Sunday, September 1, 2013

Visioning Step 9: Embrace the Reality

Embracing your dream means accepting all the challenges that come with it. Expecting it to be handed to you without some inner work in unrealistic. Committing to your dream is like becoming a parent; you're in it for the long haul, “for better or for worse.” page 151, Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams.

My for worse came when I couldn't buy a vowel to actually move to Ventura, in spite of working a collage with all of the steps and methods for over a year.

Oddly enough, here's where a miracle stepped in. Last April, on the day I was packing to move to a 5-week pet-sit in Morro Bay, I received a call from an employment agency to interview for full-time work close to Ventura. Miraculously, because I had a feeling this was going to happen, the day before, I had phoned a colleague about whether to accept an “interview in the bush within commuting distance from Ventura” rather than the “paying-pet-sit-in-the-hand in San Luis Obispo county”

He told me that all I could do was make my best choice, honor my commitments and surrender the outcome.

I decided that honoring my commitment for a paid, 5-week gig was more solid than an interview with an agency which would result in an interview for a temporary to staff job. On my Ventura collage, the lower right corner has 4 girls' feet resting on a table. When I walked into the Morro Bay pet-sit, the painting on the wall depicted 4 womens' feet resting on beach-towels. In both images the feet had brightly painted toenails.



I knew that I had made the right decision.

To fully accept that your dream will come true, you have to see yourself playing the role in your new visual scenario. What part of you wants to emerge? The artist, the homebody, the business entrepreneur? Of course, the role is not who you are, it's a way of experiencing. The role allows you to stretch and grow and become a fuller human being. Page 149, Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams.

Before the Visioning® method, I was afraid to ask for what I wanted. But now, I have not only learned how to ask, but I have also let go of the outcome. Surrendering my dream and giving up are two different things.

I surrendered when I realized that I was trying to force Ventura into place.

I surrendered to the fact that I actually had no idea how to be a successful business-person. I needed to continue asking for help: from a support group, a 12-step sponsor and private sessions with Lucia to release stuck energy.

Allowing your Vision collage to bear fruit requires that you embrace both your dream and your present life with awareness. Page 147, Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams.

I just left a 2-day pet-sit at the home in Morro Bay with the painting of the 4 womens' feet. It's time to create a new collage that focuses on a stable environment where I support myself and my creative projects. Will it be in Ventura? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe...

Dorothy Segovia is a certified Visioning® coach and author of My Body, My Car: How to Coach Yourself Through Life's little Accidents, a how-to book with music CD. Visit her at www.writeinside.com