#33: Why Adults Stop Dreaming: Healing the Childhood Messages That Keep You Small

If dreaming feels silly, selfish, or out of reach — you’re not alone. In fact, you might just be hearing echoes of childhood messages that told you to stay small, play it safe, and be realistic.

The messages we absorbed in childhood — about obedience, achievement, and staying “realistic” — still shape the way we show up as adults.

In today’s episode (our first with a guest!), I’m joined by my longtime friend and counselor Becky Stevenson to talk about why adults stop dreaming… and how to get back in touch with the playful, curious, creative part of yourself that still wants more.

We dig into the psychology of performance-based love, how fear of failure gets rooted early, and why so many of us feel stuck in lives that look successful on paper… but feel hollow in practice.

You'll learn simple tools to reconnect with your imagination, rewire the default voice in your head, and start dreaming again — one small step at a time.

HERE ARE 3 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE

1️⃣ You didn't come up with the belief that dreaming is foolish on your own. 

That idea was modeled, taught, or reinforced in childhood - and it can be unlearned.

2️⃣ Your brain is wired to protect you, not dream for you. 

Those soundtracks that say "stay small" are outdated and you can rewrite them.

3️⃣ Imagination is a muscle-and it remembers. 

Look to your inner child, your past joys, your forgotten hobbies. Your imagination is waiting to be unlocked.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, this one’s a beautiful beginning.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Becky Stevenson Counseling

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Transcript

Speaker 3 0:01

You're never too busy, too tired, too old, or too anything to pursue your dreams. Welcome to the Distracted Dreamer Podcast, where you'll learn how to move all those never ending distractions aside and chase your dreams with confidence.

