Courageous Dreaming

This is good.

Quick quiz:

Which would you prefer?

(a) Having the life you want.

(b) Having the reasons why you can’t have that life.

Which do you choose?

(And, you realize it’s a choice, right?)

As Richard Bach tells us, “Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours.”

Alberto walks us through the typical characters in our drama: There’s what he calls the “Victim” + the “Bully” + the “Rescuer.” Those characters tend to play themselves out in our Victim story with us starring in any or all of the roles at various times. Again and again and again.

That’s one option—to perpetuate the victim story. The other option is to write a new story featuring you cast in the role of the hero. In that model, you no longer complain about the “Bullies” in your life and you no longer look for the “Rescuer” to save you from all your challenges. You step up and meet your challenges heroically.

David Emerald talks about a similar model in his great little book The Power of TED* (see those Notes). It’s one of the most powerful books I’ve read and I just *love* his model. He calls the unhealthy triad of “Victim” + “Persecutor” (aka “Bully”) + “Rescuer” the Dreaded Drama Triangle (DDT for short).

The antidote to DDT is what he calls The Empowerment Dynamic or TED* for short. The Empowerment Dynamic features a Victim who has chosen (!) to become a “Creator” and who now perceives her Persecutors as “Challengers” and no longer looks for Rescuers but gets support from Coaches.

She is now the hero of her own story—letting go of all the reasons she can’t have the life she wants and choosing to create a more empowered story.

Here’s a Big Idea: How does the Victim become a Creator? By shifting from a constant focus on all that is wrong to reflecting on one simple question: “What do I want?”

What do YOU want?

Remember: “You can live the life of a victim, burdened by the traumas of your past, or you can live the life of a hero, but you can’t do both. If you want to feel empowered, you need to make a courageous decision to create a sacred dream and practice courage.”

First, I’m blown away every time I remind myself of the neurological fact that our brains can’t distinguish between an event from the past that we’re currently thinking about and an event that is actually happening now. They make, essentially, the same impact on your brain. Nutty.

So, when we constantly recall all the tragedies of our past, it’s as if we’re reliving them NOW. That’s not a wise thing to do.

Following Hebb’s Law, those memories continue to fire together and, therefore, continue to wire together—keeping those experiences fresh in our consciousness and ready for recall.

We’d be much better off letting those stories go. When we stop feeding them, we diminish the power of the neural networks supporting them. That’s a good thing. And it’s a very important part of shifting from our victim stories to our heroic dreams.

That’s the past brought into the present. What about the future? Same rules apply, of course. But notice a key distinction Alberto makes here—one we’ve come back to a number of times as we’ve discussed the power of visualization.

We don’t want to visualize winning the gold medal. That’s just wishful daydreaming. We want to imagine successfully running the race! (Or doing whatever is required to achieve our outcome.) THAT is what grooves the neural pathways for the successful run that will lead to the gold medal.

Huge distinction.

I love sharing Heidi Grant Halvorson’s wisdom from Succeed (see Notes) in this context. She says: “What about “visualizing success”? I won’t name names, but it seems like there are an awful lot of self-help books out there telling people that if they just picture what they want in their minds, it will somehow happen. That would be great if it were true, but scientifically speaking, there really isn’t much evidence for it. On the other hand, visualization can be very helpful, if you imagine the steps you will take in order to succeed, rather than the success itself. Mentally simulating the process of achieving the goal, rather than the hoped-for outcome, not only results in a more optimistic outlook, but in greater planning and preparation. Picture yourself doing what it takes to succeed, and you will soon find yourself believing that you can. The best part is, you’ll be absolutely right.”

And continues: “Don’t visualize success. Instead, visualize the steps you will take in order to succeed. Just picturing yourself crossing the finish line doesn’t actually help you get there— but visualizing how you run the race (the strategies you will use, the choices you will make, the obstacles you will face) not only will give you greater confidence, but also leave you better prepared for the task ahead. And that is definitely realistic optimism.”

So, back to you.

You letting go of your old stories and courageously dreaming your new heroic actions?

