Dreams Might be Just a Dream
And there’s nothing wrong with it
Have you ever dreamt about something that felt huge in your life, but you never actually took a step in the direction of that dream? I have been doing this with a particular dream for many years now.
At some point, I started feeling it was not okay to dream and do nothing about it. I started feeling pressured by everyone around me. All those influencers on social media with coaching speeches telling you you MUST go for it.
It got so much in my head, that I was having anxiety crises around it — and this particular dream was not the only dream I wasn’t moving a finger for. Even though having those severe crises, I still couldn’t take a step. By that time, I felt something was wrong with me.
Several months went on until I realized I couldn’t take a step in that direction not because I was afraid or because something was wrong with me. It was simply because I wasn’t ready.
I usually am a person full of great expectations. On the other hand, I also tend to imagine great disasters if those expectations go wrong. And when I thought about those dreams, the disastrous scenarios would take over my head. But that didn’t mean I was afraid of pursuing those dreams.
I just wasn’t ready to take a step into the unknown. I just wasn’t prepared to deal with my expectations happening or not happening. Let's take pursuing a Master’s degree, for example. It was such a huge and important dream to me that it was almost as if it had a blank space on the wall of my imaginary office waiting for this diploma.
I have always pictured this experience as a fabulous Barbie world of living abroad and studying my favourite subjects. And this idealization made the idea of it not being a Barbie world completely unacceptable to me.
After years of dreaming about it and months of feeling pressured to apply and make my dream come true, I realised it was not only fear. Of course, I am frightened of moving nowhere close to all of my friends and family, of living in a country in which I do not speak the language, of the possibility of making no friends at all, of cultural differences, of getting disappointed with the program itself, of not liking the country or the people… I am frightened about many things, even the most stupid ones, such as not having my Brazilian body moisturizer for sale.
However, the big deal was needing more time to feel ready to experience all those expectations, whether broken or not. I wasn’t prepared for that dream to be suddenly pushed out of the “dream” category in my head to the “reality” category.
Once I understood the feeling behind the fear, I could deal with it appropriately. I could name them all and find different ways to deal with each one of those emotions — along with my therapist, of course.
And after some six months, I finally feel ready. I feel ready to have those expectations broken, if they may. I feel ready to deal with not having my friends and family close to me. I feel ready to deal with not being home for birthday parties, graduations and my friend’s accomplishments. I feel ready to feel alone within a six-hour time zone. I feel ready to embrace every piece of this experience without having multiple anxiety crises and imagining disastrous scenarios.
But the most important lesson I have learned going through all of this? It is okay to fear taking a step into dreams — as long as you keep trying to find a way to deal with it. It is fine if dreams are just dreams until you feel ready to experience them. And there is nothing wrong with you if you decide that a dream will be just a dream, as long as you are peaceful about your decision.
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