Fulfilling Our Dreams & Desires Podcast #200

We all have goals and dreams, and if we don't, we should. Following our heart or soul's desire is a compass to expansion, joy, and fulfillment. Growing to be able to hold and express these dreams is our work. We also must discover the inner blocks that limit our process and progress toward what we really want.

Transcript

Welcome to Spiritual Psychology.

My name is Renee LaVallee McKenna,

And I bring my 30 plus years as a recovering addict and ex-crazy person turned therapist and shamanic healer to bring you snackable teachings on spirituality,

Psychology,

And all things personal growth.

And today I want to talk about getting the good stuff,

Seeking happiness,

Receiving what we really want,

Or at least what we think we really want.

And although I absolutely believe that we are here to pursue and manifest our deepest dreams and desires,

We also almost always need to grow and change to be able to hold and support those things that we most want in our life,

That the yearnings of our heart of hearts are aspirational.

And to aspire to something is to direct our hopes and ambitions and energies toward a loftier goal,

The things we aspire to,

We need to work for and grow to be able to achieve.

One of my favorite quotes is from Richard Bach,

Who wrote the classic Jonathan Livingston Seagoat,

My very first inspirational book.

My mother gave it to me when I was a teenager and the quote says,

We are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it come true.

We may have to work for it.

However,

I remember when I first got clean and sober and someone suggested to write a list of all the things I wanted in my life and to think big,

It's an excellent practice.

I encourage you to do it.

What would you do if you had no fear and no limitations,

Unlimited resources?

And the secret is on the ultimate level,

We do have unlimited resources,

But most of us don't believe that because we haven't experienced it.

And so we automatically limit what's possible for ourselves because our aspirations are too low.

This is the great benefit of surrendering to divine will is that we don't necessarily have to set goals for ourself.

We can let God or goddess do that for us and they often have much bigger plans than we might imagine for ourself.

In fact,

When we're honest with ourselves,

We will usually see our own fear and limitations and that's really important.

That's shadow work,

That's what good therapy and personal growth work is about is to see the blocks within ourself to the things and experiences we most really want because it is our inner limitations that manifest as external limitations to our process and progress.

And so I wrote this list,

My first wish list,

I wanted to lose 25 pounds,

I wanted to have a nice boyfriend,

I wanted to have meaningful relationships with women,

A steady job,

A car that didn't break down,

I wanted to feel like I was helpful to other people in my life.

And except for the car,

I got all that stuff within a year,

Or perhaps I could say I had achieved those things because they didn't just fall in my lap.

It took me decades before I had a decent car,

By the way,

And now I don't even have a car,

Which I love.

Prior to that,

I had been trying to change outside circumstances so that I would feel better on the inside and I now know that I had it backwards,

That I need to change my insides and then my external experience will change in much more organic and sustainable ways.

I had had nice guys who wanted to date me before that time and I wasn't interested.

I found them boring.

Lying,

Cheating,

Stealing bad boys were much more interesting and exciting for me because I was kind of a lying,

Cheating,

Stealing bad girl.

And like attracts like,

And that's so important to understand in relation to growing to be able to hold or achieve or receive what we most deeply want.

Because if I'm emotionally unavailable,

I'm not going to be able to maintain a relationship with an emotionally available person.

If I want to be deeply loved,

I need to be deeply loving.

If I want abundance in my life,

I need to release my unworthiness,

My poverty mentality,

Practice gratitude so that I can hold abundance in my life,

Whether it's money,

Relationships,

Joy,

Creativity.

If I don't believe I deserve it,

If I don't understand that I actually need to grow and expand to be able to hold more,

If I want more in my life,

Then even when the good things come,

I won't be able to maintain them or I'll even consciously or unconsciously reject them or maybe not even recognize them at all.

And I've been taught to do an annual or semi-annual deep personal evaluation to review my resentments,

My sexual and relational behavior,

And look deeply at my fears.

Because resentments,

Fear,

And sex are generally the three big areas that keep us stuck in lower resonance,

That constrict us and actually limit our ability to resonate with love,

Joy,

Peace,

And courage that most of us really want.

And the wants and desires we have,

We're supposed to pursue those.

They're the evolutionary carrot in front of the horse that keeps us moving.

And growth and evolution appears to be infinite from what I can see.

I've been doing personal growth work for over 36 years now,

And every time I think I've hit a plateau,

Some new door,

Staircase,

Or portal presents itself,

And there's a whole new wing of the funhouse that I don't know anything about.

And I have to say,

Approaching my 60th birthday,

I am having more fun than I have ever had in my life,

And it just seems to keep getting better,

Bigger,

Brighter,

And more exciting.

I have come to understand that what makes us really happy is progress,

Because it is our experiences,

Our felt experiences that are really the flavor,

Color,

And texture of life.

Acquiring power,

Money,

Relationships,

Material goods,

The joy in those things is fleeting.

It's the maintenance and interaction with them that brings us an experience of love or fear,

Gratitude or anxiety,

Peace or frustration.

And so when I did that annual self-evaluation,

What's called a fourth step in the 12-step process,

It was pointed out to me that I had achieved everything that I wanted for myself.

Maybe I should write a bigger list.

And so I did.

I wanted to write a book,

Sell some artwork,

Travel to Europe,

Maybe have children,

Work in television.

I was a communications major in college and thought I might want to produce documentaries.

And it took much longer than a year,

But I can tell you that I have achieved all of those things.