0:22

I am so excited for today's episode, so if you are here today, you are in for a real treat. I am your host and friend, Carlene, and you are here on a very special day because this is the first podcast where I'm having a guest come on and. This episode is just going to crack you wide open. So if you've been walking around believing that dreams are foolish, irresponsible, or that they're for other people, but not for you, you are going to love this episode. We're going back to where it all started, your childhood and the messages that you received from your parents, teachers, church, or even just society about dreaming. Imagination and being curious. We're gonna unpack it all from how we internalize these messages to how they've impacted the choices that we've made in our lives, and we are not gonna stop their friend. You are going to get a couple powerful tools to help you start dreaming again, so you can start living a life that excites you. Yes, even though we still have responsibilities, there is room for your dreams. And even more powerful than the tools is the real life stories. My very first guest on this podcast is going to share with you today, and I brought her into this conversation because she's a special combination of the real life experience of hearing the message that dreams are foolish, and somehow she figured out how to dream and bring them to life. Despite that, and add to that her expertise as a counselor who is going to show you how to let go of all those beliefs that aren't serving you. I am thrilled that we get to have a conversation with my dear friend Becky Stevenson, who brings both heart and humor to the world of counseling. And let me tell you, I've known her for over 20 years. We have raised our families. Alongside each other. She is a go-getter when it comes to her dreams. She went back to school in her fifties to get her master's in psychology and opened up her own practice called Becky Stevenson Counseling in Franklin, Tennessee. I've put a link to her website in the show notes so you can go check it out. And in her practice, Becky works primarily with women and couples, helping them navigate that messy, beautiful, and unpredictable journey of life and relationships. And as a wife and a mom and someone who's been around the block enough times to offer some real perspective, Becky has a special gift of making people feel completely seen and at ease, whether it's in her therapy office or just over a cup of coffee, helping people identify and pursue their dreams could be considered part of her job description, but pursuing dreams in her own life, it didn't always come so easily. So see if these sound familiar to you. Her family valued hard work, strength and self-sufficiency, and being soft meant you were weak. There seemed to be a lot of things that were, for other people, dreams were tucked away with childhood memories, and it wasn't until she had children of her own and began helping them in the pursuit of their dreams, that she invited herself back into the conversation, seeing how hard she was working to find music lessons or theater lessons, or horseback riding or computer programming for her kids. She thought to herself. Well, I wanna do that too. And so she did, and she still is. All right, so let's jump in. I am so excited you're here today, Becky. Aw, thank you. I'm excited to be here. Well, I can tell you one of the reasons why I'm excited about our conversation today is because I was asked the question by one of our listeners, Sue, who is also a dear childhood friend of mine. And I believe her question is something that a lot of people are wondering about, and I felt like this goes beyond my area of expertise. Oh, and that's why I asked you to be here. So Sue's text to me was this. Sue says, I think I have stifled dreams because I was raised in a family that valued obedience and performance. Plus we weren't recognized or celebrated anyways, so it really was all for Naugh, LOL. You were good if you were obedient or got good grades because this was the focus. Dreaming was frowned upon. Dreaming was foolish. I kind of remember being made fun of, even by my parents for dreaming. I think eventually I just stuffed my dreams down and now I don't know how to dream anymore. How do I overcome that? Dreams are not a foolish mindset. Now, before I ask you the question, Becky, I have to share with our listeners what you responded when I forwarded that question to you. Oh, well how did I respond? Your response was, oh my gosh, she grew up in my house. And that's how I knew you were the best person to unwrap this with me. Because you got the training and the experience as a therapist and you've lived this. Yeah, I think a lot of us have. Um, first I wanna say thank you to Sue for such a vulnerable, honest summation of what she's struggling with. I would imagine there are a lot of people like me who can relate. To aspects of her story as an adult. I love that Sue is wondering if she even has dreams anymore or even the ability to dream, and I love that in her search for answers, she's remembering that words like foolish were associated with dreaming, and I love that she's acknowledging that she was even made fun of dreaming, which also attaches shame or embarrassment to the idea of having dreams. The good news, I think, for Sue is that the path that she's taking to find honest answers and gain understanding is what's going to allow her moving forward to start to challenge those belief systems, the ones that were planted so long ago, and it's going to allow her to open herself up to some self-compassion and even starting to dream again. Yeah, that's that's beautiful. And I just wanna say, it would be really easy for us to sit here and just bash parents, right? Yes. We're parents. We know it is not