{creating dreams come true} commitment

it’s sunday – which means it’s creating dreams come true day. creating dreams come true is a free ongoing e-course and creative community to support you in living your dreams. if you are new, please feel free to join in. the more creative dreamers the better!

this week i want to explore commitment as a tool for living your dreams.

about three years ago, i made a commitment to be a practitioner at the centre for conscious living in winnipeg.  becoming a practitioner meant three years of study and a lot of inner work.  being a practitioner means serving the people at the centre through leading guided healing meditations, teaching new thought discovery and abundance classes, doing affirmative prayer with people and being a role model for living consciously, and a creator of dreams come true.  being a practitioner has been incredibly valuable and rewarding for me and i have loved every minute of it.

it’s also a huge commitment.

me at the blue mosque in istanbul, getting a new perspective

while i was away, a had the opportunity to take a look at my life from a new perspective – from all the way on the other side of the planet.  what i saw is that when i made this commitment, it was absolutely right for me.  and in the three years since, all sorts of little changes have happened.  changes in me, changes in the centre.  and when i look at it from this wider perspective, i can see that all of these changes add up to something significant.  that my original commitment no longer fits with the reality of where i am, and where the centre is, today.

i want to jump back to january for a minute, when i did my “make it happen in 2010: creating a year of abundance, possibility and healing” creativity workshop.  part of the workshop included receiving the gifts that would support us in building the paths to our dreams come true.  afterwards, i suggested the participants could take those gifts, each written on a slip of paper, and stick them randomly into their datebooks, and then see how they applied on the date when they got to it.

today i was scheduled to lead the guided healing meditation at the centre.  today is the date that my “commitment” gift showed up in my datebook.

what i chose was to keep my commitment to myself and honour how i am feeling.  i feel like i need a break from my practitioner duties.  not that i need to walk away, but i need some space to sort out what kind of commitment feels true for me now.  and my dear friend elizabeth offered to do the meditation for me today, saying “i appreciate you being true to yourself at this time”.  that shows me that when i honour myself and how i’m feeling and act with honesty and integrity, others will support me.  (this is different from breaking commitments without integrity)

commitment is really important in making any dream come true.  without a deep and solid commitment i could not have become a practitioner.  all dreams, if they are to come true, require a deep and solid commitment.

but living a life in tune with my own heart requires re-evaluation of previous commitments and making adjustments when necessary.

is a commitment i made three years ago still right for me today?  i have new loves growing in my life… poetry, mythology and yoga.   i want to dive in and explore and discover these magical new worlds.  and i want to grow my creativity workshops and creativity kits in new ways.   where will the time and energy come from to do all of this?

so what i am saying here is that sometimes, along the path of making dreams come true, we have to make difficult choices.  sometimes if we go around saying yes to everything we end up with our plates piled so high we don’t know where to begin our feast.  sometimes we have to let go of one dream to let an even better dream in.  and sometimes, if we really love it all, we will find a way to fit it all in.

commitment, a deep and true commitment, will absolutely fuel and move dreams.

but honouring a commitment, if it’s no longer true for you in your heart, drains your energy and slows down dreams.

in the new thought teaching that we teach at the centre for conscious living, this is referred to as the law of sacrifice.  it says that you can have anything you want, but you can’t necessarily have everything you want, all at the same time.  when we are willing to sacrifice for our dreams, we are able to re-direct our energy towards what we really want, nourishing it and allowing it to grow in our lives much faster, easier and more beautifully.

note: this is different from putting ourselves into a state of sacrifice for our dreams, going without and being unhappy today in order to have what you want tomorrow.  while this is a common approach, that is not at all what i would suggest is a healthy way to make dreams come true.

this kind of sacrifice refers to making conscious and deliberate choices that take into account the reality of your life today and create more space for the things that nourish you the most.  this kind of sacrifice brings a dream into sharper focus right away.  it’s about making the best use of the energy and resources you have.

another thing to remember in this is that life is fluid, and no choice will be permanent.  if you choose to stop doing something today, and direct that energy over to making a big dream come true, then after that dream has come true, you can direct some of your energy back to the thing you set aside.  and sometimes those dreams we set aside have a way of coming true without any more work on our part.

creative dream assignment for next week: take a look at what are you committed to and answer the following questions:

• are you committed to living your dreams?
• can you see a way of becoming even more committed to living your dreams?
• do you have any commitments that are draining you?

at this point, if you find you have commitments that are draining you, it’s important to simply be aware of what is happening, and not push yourself into making changes.  because commitments so often involve other people, we don’t want to rush into changes here.  the aim is to simply be aware and be open to new solutions presenting themselves where needed.

creative dream check-in:

meet in the comments section below to share what you learned about what your dreams need, and if you were able to find a way to give your dreams what they need this week.

also don’t feel shy about checking in even if you didn’t do last week’s assignment. just say hello or let us know what is happening with your dreams – we love watching them grow.

my check-in:

well as i wrote above, i am feeling like my new dreams need more space as in time and energy and i am exploring ways to give them that.  i want to explore poetry and mythology and bring them into my art and workshops.  this is really exciting me right now.  like i just found a secret doorway, i opened it up and became engulfed in light, mystery and new possibilities.  on thursday, still feeling kind of groggy i went to see a matinee showing of “percy jackson and the olympians: the lightning thief“.  very light, but nice to immerse myself in some mythology stories for a few hours.

i’m still way into yoga.  still doing shakti yoga, also exploring yin yoga (which has been fantastic in helping me with jet lague!) and i got deepak chopra’s authentic yoga iphone app which is great too.  still reading about yoga pholosophy also and just loving it all.

now that i am back from my trip and feeling refreshed and inspired i want to make myself a new business plan for ABCcreativity.  i have a book full of amazing ideas of things i want to do with this and i feel ready to dive in and start working on it.

and looking forward to reading your updates….

andrea schroeder creates creativity workshops, downloadable creativity kits, art and guided meditations to support you in knowing and remembering that you are a creative being and you can create anything.

Tagged as: commitment, dreams