Living Without Blame, or Living The Dream?

I spent the most extraordinary weekend at an advanced weekend seminar called "Living Without Blame" which is offered by Global Relationship Centers (www.grc333.com). Part of the seminar dealt with defining blame and the reasons why we do blame. I was delighted to see that the session was much more than that. We also talked about our dreams and where we are on our journey.

I have gone through the exercise of defining my dreams before, and with mixed results. I have had my share of dreams in the past - getting married, earning my PhD, running my own business, becoming a Director of Organization Development - to name a few. I have succeeded and failed in many ways. As I have mentioned before in this blog, I always had a sense of a general direction of where I wanted to go.

In hindsight, I equated big goals with dreams. Goals are accomplishments, tangible outcomes and products of our focus and efforts, driven by real motivations. I am not undermining the importance or validity of goals. If we didn't have goals, quite frankly, a lot of stuff - big stuff - would not be realized! Goals - big and small - are important.

Dreams, however, are different. They feel different. In my own life, my goals were driven from my ego. I used them as ways to define me. Those of you who have been traveling this road with me know that I have made great strides on this sabbatical, and I use events and insights as useful landmarks to mark my progress and here is one. This weekend as I wrote out my dream, I was describing me. Really me. Not the titles that I could hold, the goals that I could accomplish, the friends could I have, a bigger home or things I could put on a resume. Instead, they were all statements of my being, how I am and want to express myself in this world. Pam Dunn, the seminar facilitator, kept asking us - "Are you the Dream AND the Dreamer?". To that, I answer a resounding yes! This feels so different and I love being here!

And, if we are truly the Dream and the Dreamer, we reduce our need to blame. If we are living our Dream and living life to the fullest, we don't focus on the things that we think are getting in our way. We will still encounter challenging obstacles, like the rocks and the ocean in the picture. Instead of blaming the rocks and the ocean for being in our way, they become tests that strengthen our resolve, our faith and commitment to our Dream.

Living our own Dream drives our behavior, our motivation, our love and permeates our whole existence. A Really Big Dream lifts up not only the Dreamer, but all who are around the Dreamer. Martin Luther King - like Nelson Mandela, Ghandi, Jesus - proclaimed that he had a Dream. He envisioned a way for he - and others - to be in this world, and we are all better for it. It wasn't a Really Big Goal. It was a Really Big Dream.

For me, it didn't take long for this "new found identity" to be tested. Very soon after the session ended, a part of my Dream was tested. It was also an important landmark for me. If this happened several years ago, I would have been angry for months, maybe years. Living Without Blame / Living Your Dream doesn't mean that I avoid anger, frustration, grief, shock or any other emotions that I may try to avoid or get stuck in. It means that I experience these emotions and understand that they provide important information and clues to where I am at on my Dream. I cycled through those emotions in 48 hours versus months. I am human and this is part of the human experience. And, I was able to center back on my Dream quickly.

Because, after all, the Dream is what I really, REALLY want!
And I bet you do, too.

With much love and gratitude, Mj XOXO