Holding the Vision

Stepping past the point of wishing and into dreaming and creating requires focus...
That is true enough. But it also requires vision. Without a guiding vision to lead us toward what we are seeking we have no map to achieve it.

But holding a vision of something not yet attained can be tricky business.

After all. We have all this evidence around us of what we have not achieved. It is, quite literally, in our face. Every day we live, we are surrounded by whatever our current level of focus brings us. And even more powerfully, what our focus up until now has been, which forms the foundation of our perspective.

So how do we step out of that "what is" and into our dreams? We practice, bit by bit, expanding our ability to envision where we long to go.

In the beginning it feels false, if we are really good at perceiving the "what is" and going along with the world's point of view. We no longer even notice the subtle shifts in our physical, emotional, and mental bodies as we step into the space of looking from the outside rather than feeling and sensing from within.

One way to begin to explore these two perspectives of our being, is to pay very close attention to how we feel as we move from a space of solitude into spaces inhabited by others. But even this is difficult for many of us to achieve as our lives are so full of others we find no space to engage ourselves outside of the presence of observers, and hence, our split awareness.

Walking in nature can often shift our perspective back to that clearer, inner awareness that flows from us effortlessly. Indeed, a chance encounter with another when walking in solitude is an excellent opportunity to observe this inner and outer shift of our perspective. First we are expanded, being drawn through our senses outward into the natural environment. We are basking in the beauty of the scenery, the feel of the air on our skin, the color of the sky... Then we are yanked back into our bodies, as our encounter with another human brings our own body awareness into sharp perspectives - and often our awareness of their awareness of us is even more powerful than our own sense of our selves in that moment. We "shift".

Have you ever watched children who were in their own inner space? They are content, involved, engaged. Busy. Their imaginations are gallivanting across the landscape of their interior and exterior worlds freely. No boundaries.

We, on the other hand, have become split. Or perhaps better stated our world has become split. Our world is "what is real" and "what is pretend, or imagined" and we have relegated all our power to the reality and left the imagined out of the equation. From the time we are little we are told "don't make things up" and "Tell the truth" as if our outer experience were the only relevant and reliable source for information. When we invent imaginary friends we are told to remember that they are "pretend" and "not real". When we encounter fairy tales or stories we are reminded that they are stories, not the stuff of real life...

It is no wonder that most of us have trouble when it comes to holding a vision.

Unless we have some clear, defined and strategically aligned outer world road map to take us to what we want, we are told that we are "dreaming" if we think we'll get there. But we cannot find that map if we think we have to create it out of the "what is" of our present experiences; because the place we want to go is not contained in the place we are. It is not available to us from there. From our limiting beliefs and thoughts we are unable to escape the "real world" and move into the larger expanded version of ourselves we dream of.

It is only from our inner vision and imagination that we can access such power.