an easy job and we make mistakes without even knowing it. And we're doing the best we can, and we're not here to blame anybody. That's not the purpose of the conversation today. So how can we accept that this is something that happened? And move on without the anger and the resentment. This comes up a lot in the therapy room. People are very hesitant sometimes to look back as responsible adults. We shouldn't, you know, be pointing the finger, blaming somebody else. And the truth is, most of us really love our parents and believe that they did the best they could. So we aren't really looking to place blame. We're looking to figure out where we received the messages, um, to inform. Ourselves where those neuropathways, if you will, were formed either through what we were taught or what we witnessed growing up, and how our brains interpreted those. And kind of, I like to think of it like our brain categorizes things and sort of puts things in buckets. You know, this is good, this is bad. You know, this is scary. This is okay. So if we have an understanding sort of, of where that came from, that's where we can start to kind of question those voices that we hear. So it's not about saying it's all my mom's fault, or it's all my dad's fault. It's more just having compassion and understanding that they were presenting themselves in the best way that. They knew how at the time, and odds are the words that they were saying to you or the actions they were showing you were actually based on their own personal experience and they were trying to protect you, you know, from hurts that they had experienced. But what we need to acknowledge is it doesn't mean that their experience is our experience, and we need to take those words as you know, biblical truth for our lives, if you will. Um, and, and we can certainly push back against those, those things that we learned, if that makes sense. Yeah, that makes total sense. And so what I'm hearing you say is, yes, this happened and instead of focusing our energy on blaming people and feeling hurt by it, it's, we're in the driver's seat now. Mm-hmm. And we can change our narrative going forward. We can, or even, it's almost like, we're adding maybe an addendum to, to those pathways that are already there solidly in our brain, like our go-to, our comfort, you know, whatever it is that returns us, excuse me, that returns us to safety. We're basically just adding if where our brain takes us to is, well, that's not for you. We can start to ask it, well, why is it not for me? So it's almost like just adding a little side note on there, twisting it a little bit. Yeah, I like that. United racing your story. No, you're, you're adding onto it. And you're in control this time. Right. So why do you think that some of us learn to believe, like we truly believe that dreaming is foolish? You know, this reminded me, and maybe it's'cause I'm a grandparent now and I've been watching a lot of Disney movies, but it reminded me of the movie Peter Pan, where the opening scene, the darling parents are frazzled because the dad, I think he's looking for Cufflings, I don't even know, but he's throwing things around and in the heat of. The tension there. He yells at Wendy and tells her that it's time for her to grow up and to leave her silly stories in the nursery, that she's too old for this and she needs to become an adult. And I would imagine that part of Wendy's desire to hold onto those stories was because her dad made being an adult look so miserable. Yeah. And that is such a great example. But in all seriousness, as we grow older, we often place more value. On practical achievements and on responsibility and dreams can feel very impractical or frivolous. So we also face societal expectations to conform to certain standards of what success is. Um, while childhood is often characterized by imagination and wonder, adulthood is often characterized by responsibility and obligation. Oh, I so relate to that. I so relate to that. When you see your life over so many years. And how maybe you were playful in your younger years and now everything is just so darn serious. And just going back to Sue, if you believe that dreaming is foolish, you need to remind yourself that that wasn't an idea that you came up with all on your own. It was taught to you. And because it was taught to you that way, it can also be untaught or unlearned. And thank goodness for that. Thank goodness for that. That is great news. And before we get too far ahead,'cause I know you have so many great nuggets to share with us today, is, can you explain what happened psychologically? When kids are rewarded only for obedience and performance. What happens to us, the desire for attention from our parents begins immediately at birth. Babies cry to get their caregivers attention when they, when they feel something is wrong and they're looking to be held or to be fed. Those moments teach a baby that I matter, I'm safe, I'm seen, and this person who responds to my every need. And as children grow, their desire for connection with their parents doesn't disappear. It just evolves. So we start to learn our parents' values. By the response we get from our own efforts, obedience and performance aren't inherently bad, but the problem arises when they become the only currencies where we receive love and approval. So children who are recognized primarily for obedience and performance. May connect their self-worth to reaching a specific outcome. And this can lead to feelings of anxiety or inadequacy when you don't succeed at something. When obedience is prioritized, children may feel pressured to conform to the expectations of other people, and this can lead to a lack of independent thinking, or even worse, a distrust, trust, or a shutdown of our own inner voice. If affection