You’ve heard this many times I bet.
Do you believe it?
Really?
I do.
Don’t let anyone tell you it’s too late to change direction or that dreaming is just for kids. That’s simply not true.
My 30s were challenging. I didn’t have the head space to even think about dreaming of anything. Except wishing we were a ‘normal’ family. My 30s were full of raising my 2 beautiful children, one of whom was autistic and epileptic. I learned so much about me and them although there was not a lot of time for dreaming but simply getting through each day to the best of my ability. I started to become interested in creativity and journaling and that, I found, a helpful form of expression to manage the extent of the challenges our family as a whole were experiencing.
A catalytic event, the unexpected death of my autistic son not long after my 40th birthday propelled my life on a quite unexpected path but which has ultimately had a positively transformative effect. I started to walk the personal and spiritual development path. I studied psychology, I trained as a teacher, I learned how to meditate, to develop my intuition, I trained as an energy healer, I pursued my creative interests and began to dream of a time I might be able to serve others as a healing practitioner, as an artist, sharing my understanding and helping those starting on a similar path. I didn’t see a clear picture of how this could manifest but I knew the future was calling to me. I started to wake up. I could see the world differently from how I had seen it before. In my 40s I started to dream rather than just surviving on a day to day basis. The old cliché ‘Life begins at 40’ appeared to be on to something. I was still experiencing grief from losing my son but because I felt spiritually closer to him than ever before, with the continued exploration and development work I chose to do, I could continue to dream and could see a positive future helping others, not just myself.
In my 50s, initially my teaching career flourished and then I gradually became disillusioned with the red tape attached to the job, and I began to lose the sense of joy and fulfilment I had with this work. Another catalytic event, the simultaneous deaths (unconnected reasons) of both of my parents propelled me further along the personal and spiritual development path, at some speed. I also separated from my husband after 30+ years together and set about following another dream – leaving my full time, well paid, teaching work (which I had allowed to take over my life – I now know to bury the grief) and creating a working life where I could see the value of multiple streams of income, allowing me to serve others using my interests and passions and thus live a more peaceful and meaningful life.
So I undertook further training in different healing modalities, made lots of new connections and set up my energy healing practice. Many workshops and courses in self awareness and self development and using energy for healing changed how I saw myself and enhanced my whole outlook on life. I began to realise I wanted others to feel and see that too as it was so life enhancing. I still had work as a part time psychology lecturer and of course Gemma and I created The Seashack over 4 years ago now. So you can see I developed three separate but actually quite interconnected strands of income. I loved to teach, I loved to paint and create and I loved to help people learn to open up through energy healing and to shed lots of the baggage they were carrying so they could remove any barrier to their own dreams.
In my 50s I continued to follow my dreams – as they were then – realising that as we grow and evolve, so do our dreams, so I remained open and flexible to what inspired me and showed up in my life. All the while, learning more about me, my place in the world, and staying as true to myself as I could.
I’ve now reached my 60s – and the dreams have not diminished – if anything they have grown!
The Seashack grows from strength to strength as Gemma and I are growing and evolving. We continue to dream, collectively, and luckily have similar aspirations and are on the same wavelength!
I still teach psychology and am evolving my energy practice all the time as my knowledge grows. Strands are pulling together as I undertake more personal learning, enhancing my knowledge and understanding of energy and how our psychology works.
Over the last 7 years another, quite unexpected, passion has emerged. To blend creativity and travel to my most favourite place on the planet I am besotted with the Hebridean islands. They are a wild and restless landscape, a beautiful, magical, mystical and largely empty space that I am drawn back to time and time again. The thrill of exploring uninhabited islands, seeing whales, dolphins and basking sharks, paddling in stunning turquoise sea so unbelievably clear (and freezing!), and exploring empty, white shell sand beaches. Magical wildlife – like seeing the puffins coming out of their burrows, the otters in amongst the seaweed and the great golden and sea eagles majestically soaring. Ok so there is another blog in itself here it seems (!).
I digress.
Here’s the thing. I now have a dream to travel the Hebrides, beachcombing and paints in hand to capture the essence of the landscape, that others may be able to experience how I feel about them. I have another dream (shared with Gemma I might add) to have an actual live Seashack space (rather than virtual space) where we can both work, play and authentically experience the message we are trying to share with people. I also dream of living right next to the sea - maybe even on a boat (!).
To me, dreams are important. They lend themselves to purpose and meaning in our lives. They may not always be fulfilled – maybe the universe has something even better in mind, so my dreams are always couched by a proviso – ‘this or something better’ – there are greater forces at work than I can ever hope to understand. I know, if I listen to what’s in my heart and follow the threads I am inspired to follow, everything will work out for the best interests of everyone.
In the words of Henry David Thoreau:
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
Shirley x
