Learning to dream again

The year was 1987.  I was a petite seven year old with wavy light brown hair, and freckles sprinkled about my face.  My mom would call them “Angel Kisses”, and I truly believed her.  We lived in the sleepy, overcast town of Carlsbad, not five minutes from the beautiful Pacific ocean.  I attended St. Patrick’s Catholic school, and was often often lost in my own little world throughout the school day.  I remember one day, my teacher, Mrs. Lents, was cross with me.  I had forgotten my P.E. clothes.  She singled me out in front of the class to ask why I didn’t remember to pack them in my backpack the night before. I sighed heavily and replied “I just have a lot on my mind”.  Mrs. Lents turned to the class and said, “Raise your hand if you have a lot on your mind, but you still remembered your P.E. clothes.”  One by one, my classmates nervously looked at me and raised their hands.  Oh, the betrayal! It was then, as I looked around a sea of raised hands, it was the first time I thought to myself…There is something different about me.

It wasn’t until I was 27, that I came to find that according to the Meyer’s Brigg Personality test, there’s a name for why I prefer my dreams to reality, and have always felt so different. I am an INFP (Introverted-Intuitive-Feeling-Percieving). Each of the 16 personality types has a title, and mine is “The Idealist”. (I will go into more detail about the Meyer’s Brigg in another post, but I feel it’s important to mention here, because our innate personalities really do dictate how we live our lives and follow our dreams.)  I’m introverted rather than extroverted by nature, meaning I “re-charge” with time alone. I’m intuitive over sensing – I just know something is right or wrong, on or off instead of sensing it with my five senses. In Ireland, it is referred to as “fey”; my Irish grandmother had that gift.  It’s strange; almost like one is prescient — they know something is going to happen before it does.  I feel things deeply versus thinking of them, and I perceive what is going on in the world around me, instead of judging.  (The opposite personality type of me turns out to be one of my best friends in the whole world.  He’s an ESTJ – and I have no idea how we get along so well. But again, I’ll save that for another post!)

So, my little INFP self would retreat to my room once school was out.  It was there, in my room, I would get lost for hours in my imagination.  I had a windowsill of sorts that I could sit on and stare out at the sky and ocean.   I was watching a lot of Snoopy at the time, and Snoopy always had these great adventures.  He’d visit his cousin, Spike, who lived under a cactus in the desert.  He’d fly on his doghouse and pretend he was a fighter pilot.  In my all-time-favorite Snoopy movie, Snoopy Come Home, he had many adventures all on his own. He learns that his first owner, Lila, is sick in the hospital.  So, he travels to visit her.

This movie is the one that inspired me to create my own character in a series of books, who did all kinds of things on her own.

Her name was Carol.

As I was preparing for this post, I opened my old shoe box and read through these old stories.  I took a picture, and all of the stories you see in the photo are all of the books I wrote between 1987-1988. They are 27 years old!  I have kept them for some reason.  Why?

Perhaps it was to hold on to the part of me that still believed I could dream.

Carol had gumption.  She was the girl I wanted to be.  Carol went swimming, hiking, surfing, rode a bike, made new friends.  Every adventure I wanted to do in my young 7-year old mind, she did.  And, she was very different from me.  She could be a bully at times.  She was brave.  She stood up for herself, and when she wanted to do something, she just did it.  Like, the time when she packed up her knapsack and decided to go to the mountains.  She found an abandoned cabin, built a fire, and took a dip in a stream.  And she didn’t mince her words.  In Carol Gets Sick, she just simply tells everyone “Go Away” and yells at them.  She feels much better after she “pukes”, and there are colorful illustrations on that book. (I had just recovered from my first stomach flu, and was traumatized).  All this to say, at a young age, I had an idea of the type of girl I wanted to be.  But, in my little INFP mind, it would not come easily or naturally to me.

I recently sat across from my mom and tearfully expressed, “I don’t dream anymore”.  She looked at me kindly and advised me on how to start dreaming again (I love you, mom!).  As a child, I spent most of it in a day dream.  I’m pretty sure I spent my entire elementary, junior high, and high school years blissfully unaware of the world around me.  (Modern society is not the ideal place for an INFP because we have to actually function, and not dream all day!) But in college, I started to wake up to the harsh realities of the world. Graduate school was a blur of anatomy classes and clinical practicum, and once I became a speech-language pathologist, my world was less of the dreams, and all about the responsibilities of my new career.  “Adulting”, as we see it called in memes.  I know it’s even biblical to leave our childish ways behind:

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” – 1 Corinthians 13:11.

But what about the desires of our hearts? Our aspirations? Our ideas for the future? How do we marry the idea of being an adult, but still holding on to childhood dreams?

I think it’s so easy to get lost in the slog of day-to-day responsibilities.  We pay our bills, we commute to work, we fill up our gas tanks, we do the laundry and the grocery shopping.  And there is merit and dignity in doing things we don’t want to do.  Not only is it necessary for our survival, but it builds character.  But…I think it’s just as important to carve out time in your day to dream.

I read a book called The Dream Manager, by Matthew Kelly.  It is a great book for managers, especially – to improve morale among employees by asking them what their dreams are.  Kelly says that many of us need help articulating our dreams, whether they are aware of it or not.  He encourages one to think of their own dreams, “Smart” dreams:

S-Specific

M- Measurable

A- Actionable

R- Realistic

T – Timed

He goes on to say that many of us don’t manage our money well so they can achieve their dreams (I’m guilty of that – but Dave Ramsey helped me turn that around!).  That those of us that have money and don’t manage it well are no better off than those that don’t have any money to manage.  He states that every relationship improves when we are mindful of people’s dreams.

He states that our dreams provide “hope in the form of a plan”.

I just love that.

So, my challenge to you (as well as to myself), is to two-fold. 1. Visit the link below and learn what your personality type is. 2. Write down 100 dreams.  Write it in a journal, or post it on your refrigerator where you can see it everyday.  It might seem a bit daunting to do at first, but you will be surprised at how many dreams you really do have.  Here are some guides to help you brainstorm:

Are they physical (lifestyle habits, addictions, exercise), Emotional (relationships, security, helping others), Intellectual (reading, learning, taking a new class), Spiritual (developing your relationship with God and yourself), Psychological (overcome fears, insecurities, develop self-control), Material (home ownership, new vehicle, farm, retirement home), Professional (promotion, develop a new service/goods, increase sales), Financial (become debt-free, investment goals, financial freedom), Creative (explore the arts, write a book, paint, create/craftsmanship), Adventure (mountain climbing, traveling, SCUBA), Legacy (instill values in your children, volunteer, charitable giving), Character (develop patience, take a walk, be worthy of trust).

These are just some areas to get you started.  Click below to take the personality test, and find out what makes you…You! Knowing your strengths and preferences will also help you as you learn to dream again.

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

I look forward to hearing about what you learn about yourself on this journey.  Feel free to share your dreams in the comments section, whether they be dreams for you, your children, your spouse, or your family as a whole.

Until then, keep dreaming, dear readers.

Sheila