Cheryl Wright

Life be­ing what it is, we me­an­der along with its ebb and flow. We jug­gle re­spon­si­bil­i­ties while try­ing to stay afloat. Of­ten, our busy­ness with the must-do's leave lit­tle time to for­mu­late, fo­cus on and fol­low our in­di­vid­ual dreams. We may glimpse them inch­ing down our list of to-do's, fad­ing in the back­ground, slip­ping away, suf­fo­cat­ing and dy­ing slow­ly in the ocean of more im­me­di­ate is­sues and we de­spair. Do you? Of­ten, life and dreams seem to trav­el dif­fer­ent paths, rarely con­nect­ing. The truth is they are more con­nect­ed than we some­times be­lieve, more than we no­tice. Here are three ways that life and dreams are con­nect­ed.

Life in­spires our dreams.

Dreams don't emerge out of nowhere; they are born out of life. They may be in­spired by a snip­pet of our lives. They may arise out of the ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the mere gift of life, the fas­ci­na­tion with an item, an event or peo­ple in our lives, chal­lenges we face, trau­ma we en­dure or some un­ex­pect­ed joy.

Life fu­els our dreams.

Even in the midst of dif­fi­cul­ty, on­go­ing life prob­lems and even trau­ma, if we stop and take no­tice, we will find a store­house of fu­el for our dreams. We al­ready know that won­der­ful lessons come built in­to the crevices of life's dis­ap­point­ments. Yet, we strug­gle in the rag­ing depths of the dis­ap­point­ments. We lament. We scram­ble for any­thing that might keep us afloat and of­ten, we miss the lessons that can buoy us up, take us to a safe shore and help us get back on our feet, men­tal­ly, phys­i­cal­ly, emo­tion­al­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly. For ex­am­ple:

- The bro­ken leg that teach­es us that im­mo­bil­i­ty can be a rich sea­son of re­flec­tive think­ing and a fu­tile sea­son for cre­ative dis­cov­ery and ex­plo­ration.

Un­em­ploy­ment that forces us to dig deep in­to our abil­i­ties, ex­pe­ri­ences and skills for an al­ter­nate ca­reer lead.

-Failed at­tempts at one dream may hold the key to the true dream we nev­er imag­ined.

-A lost love that shows us that we are just as strong, con­fi­dent, ca­pa­ble and wor­thy alone.

Life lessons are not just lessons for life. We can use the lessons life teach­es us to fu­el our dreams. Life sus­tains our dreams. When we are pas­sion­ate about our dreams and feel sure that it is what we are called to do and must do, our lives sus­tain that pas­sion, that call, even when on a dai­ly ba­sis, life seems in­tent on keep­ing us from pur­su­ing and achiev­ing them. A dream that rides on pas­sion and pur­pose, feeds off the dis­trac­tions and in­ter­rup­tions that come with every­day life. A dream that rides on pas­sion and pur­pose, feeds off our neg­a­tive ten­den­cies: pro­cras­ti­na­tion, self-doubt, fear, low self-con­fi­dence. The more dis­trac­tions and in­ter­rup­tions we en­counter and man­age, the more we ad­mit and de­feat our self-sab­o­tag­ing habits, the more pow­er­ful and in­tense our dreams be­come. They plump up our sag­ging en­thu­si­asm sharp­en our re­solve and fan our pas­sion. They en­tice us away from what threat­ens to keep us stuck and to­wards the mind­set and the ac­tions that will help us to achieve our dreams.

Of course, we can't sim­ply sit back and leave it up to life to take us to our de­sired des­ti­na­tion. We must wake every morn­ing, grate­ful for an­oth­er day to live our lives and ex­cit­ed to em­brace what­ev­er comes. We must be ready and will­ing to grasp the in­spi­ra­tion, uti­lize the fu­el and ab­sorb the sus­te­nance life pro­vides.Can you iden­ti­fy how your life has in­spired your dream and how it con­tin­ues to fu­el and sus­tain it?