Death of Dreams contd.

I walked away from my last post feeling a little unsatisfied. Honestly, it ended differently than I had planned. Writing is like that -- surprising and self-revelatory. My musings lead me to an unexpected place and rather than ignore what my mind was saying to me, I decided to follow it to where-ever it led. Nonetheless, I feel like I cheated a little because I didn't get the opportunity to address something very real -- the death of dreams.

That is a real and powerful experience -- one that is often ignored or dismissed. I don't believe we can or should trivialize the impact that the death of a dream can have on us. How many people are still mourning the loss of a dream and they can't share it because it seems so ridiculous to mourn for something that (sometimes) was only a possibility in your mind or that failed to live up to our expectations? When we try to share our pain, we get shut down. People, precious people who love us, will say, Grow up; Time to get realistic; This is how it is out in the real world; Get over it.

But you can't somehow. You can't let go because the dream is a part of you. It anchored you; it determined your choices; it identified you. Least you think I overstate, consider those young people who spend their days, dreaming of becoming a professional or Olympic-caliber athlete. I am not talking about the majority of us who watch the pros on television and see ourselves on the highlight reel. I'm talking about those who train relentlessly, who practice in the wee hours when the rest of us are asleep and whose parents sacrifice retirement savings to invest in their dreams. I'm talking about those girls who want to be supermodels or beauty queens, who miss the prom and sleepovers and pool parties to attend go-sees or pageants across the country. Brothers and sisters who are up under the covers in the middle of the night trying out their lyrics when everyone else is fast asleep.

We know the majority of them don't make it. For every Beyonce, there are a thousand Benitas, Bonnies, and Bettys who simply don't make it. A bad break during practice, a torn ACL and it is over for some before they can get to college. Some lack the talent; some just lack the luck. Whatever the circumstance, and there are many, the dream is over. Then, all the hours and hours of hard work and working towards this one goal appears to be for naught. They aren't just left with the loss of a dream but the loss of a identity. Who am I now, if I am not a ? What do I do with my time if I am not __?

Okay, you say, well those are exaggerated cases and that most of us don't fall into these categories. True. To an extent. I would argue that anyone going through a divorce might feel the same way. You've invested a significant portion of your life being a wife or husband and suddenly, that isn't who you are anymore. The idea you had about yourself and your life is changed and you're unprepared for it.

I'd argue that the same sense of disorientation and grief occurs when we lose a job -- a career we've trained for, educated ourselves for. Or even when you simply had an idea of how your life would be at 35 or 45 and you look up and you are so far away from where you imagined yourself to be, you feel that you don't know yourself anymore. A dream you had of yourself dies.

If this has happened to you, I want to, first of all, say I'm sorry. I am so sorry. Perhaps no one has told but your dream was real and it was important. I want you to know that it is okay that it hurts when its gone.

Second, it is important that you mourn your loss -- no matter what it was. We don't have ceremonies to mourn lost dreams but we should. The reason that funerals exist is to acknowledge not just the loss experienced by the living but to acknowledge the existence of the dead. Life, in its cruel and infinite wisdom, moves forward. It appears to indifferent to death. Ceremonies allow us the necessary time we need to mark the experience, integrate it into our consciousness and face the future. The ceremony marks the beginning of a life, absent of the thing that we loved. We need it. If you have not mourned, do it now. Its okay to acknowledge that you are hurting, that you are disappointed and maybe angry, maybe discouraged. Cry it out, write it down, bury it, create a funeral pyre. Do whatever is necessary to acknowledge to yourself what you have lost.

Perhaps, after you can finally begin to heal.

