“I’ve always dreamed of having an exciting life,” a woman in her mid-thirties told me. Now she was concerned because she had given up on her dreams in order to play safe, while at the same time fearing that her life was running away from her. Are your fears making you give up on your dreams? I often come across people who feel like they have compromised on their dreams. Dreams change. The dreams you have in your early years can be transplanted by new dreams as you grow and evolve. Yet, the more you’ve been knocked around by life, struggled and tasted failure, the harder it can be to rise up and experience the fruits of your yearnings.
letting go of attachment
Can You Want Something Too Much?
Have you ever found yourself wanting something so much that you lose your center? If you’ve waited a long while for something you really want, you may have a lot of emotional charge around the thing you most desire, whether it’s money, love, a particular job, a career break, the opportunity to travel. As soon as you catch yourself caught in some in between world that is not the present or the future, it’s time to loosen your grip.
Why? Because when you want something so much that it becomes agonizing or upsetting, you could be pushing what you most want away from you. This is what is meant by needing to let go of attachment. Also, if you’re not fully present, lost in your thoughts of what may or may not happen, then you’re not fully present to your inner wisdom that can effectively guide you to fulfillment.
You’ll know when you want your desired outcome too much, if you notice that your body is tense, that your mind is racing through all the years that what you want has eluded you, how difficult it’s been, maybe fears about what if it never happens? Your attention is more on how your desire has not happened or may not happen, than how it is going to happen. So how can your desires happen through so much tension, fear, mental stories and projections? I know for myself that all the best things have happened when I’ve been relaxed, not even thinking about how much I want something.
This is the ideal way to hold what you most desire. Check to see if this is true for you:
The desire is in your heart. It feels good. You believe it can be yours.
Then you let go, knowing it will show up in good time.
If you find that you still feel very attached to what you want showing up, so that it’s hard to just let go and trust that your desire is on its way, then examine your fears more closely. Your fears are like a wall between where you are now, and having what you want. Fears are illusions, but they seem real when you are emotionally invested in them, when they have carved well-worn pathways in your brain.
Write down each fear so you look it fully in the face. Then see which fears you can fully get rid of.
A lot of fears do dissolve when you shine a light on them — the light of wisdom and awareness.