and approval are contingent upon compliance, children will look externally for validation. Wow, that's a lot to unpack and if I'm hearing you right, Becky, love and approval have to be earned, and if a child doesn't get that a or make the team that love is withheld. Yep. So for a lot of us, you know, we think, oh well the damage is done. And maybe so, but like you've said, we can unlearn this. Mm-hmm. But can you explain a little bit about how these experiences shape how we actually relate? To desiring, to understanding our wants, our ambitions later in life. Right? Right. Sometimes as adults, we fear failure so much that we won't even try things anymore. We're almost hardwired to keep things small so that we can control them. Additionally, when difficult things do present themselves and. You know, we've lived long enough to know they do present themselves. Mm-hmm. Adults can struggle with a lack of resiliency. They may never have learned how to rebound after difficulty or even how to appreciate the growth. That can only be found in the times when we fail and have to pick ourselves up again. Some people may even find themselves. At the very top of a successful career, having pursued the best grades and a top college and you know, an important career. But at the end of the day, they may find themselves in a place of feeling a lot of resentment when they've checked all the boxes on the to-do list and still feel unhappy or cynical or miserable, or just exhausted. Okay, I've got two questions around this. Okay. The first question is. If we don't get out of that place mm-hmm. Of we're just not happy. Mm-hmm. We're doing all the things that we should do. We're being responsible, but there's just like nothing in our lives that really light us up. What's the risk of us continuing this pattern with our own kids? That's the first question, and I'll let you answer it before I ask the second one. Mm-hmm. So what you're asking me is how does that shape our own children, like in our household when they're. Wow. Well think about that. And I mean, I'm sure you've seen this too. I've seen this in my own life, you know, a little bit, if our children see us working so hard and coming home so miserable, why would they want to do that? Like why would they wanna pursue that path for themselves? Like what are we teaching them about hard work and. You know, chasing a good career or whatever. If, if at the end of it all, there's nothing to celebrate, nothing to feel good about. This pattern could be repeated, right? Or, or our kids are gonna learn from us. I feel like kids are so much smarter these days. I don't know. That's just my perception. Mm-hmm. But I think they're very in tune and they're watching us very, very closely. And they could take that, like you said, and be like, I don't want that for myself. I'm gonna do it differently. Mm-hmm. And they're not gonna let what we are putting out there for them to witness. Be their story. Right. And if you think about it, kids nowadays have access. I, I like to describe my life growing up as a fishbowl. I feel like I was living in a fishbowl, you know, it was very controlled. I went to church. I had, you know, my friend group, but everybody, there was one elementary school, one middle school, one high school in the town that I, grew up in. So I feel like my fishbowl was small. But our kids are exposed to the ocean, right? They see things on social media, they have Google. You know, we didn't have those things so they can see and seek out different ways of living that our only experience was, you know, when somebody asked you, when you were young, what you wanted to be when you grew up. The only things you knew were what your dad did, what your mom did, what your neighbor did, you know, teacher, um, police officer, firemen like that. That's all you knew. Well, our kids nowadays. No hundreds if not thousands of careers and options. So they do see other ways of life, and they do compare themselves and their families to the way at least that it appears other families operate. Okay, this is good news. This is very good news because our kids, they can make their own choices. Mm-hmm. Even if. We are demonstrating some other behavior. Mm-hmm. We're going to work and we're coming home and we're complaining about our jobs and everything. They can find another way. Right? They can, but the other thing we have to remember is we are probably as parents the strongest influence in our children's lives, and sometimes what we're showing them through our actions is limiting what is good for us? We could see things as well that's good for other people, but it's not okay for us, and, and we can. Almost force them into that same box of smallness because they can see, well, you know, those people get to do that, but I don't, that isn't, you know, we're working people or we're, we're whatever we are, you know, whatever that value system is that our parents hold so they can still limit themselves. But yeah, there's definitely more options out there to observe different. Yes. Yes. And there's also coaching and therapy that can help them through these. And that leads me to the second question is if we don't get out of this place that we're in, where we're just performing, we're just paying the bills, How is this linked to adult anxiety and depression? One of the saddest things that I hear when people come into my office is, this is who I am. how do I adapt to that? It's almost like how do I lower my expectations for my life? We weren't meant to stay stuck. There is nothing. I guess if you look at your, your life, like a story, like you're writing a book, we play the villain in our own stories. You know, these voices that we hear in our heads that keep us so limited or keep us so stuck in things that aren't making us happy