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I am a dreamer, I have always been a dreamer. As a young little girl I'd be fantasizing around having colorful little beings, who lived on a rainbow, as friends. I remember the time when I started a conversation with a ladybird as I sat at the bottom of a huge olive tree in the heat of a southern italian summer day.
As I grew up, I often thought (and still do!) of how deeply I believed all these fantasies and how convinced I was, deep in my core, of their truthful nature.
One day on the way back home from a family day on the beach, we drove through a forest...I must have been 4 at the time. In the car, my mum turns around and alerts myself and my older sisters to keep an eye out as there could have been dear, foxes and other animals to be spotted. To which I naively asked..are we also going to see unicorns? My mum replied.."Valentina, unicorns are not real"... I did not flinch for a second, I did not get flustered, I did not lose it like a 4 year old is entitled to. I simply, firmly and calmly said "Mum, please stop lying".
We often hear those voices inside our minds telling us that our dreams are not real, that our desires are not possible. So we put off that course, we sabotage relationships, we never embark on that adventure, we never take that risk.
Now, our beautiful human brain has a key function to keep our decision making low risk, to keep us safe. Our brains are wired for safety, for survival. The brain is the loving mother telling us that unicorns do not exists, so we don't get hurt with disappointment.
Our job is to train our brains (and then our entire body system) to see possibility, to believe the butterflies fluttering in our stomach at the thought of our desires becoming realities.
So how do we do this? (Please note that the following is a summarized / simplified process. During a Coaching cycle this process might not be so linear and straight forward)
We start with creating clarity around what we desire the most and what dreams we want to transform in reality (what values these dreams and desires stand on is also an element of the work!). We also need to identify the limiting beliefs (the mum in our brains going back to the metaphor) that creep into our thinking and tell us lies.
This is not easy work but it's incredibly possible and infinitely rewarding. Once clarity on the desires and awareness of our automatic responses is at play, our job is to intentionally catch the liars!
"I am not good enough" please stop lying to me: I will build my own business.
"I don't deserve to be happy" please stop lying to me: I will have the home of my dreams.
"I was never loved and nobody wants me" please stop lying to me: I am loved, I am love.
"I was never a slim figure" please stop lying to me: I will lose weight.
"What is the point, I will never get there" please stop lying to me:I am safe and resourceful and I can embark on this journey, and any journey I want.
Catch those voices that are lying to you, the limiting thoughts you clung onto and that protected you in the past and are no longer needed.
And if my mum was right and unicorns are not real it's ok. Maybe I didn't need them to be real, maybe I only needed to BELIEVE the POSSIBILITY that they were... so I kept looking for them...
What my mum doesn't know is that, maybe, I have spotted a unicorn that day on the way back home from a family day on the beach when we drove through that forest....