Take ACTION Towards Your Dreams

Extended Side Angle (outfit & photo by Silk Athlete)

During a single weekend at the beginning of June I signed up for and completed a Vedic Thai Massage training program with Mukti (Michael Buck) , bought a plane ticket to Thailand, and bought a ticket to Colorado. The dreams of doing all these things had been hovering around my consciousness for ages, but I always had some really logical excuse not to pull the trigger. That weekend the universe just got sick of me sitting back and waiting for the "right time" and threw me into some carpe diem opportunities. A bird also pooped on my face that weekend, so luck was on my side, right?

I didn't have any real plan for how I was actually going to follow through with all these things, but I knew that after I'd taken that first step I was already on the path and it would work out somewhow. After all, I was following my heart's call.

What dream have you been holding out on? We all do it. For me, it's usually traveling. I'm infamous for searching Groupon for some awesome deal, looking at flights, seeking out travel partners....and then doing nothing. Most of the time I use work as an excuse, saying I can't take off from my 9-5 in order to leave. The job needs me too much. I've done it with running a race, saying I can't sign up because I haven't trained enough. I held off on calling an old friend to hang out telling myself I've got no awesome plan, and then that friend moved across the country.

Do you know what happens when we have great intentions to follow through yet we don't take action?

...Nothing. Nothing at all happens. Everything stays exactly the same and our dreams get dusty on their safe shelves. We put more work into bolstering the shelf to be sure it stays sturdy than we do toward really turning those dreams into reality. Wrapped up in their comfort blanket of excuses and rationalizations, they never learn to spread their wings and fly.

How badly do you want your dreams to come true? Regardless of how big or small the dream is, it takes an action to set things into motion. I bought my plane tickets to Colorado and Thailand and then told my boss I wasn't going to be around for over a month while I was traveling. Honestly, I was terrified to walk into her office to tell her, but it worked out. I wanted it badly enough and in buying those tickets on a whim, it set the whole process in motion. The universe wants us to follow our heart, and when we take the first step you'd be amazed at how the path begins to unfold right in front of you - if you welcome it.

As you move through your asana practice, how can you take one small action toward something you'd like to achieve in your practice. Maybe you'd love to work up to a full bind in Utthita Parsvakonasana (Extended Side Angle). No one would ever expect you to just do it, but it's also a given that if you don't try working into it, you never will. You would start by lowering the front hand to land inside the front foot and keeping your side body from collapsing, using your core to hold you strong. You could bend the top arm to reach your hand to your lower back, reminding yourself to keep the torso open and heart shining up. Step by step you'd work into your full bind, but you need to take action towards the beginning of the process.

With that, I challenge you to take one step towards a dream this week. Have you wanted to remodel your kitchen? Call the designer and make an appointment? Would you like to run a half-marathon? Sign up (or start with a 5k)! Have you been postponing a vacation? Book the plane ticket or hotel.

When you are following your heart's dream, the process will unfold. Take action. Trust.

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"You are what you do, not what you say you are going to do" - C. Jung