— by Rosie Kuhn —
As we age, we have the opportunity to either move towards possibility and joy, or we move towards resistance, resentment and regrets.
When working with individuals who are retired yet have perhaps decades ahead of them, I ask, “What is the end goal for you? And, how are you spending each day in service to that end goal?
As I’m writing this, an image just crossed my mind, of a boat of refugees crossing from Libya to Italy. Each individual on those boats made the prior preparations to make the crossing from Libya to their dreams of living free. Their hopes and dreams generated courage to get on boats with hundreds, if not thousands of people, only to perish, more often than not, in the Mediterranean Sea.
I see those North African refugees, more like us Westerners, than we can ever imagine, at the soul, or spirit level. There is always something we are attempting to avoid or flee, and quite often that is all we really know. We aren’t necessarily going towards something, just attempting to get away from ravages of fear in all its many forms – hoping to experience freedom from pain, suffering, brutality.
You may think I’m going overboard here, using the analogy of refugees from Northern Africa who gave up everything – including being raped and brutalized. However, being human, within our consensus reality, requires us to survive our circumstances, in order to just to get by or get through the ordeals of life. Something keeps us going. Something keeps us alive. What is that?
For the last few days I’ve been reading about and contemplating on the idea of dreaming; not dreams that come while I sleep, but the dreams I imagine and delight in – those that provide infinite pleasure and are potentiality in the making. Within a heartbeat of allowing myself to feel hope, I hear the voice in my head that says that I’m too old; that it isn’t possible for the dreamer within to experience the manifestation of my dreams, so why bother. This is the voice of consensus reality – that brutalizes, enslaves, rapes, and imprisons the innocent.
Much like the millions of refugees all over the world, who believe there is hope in the dream, which fuels their courage to live the dream, I have to escape my captor – the one that lives in my head. But what resources are available to me that will assist me in liberating myself? How is it even possible to allow the dreamer to dream within this ragged saggy body?
I say to myself: If those refugees can make their way out of the horrific and hopeless environments they were born into, I can certainly make my way out of mine. But how?
What I know, in this moment, is that I first need to bring back my capacity to dream. I need to notice where I put the kibosh on my dreams with my “yes, but.” I need to exercise my muscles of courage, and to delight in those ideas that bring infinite pleasure. Yes, it takes great courage and strength to dream – allowing dreams to manifest themselves – I just have to get out of the way.
I love the saying that, “Aging is Not for Sissies.” We have so much more potentiality than we can ever imagine, to manifest dreams. I’m all for cultivating courage to imagine and dream. I’m all for liberating the innocent dreamer – allowing her the freedom to soar!
If you’d like to join Dr. Rosie in the AGING – Who Me, in-person discussions at the Orcas Island Senior Center, they are meeting this coming Tuesday – July 25th, from 10 – 11:30 a.m. If you’d like to read more from Dr. Rosie, visit her website www.theparadigmshifts.com, where you will find blogs, videos and her books. Or, if you’d like to set up a Life Coaching session with her, feel free to call her at 360-376-4323.
