Together with our engagement, our dream’s first version provides a solid foundation to create our custom adventure. You can also see this foundation as a pond, filled with all of what we wish for. We might wish that we’re able to just jump into this pond and take it all. Some marketing strategies might work that way, and some might be fooled. But, we are simply not wired for that. We are wired for incremental steps of becoming.

It is by rooting into unconsciousness that we manifest our potential, not by laying in the sun.

In our daily lives, we get to fish out of our pond. And each time, we transform what we catch into an intention. Our intentions guide us throughout the days and weeks. But as the proverb goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It will require a little more of ourselves to manifest our intention. With each challenge we face, we’ll need to be a little more patient, a little more persistent, a little more kind, … and so on. 

Our dream and our engagement will serve us to focus our attention, even unconsciously. You will be surprised by how life changes around you. What’s remarkable is that nothing around you really changed. How you’re able to see it changed. You are aware of so much more than what was already there, and this is just scratching the surface of clarity. You could say that you created this, and in a way, that is true, even though it was already there. 

Our consciously chosen intentions will also trigger our unconscious ones. Remaining present with what we say and what we do is of immense help. An open and curious mind in the absence of criticism would be perfect. Criticism isn’t the same as judgment. There’s nothing wrong with judging. It’s very much needed. It’s the criteria we use to judge that might need some tuning. 

As a new world of opportunities and possibilities opens up, becoming aware of all of the choices we make, or have become habitual patterns is inevitable. It is good news, although it might be overwhelming at first. Don’t worry, old qualities from within just lie around the corner, waiting to be awakened by our attention. Patience is one of them.  

Our new conscious choices will allow us to actively participate in life and co-create our adventure, one choice at the time. Now we have a solid foundation to rely on, and we know what we’re aiming at. That makes all the difference.

But don’t be fooled. You might find it easier to say yes, and no now, still, others might have a more difficult time. It’s helpful to see change as your new friend. 

“I hope these writings about a dream are helpful. I want to finish off the topic by mentioning that now that you’re in the driver’s seat, buckle up for the adventure. Just by reading, you’re already on your way. “- Steven Pauwels.

In our most natural state of being, we are all unfolding potential, expanding into consciousness. In our normal state of being, we’re holding ourselves down in more ways than we can imagine. It is part of our human behavior.  

To shift out of the normal and lighten our human conditioning, into whatever it is, we might envision to create, taking on full responsibility for ourselves is the only way. It is our first engagement. If we want to play the game of life and explore its potential, we need to be all-in. That means the good and amazing, the bad and painful, and the ugly but truthful.  

Without this engagement, we simply fall victim to our own unconsciousness. Out of all the sufferings we know, unconsciousness is the source that hurts us the most. 

“Taking on this responsibly was hard. Only later, I found out that my negatively biased belief about responsibly held me down. I gave the word and its meaning a lot of attention for quite some time. To what extend did I take on responsibility? I did what I could at any given moment, even if what I did was not my best. It was my best at that moment. I would have done better otherwise, but I didn’t. It seems we’re all together in that.”  

I had to see responsibility differently, as this engagement involves love and choices. Not the mental and financial one. Yeah, that’s a whole different matter.

How would I take care of someone I chose to love. What would the best be I can wish for him or her? How would that look like when I’m courageous enough to look into the mirror? How exactly am I going to take care of myself, and what is it that I wish to be?

The following “to do” list helped me to inquire into, and formulate an answer to these questions. Not to brag about or advertise, but my very own personal answer, whatever that turned out to be. It seems only natural that at some point, we all need to figure this out. We can only sustainably take care of others to the extent to which we can take care of ourselves. Without this foundation, our taking care shifts to pleasing others, and we all have our reasons to do so. But some choices don’t require reason. 

Love doesn’t require reason, it includes reason.

1. Inform yourself about the five fundamental principles of human nature. Just allowing yourself to observe them in daily life might take several years. The more intelligent we are, the harder it seems to be. However, just being informed about them will do for now. If you want to give yourself a fighting chance, you’ll have to know about them.
2. Reflect on what it is you need. It is very personal, and it isn’t all that easy to come up with a list. Just think about it for a while, and some things will surely come up. You can also look on the internet to find some inspiration. Many studies have been done on the topic, and many books have been written about it.
3. Reflect a little on how you’re going to respect and honor your bodies. If “every body” feels honored and respected, they will all love to co-create your adventure. Their basic need is to be seen and expressed at some point. This gives us the first sense of boundaries, where no becomes more of the favorite choice. Saying no isn’t all that easy, and saying yes is more difficult than it sounds. Knowing how we will respect ourselves is knowing what we want to say yes to, and where we draw the line. It’s good to know, many choices are to be made through life, and they are the ones that carve out our adventure. 
4. Have a look at your character and your temperament. It is our temperament we want to favor, not our character. Our temperament is formed through what we loved doing in our early childhood, without any need for validation or result. Our character is formed through conditioning, rewards, and punishments, in some form or another. Studies show that the neurologic connections that make up our temperament are fixed and that those of our character can change. That is amazing news and Nobel prize material. Very often, our character overshadows our temperament and keeps us from finding what we truly love. (*) 
5. Finally, write down your answer in as many lines as you want. This will be your own personal engagement. Just like your dream, it evolves over time as we get to know ourselves a little better. 
   

