The Potential of a Dream

Dreams most likely have no meaning. Their eerie combination of archetypal images and visions can be so incredible, and so moving, that when we wake up straining to recall them , clinging to their hidden lessons. Most likely, dreams are a product of memories and emotions we experience from our waking lives.

There is one thing we should learn from our dreams.

The purpose of a dream can be found in the luminous moment when we are both asleep and awake; when we cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality. It is in this moment that our dreams add to our creative faculties. Subconsciously, we take these luminary moments with us and harness them to our waking lives, producing spontaneity, fantasy, and inspiration.

When we blend the infinite possibilities of our dreams with our rational abilities, inanimate objects can be liberated, art can be born, and our souls can be set free.

"The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. Because, if you can do that, you can do anything."

- Waking Life (2001)

Web of Belongingness

There was once an animal behaviorist who devised a theory about human needs. Through the study of monkeys, Abraham Maslow concluded that, in order to reach our full potentials, we have to belong. This basic need, above needs such as food, water, shelter, and safety, takes root in our need to feel important, and to see our importance reflected in the mind's of others. We have an innate desire to be socially acknowledged, and we maintain our social selves by chronicling our accomplishments on resumes and portfolios, and on social and professional networks.

We belong to families, to high school friend circles, to college societies, and to employment related groups. We assert our social selves in digital arenas, email chains, and text messages. We say "yes" to each wedding invitation, each Sunday brunch, each "friend" request, and follower. Our web of belongingness reaches further and further with each successive interaction, and our social needs, stretched thin, become more transparent and more difficult to define and satisfy. We are left questioning ourselves - How do we know when we are done belonging? When can we simply belong?

Satisfying social needs has become more complex since the 1940s when Maslow published his first book on human motivation. Currently, and very obviously, we not only have to satisfy these needs in our real world, but we must also satisfy them in a virtual world as well. The decisions we make regarding the need to belong have become limitless with all the available methods of communication. Often we worry that we may miss out on a social event of some kind, or a friend connection on Facebook, and we continually expand our reach. With every "yes" or click, there resides a hope that, finally, our belonging needs will be fulfilled.

Unfortunately, endless physical and virtual opportunities to connect muddle the definition of social "needs," and transform these needs into social "wants." Our progress is limited not only by the confusion between what we need socially, and what we want socially, but also by the simple fact that we often don't take the time to be grateful for the belongingness we already feel. Showing gratitude can help us to appreciate what we have, and help us to avoid superficial social actions and connections that accumulate into "wants." Maslow argued that if we demonstrate small acts of gratitude, and are thankful for what relationships we have, we will know more about what we truly need socially. We will thrive in our ability to "enjoy life in general and practically all its aspects, while most other people enjoy only stray moments of triumph."

Be Free

Free – adj: liberated, unoccupied, available to use.

Busy – adj: not free; occupied; unavailable to use.

These days, most everyone is busy.

Fully in charge of our busyness, we say “yes” more often than “no” in order to satisfy the need to belong, to maintain our self-esteem, to enhance our public image, to feel important, to be productive, and to be worthy of respect.

We are continually working on these goals, since they never seem to become actualized. When we achieve our target satisfactions, we naturally want to reach even higher. But, we never can really enjoy each new threshold, and are often left wondering, “Where did all our time go?” Each new season passes quicker than the last, and yet we feel as if we haven’t really done anything meaningful, since our busyness has resulted in less time for leisure, less time for self-reflection, and less time to "just be." These issues create anxiety since we know the truth behind being busy: busyness is self-afflicted.

Technology makes it very easy to afflict busyness upon ourselves.

Most everyone seems to possess a wearable “smart” device. Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel, reemphasized our strong, personal desire to connect with robots and wearables: "Computing is everywhere in our lives today…That's what we want, talking to devices.” Wearables are undoubtedly useful in fields like health care, where they can send important feedback to doctors, thus improving the quality of our lives.

However, in the personal realm, constant communication via our mobile devices can negatively affect our quality of life. We often overuse our devices, and become accustomed to mindless multitasking. We compose emails while talking to our mothers on the phone, we shop online while marching up the stair-master, and we post to social media while out to dinner with our significant others.

Our devices may make it easier to satisfy our various needs during leisure time, however, the overuse of our devices may reduce the time that we are actually at rest, available, and free.

As our culture becomes increasingly linked to the virtual world, it is more important than ever to be available to ourselves so that we can affirm our place in the real world.

