I have a dream

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By Andrea M. Winn, MEd

Martin Luther King Jr. enflamed the hearts of over 200,000 people with his I Have a Dream Speech delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial August 28, 1963. He powerfully proclaimed his dream of racial equality and an end to discrimination.

Listen to 30 seconds of his speech now

Less than 50 years after King’s powerful moment of dreaming, the world has witnessed the election of Barack Obama, a man who was judged not by the colour of his skin but by the content of his character.

Wow! The power of a dream!

A dream starts out as a fragile thing. Something that needs nurture. Something that needs protection.

There are forces of darkness that want to snuff out dreams, keep things the way they are, and hide the rich beauty of our living, beating human heart in some cold, dark cave. We see countless examples of dream snuffings. Including the assassination of great dreamers like King.

But you know, the most insidious attack comes from within – those voices within us that say, “You could never do that”, “It’s just not right for someone like you to do that – only important people can do that!”, “only rich, slim, beautiful people can do that!,” or the worst one… “That’s a stupid idea!”

Let me share a secret with you. Whenever you get that last message resounding through your head, WAKE UP! Because that is a sure sign that you are onto something good! You better grab that dream with both hands and wrap your heart around it. Whatever that little whisper was about, it has shaken up the forces of sleep that just want everything to stay the same – the same ol’ comfortable dark way.

And how do you manifest a dream? How do you nurture it? How do you grow it? It is like bringing a child into this world. You need to love it, and you need to attend to it in different ways at different times, as it’s development calls for.

People have told me they’ve read hundreds of self-help books, but they have not made the changes they want to make – they don’t know how to *be* the person they want to be or live the kind of life they want to live.

I’m offering to be a guiding light for you in this. I have received a calling from God to be a light of creative love and wisdom to help people like you. Let’s be clear — I’m still fully in the ballgame of lifelong learning. What empowers me as your guide is my lifelong commitment to developing dream-manifestation techniques and the core primal ability to do so. I’d like to share my wisdom and my inspiration with you in ways that will incite your own dreaming and dream manifestation.

Dream manifestation is not done by a magic incantation or snap of the fingers… or the right anti-aging cream, like many of today’s advertisers suggest. You *will* need to develop yourself through spiritual discipline. It requires work and courage.

But it can also be fun! A lot of fun!

And it can be a whole lot easier and faster with a guide. I bumbled around for 30 years figuring out what I have figured out through my practice of Buddhism, studying with a shaman, going to therapists, taking courses, reading books, and learning in the school of life. My experience could have been *way* more enjoyable, easier and faster with a skilled dream mentor. This is part of what has motivated me to step up and develop myself as that kind of mentor.

I’m in process, and I invite you to be in process with me and enter the magic of transformation. The *real* kind of magic! A magic based on spiritual connection and practical strategies. I am very inspired to lead you in this!

I feel that this first communication to you in 2012 is very important. So I decided to bring in the power of Martin Luther King’s dreaming, some practical advice about dreaming, and… perhaps best of all… I have decided to share with you my experience of forming and manifesting a dream. So please come along for the ride, and receive this gift from my dreaming heart to yours.

I had a truly kick ass experience working with the company I hired to develop my website in December. Joseph Rodrigues, the Project Manager, and I gave birth to a creative relationship through the intense fires of birthing an AMAZING website in just 3 weeks. I infected him with my passion and precision, and he infected me with his open heart, generosity and willingness to engage through *every* experience. Prior to meeting Joseph I kept my phone ringer off, but I had to start being available to consult with him numerous times per day. YIKES! What a leap for this quiet little dreaming introvert!

Fast forward to January. Now Joseph is manifesting his dream: experimenting with running his business from  the Mayan Riviera for a month. I love this! He is so courageous! So adventurous! He could just stay home and stay safe, keep things stable and the same (the deadly same!). Instead, he is down there this very moment connecting with the local people, spreading connections of love and honour and building bridges of inspiration and respect between the people of that area and the people of the outside world. I love this!

I have been working for the past three months with the book, The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss, which is all about lifestyle design. And Joseph has ignited a very dry pile of hay created by my work with this book. I WANT TO DESIGN AN AMAZING LIFE OF JOY AND BRINGING PEACE TO THE WORLD! Universe, I hope you heard that! Because I want to do this in a BIG way! And I need your support in that.

I was at the Mayan ruins in Tulum a year and a half ago and was totally invigorated and moved by them. The Mayan calendar ended in 2011, attuning all of us to the profundity of the year 2012. The old system is finished, and we have arrived on the threshold of a new way of doing things – we are creating a new world order. That is very exciting! And I want to connect with the Mayan wisdom at this time. I don’t know how else to put this other than I have a very deep calling to go down there and be in that space – interact with that space – and explore how to make this wisdom of transformation available to all the people I love back home, and to all the people of this world.

I did some preparation for this dream with The 4-Hour Workweek just after Christmas in Kensington Market’s Moonbeam Cafe. I did an exercise on writing down a clear picture of my worst nightmare – everything that could possibly go wrong if I did this trip. I’ve decided I can handle even that worst nightmare scenario – I *could* survive. And of course, it is unlikely my worst fears will happen. This exercise opened up my realizing the benefits and possibility – and opportunities – that are part of this spiritual adventure to Tulum.

So I told Joseph I want to come down there and join him for a week. He loved the idea and said he can show me around and we can do more work on my website. I love that!

My excitement is there, but I have to tell you, this dream is still at the tender new stage. I had two nearly sleepless nights last week, and that really didn’t break until yesterday. I got up and showered to wake myself up after a light 4 hours sleep for a Skype meeting with Joseph at 9 yesterday (Saturday) morning. We covered off the items about my website and then got into a deeply spiritual and inspiring discussion for another 2 hours. We stepped into tender places of sharing and dreaming. This is a beautiful way we are forming our relationship, and it is propelling both of us further in manifesting our dreams.