When Dreams Go Unfulfilled

Okay, I was watching Oprah interview Hugh Jackman last week and I was struck by something he said about desire. Of course, I can't remember it verbatim but Jackman was talking about the high point of his acting career and surprisingly, it was not being cast as Wolverine or being named the sexiest man.  It came early in his career when he took the stage in a role in The Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Oklahoma. He was in his early twenties and as an actor, his greatest desire was to be on the stage where his idols, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Patrick Stewart, Dame Judi Dench, had performed. He spoke about how wonderful it was to have that dream fulfilled so early in his life. Then he paused and said that he had been talking with his wife about what would have happened to him, if he had never fulfilled that dream. He wondered aloud about what happens to people when they have dreams like that that are, for whatever reason, never fulfilled. Disappointment like that can alter you forever.

Has this happened to you?

Have you been living with the disillusionment of a dream that has gone unfulfilled?
Has it affected you so much that you no longer pursue anything that seems difficult or challenging?
Has the disappointment proved so insurmountable that you won't allow yourself to desire anything to that degree again?

Before you answer, I will share that it has and did happen to me. It has altered me. I think I live with the repercussions of that disappointment even now. I know I do. I think about it daily.

I won't go into the details of what happened or why because I don't think it is important.  I will share that one of those daily thoughts is -- I never want to WANT anything that much again. So I don't. I don't allow myself to get obsessed or too attached or overly enthusiastic about many things. I don't invest, not fully, not to the degree to which I know I am capable. And, that has worked for me. I mean, it has cushioned me from a great deal of pain. I think.

Because I don't invest too much, I am not shaken by inevitable changes nor am I overly committed to maintaining the status quo in every arena of my life. I am more laid-back, thoughtful. These days, I view life differently.  Looking back, I think some of the disappointments I experienced definitely happened for a reason and they provided me with an opportunity to grow. So when I am pushing towards achieving something specific and it doesn't immediately manifest, I tell myself that there is a reason. I need to be patient and eventually, the reason will reveal itself. But it hasn't been easy nor am I sufficiently enlightened navigate every setback with such insight. But I try.

At the same time, I miss the passionate me -- the me that gets obsessed and worked into a lather about things. Not because I miss the drama that came with that (that I do not miss) but because that version of me seemed so much more fearless than I am now. Having never experienced that level of disappointment, I was unafraid of -- trying, of being wrong, of failure. I felt powerful. That passionate me felt like she could create the life she dreamed about and nothing could possibly stop her.

Until it did. And she pursued something she really wanted and things didn't turn out like she thought. She retreated. I haven't heard from her since. And I wonder about her. Where she is? Is she okay? Is she too wounded to ever return? Can I live without her?

But I realize something. She was a fraud. She wasn't really fearless. She was a coward.  She hid behind her emotions, masked her insecurity with brazenness. I know now, it wasn't true passion because she never committed to anything because of her fear. She had dreams but she deferred them. Ignored them, really.  She told herself that there were selfish. There was more important issues in the world. She surrounded herself with other people's drama so that she had no time for them.

Until the one moment when she didn't. She let her guard down and experienced disappointment.

She let her guard down because she thought the mask was her true face. She thought she was fearless and that that made her invincible. NO, she thought her good works entitled her to the dream. But the good works were fraudulent, too, because real commitment has to involve the possibility of real loss. Isn't that the reason dreams are so powerful and their loss holds such power over us?

She experienced that crushing disappointment for the first time and realized she was a fraud. Maybe that is the real reason, she hasn't returned because she knows I know who she really is. I have had to recreate myself from what remains behind.

But what to do with those dreams?

I shift through them, deciding which are still viable, which are a total loss. I decide which I am truly committed to pursuing, in spite of what crushing disappointments may lie ahead of me. I still believe I have dreams left to fulfill.

Paradigm Shifting and Living like a Phoenix

What is a Phoenix? According to Wikipedia, it is a long-lived bird that is cyclically regenerated or reborn. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor. Symbolically, the phoenix is associated with immortality and life after death.

