Are You Really Following Your Dreams?

A version of this post was first published on the blog Patricia's Wisdom on June 5, 2009. Many of us live ignoring our intuition and our dreams. And then we wonder why we're not happy. But as you can see by the story below, when we open ourselves up to our dreams, a lot more opens up for us than just the thing we're pursuing.

Loving Myself, Loving Raul My story back when I was twelve-years-old. I had decided I was going to live in southern Europe and write. It always felt wrong that I was unilingual and as much as I enjoyed snow, winters weren’t my thing. I did the whole school, job, house and dating on and off thing, but never felt secure about myself. How could I when I was denying myself my real dream of being a writer? I was often sad and insecure about everything in my life, especially in my relationships. Fast forward to my mid-30s. I had started my own business and owned a home for nearly a decade. And yet I still wasn’t happy and didn’t trust others a whole lot. Then in May 2006 a friend decided to leave Canada for a round-the-world trip and I expressed my envy. She asked me what I really wanted to do - with a little push and the help of some great Zinfandel I admitted my French writing dream and she said: “So why aren’t you?” I couldn’t answer her. And because I couldn’t answer her, I realized there was no reason. Within two weeks the house was on the market and mid-August 2006 I was on the plane to a small village in SW France where a distant cousin lived. During the eight months I lived there, for the first time in my life I felt really confident and happy. I wrote a novel and discovered myself. I had spent New Years in Barcelona where I feel in love with Spain, so when my lease was up in France I moved to Spain traveling around organic farms doing work in exchange for room and board. In June 2007 while deciding whether to go to Bilbao or San Sebastian to celebrate Toronto’s Gay Pride Day I started chatting online with a guy, called Raul, from San Sebastian and he said that the city was having a Pride Party I should check out. I almost didn’t go because the road out of the village was scary at night, but in the end I let Raul convince me. I arrived and he was waiting in the entrance area. Our eyes met and locked. I felt a thunk in my chest and knew that Cupid had just struck. I spoke next to no Spanish and he very little English, but it didn’t matter. We had a different type of connection happening. The next morning, Raul complained about how friends had backed out of going to EuroPride in Madrid the next weekend. I took a BIG breath and invited myself along. He freaked a bit and obviously thought I was crazy but then the next day sent me a text saying “my friends say you can stay there too.” By the end of that weekend we were deeply in love and I moved to San Sebastian four months later. After falling in love with myself, I had finally let someone else love me too.

So, what dream are you hiding deep inside that once released will open up a whole lot of other successes?