or feeding us in any way. That voice becomes our own. So it's like as lo if we stay stuck in that same place, you are gonna wind up. Miserable and disappointed and kind of sad feeling like a victim of your own life. So what would you say to adults now who are in this place? Well, I suppose it depends on what's going on in their lives and how, broadly this affects them. But one of the things going back to your podcast even is finding. Inspiration to start dreaming again and to start looking at what does fill them up? What does spark joy in their lives?'cause for so many of us, we have this to-do list in front of us, and we think if we get through the to-do list, that that's what's gonna make us feel good. But it doesn't necessarily make us feel good. Yeah. We may have knocked everything off and it might feel good to check the boxes on a list. I like doing that too, but is it really bringing us joy? You know, so, so there are definitely some things that, um, I ask people to start incorporating into their daily routine. To start looking for those moments of joy, if you will. Okay, so what are some of the first steps that someone can take to safely start dreaming again? I think. As adults, we kind of lose our sense of curiosity. That's kind of a word that goes away in adulthood. So I would say get curious about you, about yourself. Like identify what matters to you. Do relationships matter to you? Does learning, does adventure, write down things that you enjoy that feel important, even remembering things that you once wanted to try. You're not looking for a to-do list or answers necessarily. You're just looking for self discovery. Some things you can do would be to seek inspiration from real people who have kind of found their passions. Read books about them, watch Ted talks about them. Surround yourself with friends who are trying new things. Or chasing their own dreams, because I think it's contagious. Find some friends and create a bucket list of things you can try or do together. And I think you and I are such a great example of this. Not to toot our own horns here, but. You and I have really stretched ourselves. Mm-hmm. Especially like I'd say in the like last five years. Mm-hmm. You know, you went back to school and got your masters and, you know, we both moved to a different state. Mm-hmm. Um, we have totally upped the game on taking more vacations. Yes, we have. And, and finally doing the things and giving ourselves permission, right. To be playful and, and do something new. Right. So definitely keeping it playful, keeping it fun. What else if people are kinda stuck up in their heads, you know, one thing that you can do, that I have found a lot of success with is having adults look at old photos of themselves as a child. Or old videos. Right. But. If you look back at those, I mean really stop and sit and look at yourself in those photos. Not just flip through the pages, but make eye contact with yourself in those photos. It almost transports you back to that time, and sure there's context, you know, now you know things you didn't know then, so you know, kind of what's going on or whatever. But. It allows you con to connect with that part of yourself that still exists, to remember how you felt in those moments, what you dreamed about, what you wanted to be like when the whole world was open to you, right? So I have found that. If, if someone can take one, just one of those photographs that, that you really connect with for some reason, you remember that little girl, you know, you remember how you felt that day, and put it somewhere where you see it often. I even talk to myself sometimes and even say the words to her that maybe I wish somebody had said to me then, but I'm telling her now, you know? I've been noticing on social media that there's been a lot of conversation about talking. To your younger self. Mm-hmm. And finding that playful, fearless, curious child. Mm-hmm. Right. And that seems to be something that we're all craving. So I've seen people literally, like, they send emails, like it's part of like their, their marketing for whatever they're doing. Mm-hmm. And they like write a letter to themselves and they share it with like the thousands of people on their email list. And they're so beautiful. Mm-hmm. And transformative. And I've been thinking I really wanna sit down and write a letter to myself. Mm-hmm. I actually did that a, a few years ago to wrote a letter to myself. I picked an age and it actually was associated with a photo that I had. I wanna say it was probably 10 or 11 at the time. I wrote a letter to that version of myself and then I mailed it to myself. And what did that feel like to get it and open it and read it again? It was, it kind of felt, it was more emotional than I thought it would be. there was a level of mourning I think that went along with that. Just the loss of. Some of that innocence, some of the struggle that I went through, going back to kind of Sue's question where I turned off certain. Aspects of myself in order to, I don't know if it was, if fit in was the right world, but basically to acclimate, you know, to the system that I was a part of. And so I wrote to her and kind of talked to her about. All of the things that she was going to do in her life and, and how proud I was of her and, not to let certain things that I knew were gonna happen, bother her, get under her skin, don't pay too much attention to these things because ultimately they're not gonna matter. And so I was, talking to myself, like I said, it, almost like an older sibling would talk to a younger sibling when you're trying to share. But there was a level of depth there, of course, that you can, you only have when you're talking or looking at yourself. So I would say pick an age, find a photograph that you can