Now that you are here,
Let everything else drop away.
Let the past stay in the past.
Let the future come as it will.
Sit still.
Inhale deeply and exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Welcome to a hit of hope.
I recently heard the phrase,
Dream incubation,
And I was immediately intrigued.
So I did what I often do.
I went to the Oxford English Dictionary to see what it had to say.
The word incubate means to sit upon,
Eggs,
In order to hatch them.
Sit on our dreams?
That feels like the opposite of what we should be doing.
I had two older brothers,
And I can't tell you how many times they sat on me,
And they wouldn't get off until I proclaimed them king of the world or some such nonsense.
Inhale.
Exhale.
For me,
That's the thing.
If we sit on our dreams,
How can they breathe?
Won't they be squashed before they even have a chance to come to life?
But,
Perhaps,
I protest because sitting is an electric fence for me.
If I am still,
It isn't long before I feel a zing and up I pop to do something.
Inhale.
Exhale.
As I considered this idea more,
Or you might say as I sat with this idea more,
I realized that prolonged and intentional stillness,
I.
E.
Incubation,
It works wonders for birds.
So why not for dreams?
The reason this matters so much to me right now is I have some pretty big dreams I'm considering,
And I want to do this right.
Maybe you also have big dreams.
Maybe you feel the need for a different reality,
Whether that be in big or even small ways.
Inhale.
Exhale.
While this kind of sitting might seem passive,
It actually provides two key ingredients for our dreams.
Energy and protection.
To sit in this case means to bring energy to the dream,
Like the warmth that a mother bird brings to her unhatched eggs.
In yoga,
This is called tapas.
The idea is if you want something to change,
You have to bring some heat to it.
You bring the body a good fire to create change.
In yoga and with dreams,
It's best if this heat is a steady one.
If you don't have enough or only intermittent heat,
The unhatched thing will grow cold and probably die.
If you add too much heat too quickly,
You sizzle the egg,
Just like those old commercials that warned us this is your brain on drugs.
You want to get the energy just right to keep the dream alive so it can grow into the winged thing,
Ready to soar in the wide open world.
Something else that sitting does?
It protects the fragile thing.
This means that you work to keep your dream safe and whole so it can grow and turn into something real and more beautiful than you might have ever imagined.
Since life can be a bit Godzilla,
Crushing our dreams right and left,
We need to protect them,
Fighting off those things that want to smash our dreams to bits.
These might be external foes or wily internal ones.
It might be the voice that asks,
Who do you think you are?
Or the one that tells you all the reasons you can't.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Protect your dreams.
And while we're at it,
Can we also nourish others while they are hatching their dreams?
Can we feed them in ways that help them realize the dreams that mean so much to them?
Because dreams are not a zero sum game.
As the saying goes,
We all do better when we all do better.
So get clear about your dreams.
Then give them your energy and protection.
Whoever told you no doesn't know what you are capable of.
They might have to wait and then wait some more,
But with time and intention,
Energy and protection,
I bet before long,
A flood of delight will rush into your body because it will be the day your dream cracks wide open.
Before long,
Your dream will sing.
This amazing,
Singular song.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Come big and live light.