At this point I know what dates will work for me to go down there. I know I want to be near the ruins in Tulum and I want to be near Joseph so I can work with him. The unknowns are: (1) where I will stay, (2) how exactly I’m going to pay for this adventure, (3) how I will ensure my elderly cat gets the sub-cu fluid treatments she needs while I’m away, and (4) when I can reschedule the meeting that week with my life coaching group.

I talked with Joseph again last night, and I decided to go ahead and book my flights -> because as the clock ticks, flight prices are going up and flight choices are dwindling. Joseph is in the process of making connection with a sustainable resort in Tulum. And depending on how his meetings go, I may stay there. Joseph may stay there the week I will be there, too – so we can do some inspiring work together – both on my website and on manifesting both of our’s dreams. I think I’ve found a wonderful dreaming partner in Joseph!

So, I invite you to come along for the ride with me and see how I navigate and negotiate my way into manifesting this dream – a dream lifestyle where I can connect with the spirit of the Mayan people on a beautiful beach and bring the energy and inspiration of that to you, my people in the world, through this glorious internet. Maybe I’m going to have to learn how to set up a blog to share my experience. I’d like to do that. In fact, I’m inspired to do that! Because I have developed a grounded, spiritual, sophisticated and RAW approach to manifesting dreams. And I’d like to rouse my courage to come out of my shell and share my heart through sharing my approach to manifesting this dream with you. And of course the whole purpose is to inspire YOU to develop your own dream manifestation skills. Everyone has their own way of dreaming and manifesting!

And this is why I speak of the joy – the joy-full  environment that we create around ourselves as we are dreaming. That is part of the protection from the dream assassins. Create a field of joy to nurture and protect your dreaming process. We will talk about other aspects of dream protection at another time. The dream incubator is one of my fortes, and I want to enjoy sharing about that with you over the coming months.

So, wow!! I managed to open my heart and begin to share with you about my current dream – an adventure with Joseph in Tulum later this month! Come on along, and you too can start to show a little love to your dreams. It’s 2012! What better year to open to a whole new way of being – a whole new way of organizing your life? To open to joy and abundance, and to digging down deep to see what you have to offer to this world. Because I know that each and every one of you has your personal gift – your personal legacy – to bring forth to help this planet and all of us who enjoy her grace in living here. Your gift is needed. From my heart I am asking you,

Commit to your dreams in 2012!

With blessing,
Andrea

Welcoming an ocean of love in 2012

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By Andrea M. Winn, MEd

Popular wisdom teaches us to keep busy… fill our lives up with anything that might keep us entertained with a superficial promise of fulfillment… smooth over the raw moments and then promptly forget they ever happened –> to crawl into a comfortable dark cave of ignoring what is happening and slip peacefully into a blissful hibernation. And that is how it becomes possible to miss our lives. Although we have all had the good fortune to hear advice from great teachers such as Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, and a host of others, when it comes down to it, it is always a personal choice of whether to live in the brilliance of this moment or to crawl into our cave and sleep. The New Year is always a particularly potent time in which we make this choice.

In Tibetan Buddhism we say protector chants at dusk – chants that call enlightened protective energy to us. The reason for this is because the time of changing from day into night is a particularly powerful time in which we are more open-minded and there is more potential to grow and change; because it is such a powerful time, we are also more vulnerable to the attraction of hiding away in our cave. Therefore, we call in enlightened protective energies to come and be with us and to guard our mindfulness. It is an important and powerful practice… and a practice that is OH so easy to neglect in a busy Toronto lifestyle!

Similarly, the year end is potentially a powerful time to open ourselves to deeper awareness, growth and change. I would like to take this opportunity to call on the Wisdom Awareness Protectors to leap into action for everyone who connects with this article, and to bring their wise compassion to protecting the minds of these folks as they approach the end of this year and enter into the powerful next year.

Buddhism encourages us to live our lives fully – to value the opportunity we have in this life to develop our wisdom and to contribute to the welfare of this world. It can be easy to forget this and get caught up in meaningless minutiae, collecting material things, and focusing on the external rather than cultivating the internal. Just as in meditation, when we realize this has happened, all we need to do is bring ourselves back to our core purpose in life, take a deep breath, and take the next step forward.

So I would like to encourage all of you to take an hour to harvest the crops you planted and tended in the past year, to honour your work and your accomplishments this year, to mourn the things that didn’t work out the way you wanted, to re-discover what is truly meaningful to you, and identify your goals for the coming year. This is an important part of living life joyfully, mindfully, and true to the course of your life mission. If you are the kind of person that likes a good writing exercise, I offer you a link to the exercise , “Seven steps to spending more time planning your life than planning your vacation.” I love this title because vacations are nice, but living a joyful, mindful life is so much more fulfilling! This includes things like working in a job that resonates with who you are and your gifts; investing in the relationships that truly matter to you; living in a home that is genuine, warm and comfortable; and last but not least… pursuing your core heart dreams!

So on that note, I make a heartfelt wish that all of you may receive both blessings and protection as we transition into rockin’ 2012. There are so many people predicting that 2012 will be a year of mind blowing transition. And I say, “Bring it on!”. This world needs a whole lot of healing, and my heart is open wide to 2012 being the year that we welcome that Great Ocean of Love into our hearts to heal old wounds, make us whole, so we can all participate in creating a beautiful world – together. Where there IS peace. Where there IS joy. Where people care for themselves and each other and this precious earth. Thank you for being here, and may our connection grow in mutually empowering ways in the coming year. Cheerful New Year to you all!