2. What is a dream?

What kind of dreaming is happening in Soft Place to Land?

I often find myself having a visceral reaction to associations with particular words. When interacting with others, it’s dubbed being ‘sensitive.’ It can be described many ways, and ultimately it is part of me. Whether related to my high justice sensitivity or lived experiences in this world, as long as I’m not deep in a period of numbing and self-protection, my body has a lot to say about words.

When I was sharing with a friend about my vision for this publication, she asked a very logical question: “What do you mean by dreams?  The kind that happen when you are sleeping?” I knew this was a juicy jumping off point for the newsletter.

I started looking up some definitions (see image below) and felt that twinge of ouch at some of what I found, especially as someone who is deep in the process of chasing big dreams. My reaction was also accompanied by a knowing that it’s time to redefine dreaming for our purposes in Soft Place to Land. I invite you on this exploration of language and a sneak peak into my dreaming process as I expand upon the kind of dreaming we’re doing in Soft Place to Land.

My definitions:

Dreams: A tangible/palpable experience shaped from a combination of your interests, skills, desires, and imagination.  Other factors that shape dreams include your values, inner voice/inner knowing, inspiration, and sense of purpose.  So many words and concepts!  What does this all mean?  

When I ask about your dreams, I want to know: What are the experiences that you’d like to have in this lifetime?  From finite ➡️ broad in scope.  Often, the first responses folks come up with (myself included) fall into another category, goals.  

Goals: An achievement; restricted to the binary of did/did not accomplish; often largely informed by social norms.  

Merriam Webster definitions of Dream and Goal

When I refer to visceral reactions, it’s my body speaking to me without the use of language, that only I can interpret (although my facial expressions tend to communicate with those who know me well 🥴🤔). The above definitions referring to ‘indulgence’ and ‘fantasies’ brought on the biggest reactions within me.  If I don’t believe in and commit to a more beautiful world than the one we’re witnessing at this moment, I lose hope. In contrast, when I allow myself to get curious in the realm of dreams as I’ve defined them, I feel expansive and full of possibility.  Focusing on goals leaves me feeling tight and constricted.  Quick to fall into overwhelm at the thought of those which I have not yet succeeded in, landing me in a place of lack and self-doubt. 

In 2021 when I was in the midst of my most recent therapeutic experience in the client role, my therapist had me engage in an exercise in which I was asked to write down everything I had accomplished in the last 12 months and then tape it somewhere I’d see it often.  I didn’t think there would be much on there with the pervasive impact of pandemic life.  When I had finished, returning to the list every few days as I’d recall another goal, I was shocked.  The list made my day-to-day inability to acknowledge accomplishments glaringly obvious.  I was steeped in negativity bias and all the goals I had accomplished were so quickly swept away from my attention.  Negativity bias is something we all experience and unchecked, it has quite the hand in how we navigate life.

“This tendency to overemphasize the negative can have an impact on the choices that people make and the risks that they are willing to take.”

-Choices, values, and frames, by Kahneman, Daniel; Tversky, Amos, American Psychologist, Date: Apr 1, 1984

Looking at this longer than anticipated list of goals felt de-stabilizing, forcing an internal reckoning with what I believed I was capable of and spotlighting deeply rooted limiting beliefs.  I can’t find the list now, and apparently I never took a picture of it.  I recall updating it later in 2021 after I bought my truck and picked up the camper in PA.  Seeing the list was a helpful reminder that my imagination is limited to the possibilities it can conjure and there is more out there for me. Especially as I approached the long process of repairs and restoring an 11 year old camper that didn’t go in for recommended maintenance, and was essentially ‘left to die in a field.’  So many things needed to happen to make a roadtrip possible.  I planned and DIYed and outsourced a few things and then on March 29, 2023, I was off! The roadtrip was overall a success. During that time, what I believed was possible continued to expand. I was doing the damn thing. BY MYSELF!

