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Do you you need to dust off a buried dream and start creating it again?

Buried dreams are very common where I live here in Hollywood.  There are a shocking number of lawyers that I know here in Los Angeles who wanted to be screenwriters, lots of artists who started representing artists instead of making art, lots of people I know with incredibly prosperous jobs who would rather be doing something else.

I think this might be just a common thing in general, amplified here by the “dreams-come-true” aspct of Los Angeles!

For years I wanted to be doing something else and found myself running art galleries and working in arts administration and wondered when or if there would be a time where I would be able to do what I wanted to do…

It was fine. I was grateful. But I didn’t really feel like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, and over time it became harder to excel and harder to really give bigly to my jobs because they weren’t for me… This lackluster sense of myself grew greater.  It was like I was living a double life, or half a life.

And I see this all around me.  All the time.

I let myself believe that one day I’d start making and doing for myself, but I didn’t really act on it so my dreams stayed buried.  Or, rather, lamented and complained about.

I want to… I wish I could… I need the time to… I wish I could afford to…   

Sound familiar?

Let’s bring those dreams to life anyway!  

(yoganonymous crystal gift guide) 

It’s totally rational and awesome to have a great day job while you pursue your dreams, as long as you’re actually pursing them in your free time.  If you read the awesome book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert she talks in depth about her pursuit of art for the sake of art, writing and writing in her free time while she had a day job, making art because, well, she had to make art.  She didn’t have expectations that she’d write a best selling novel as big as Eat, Pray, Love and yet she kept on writing despite rejections, despite the years passing, despite it all… & all while she had a job.

In Hollywood there used to be a sense I’d hear in the air, everywhere, in coffee shops, bars, out around town, that it’s somewhat unfair to not be able to pursue your dreams full-time.  That familiar complaint of my own was echoed everywhere.  The thing is, if you believe it’s unfair that you can’t do 100% of what you want every day, you likely won’t go after your dreams at all because you’re busy in the oppression of it all. After all, if you focus on how unfair the world is, you’ll likely create more reasons for it to be unfair.

When I was so so miserable at my job that I couldn’t bear it any more, I stopped complaining and started making things because I had no choice.  I brought my jewlery line back to life, I took all my personal feng shui studies to Tumblr, I started cooking… Desiging my house… Growing a garden on my patio. Travelling…

I started making no excuses and started finding new ways to be creative.  I used my vacation days. I stayed home a few night a week instead of going out.

Wild things happened, starting with the fact that I felt AMAZING.

Not everything became a profession.  In fact, only one thing did!  But you only need one thing.  And even if you don’t make a business from a passion, it’s so amazing to have that energy of fulfillment running through your life.  It’s like the greatest feel-good electricity in the world type of amazing!

There’s a famous and fantastic quote from Oprah that I love: “Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.”

Chances are, if you have a hidden dream lingering in your life, you can bring it to life right now.   You may not be able to do the “deluxe version” of your dream right now- like me, painting on my dining room table instead of a meadow in the South of France today- but you can still take steps toward it.  You can read about it, sketch it, practice it, take classes… You can start a blog, start a podcast, start a YouTube channel.  There’s really an infinite amount of stuff you CAN do that requires very little beyond desire to get started.

Oh…

Well, it may also require a little humility.  Because the first posts I had on Tumblr sucked.  My early You Tube videos (with a shocking amount of views all things considered) are so dark and bizarely shot (!) as much as I love them. I had to suck it up and keep going.  I have friends who put off projects until they were perfectly produced and finally broke down and just made them as best as they could, with passion and humility.  You know what? They’ve gotten big jobs from those simple projects that they almost didn’t do because they weren’t going to be perfect!

 

The moral of this little story… if you’ve always wanted to do something, you can definitely find a way to start making it happen, even in a tiny way and a few babysteps.

You’ll have no idea where it might lead you, but happiness tends to lead in all amazing directions!!!

xoxo Dana

P.S.: If you want to really immerse yourself in the light of joy so much more, my favorite feng shui and cutting-edge energy-shifting tools are HERE for you in the Joy Immersion: 30 Day Negativity Detox! 

 

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