look at and, and absolutely write yourself a letter of what you want. That part of yourself, if you will, to know. Oh my God, that's beautiful. I could cry just listening to you, so don't do that. I know, I know. I wanna circle back to something that you started talking about at the beginning of the episode, and you were talking about that default in our brain. So how can we unlearn that default voice that tells us that dreaming is unrealistic or it's selfish, or all the other things that we think about. so let's imagine that your family of origin, the community that you grew up at in your church, cultural influences, all of that early life experience is kind of like a factory that produced you. So this factory that programmed you, programmed your responses to the world, it taught you how to stay safe. It taught you how to earn approval. It taught you how to belong. So when we venture out into the world and something challenges us, or we feel stressed or overwhelmed, our brain wants to return to those factory settings, those default settings, because that is, that's what feels safe to us. So those settings might sound something like, well, that's not for you, or, be realistic, or Don't be selfish, or stay small, or be grateful. Tell me if I got this right. It's kind of like our brain is programmed like a computer, and then when something challenges us, it's like our brain glitches, it freezes, and we have to reboot it back to the original program, which by the way, is not serving us. Exactly. That's exactly right. So like. An easy example for me to give to you that is relevant to you and I, it's like, let's pretend you went out to your mailbox. You bring in the pile of bills, you throw it on the table, and a travel catalog catches your eyes. Maybe it's National Geo Geographic or Adventures by Disney. And being curious, you start to flip through the pages and something catches your eye. You know, for me it's, it's always elephant. I don't know, I have a, a thing for elephants and always have, but, so maybe it's a family in Africa who's watching elephants bathe in a nearby stream of water and you feel this little spark inside for a minute and just this fleeting thought of, you know, I wanna do that kind of comes and goes. That's almost like an alarm system to our brain. Wait a minute, wait a minute, you know, stop what you're doing. Default to factory settings. That's not for you. You could never do that. How frivolous is that? You'd probably get malaria, you know, whatever it is that our default tells us to keep us safe and keep us small. It's not our brain trying to ruin our fun. It's just trying to return us to the familiar and what feels safe to us. But here's the thing, we're not in the factory anymore, so what we need to do. Is hang on to those little sparks of excitement that we feel we need to catch them and we need to lean into them. Those voices in your head, the, the same ones that told Wendy, you know, it was time to grow up. No more flying to never land with Peter Pan, those voices don't belong to you. What if we start to insert a different voice? A voice that. Is our own. Okay. So I want to revisit your initial comment to Sue's question. Mm-hmm. Which was, oh my gosh, did she grow up in my house? Now, I've watched you for many, many years go after your dreams despite that. Yeah. So tell us about one of those dreams and how you unlearned that voice. Of dreams being silly or unrealistic, how did you find the courage to move forward? Well, I think anybody who knows me for any length of time knows what a significant role my grandparents played in my life. My maternal grandmother and grandfather actually passed away one year and one day apart from each other. My grandmother at one point shared a story about my grandfather, and she asked me never to tell anyone. So here, I'm never telling anybody on your podcast, my grandmother shared with me. Okay, let me set the stage a little bit. Music was huge in my grandmother's house. We went to sleep at night listening to the record player. At Christmas time, my grandfather and I would sit on the fireplace and sing, Christmas songs together. We stood next to each other in church every Sunday and sang hymns together. Music was, integral. But music was one of those things that we were allowed to enjoy it. But the actual creation of music was for other people. Does that make sense? So like my family could listen to music, enjoy it, sing, but we didn't perform music. We didn't learn how to play instruments. Those were things that were for other people, at least that's the way my young brain took in that information. My grandmother told me that when my grandfather retired. In his sixties, that he actually took piano lessons, but he didn't ever want anyone to know because he was embarrassed that he couldn't do it. For whatever reason in his late sixties or seventies, he just couldn't keep the rhythm. It just didn't come to him naturally, and he was so sad and disappointed. That he never wanted us to find out. And when my grandmother told me that story, first I was heartbroken for my grand. That absolutely broke my heart, but it really kind of stopped me in my tracks because at that point in my life, you know, as a busy mom raising three kids, my husband was building his company. We were busy, and so I had this sort of ongoing list in my head of things that I was gonna do someday. Right. Well, someday. Someday I'll have more time for the, when the kids are grown and they're all in school, I'll have all this time to do. You know, whatever it was. Or when my husband's company is on its feet and running itself, well, he'll have more time to be home and than I can do, so it was always someday. And when she told me that, it made me realize someday could be too late. Right? If there's really