If we can consider YouTube,

TV,

And although at the time I wrote the list,

I might have thought I wanted those things all right away.

When I got honest with myself,

A lot of them scared the crap out of me.

I wanted to write a book,

But my ego wanted it to be a bestseller.

And if it wasn't going to be that,

Then I didn't want to write it.

And over time,

As I've deepened my self-evaluation and continued to circle around how to actually get the things I most deeply want,

I saw some interesting things.

I had an overinflated ego and an inferiority complex at the same time,

That I had both fear of failure and fear of success,

And that I needed to cultivate courage to move into the unknown,

To practice gratitude and happiness with what I had in my life right now.

Because if I didn't know how to be satisfied,

Grateful,

Or happy with what I had,

Then I wouldn't be satisfied,

Grateful,

Or happy if I had different things.

Because those are the attitudes that bring us fulfillment,

And appreciation is a practice.

And I was much more practiced at feeling unloved and unfulfilled.

I always put my fulfillment out into the future.

When I get this,

Or when he does that,

Or when she quits doing that,

Then I'll be happy.

But that attitude of my happiness being in the future would always keep happiness from me.

Even if I got those things,

There would be other circumstances that I would believe would make me more happy,

Because I was not practiced at being peaceful,

Happy,

And grateful in the present moment.

I have met many very unhappy,

Married,

Wealthy people.

I myself remember very clearly about seven or eight years ago,

I came back from a trip to Europe,

Was sitting on the deck of my house in San Francisco.

I had two kids,

Two cars,

Two dogs,

Two of everything,

And I was miserable.

My outside circumstances were not bringing me what I really wanted or needed.

In fact,

At that point,

I didn't even know what that was.

And the good news is we don't have to know,

But the universe knows.

Source knows.

God and goddess know what's best for us,

What we really need.

Maybe not what our ego thinks it wants,

But on a soul level.

And ultimately,

I was called out of that life.

It was finally time to write that book 20 years later.

Twice in my life,

I have let go of almost all of my material items.

We have a culture that believes collecting and acquiring stuff is what makes us happy.

Sometimes it can be amazingly freeing to completely clear the deck.

I did that about 18 months ago,

Sold almost everything I own,

Rented my house,

And moved to Manhattan with my daughter.

So fun.

Every once in a while,

There's something I wish I still had.

Oh,

There was some Christmas ornaments I wish I didn't give away,

An art canvas or some little tool for the kitchen.

I was wishing I had my egg slicer the other day.

But you know,

That's fine.

I can slice eggs with a knife.

I can buy another canvas if I need it.

But occasionally,

Letting everything go can be like a tree dropping its leaves.

It helps in the growth process.

And new leaves will sprout in the spring.

And it's been kind of a fun exercise to see what the universe wants to offer up to us at thrift stores and the sidewalk.

I've bought quite a few things new,

But my favorite living room chair was found on the street in the Lower East Side and thrown in an Uber.

Writing my book was one of the most excruciating experiences I've ever had.

I wanted it to be one of those books you write in six weeks.

Took me three years.

And I've come to understand that that's kind of an average amount of time.

When I started,

I did not have the skills to work on something every week for three years.

I had never done that.

And I needed a tremendous amount of help.

I had to pay people to sit with me.

In fact,

I still do.

But now I just accept that that's my process.

I'm starting writing my second book now,

Two hours a week.

That's a really manageable rotation for me.

And I make an appointment.

I pay someone to sit with me and help edit.

And some of the bigger work has been being willing to create something and have no control on what it's going to look like on the outside.

To just do it for the experience.

Just writing a book is a success.

Whether tons of people read it or almost no one.

There's been a lot of ego maturation that's been necessary to just be able to show up.

The same is true in relationship.

Lots of people think they want a partner.

They think they want to get married.

But happily ever after is an internal attitude,

Not something that's gifted upon us.

And the day in,

Day out of growing an intimacy,

Partnership,

Co-creating a life together is challenging as hell.

I have a friend,

Stacy,

Who thinks she wants a partnership,

But she only dates unavailable men.

She has some idea of the perfect partner.

No one is quite good enough.

And so she remains alone and feels like it's fate.

And I've tried to tell her,

If you're dating unavailable people,

It's because you're unavailable.

But it's much easier to want other people to change and to have illusions about ourself.

When we come to understand that the circumstances of our life are not a coincidence,

That we have drawn them to us often as mirrors on a soul level,

And they can point us in the direction of exactly the work that we most need to do ourself.

It's the idea of the serenity prayer.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

And generally,

The things I cannot change are the people,

Places,

Things,

And circumstances outside myself.

The thing I can change is me.

And that interchange and growth is the work that will bring us to our deepest desires and dreams.

And growing in that wisdom to know what we can change and what we can't,

And pointing our energies in the productive,

Constructive direction is the practice of true aspiration and evolution.

And as we grow and change,

Our experience and sometimes our circumstances will grow and change to meet us.

So if you want love,

Practice being loving.

If you want to travel,

Take little trips.

If you want to be an artist,

Practice being creative.

If you want children,

Spend time with children.

If you want peace,

Practice being peaceful.

So I encourage you to write down your dreams,

Hopes,

And desires,

And begin the journey of growing to be able to hold and receive them.

Thank you so much for listening.

Blessings on your path until we meet again.

This is Ronella Vallee McKenna for Spiritual Psychology.

Reviews

Thank you for changing my “ho-hum” attitude into a more positive outlook! Really was uplifted by what you shared. 🙏🏻💕😊