dream a little dream

Weekly Ali Edwards sends out an email called 52 Creative Lifts. This week I loved it! Everything about this article spoke to me and I think we all need to do this a little more. I know it's long but worth the read :)
"WEEK 21
DECLARE A DREAM DAY






Last weekend I had a chance to connect with some creative friends for conversation and brainstorming and sharing about work and life.


One of those conversations was with Tracey. We talked about our list of work-related tasks and how it's challenging to find the time to work on some of the bigger dreams on our list because we get caught up in the minutia of daily working life.


She told me that she's started setting aside days just for dreaming and just for working on those bigger projects. I'm pretty sure that "Tell me more" and "I love that idea" were the first two things that came out of my mouth. As she shared about her day I knew this was something I need to make time for and something I wanted to share with you.
I asked her to write a bit about it - here's to dreams becoming reality.




MY DREAM DAY by TRACEY CLARK


I'm not new to dreaming. I subscribed to the dream program a long time ago. Daring to dream. Dreaming big. Dream weaving. Musing on my dream scenarios. I dream when I sleep and when I wake. When I walk, talk, sit, stand, drive, write, read. I dream about the things I’d like to accomplish, the places I’d like to go, the state of being I’d like to carry with me. I dream about my wants, needs, my wishes, my best life.






I’ve got dreaming down. And yet amidst all that dreaming, I’ve discovered a dream deficit.






I might be good at dreaming but I’m not nearly as good at giving those dreams my full attention. I do dream a lot but I’ve realized I do it while I’m also doing something else. I’ve likened it to talking to someone and texting at the same time. We’ve all done it (or a variation of it) and know that although you can do both, when you do, both things suffer. Not giving the task at hand your full attention means that you’re not 100% tuned into it. Not giving my dreams my full attention means quite frankly, that I’m inadvertently neglecting them.
One recent late night, exhausted from a long day, I was thinking about all the dreams I have and how I have put little or no time or energy into manifesting them. Doing my dream work (if you want to call it that) was almost always last on my to-do list, only to be done after all of my other work. All the have-tos, the shoulds, the daily tasks usually come first and since that list never gets any shorter I rarely even get down to the dream list.


How could my dreams materialize if I didn’t make time or room for them? Light bulb moment.


Right then and there while melting into the couch, eyelids heavy, I declared that next morning Dream Day. In a few short, decisive minutes I laid out the ground rules. I would take the day off from anything and everything that didn’t have to do with dream tending (not including my family obligations, of course). The inbox would have to wait. The phone wouldn’t get answered. The deadlines would be put on hold. Unless any of those things were directly connected to my dreams, they could wait. It was just a few hours of one day. I knew I could do it. And I knew it had to be done.


The next day—Dream Day—was in a word, dreamy. I used my time to muse and envision, to journal and make lists, and to begin and even finish some tasks that I knew would get me closer to my dreams. I gave what I was doing my full attention and I was 100% tuned in. It felt exciting and invigorating to nurture my dreams like that, to give myself permission to spend my time and energy on my dreams.


Who knows what my now regularly scheduled Dream Days might bring but my guess is whatever comes will go beyond my wildest dreams.


Tracey Clark is a photographer, writer, collaborator, and founder of shuttersisters.com. She's the co.author of Expressive Photography: a Shutter Sisters Guide to Shooting From the Heart, author of Waiting for Baby & Baby of Mine & the soon-coming title Elevate the Everyday: a Photographic Guide to Picturing Motherhood, due out July 2012."

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So do a little dreaming this weekend...