something we want. Someday needs to be now. Like those someday dreams need to get on your to-do list. So when my kids started taking guitar lessons and I really wanted to take guitar lessons. I found a teacher who would come to my house at nine o'clock at night. So dinner was cleaned up after the kids were bathed. Stories had been read, they were in bed. If my husband had to work late, it didn't matter. And at nine o'clock at night, he would come to my house and I would take guitar lessons. And it's funny'cause now looking back, I'm so glad I did that as a. A 30 5-year-old, 40-year-old, because the arthritis in my hands that I have now would've prevented me from learning. So I'm so glad that I was like, why not me? Why, why not now? Like I need to figure out a way to work these dreams in, if you will, into my life now. Mm-hmm. So. Becky, what would it look like for someone to kind of rebuild that trust with their own imagination again, that they could find it, that they could take that next step? Oh gosh. Well, sticking with our Peter Pan thing, I feel like I should say faith, trust, and pixie dust, and maybe there's a little bit of truth in that. You might feel a little rusty at first. After all, your imagination may have been asleep for a while. But really it's about challenging your thoughts. When your instinct says, that's not for me, push back and say, well, why isn't it for me? Instead of saying, I could never ask yourself, well, what if I did? So it's really just a matter of recognizing when that default system kicks in and starting to question it a little bit more. I can't remember if I shared this already, but. Have you ever been out to dinner with a group of friends and everybody's talking about. The vacation they just got back from. Or maybe somebody's talking about how they went to school or got a coaching license or whatever it is, and you are so excited for them. Like that is so cool for them. That they had that experience. Right? And then you get in the car and you're on your way home and you're talking with your husband, you're like, I could never do that. Like, I could never go back to school. I could never, we could never take off two weeks to go on a big vacation or whatever. Well, you know, my Italy dream, I wanna go to Italy for at least three months, maybe six months. Yes. And I am sitting here. I am dreaming the dream, and I've been dreaming it for like a decade now, but I actually think about doing it. And I'm like, I can't actually do that because I get homesick after five days of vacation. I don't know that I could stay in Italy and do all the things that I wanna do there. I want to be that person and maybe someday I'm gonna push myself to do that. Yeah. And here I am. I just caught myself. I'm, I'm pulling the someday thing here and. I, I can't wait for someday, and I feel like I need to make a plan to do that and to set my life up so that I know it's okay for me to step away from my life here for three months and everybody else is gonna be fine without me, and I can go have this experience of a lifetime because I don't want to be that person who gets to a certain point in my life and goes. I wish I would've done this when I could have done it, when I was healthy enough to do it, when I had the resources to do it. I don't wanna be the person that says, I just wish I would've done it. Okay. So switching gears a little bit, you've already given some good tools for people to use, but do you have any other go-to exercises or prompts that you use with your clients to help them reconnect with what they want? I think it's a lot easier for us to define what we don't want initially, what we do. So sometimes just a little exercise that I do with clients. I just take a piece of paper, we write a line down the center and we start with the don't column. And we say, okay, what are the things that you don't want in your life? Most people can say, I don't wanna cook dinner tonight. I don't wanna have debt, I don't wanna be overweight. These are all pretty common things people say. I don't wanna work this hard and feel like. I'm getting nothing out of it. I don't want there to be separation between myself and my siblings. You know what? Whatever it is, we'll stick with the easy ones for this exercise. But then after you've listed your don'ts, right across from them, create a do column and say, okay, if I don't wanna be overweight, maybe I'd like to start taking a walk every day. I don't wanna cook dinner tonight. So maybe I'm gonna ask my husband on a date, I don't wanna have debt. Well, maybe at this point in my life, I need to invite someone into that. Maybe somebody who's smarter than me about finances. So I'm gonna pursue, a financial advisor to help me get things in order. So a lot of times, like I said, it's a good first step to figure out what we don't want. I 100% agree. I think everybody. Who I talk to, like when they come to me for coaching, they're like, I don't want to do things like this anymore. Mm-hmm. I don't want this, I don't want my life to look like this. But then they don't answer themselves with what they do want to replace that with. Now for someone who's listening who says, but I don't even know what I want, where do they start? I would encourage them to start small. It doesn't have to be a three month trip to Italy where they start. That doesn't have to be their, their launch. It can be if they want it to be, but it doesn't have to be. So we'll set small goals. Like if your dream is to travel, maybe you visit someplace new, that's a drive away for a long weekend. If it's to do some sort of hobby. Or craft or talent. You know, maybe you take a class at a parks district, you know, just something small. Maybe if it's even something like, I wanna invest in friendships and build more community. Maybe