Meanwhile my body was giving me information along the way that something was still off. It took more than half the trip to realize that I was holding onto something that wasn’t working for me. We’ll delve into that in a future newsletter. For now, what is important is that this glomming together of goals and dreams that we do was part of my problem. Sifting through and giving some distinction was and continues to an integral part of my process. Because I am just that, in process, right now.

Since the full extent of my process exceeds the substack limits for newsletter length, and certainly exceeds the average 2024 human attention span, I’ve shared a practice I engaged in to set the stage for my uninhibited dreaming. Distilling a lifetime down to a few examples for you to get a sense of how to sift through your dreams and goals, should you accept the invitation to engage in this exploration yourself.  

Distinguishing my Dreams vs. Goals

Goals I’ve accomplished: 

• Graduating a masters program summa cum laude.

• Completing a 6 month solo roadtrip (while working virtually), visiting 24 national parks, and hiking 250+ miles in the process.

• Starting, successfully running, and closing a solo child therapy private practice.

• Child-free by choice

Goals (previous and current) I have NOT accomplished:

• Being debt free.

• Living in Costa Rica (thank you 16 year old self for recognizing the desire to be warmer, near water, and live a life in a different pace from that we encounter in the US).

• Earn an income that supports the full spectrum of expenses and experiences (retirement, cost of living, all bills easily covered, travel, funding hybrid publishing projects) with enough extra to pour back into community and causes important to me (mutual aide, donations, etc).

• Living in a one-bedroom apartment walking distance from food I can eat and events I want to attend.

• Do a cartwheel (This is previous and discarded- thanks but not thanks, too far to fall).

• See the northern lights (putting this out there- Alaska or Iceland before my 41st birthday).

Dreams I’ve realized:

• Finding answers to long-asked questions about the mis-alignment I was feeling in my therapy career and finally giving myself permission to pivot into something else.

• My body carrying me across all of those miles so that I could witness some breathtaking sights in nature- looking at a raging waterfall from above; coming around a bend to see an expanse of my favorite colors reflecting the glint of sunshine and precise replicas of clouds and mountains off completely still lakes.  

• Integrating creativity as part of life.

• Using self-employment and control over my schedule to allow me to show up for people I love when they are in need, and in doing so getting the honor of meeting many of my niblings by their third day earthside.  

• Cultivating a chosen family with whom I can show up as my full authentic self and be loved, valued, and cherished for all that I am.  

  

  Photo taken in the territories of several Indigenous Peoples including the Me-Wuk (Southern Sierra Miwok), Nüümü (Northern Paiute), and Miwok. Recent history calls this Yosemite National Park in California, US.

In-Process Dreams:

• Earning a living engaging in my life’s work, part of which includes traveling and being inspired by nature and the connections I make with humans along the way, to inform the books I’ll publish. 

• Collaborations and partnerships that support filling the gaps in available content in areas that are leading to human and environmental suffering.  

• Seeing and contributing to a world in which the most oppressed among us experience liberation, joy, freedom, safety, and equity.

• An easeful life that allows balanced space for personal and professional creativity, without extending beyond my natural capacity and energetic output.

• Embodying the knowing that I can only begin to know the infinite possibilities ahead and that lessening my attempts to control the future allows for that expansion.

Watercolor painting of a hummingbird by Cassidy. Based on a tutorial by Emily Olson in Watercolor Mastery

Dreams on hold for now:

• Putting myself out there as a parody singer- As of now about once a week my brain turns something happening in the moment, or a passing thought, into a line or two of a song, usually the chorus that I happen to recall, and VERY often from the 90’s.  Since publishing anything even resembling existing song lyrics on Substack (or anywhere else for that matter) is risky, I’ll refrain from giving too many examples.  I’ll give you a recent rendition: “tell me whyyy my cauliflower smells like weed.  Tell me whyyy, even after I cut off the mold.  Tell me why I’m roasting food, that might kill me.  I don’t want to die that way.’ 

