I have a bad habit of over-thinking things. I can lose hours dissecting, assessing and evaluating moments, conversations, ideas and memories. It’s funny, because all my over-thinking rarely solves anything. All the extra noise and clutter I let in my mind doesn’t help me at all. It’s only when I clear all of that out of my mind and really focus on the important things that I’m able to assess something properly, without judgement.

When we have dreams, hopes and desires we tend to over-analyse them and over-think them too, making them a lot more complicated than they are. A desire is something we usually feel the need to justify, right? Even small things, we like to align them with some sort of approval, something like, “Well, I had a really hard day and went to the gym after work, so I deserve a glass of wine tonight.”

By the time we get around to our big desires, we need to come up with a very long list to justify them. We come up with many, many reasons why we deserve to even dream of starting our own business, leaving our job, starting or ending a relationship, making a big purchase or travelling the world. Our dreams and desires can feel so slim because they’re overpowered by all this other noise made up of our fears, perceptions and pre-conceived ideas and values. Our poor little dreams barely stand a chance up against all those things.

Snowy forest

So, what do we do? We put our dreams on ice. We talk ourselves out of them before they have even begun and we tell ourselves the best thing to do is just put our dreams and desires on hold, maybe until the timing is better or maybe we even put them on hold forever. Our hidden dreams and desires can feel good, like a small secret we hold onto that keeps us marching forward. In the back of your mind you know the reason you’re going to work each day is so you can, one day, fund that dream. But usually it ends up just staying there, tucked away in the back of our minds, hidden.

When it comes to following our dreams and desires, we tend to come up against adversity. People tell us our dreams are silly or selfish, that they can’t be achieved. We tell ourselves it’s too expensive or risky to achieve them. We see other people who haven’t succeeded and convince ourselves that is our fate too and retreat back into the safety of our nest. Just when our dreams started to gain momentum again, we find a way to shut them down.

But what if we didn’t, what if we cut out all of the noise? What if, instead of giving up on our dreams, we gave up on our resistance to them?

Take a moment to picture all the things that have ever stopped you following a dream or desire, then think about all the time you’ve spent thinking about those things, considering them, weighing them up, making justifications for your dreams and so on. It’s a lot of time, right? A lot of time spent thinking about how your dreams just aren’t possible. Now, imagine all that energy and time re-invested into tearing down your resistance.

I don’t know about you, but I’m picturing an entire army of little dream-loving soldiers tearing down a big brick wall of fear and doubt, and in my obscure mind… it looks phenomenal! These little freedom fighters are taking apart your fears and doubts one brick at a time, allowing your dreams and desires to shine through and take shape.

Rain Phoebe Lee

Your dreams are never silly, they are never too big or too small and they are never unachievable. They are perfect and they are valid, always, just like you. When we take the time to really see ourselves and our desires as one big, beautiful synergy of love and perfection, it makes it a whole lot easier to listen to the ideas and hopes in your heart and mind. They aren’t something to be dismissed or diminished, they’re something to be prized and treasured.

Rather than pushing them to the back of your mind, like a dirty little secret you’re harbouring, hold them proudly right at the front of your soul. Give them a spot in your heart and your mind where you can show them off and constantly draw energy and happiness from them. The more you allow them, the bigger they’ll get! This doesn’t mean you have to walk around telling everyone about them, it just means finding a way to confirm to yourself you’ve given into your desires instead of whatever else it was that was holding you back from them.

Picture in your mind the person you love most in the world, it could be a partner, a sibling, a parent or grandparent or maybe it’s a pet. Whoever it is, picture them, hold them in your mind for a moment. Remember the ways you love them, the things you’ve done to show them you love them, how you treat them and care for them. Can you feel an energy in you? A buzz at their memory and the way you feel about them? That pure, unconditional love is exactly how you should see yourself and your dreams, without judgement or reservation… just pure love and support.

Sometimes our inner-most desires can seem weird to other people. I’ve gone through a lot of change and I know that has been difficult, confronting and confusing for some of the people in my life and I completely understand why. To them, my dreams sound foreign and maybe I seem like a totally different person. Sometimes people who feel like they are close to us will try to talk us out of things and get us to go back to the way we were, because they feel they know what we want and what’s best for us.

It’s lovely to have people care about you enough to speak up and try to help you and their effort is something to be seen with love and appreciation. But, at the end of the day, you always know what is best for you just as I always know what is best for me. Nobody else could ever describe what’s in your heart in the same way you can, because you know every inch of it in great detail. There are things in your heart you will never share with anybody else, so how could anybody else ever know you better than you know yourself?

Beautiful mountains

Don’t ever feel like you are trapped, stuck or cornered. Don’t ever feel like you’ve boxed yourself in or are confined to one place or one thing forever, because it’s not possible. Look around you, everything is constantly moving, growing, expanding, pulsing. You are part of that and you have the strength, knowledge and control over your life and your dreams to move in any direction you choose at any time.

There will never be a time when you have missed the boat or waited too long, you are always able to take a step in any direction you wish and move toward whatever it is your heart desires. How? You already have all the answers, you just need to cut out all the noise so you can hear them. Let go of all the things that don’t help or benefit you and focus on yourself, the only thing you really have and need control over.

If there’s one really big thing I’ve learned over the past few years it is this: the more I allow my own happiness to flow through me, the better I feel. 

Phoebe.


Littlegreybox is a travel and lifestyle blog. Each Wednesday I write a personal post to share what I’ve been learning, have experienced or feel the need to get out of my mind and onto the interwebs. My journey has led me to a place of intuitive living and everything I share comes straight from my heart and mind, to you. Each post is intended to be positive and inspire. 

If you enjoyed this post, please share it and be sure to come back next Wednesday for another personal post. In the meantime, I would love to hear about your journey so please share in the comments below, if you feel comfortable. Thank you for reading, have a wonderful week – sending you love and good wishes. 

You can read previous personal posts here, in Phoebe’s Column. 

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