Alberto walks us through the four levels of perception that represent the four different types of courage we want to engage to most powerfully and courageously dream.

Check out the book for more detail, but here’s a quick re-cap of the four levels of consciousness:

Eagle represents the Spirit: “The eagle is the symbol of the highest level of perception, where we’re able to see the big picture and the details at the same time. At the level of eagle, we experience that we’re part of the all-seeing and all-knowing divine force.”

Hummingbird represents the Soul: “The hummingbird is the symbol of the great traveler, and at this level of perception, we recognize that each of us has a unique journey to take.”

Jaguar represents the Mind: “In the Amazon, the jaguar is considered the guardian and protector of the rain forest.” She is the finest hunter and has no fear. Jaguar consciousness helps us “figure out ways that we might make our visions come to fruition, and we adjust our plan to keep our own passion burning while we inspire others.”

Serpent represents the Physical: “The physical level of reality is represented by the serpent, who has no thoughts or emotions and who operates on pure instinct.”

Basic idea: Each level has different energies. We want to be aware of how to utilize and express each most powerfully. Check out the book for more goodness on all that!

Newsflash: You’re not going to be perfect. (I always laugh when I type that.)

Seriously. We need to quit thinking ANYONE is perfect. Even our greatest, most admired heroes were flawed. All of them. Period.

Alberto reminds us that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, had children with one of his slaves and even allowed them (his own children!) to be slaves for a period. Yet he was still great. Flawed and all.

Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream and he also had extramarital affairs. John Lennon wrote that all we need is love and had a terrible relationship with his oldest son. Flawed. Yet heroic.

So, let’s quit setting ourselves up for failure and burnout by thinking we need to be perfect and just get on with the business of becoming a little more courageous day in and day out!

P.S. Abraham Maslow (see Notes on Motivation and Personality) studied the greatest people of his generation. He called them self-actualizers and tells us that they “show many of the lesser human failings. They too are equipped with silly, wasteful, or thoughtless habits. They can be boring, stubborn, irritating. They are by no means free from a rather superficial vanity, pride, partiality to their own productions, family, friends, and children. Temper outbursts are not rare.”

In short, let’s remember: “There are no perfect human beings! Persons can be found who are good, very good indeed, in fact, great. There do in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers, and movers… even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen. And yet these very same people can at times be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish, angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it.”

I love that.

Remember that the typical superhero acquires his or her great power only AFTER something tragic happens to him.

Could the same be true of you?

Here’s to being the humble hero who responds to challenges by answering a call to a courageous destiny as we serve in big ways and small!

This is awesome.

Want to boost your mood and wire your brain with goodness?

At the end of your day, think about three things that went well for which you’re grateful AND think about what *you* did to help manifest those things.

It’s scientifically proven to be huge. (That’s the technical description. “Huge.” Hah.)

Martin Seligman, the godfather of Positive Psychology, shares an almost identical exercise in his most recent book on the science of happiness Flourish (see Notes).

How about we start this now? What are three things that have gone well over the last 24 hours and what role did you play in bringing that awesomeness into your life?

Mindfulness and meditation.

There they are again.

It’s pretty straightforward: If we want to spot our everyday opportunities for courage, we need to be able to notice them! We can’t be zipping through life so fast and reactively that we miss opportunities to show up more fully.

And that requires mindfulness.

And that’s best cultivated, as we know, via a consistent meditation practice.

(How’s yours? :)

This is the final chapter. If we want to dream courageously, we need to embrace our own mortality. We need to be ready to die at any moment.

Alberto shares a couple great exercises to help us embrace this reality.

First, when you wake up, spend a little time in bed imagining your perfect day. What do you do? How do you show up? How do you treat people? See that. Create that perfect day TODAY. It might be your last.

Second, imagine you’ve died. Today. What eulogy would you write for yourself? What memories would you want people to hold on to? How did you touch others? How did you respond to challenges and what did you achieve? Write that heroic story now. And if there are parts you wish were true, get to work on getting your life in integrity so they are true. Powerful stuff.