Took the kids camping for one last summer hurrah, with an 18-foot, pop-up tent-trailer…by myself! Feeling pretty pleased over here. This is not the kind of thing that I would have pictured myself doing without a troupe of people, or at least a partner, to help out.
It wasn’t easy – towing 2500 pounds, backing up a trailer, setting it up by myself (with kids pecking at my ankles), lifeguarding two non-swimmers at the beach. But was so much fun! Plus, check out my eye-balled leveling! 😀
Ok, so is this some random #brag or vacay story? Nope.
This trip has major significance.
When the dust first started to settle after my separation I had a strong urge to move. Actually, I often get a craving to uproot and set up camp somewhere else. It’s like the wanderlust part of me never quite settled down. But after my separation, that voice got very, very loud.
It wanted me to move with the kids to Canada’s capital city, Ottawa. This voice had built a whole story about how incredibly beautiful and clean and exotic it would be (because it’s dual-language and right next to Quebec – hello weekend trips!). Plus my job is portable and I was really, really over where I lived at the time. Like an era had ended.
I became obsessed with this dream.
But it was totally impractical. It was far from where I currently lived, I knew almost no one there, and I’d be a single parent starting over in a new city with no support network. And I loved how near I was to my family where I was living.
It was around this time that I was introduced to the concept of a dream’s essence. My Coach, the formidable Cynthia Loy Darst, introduced me to this concept based on CRR Global’s principles.
Your True Self speaks to you through impressions. Impulses. If you dive deeper into these sensations you uncover values that are trying to come to life. Except that what happens is we associate an image with the impulses. And then we get rigid thinking that the IMAGE is what has to come to life.
We think that life needs to become exactly like that picture in our minds.
But it’s what’s UNDERNEATH those images that matter. It’s the values and what they mean to you. How they are trying to come to life. Which is unique to only you.
That’s the Essence of the Dream.
And here’s the brilliant news: you don’t need to wait for the whole picture to assemble to experience the essence! You can do that right now.
In fact, doing that now begets more of that essence in a domino-tumbling sort of way. Such that, one day you’ll look around and be surrounded by that essence, letting your truest values come to life through you. Maybe it will look exactly like the image you had in your mind, or maybe it won’t matter because so much of that essence is being lived anyway.
So! Back to the camping trip. As I was deep-diving my own Ottawa dream and what values were tucked into it, I realized they were the following:
- Adventure
- Independence
- Sense of newness
- Sense of achievement
- Deeper connection with my kids
When I thought about how I could have those things in my life – without moving – the idea of renting a pop-up trailer and taking the kids on a major camping adventure was born.
So off I went to get a hitch on my van and the rest is history. 🙂
And, it’s sparked so many more adventure dreams that it’s like I cannot shut that tap off now! I don’t need another person, a more perfect situation, or a major move, to have these things in my life. Well look how that worked out! 😀
I’d love to hear from you in the comments. If you dive deeper, what value is trying to come to life through your dream? And how can you honor that right from where you are now?
Big love,
Jen
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