Dreaming a Dream for You
This week, we remembered a man with a big dream for the future of his country. With all that’s written about Martin Luther King, Jr., we have plenty of amazing ideals to remember and attempt to exercise. Today, I started thinking about how dreams of a better future help us accomplish them.
One of my favorite scriptures about the future is Habakkuk 2:2,3:
The the Lord answered me and said, “Write the vision and engrave it plainly on tablets so that the one who reads it will run. For the vision is yet for the appointed (future) time, it hurries toward the goal of fulfillment; it will not fail. Even though it delays, wait patiently for it, because it will certainly come; it will not delay.”
This scripture has always inspired me to write down my dreams for my future (even if they are outlandish). When we write them down, they start. The dream begins to furrow into the ground of our hearts and grow roots. As long as we don’t pull that dream apart with our doubts, unbelief, words and actions that hinder its growth, that dream will grow.
How exciting to know that dreaming is part of our innate design. We were made to dream dreams that are bigger that the reality we are living through.
For me, the piggy back scripture to Habakkuk is Jeremiah 29:11:
“For I (God) know the plans and thoughts that I have for you: says the Lord, Plans for peace and well-being and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”
Having hope for a good future is like fertilizer for those little dream seeds that we sow into the ground of our hearts. They take roots when we feed them with hope. The kicker is that our dreams and hopes have to be grounded in truth, not a wish or a scam or a lottery pick. In order for a dream to become a reality, we need some reality to start.
One of the ways to frame your dream in reality is to know how dreams have become a real for other real people. This is at the root of using testimonials as a selling tool; we think, if it can work for that lady, surely it could work for me, too! And yes, that is most certainly true most of the time.
But there’s always a little bit of doubt that creeps in because we know ourselves so well. We know our past mistakes and lack of follow through and plain old laziness. We aren’t perfect, and we remind ourselves of that reality all the time when we look at ourselves or our calendars or our smart watches and see how we’ve missed the marks.
Those thoughts creep in our heads and create a conversation the repeats many times over and can result in us acting as though they are true. Instead, as we oppose those thoughts with truth and hope, we can more easily stay focused on following through with our desire to change.
Dr. Caroline Leaf describes those thoughts like trees (much like the dream seeds!). The more frequently we think them, the deeper those roots grow and the wider the branches reach. Pretty soon, we can’t even see beyond that thought tree and hope for the future. But the good news is, it can work in the positive space, just like it does negatively.
How does all this dreaming and thinking relate to health coaching, you may be wondering? Not surprisingly, one of the most frequent conversations that comes up during coaching sessions, is how to deal with the stress of life. We all have the ability to function well even under extenuating circumstances, but for women, especially as we age, we need more thoughtful processes to lean on to help us navigate stress.
Try box breathing to reduce stress.
This isn’t because we can’t handle life, it’s because our chemistry has changed and we have less of a buffer to handle the normal ups and downs we face. Estrogen and progesterone both help us feel better. When those decrease in peri-menopause and post-menopause, we all feel less like ourselves; maybe even a little fragile. For this reason, it’s important to have some go-to activities that help you feel capable and steady.
Here’s a quick video explaining one of the ways we can use our breath to decrease stress.
My personal favorites for reducing stress are prayer and reading, which is why I started this blog with the idea of a dream, and how dreaming in a hope filled reality, coupled with strategic stress reducing activity, can make our dreams come true.
Not only is the dream of living in a healthy, happy body a reality, it is completely within your grasp. I can teach you how to approach your eating and exercise in a way that feels livable, and maybe even interesting!
I’d love to see if we would be a good fit to work together, so if you’re interested too, book a call with me to chat through your story and mine:
I hope your adventure begins, your best is yet to come and you follow all your dreams!❤️
