what’s your bigger dream?
I grew up on a small farm on the east coast of Ireland. In lots of ways my childhood was idyllic.
I had lots of freedom, I was surrounded by nature and there was only one field separating our house from miles miles of beautiful beach.
Despite all this beauty and freedom, having a small farm is a precarious business and there was always an undercurrent in our lives of ‘if we can just get by’.
When you are ‘just getting by’ you learn resilience, myself, my parents and my 5 siblings have buckets of it but you also tend to play it safe and keep your dreams small.
But here’s the thing, your soul isn’t interested in safe or small. Your soul is interested in you expanding out into the fullness of who you truly are. And to do that, you have to dream BIG.
Whenever we got a new puppy my dad would always tell us to look at its paws. My dad maintains that the paws give you an indication of what size the dog will be. Puppies he said, “grow into their paws”. And that’s why you need a big dream, so that there’s space for you to grow into.
There are 2 main reasons why we don’t dream big.
We were never taught how to dream big or how to take the necessary action steps to make our dreams a reality. You might even have been told to ‘play it safe’ or not have ‘false hope.’
We are afraid. And what we’re mostly afraid of, is losing something.
“I’ll lose my partner.”
“I’ll lose my security.”
“I’ll lose my friends.”
“I’ll lose my lifestyle.”
So we turn down the volume on our dreams and, commit to just getting by, while often telling ourselves, “well it could be worse”.
But what if it could be better? A lot better.
What if your health could be better?
What if your finances could be better?
What if your significant relationship could be better?
What if your sense of purpose and joy could be better?
What if you allowed yourself to grow into your paws?
Catherine x