it's just in inviting a friend. Somebody you haven't talked to in a while. Maybe somebody you met at the gym that you know you have nice conversations when you're there. Invite them to coffee. So it's giving yourself permission to explore things without pressure. It's okay not to know exactly what you wanna do, but it's those small steps where you'll build the trust and the confidence to start taking the bigger ones. And of course, have to plug counseling here, right? Don't hesitate to invite a counselor or a coach into your story, whatever you're dealing with. It's not okay to compare it to somebody else. Well, I don't need to go to counseling. You know, this person has it so much worse than I do. Or whatever. You tell yourself to talk yourself out of it. Sometimes all you need is somebody with an outside perspective to help you identify. The sticking points, you know, the unhealthy patterns that you're in, or name your fears and remind you that dreaming is a brave and beautiful thing. And honestly, I personally love nothing more than seeing my clients experience the joy that comes with living their lives boldly. Absolutely beautiful, and I just have to say. Like wow to today's conversation because I know for myself and all the distracted dreamer listeners out there that we're walking away from this conversation with you, feeling both like cracked open, and deeply hopeful. So thank you so much for this today, Becky. Mm-hmm. And it's easy to think of, dreaming is something that we left behind with our childhood toys. Mm-hmm. But the truth is like, it's never too late to remember who we are. Mm-hmm. And what lights us up. So I wanna kind of put a bow around everything here, and here are five things that I'm taking away from this conversation. The first one is, you didn't come up with the belief that dreaming is foolish on your own. I think that is so powerful. We think that the thoughts that we have right, are our own unique thoughts, right? But actually, most of the thoughts in our head, mm-hmm. They are. Fed to us. Right? They come from someplace else, right. But we latch onto them and we own them like they are ours. Mm-hmm. So I think that is really, really powerful. Like we did not come up with, dreaming is foolish on our own. Right. Another takeaway I have is that strict performance based childhoods. It can really limit the creativity and the self-trust. Mm-hmm. So if you're not trusting yourself, there's a good reason why you're not trusting yourself. But as you said, there are small steps that you can take Every single day to start building that trust again. The third thing that I'm taking away is that dreaming, again, starting over. Right. It starts with being curious. It's not about being certain. Right. Right. Dreams are a bunch of uncertainty, and that's okay. You just have to be curious. Mm-hmm. And this next one, I always like to tap into kind of the neuroscience behind what's going on in our brains. So that was really, really helpful when you talked about how your brain is wired to protect you. It's, we're not wired to dream. We're wired to survive. To keep ourselves safe. Right. And so we have to work really, really hard. To override that default. Mm-hmm. So it's not your fault, it's just the way that we're all wired. Yep. And then the fifth thing I'm taking away is, when you were talking is I was just thinking imagination is actually a muscle. Mm-hmm. And it remembers. So if you start engaging your imagination again, it's like after you don't work out for a while and then you go back Yeah. And you're like, oh, this is kind of hard. It's kind of sore, it kind of hurts. Oh, I don't wanna go tomorrow. But then you start doing it and you're actually like, how did I ever not do this? Yeah. And that's what I think imagining again, is it's that muscle that you're gonna wonder, how did I ever live without it? I think the sixth takeaway is that you and I need to sit down and revisit our family bucket list again. Yes. And update it with some new things for us to try and adventures for us to go on together. And if you go to Italy, I'm coming to visit you. You're gonna be there with me for three months. What are you talking about? There you go. Okay. Now, if you are walking away from this episode with One Truth, let it be. This. Dreaming is not foolish. It's a form of remembering who you were before the world told you to shrink. And you're allowed to want things, you're allowed to try, and you are absolutely allowed to change your mind and change your life. One little dream at a time. So go grab a notebook, pull out an old photo of yourself as a kid, or make that don't do list that we talked about. And just take one small step to reconnect with a part of you that still dares to dream. And if you're feeling really bold, I'd love to hear from you. Hit that. Send Carle a text link in the show notes to share your ahas or your first little dream that you're gonna reclaim. And of course, a big, big thank you. To you, Becky, Aw, for sharing your wisdom and your heart today. And you can find Becky and learn more about her practice by clicking on the link in the show notes to her website. And until next time, remember, dreaming isn't foolish. It's sacred, and you, my friend, are worthy of joy, creativity, and a life that feels like your own. Thank you so much for listening, and I will be back next week to welcome you to our next conversation.

Carlene 46:00

Oh, and one more thing. This is the legal language. You know, the stuff that the lawyers put together, and they say that I need to read this to you. So here we go. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I'm not a licensed therapist. This podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professionals. Got it? Good. I will see you in the next episode.