It’s fun to dream of adventures and travels—to imagine exploring exotic lands like Bora Bora or India. It’s also exciting to fantasize about being wildly successful professionally, or living in the perfect home on the perfect beach with the perfect climate all year round.
Dreaming is not only fun, it’s necessary.
Dreaming is like planting a seed in the soil in the early spring and nurturing it for a few weeks until the first sprout pokes through.
Allowing your imagination to run free by envisioning yourself in faraway places or in seemingly unattainable situations is how we plant seeds. It’s how we get the ball rolling, so to speak.
Twenty-six years ago my husband Brian and I unknowingly planted a seed on the drive back to New York City from a business meeting in Boston. At the time, he was my boyfriend of only a few months. We’d impulsively purchased tickets for the large (really large) PowerBall drawing that evening. With nothing else to do as we drove down I-95 for a few hours, we talked about how our lives would change if one of us won the lottery.
We fantasized about a house on the beach in Mexico or spending a few months in Italy. Why not? We imagined trips to faraway places like Tahiti or Madagascar. We dreamed up a business that provided services that could change lives and envisioned a foundation to support others who didn’t have the wealth or resources we’d both been given.
At first, we skirted around the issue of whether we’d realize these dreams alone or together, but by the end of dreaming out loud together, we had agreed that if we won the lottery, we’d realize our dreams together.
The seed had been planted.
We did not win the PowerBall, nor did we get engaged right away. But on that day, unbeknownst to us, we had planted a seed to be watered and nurtured. We’d both decided that we’d like to stay together. In that moment on the drive home, our relationship shifted.
Twenty-five years later we are still married. Over the years, with lots of sunshine and water (and windstorms and hurricanes), our seed has grown into a mighty oak.
I’ve recently started a dream journal. Sometimes I add to it if I’m inspired. A few times a week I look at my list. It is a list of my seeds.
Some of my dreams are outrageous, like being interviewed by Oprah about my New York Times best seller. Hey, a girl’s gotta dream, right? Some dreams are simple, like someday living in a small cottage with a front porch that looks out over a beautiful horizon.
I know that not all of the seedlings are going to sprout, but I keep watering them until I decide not to.
I love this new “dreaming practice.” It makes me happy and hopeful. It opens the door to manifesting. It sends signals out into the vast field of possibility. If I don’t plant seeds I’ll live my life by chance.
I want to live my life on purpose, and I believe that planting seeds is a great place to start.
Why not plant some seeds today. Give yourself permission to dream wildly. What are your dreams? Write them down? Oprah may just be waiting for you to do so.