When I think of the phoenix, I think of the ability to transform, to renew oneself even when it appears that death is imminent. These days, I think the ability to transform oneself, to change with circumstance is imperative. In this age, it may feel that little is certain, not our jobs, our relationships, even our day-to-day safety in the institutions we take for granted.  So much of our lives feels beyond our control. Whether it is an unexpected job loss, divorce or death, at some point in this life, we all will be faced with challenges we hadn't expected or prepared for. We will be caught flat-footed, uncertain and perhaps ill prepared for the new life before us.

Too often when faced with sudden change, we become paralyzed by indecision, lack of confidence or knowledge. We stew in bitterness, anger or apathy. We focus all our energy on either on trying to retrieve what we have lost, blaming and punishing those we feel have wronged us or reminiscing about better times. Before long, years and opportunities have passed while we remain stagnant. The more stagnant we become, the more difficult it becomes to imagine any other life for ourselves. We settle into a state of dissatisfaction and comfort ourselves by observing other people's unhappiness and rationalizing that this must be the norm. But I don't think it is or that it should be. I think these moments are opportunities -- opportunities to re-imagine ourselves, to refashion ourselves, to reinvent ourselves.

If we continue with the metaphor of the phoenix, it is important to remember that only one can exist at a time, much like various incarnations of our life. Perhaps the death of one life is simply providing the opportunity to live another. The Phoenix Function is just that. It is that skill, that quality that makes it possible for us to re-imagine and ultimately recreate ourselves from the ashes. I think we all should know how. But this can't happen without a fundamental paradigm shift.

The Paradigm Shift is this one. Our lives are not fixed or solid. They are organic living things that must evolve in order to thrive. The shift that must take place in our consciousness is releasing all of ideas about what our lives should be and embracing what is. This isn't, necessarily about accepting unhappiness or dissatisfaction but about using that emotion as information to transform our lives. It is also about embracing the possibility of something different in our lives, sometimes, a life we never imagined possible.

What I am thinking about are the people like myself who find themselves in the middle of their lives, looking around and wondering how they got there. Why their lives have not lived up to their expectations, if they missed a turn, if they somehow failed. If you are anything like me, you take inventory of every decision, every action, every move you have made since you have been in a position to act for yourself and wonder how on earth did this happen. Was it when I did such and such…Perhaps I should have … or why didn’t I…?

Fill in the blanks.

Speculation upon speculation, increasing uncertainty about your abilities, the world around you and everything you have been taught haunts you daily.  If you are like me, the weight of it, your so-called failures and self doubt weigh more heavily as you get older and you still have no idea what to change, much less how. The fear of making a decision and enduring another disappointment becomes unbearable so you chose to lose yourself in something else – drugs, alcohol, children, television, family drama, work, exercise, food – until either it becomes another burden or you forget the dreams you had entirely.

Some of us will refuse to give up. We will work even harder -- study, research, and take classes. We will consult life coaches, religious leaders, and psychics. We will pay whatever it takes. Read every book and attend every seminar, and spend hours on our knees in prayer. We will move away from home, closer to home, hoping that a change in geography will inspire a change in ourselves. We will do whatever it takes to find the answer to the question we are afraid to voice aloud – How did I end up here? Why didn’t my life turn out like I planned?

Is it me? What is wrong with me?

I want to say nothing. Nothing is wrong with you. Life is messy and chaotic but it is also full of opportunities for joy, even if it doesn't look the way you thought it would.

Trust me, I am not, by nature, an optimist. I tend, by all accounts, to lean towards pessimism and discouragement. Optimism is work for me. Nor am I a therapist or psychologist or theologian or philosopher.

I'm the woman who's had three different careers and the same amount of committed relationships. I'm a single mother and a writer, looking to publish. I'm not an expert in any particular field.

I've just been there. I know how it feels. I've looked my life, shaken my head and said, I shouldn't be here. But I was and I survived.

I can't offer you solutions to your problems. I don't have them. I can offer a forum for discussing them, a way of shifting your perspective about them so that you can embrace a life that may surprise and delight you, as mine has.