive action that aligns with a clear purpose. Fear-based action takes care of basic survival needs at best, and cannot fulfill higher-level desires. It takes inspired action to realize our dreams. Moreover, as a society, we have somehow adopted an unfortunate manic pace, such that we are constantly running somewhere, doing something — lots of busy action. Quiet time for contemplation and reflection is under-rated, and we feel like we would risk losing out if we took the time to think before we act. There is no time for thoughtful action, but instead we are constantly in reactive mode, playing catch-up, putting out fires. This is most certainly not the type of action that manifests dreams.
When we act out of fear and desperation, our body tenses up and our heart contracts. By contrast, when we are inspired by a dream, we can hardly wait to get to it. The feelings are of excitement and anticipation. Just pay attention to our intelligent body, and it will tell us whether our actions are inspired by our highest good or motivated by fear to keep us safe. When we go confidently in the direction of our dreams, it calls for purposeful action that is inspired by a vision and guided by a clear intention — not frantic action aimed at controlling a situation or running away from circumstances out of fear.
What is REACH?
In a nutshell, REACH Your Dreams is a roadmap to empower you to release limiting beliefs, break through old patterns, and clear the path for your dreams to manifest. This roadmap also includes tools to help you get clear about what you want and to create your own guided action plan. Furthermore, we will talk about how to prepare for distractions and show-stoppers along the way, as well as the importance of celebrating milestones achieved in your action plan. Moreover, we will devote some time to talk about a very important part of your personal transformation journey — the need to honor who you are and where you are on your life path, as your dreams start from the here and now. Through meditations, contemplation exercises and strategic action planning, this book will walk you through how to consciously create the life of your dreams.
REACH is a mnemonic for Release, Envision, Act, Celebrate and Honor. In this book, one chapter is devoted to each of these five components of your personal empowerment roadmap.
First, Release (Chapter 2) is about letting go of limiting beliefs and subconscious programming — fears, worries, and doubts — running our lives. These messages take up room in our creative space, block our imagination, keep us playing safe but small, and zap us of the fire power to create the life of our dreams. Some common ones are: I'm not educated enough; I'm not smart enough; I'm too old (too young) to be successful at this; I can't make a living doing that; I can't afford to fail. By bringing these limiting beliefs to the forefront, challenging their truth and validity, releasing them from our creative space, and reprogramming our subconscious mind with empowering beliefs, we take a critical step toward clearing the path for our dreams to come true.
Envision (Chapter 3) has to do with picturing living our dreams in which we have exactly what we want and, more importantly, feeling what it is like to have them already. In this chapter, we will focus on getting clear about the conditions and qualities of what we want, so that we can feed our imagination and activate its power to carry us forward. With clarity around our desires, we can then be purposeful about manifesting our dreams, and submit a very clear request to the universe to be fulfilled — all backed by the power of our beliefs.
Act (Chapter 4) is about taking action on our dreams - not busy action that follows fear-based directives from the ego, but guided action coming from the wisest, most creative part of ourselves. We will look at how to discern true guidance from ego directives. Then, we will discuss creating an action plan that is SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time-trackable). In this chapter, we will consider what might stop us from achieving each SMART goal. We want to be prepared for potential show stoppers, such that they don't sabotage our dreams prematurely.
It is critical to Celebrate (Chapter 5) our lives in general and each specific milestone we hit in acting on the SMART goals we envisioned for ourselves. Celebrating our wins and successful actions keeps us motivated and activates gratitude. It trains our subconscious to recognize the progress we are making in being a conscious creator of our destiny. Our SMART action plan will include ways in which we will celebrate achieving each SMART goal. We will also talk about cultivating a consciousness of appreciation and gratitude, so that we can choose to live in a state of grace and welcome celebratory energy.
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Excerpted from REACH Your Dreamsby Alice Chan Copyright © 2011 by Alice Chan, Ph.D.. Excerpted by permission of BALBOA PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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