I’m well aware of the gap between this list’s simplicity and the time and effort it takes to actually do it. It took me several seminars and many years to come up with such a simple list. I learned the hard way that an adventurous life requires some understanding and preparation. 

A solid foundation eliminates much unnecessary suffering for ourselves and our loved ones. You can freely download a little *pdf to figure out the difference between your temperament and character. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. 

(*) Many studies and models use the words temperament and character in various ways. I went with the analogy of the French dr. Jacques Fradin, who has done over two decades of research on his topic in neuroscience.

You can safely download the free *pdf below.

My temperament vs character

After writing down our aim, it is time to introduce the next two virtues; clarity and engagement. All virtues alike, we can understand where each virtue starts, but there’s no end to their meaning. 

Our dream provides for the first sense of clarity. Clarity about what we aim for, the values we want to nurture, and clarity about what we want to stay away from. Read more bout clarity …

Whereas the first glance at clarity suffices to prepare for our adventurous journey, it is engagement that requires more of our attention. We often know almost exactly what we need to do, but even the “baby-steps” approach does not work out. 

Every great dream begins with a dreamer.  – Harriet Tubman (1822 – 1913)

What we’re engaging with is our nature. This nature includes our humanness as well as our beingness. We’re engaging with both of them. If you’re unfamiliar with the five fundamental principles of human nature, this is the time as they hold important information about our first engagement. 

Our first engagement is to take on the full responsibility for ourselves and our experiences. The fundamental principles allow us to understand why it is the only way forward that makes sense. 

This engagement requires a major shift and comes with great sacrifice. This sacrifice, however, isn’t due all at once. We get to pay all along the road, and each time we are presented with the choice to do so, … or not. A recurring theme through life as it seems. Surely, each choice is bound by cause and effect. 

Having had many hard times due to my lack of engagement, mostly because of my ignorance, I want to share some of the benefits I experienced once I did engage. 

• The more I was engaged, the easier it became to make choices and feel good about the consequences. 
• The more I was engaged, the more confidence I cultivated.
• The more I engaged, the deeper my trust reached.
• The more I engaged, the easier it became to let go.
• The more I engaged, the easier it became to discern between yes and no.
• The more I engaged, the fewer doubts I had.
• The more I engaged, the less I lost myself in the other again. 
• The more I engaged, the easier it was to offer my sacrifices. 
  

After this initial choice, engaging still remains “a b*tch”. But with each deepening, it nurtures the very foundation on which we co-create our dream. Read more about engagement…  

Defining a dream is easy for some and very difficult for others. All creations alike, it is about the process. Just fertilizing the foundation for a while and allowing some space of mind is all that is needed. We can search and find, but there’s also the more natural way, allowing life to participate in the process. It is the way the process of co-creation is about as a whole.

“What do we know what we are really searching for? “

“I remember wanting to go to the Philippines for the creation of my lotus flower collection. I couldn’t find any local connection, and for some reason, the flights I looked at seemed off. I let it go for a few days and was surprised to hear three friends, who don’t know each other, suggest Marrakesh to me, without me asking for it. On the same day! So I booked a flight to Marrakesh and to cut a long story short, it’s where I found my home and created my atelier.”

At some point, we have to start and write our dream down. A good way to look at it is to consider it a first bad draft! The first draft will already serve its function plenty. Over time, as new information comes into your awareness, the dream changes. The first version provides the aim and the direction to start out with.

The best way to start is to just start.

Much can be said about how to properly create and formulate a dream. In this post, I want to share some of the tools that helped on my journey. 

Aim high !

The higher and noble your dream, the more meaning it will potentially provide. Aiming at the stars is a matter of the heart, not of the mind. Rest assured, the minds gets its proper attention. 

What would you be, and how would you serve the world if you had all the resources needed?

Do nothing for a while or glance through pictures.