In order to be available for ourselves, we can do 3 simple things:

1. Construct definitive boundaries between ourselves and technology. One simple solution might be to create physical distance between ourselves and our phones, such as leaving them in another room while we eat dinner.

2. Another idea would be to turn off notifications to minimize interruptions.

3. In addition, we could monitor the efficiency of our phone usage, limit our unintentional phone use, or set "no phone time" by putting them away after 8pm.

Once we construct boundaries, we might discover that our schedules are a bit more liberated, that our attentions are a bit less occupied, and that we are a bit more free.

Click here for source content, "The Disease of Being Busy" by Omid Safi, 2014.

Give yourself permission to breathe

Give yourself permission to breathe. 

Has anyone ever told you just to slow down and take a breath? How did it make you feel? Depending on your outlook, maybe you reacted with confusion or frustration. You breathe all day, you would be dead if you weren't breathing, why is this person telling me to breathe? That's dumb.

Or, maybe you paused and really thought about the advice. 

Sure, I breathe. But, I'm rarely aware of how I’m breathing, since my awareness is acutely focused on other things. Like everyone else, I'm sometimes anxious. I often stress about work tasks, my “to do” lists, and infinite personal and family obligations. Provoked by the constraints of an average workday, I often stress about my productivity. I'm always tormented by the lure of technology and the seemingly urgent notifications of my iPhone. 

All this builds up and creates anxiety.

Research shows that anxiety can restrict our breathing, leading to us to take quicker, shallow breaths, resulting in limited oxygen absorption and a spike in blood pressure. Cortisol levels increase, leading to restricted circulation and decrease immunity.

In searching for quick fixes, I've found that meditative practices such as yoga can lower anxiety levels. I've belonged to at least three yoga studios in the last 15 years. Each time I tried yoga, I was initially open to it. But, mid-pose, instead of breathing, I began stressing about when I should breathe, or not breathe. When should I breathe in? What should I do while I'm breathing? Am I even doing this pose correctly? 

My mentality towards yoga as a cure for anxiety has never really worked for me. I was forcing myself to breathe and measuring my effectiveness against others in the mirror. I needed to change my mindset.

I needed to grant myself permission to breathe.

Henrick Edburg, in his article "The Power of Breathing," suggests taking two minutes away from the anxiety-inducing situation to focus on breath. I've found that two minutes is more than enough to find space when my world closes in. Anytime I encounter stress, or feel overwhelmed, I simply take one large breath in, and out. I do this alone, or in the midst of a work presentation or a lively gathering – no one can tell. I do this when I’m cooking, writing, or when I find myself stuck in an endless social media loop.

Now, I practice conscious breathing. 

Taking one deep breath helps us to consciously pause, reflect, and refocus our perceptions, removing us from the source of anxiety. After taking one breath, whatever was bothersome becomes a little less annoying, and definitely more approachable. We never have anything to lose by just taking one conscious, full breath.

There's so much to gain by granting ourselves permission to breathe. 

Pause

If you allow yourself to pause, you might feel love from an unexpected place. 

Most days begin in a rush, and end in a sigh of relief. What follows is a listing of an average day: At dawn, wake up, take out the dog, eat breakfast, get dressed, pack work stuff and self into vehicle. Then, weave in and out of the early morning rush to arrive at a destination where many hectic hours are logged, some things are accomplished but more “to dos” are discovered and logged for future days that aren’t hectic. Again, pack self back into vehicle, do the reverse commute, and end up home where the dog needs to go out, dinner needs to be created, eaten, and digested, lunch for the next day needs packing, laundry needs folding, and then there might be some time to connect with loved ones and read a few pages of that lonely book on the nightstand.

In a day's monotony, it is easy to lose yourself. Your actions - robotic, urgent, and repetitive - can limit your ability to feel present, human, and connected. One simple way to access your sense of self, and unique point of view, would be to press pause. 

In the middle of any task, try taking yourself out of it. Pause and focus on one aspect of that moment, and think closely. Consider it. This could be the whir of air circulating from your desk fan, or it could be the intricate lacing of ice on the windowpane. This tiny act of observation can allow for creativity to creep in, stimulating your imagination, and bringing your unique perception back to the surface. This helps you reconnect with your surroundings, and may kindle a sort of partnership with your environment. If you allow yourself, you might be inspired by some poetic aspect of your surroundings. On a particularly challenging day, you might just be reassured by the subtle affection of a common red standpipe valve.

-Everthrive

Click here for related content: Maria Shriver's USC address "The Power of the Pause"