I don’t know exactly what you need to do to be your full self. Only you know that. What I can tell you is that to be who you are, you’ll have to stop being who you are not.* Katherine Morgan Schafler
What draws you out of yourself?** Donald Miller
What’s your plan for waking up to your story each morning – To be able to connect to and tell your story every day?
One thing for sure is that no plan opens the door for others to write our stories for us.
Here’s one thing to try: Notice what stirs your heart today, and write about it tomorrow morning.
A good story isn’t just about the hero. It’s about people the hero loves, the people dependent on the hero, the victim the hero is going to rescue. Stories may be told through the lens of the hero, but they are always about what is happening to a community of people.* Donald Miller
Everybody said you should serve a cause larger than yourself, but nobody tells you how.** David Brooks
The notion of making a difference goes up a notch when our service and enabling of another makes it possible for them to make their difference in the lives of those around them.
What this might be is not up to us – And therein lies the fun and wonder of it all – But it is why dreamwhispering exists: It’s about you and your dream … And the people you will work your magic for, Through your talents, energies, and values – Three places to begin.
For people seeking to make a difference, it begins wit helping other people make a difference though.^
The aim of individuation requires that one should find and learn to live out of one’s own centre, in control of one’s for and against.* Joseph Campbell
Meaning is centred in love: love for your projects, our world, our communities, and our families. We’ve got to find something that pulls us out of ourselves.** Donald Miller
The first part of the necessary journey can be exhilarating: Growing to know our own mind and heart, Making decisions for ourselves, Becoming a separate person.
Then, on discovering this not to be the destination, but a part of the journey, We are not sustained and we must begin to find each other, to help and serve each other – Thus the hero becomes the guide, and: The main characteristic of a guide is that they help the hero win.**
The best stories and novels lead the reader not to an explanation, but to a place of wonder.** Peter Turchi
How important it is to see this person for who they are, Beyond labels or explanations; How critical for this person to see themselves beyond the stories they’ve been self-telling.
I may be talking about you, I am definitely talking about me; I think I want to be proven wrong when it comes to my story: I’ve been doing it wrong all along. This is one of the great benefits of learning. It’s also a common challenge. … If you need to be proven right, learning is a challenge. If you’re eager to be proven wrong, Learning is delightful.^
Even when our story cum explanation of life so far contains pain – even here, there is hope; See this from Susan Cain: Have you realised that you’re part of a long and storied tradition that can help you transform yor pain into beauty, your longing into belonging? … And have you asked what is the ache you can’t get rid of – and could you make it your creative offering?^^
And this from Donald Miller: Pain, then, is often the teacher that transforms the hero into a guide. That is, if their attitude toward pain is accepting and redemptive.*^
There is more to everyone than meets the eye, Including you and me: Life is to find the secret within.
The more something is shared, the greater its value becomes. Robin Wall Kimmerer
I have married a lot of people, That is, married this person to this person, And I would sometimes share how we need to grow from being in love to being loving, Perhaps the journey from being an abstract noun to a verb; It means that even if we cannot think or feel loving, we can act loving.
One of the most popular readings for those who wanted something from scripture on their wedding day goes like this: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.**
And, if a verb, It means that we can develop and grow love as a skill, And then we can add love to anything we do.
It’s a miracle. The ability to invent beauty out of thin air.* Gabe Anderson
You’re either the person who creates energy. Or you’re the one that destroys it.** Seth Godin
Your talents, Your energies, Your values – Just waiting to bring something into being that wasn’t there before: An idea, A connection, A completed piece of work, A galvanised team.
There are naïve questions, tedious questions, ill-placed questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every questions is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.* Carl Sagan
Hard work can be done without consequence. Contribution, however, is hard work with others in mind.** Gabe Anderson
The best answers always seem to provoke more questions; At least this is how it appears for me in my dreamwhispering work: Questions uncovering more of what is hidden or unobserved in a person’s life – And there’s always more to uncover.
A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres. … At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope.* John O’Donohue
Maybe your life will work. Most likely it won’t at first, but that will give you poetry.** Yrsa Daley-Ward
On the surface of things, It’s a thin line to cross; Beneath the surface there’s a whole lot more going on.
The line itself is unlikely to be the source of resistance; That’s mostly to be found inside ourselves.
My hope is for a world in which all are invited to cross the line into their something more; That there’s a whole load of stuff going on inside of us at this moment is our opportunity for transcendence.
Out of this sense of belonging, the world seems to call to us, to recognise us, and to speak to us directly, the voice itself an embodiment of our particular nature, and the way that nature finds a home in the world. At best. this conversation between ourselves and the world becomes our work.* David Whyte
Happiness cannot be pursued, it can only ensue. Viktor Frankl
When we belong to ourselves – That is, when we are at home in our lives – We also feel at home in the world and universe.
It’s not that the world behaves as David Whyte imagines it, But it feels as if it recognises and speaks to us, And this sense of belonging is more than enough for us to be creative and to make our contribution.
Here in our sense of belonging are found the two questions I often refer to – The personal and the social myths Joseph Campbell believes that we each need: Who is my True Self? What is my Contribution?
There are many places we may feel we do not belong, But never here, You always belong here.
THIN|SILENCE 
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