Both “techniques” help. Doing nothing means doing nothing! No reading, no television, no radio, no internet… Give your mind some space to present you with what’s truly bothering you. Only when you strongly feel the urge to do something, do it fully. You can start with a couple of hours. 

Another helpful technique is to glance through magazines and just let your eyes meet the images and words you see. Our eyes have circuitry that bypasses our conscious mind. Don’t read texts or search for something you think about. Just notice what attracts your attention. You can also make some sort of vision board or collage with the images if you like. 

Know what you don’t want. 

When we don’t know what we want, we often do know what we don’t want. It’s a slippery slope because our attention attracts, regardless of the negation. We know how bad publicity remains publicity. Or we know the example of not thinking about a pink elephant. Being mindful about the things we don’t want is definitely of value, so we can formulate the opposite. 

On the other hand, imagining our personal little hell we might end up in, helps. Knowing a place we aim for and knowing a place we want to stay away from strengthens our willingness to make new choices. 

Old dreams, hobbies & occupations.

If your memory allows, you can remember what you did in your childhood were time just went by. What did you do? What would be the “adult” version of this? What hobbies did you choose yourself? What did you love doing, just for doing, regardless of the result? 

Version 1.0.

With enough information gathered, it’s about writing down the first version of your dream. A little paragraph to try out, tuning in to a few phrases, and finally a one-sentence dream. 

Many helpful tips can easily be found on how such a sentence would be best written. Positively expressed, ecological, as specific as you can, more or less aligned with your own context, and it is best to give it a timing. 

Don’t go running off telling everybody about your dream is my suggestion, not even your friends or family. Cherish it for a while. It is hard enough to cope with our own criticisms and limiting beliefs. 

Once we’re informed about the five basic principles of our human nature, we’re ready to build the foundation of our adventure. Preparation and training allow us to venture more gracefully through our first layers of resistance when life touches upon them.  

The foundation of our journey is trust. If we’re going to explore the unknown, we have to choose to trust in something bigger than ourselves. We need to make a choice to trust in life. Trust, that life will show us what we need to experience to open our hearts and slowly discover our potential. It is only by pushing ourselves against our own protections that we’ll be able to free ourselves from them. These protections no longer serve us and are holding us down.

In retrospect, I learned that besides the choice to trust life, the ground needs some fertilizers, even before looking up and imagining a dream. It is not obvious that we know what we truly love, as it has often been protected and shielded. We also trained ourselves to forget. When we imagine a dream, we trigger the different mechanisms that we put in place to protect this dream in the first place. Therefore, our foundation will need some fertilizers. They come in the form of kindness, humbleness, confidence, and gratitude. 

Kindness

Kindness helps to handle the first wave of resistance when aiming up. It’s amazing how easily we believe what our mind comes up with. The difficulty, in the beginning, is that we’re right, we always are. Everything the mind comes up with is true. But it is only true because somewhere in the past, we chose so. It is not really true! 

Many of the arising thoughts when imagining a dream aren’t supporting our adventurous plans. 

History has enough examples to say that you don’t need money to start out, you’re never too old, and everybody has a gift to offer to the world!

Be kind towards yourself and know that matters of the heart don’t require a reasonable explanation. Kindness creates some space of mind and allows for new ideas to enter or to be seen. 

Kindness towards ourselves is needed, as soon enough, we’ll have to say no instead of yes. It is the essence of making new choices, aligned with our dream. 

Humbleness

Humbleness is the antidote for an arrogant mind, believing we know what we want and what we need. Saying we have no clue is much closer to the truth. Life, through all its manifestations, will show us. Humbleness will soften our frustrations and irritations and slowly transform them into an inner smile. The journey into our hearts is one of exploration and discovery. It is a learning adventure.

Confidence

Often we have a misunderstanding about confidence that prevents us from moving forward or even starting out. Confidence doesn’t mean we will do what others like us to do. Neither does it mean we’ll do what we believe we will be doing. It simply means that whatever we’ll encounter, we’ll be able to handle it, even when we fall or make a fool out of ourselves. 

Being able to be a fool is the key to mastery. 

Gratitude 

It’s easy to be grateful when life turns out the way we want and like. But on this journey, we’ll learn the difference between what we need and what we want. We’ll discover that what we think we like and what we love isn’t the same. 

Being grateful will help to make it through these lessons with the understanding that once we pierced through the layer of resistance and protection, we’ll love ourselves a little more. It is this love that we’re able to manifest into new forms and creations. 

Gratitude helps us make it through the arising chaos, knowing a deeper layer of being awaits us.