*I did tell founding members they’d get the outrageous BTS, so I’ll be making an audio recording of that asap.

Your turn, dear subscribers 💌

Invitation 1: Write your own lists, in any order you desire, and most likely bopping around from list to list as you think of things over the course of some days.  The focus is not quantity, it’s searching for the essence of your truths (yes, many truths, we are complex beings).  This is a low stakes exercise to get into a practice of naming that which often remains unnamed.  Put your lists somewhere accessible, as we’ll refer back to them in future newsletter invitations.

As you practice distinguishing between dreams and goals, think about how your upbringing influenced the decisions you’ve made in your life thus far and what aspirations (dreams AND goals) you’ve had.  

You’ll notice that NOT having children is in my accomplished goals section.  My life experience has made it clear that I do not desire to be in the role of parent/primary caregiver for a minor in this lifetime.  Many of you have kids, and you may automatically put this in the realized dreams list.  I invite you to get curious about how much of that desire is/was truly internal urges versus those created from external influences of your upbringing: Media, family, partner(s), etc.  If your exploration reveals that yes, the role is in alignment with your purpose and dreams in life, go ahead and put it on the dreams list.  If it goes in the goals list, put it there (or at least mentally note the distinction you’ve made).  A similar exploration can be done with a professional role: Does the role/position satisfy a social expectation/definition of ‘success’ OR when you reflect, is it your truth that while you are engaging in your work, it fills you with a sense of satisfaction?  The invitation here is to interrupt the assumptions and sift through the internal and the external influences we’re aware of when it comes to our dreams and goals.  Without getting familiar with the forces that shaped us, it can be hard to engage in the process of identifying our most aligned dreams.  

Invitation 1.2:  How did it feel to engage in the act of defining your dreams as distinct from your goals?  Where are you on the continuum of being able to name your dreams?  Are you currently in relationship with them?  Do they feel far off, or just out of reach?  Wherever you are in your truest truth in this moment is your starting place. 

Parts of this exploration were quite emotional for me. The shoulds and not enoughs can get loud. Let’s not add to that if we can avoid it. Without ebbing into the land of toxic positivity, I urge you to remember that there is no wrong place to be in this process. You are here, in Soft Place to Land, where we are curating a community committed to self-inquiry and lifting one another up in the process of dreaming.  

Invitation 1.3:

• If you were able to put words to your dreams, are you willing to start naming them with people who believe in you?

• If you need some more support in identifying your dreams, are you willing to engage in some practices around shaping the (currently) elusive and undefinable?  

Thanks for dreaming with me today

💖 Cassidy

TLDR:

We’ve heaped together goals and dreams and many of us have lost touch with the process of expansive dreaming in this lifetime. Because life, social expectations, and our own stuff gets in the way. Take some time to sift through and distinguish between your goals and dreams, past and present.

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Land acknowledgement

I primarily live and work on the ancestral territory of the Piscataway and Susquehannock Peoples.  Both tribes were displaced. In the case of the Piscataway, the land was reported to be ceded but we recognize impact over intent here and ceded is language of the oppressor that means forcibly persuaded.  The lands of the Susquehannock were stolen after broken treatise and encroachment of colonial settlers.  I thank those who cared for this land before their forced removal and recognize the many forms of harm and violence that occurred for me to live and work here today.  

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Paid subscriber invitation: It’s time to participate in our first community hype crew session in the comments!  What have you been dreaming up?

If you haven’t had a chance to get familiar with community guidelines, please do so.  The TLDR (too long, didn’t read) is that the ask here is for community members to encourage and celebrate each other in the comments. Especially on dedicated hype posts, please refrain from responding with advice or logistics to the dreams folks are sharing.  My anxious mind can get really creative and come up with 99% of the drawbacks and potential problems with any choice I make or dream I name, so the intention is in curating a space that cuts down on the external noise for our members.  More here: https://cassidydemos.substack.com/p/community-guidelines