Permission to dream

In 2012 when we got home from four months in Peru, I was at a loose end. My husband went back to work, the kids went back to school, but I had left my job before we went. I knew that the length of time I was away was long enough for a new person to get competent at my job so I resigned from the job rather than taking a long leave of absence.

The rest of the family got back to normal and settled back into their daily rhythms but I didn’t know what was next. I started to feel pretty low, even though it was heading toward the end of the year with all the fun and festivities of Christmas and summertime.

The organisation that we went with to Peru, organised a debriefing weekend to help with assimilating back to normality after life in a different culture. We attended it as a family.

There is one concept they taught that has stuck with me. A natural consequence of transition is that you come off the ‘high’ of whatever has just happened – at first people ask how it went, you relive the memories but over time it starts to fade, interest wanes, you’re left to process it yourself. Your emotions naturally go down.

The challenge with the transition process is that if you don’t find something to look ahead to, your emotions continue to go down.

To change the direction of your emotions requires finding something new to focus on.

Because I didn’t have any vision of something ahead, I was feeling lower and lower. That was helpful to know.

When an opportunity presented itself in the new year, I took it. My husband told me that someone was needing help in their business and he wondered if I would be interested in helping. I said yes immediately. He was surprised. What he didn’t fully understand was that I was looking for something new to focus on.

For some, life has been particularly hard in the last little while. For others, you are in a transition phase. If that is you, can I encourage you to lift your eyes and look for possibilities? When things are hard our posture naturally slumps. We have the tendency to look down because we’re hanging our head.

This week I heard someone talking about a motorcycle accident that they were in years ago. They said that as their wheels slid out from under them, they looked at the drain – and that is where they landed. It is common knowledge in driving that where you look is where you go.

When we’re feeling low, we don’t feel like looking up. But it’s a key to turning our outlook around.

We allow children to dream and imagine, but somewhere along the way we, as a culture, decided that it’s immature for adults to use their imagination.

In reality though, we use our imagination all the time: we imagine what we’ll have for dinner, we imagine which outfit is suitable for an event, we imagine who we might see at a function, we imagine how we could change the garden.

When we’re feeling negative, we imagine all the disasters that might happen. Worry is using your imagination. If worrying is a habit for you, great news! You are already proficient at using your imagination. The challenge is to tame it and train it to operate in a new way.

I know lots of practical people who look at a possibility and immediately calculate whether or not that thing is likely to succeed. If it’s outside of their usual parameters they’ll shut the idea down before it has a chance to land.

There is a skill evident in brainstorming: to come up with ideas without evaluating them. Dream, imagine, share your ideas and see if some of those crazy thoughts work alongside another idea to create something that works.

The thing I love about brainstorming is that individually, any of the ideas might be ridiculous; but when you pair them with another idea in a fresh way, you can find something amazing.

What if we turned our imagination to what possibilities could be ahead of us. What if we look for opportunities to help someone, or look for opportunities to replenish ourselves where we’re exhausted.

It’s not that you have to act on any of those ideas particularly, but if you’re looking, you might see an opportunity that you would have missed otherwise.

I was aware of the need to find something new to focus on for a couple of months before the opportunity actually presented itself. The thing was: I was looking. I could have said no, but I stepped into something new on purpose.

Now, jump forward to today. I’ve recently got home from three months away. There is a replay of memories and stories as people ask how my time went, but I’m adjusting back to usual life; no longer heading somewhere new on a daily basis.

The difference this time is that I’ve come back with a particular project in mind and I’ve got some friends coming to stay after Christmas. Those things alone are enough to give me something to work towards. My transition back to everyday life has integrated with my plans for the future and already things are looking up.

To imagine or to dream is a joy that we are all capable of. Even if your circumstances don’t change, you are capable of changing your perspective. You are capable of finding hope in the hard place. You can look up. Where things look impossible or challenges are overwhelming, allow your imagination to start you on the journey of discovery.

If you have been placing one foot in front of the other and you find your vision has lowered to just watching your feet, I encourage you to lift your eyes. Where you look is where you go, so lift your eyes. You might not see the opportunity for change straight away, but if you are looking ahead, there is a good chance that you will recognise it when it appears.

Transition happens to us all. We endure through transition to step into something new.

You are allowed to come up with some crazy ideas in the process, even things that seem impossible. Don’t shut them down because they’re impractical, allow them to simmer and see if they spark with another idea to make it better. In time, something practical will form.

I give you permission to dream.