Dream Validation

Recently I was talking with someone about what it is I do as a career counselor and I said, "Dream Validation, I validate people's dreams and then help them figure out the steps to achieve them".  Since then the words dream validation have been floating through my brain.  I love that idea, I wish I could be a dream validator for the world.  One thing I think that is missing from the world is we don't spend enough time in dream validation mode.  We immediately jump to practical, how can I do this mode and then we get freaked out because fears and doubts set in and we don't move forward.  The process of dream validation allows us to really get focused on the dream to embrace it, swim around in it, become consumed by it.  It allows the dream to become crystal clear, we can see it, feel it, taste it etc.

The problem is that for many of us our dream capabilities of have squashed, we have lost the ability to just imagine the possibilities without getting stuck on the how to or the what's next (I agree those are vitally important to the process but they mustn't be rushed into).  This past weekend my nearest and dearest and I went to the Airforce Musuem and we were looking at the 1st plane by the Wright Brothers--an amazing invention.  I am always awe struck by the idea that there were these 2 guys sitting around and decided we can fly and THEN they built a freakin' airplane. Can you imagine just sitting around the dining room table in the early 1900s talking about flying through the sky? In other words, their dream was crazy, unheard of, insane for the time and now because they validated that dream I could hop on a plane tonight and arrive in Paris tomorrow morning.    The people who have done great things in our world have all started with a dream, a dream they could vocalize and describe and picture in full color.  Then they took that technicolor dream and put one foot in front of the other and made it a reality. However, without dream validation that dream would never be a reality.

So my challenge to you today is to do a little dream validation for yourself.  To look at your life and imagine the possibilities. Go back to your childhood and think about your dreams, think about the afternoons spent lying on the grass, looking up at the clouds and just dreaming. What did you imagine your life to be?  What do you imagine the next 10, 20 30 years to be?  Don't think of the practicalities, today is for the dreaming.    You can even make it an event--have a dream validation dinner where you get together with close friends and family and you make a sacred safe place to share your dreams and you just validate and support each other.  Doesn't that sound amazing!?!  A place where anything is possible.  Yes we need to be practical and we we won't accomplish anything if we are always dreaming. But if we don't allow time to dream and validate those dreams we won't accomplish our dreams!!