I had a wonderful time speaking to the lovely ladies who attended my talk at the Affinity Community in Kennewick last week—(if that’s you, welcome to Piper’s Merry Band!) I wish I’d taken a few photos to record the event… Sadly, I didn’t think of it in time. But here’s me with my book event banner, just because.
We talked about the life-giving power of creativity and the inevitable Resistance we must push through to claim our creative pursuits, along with some of the other nuts and bolts support we can give ourselves along the way. (If this interests you, it’s something I focus on a lot in my coaching newsletter, which you can sign up for by sharing your name and e-mail address here.)
Dream Keeping appears here…
And then we talked about being a Dream Keeper.
In case you haven’t heard me expound about Dream Keeping, and haven’t yet read Becoming Piper Pan where this concept is introduced, let me explain. There’s a gap in our world that needs patching. The gap shows up—certainly for girls, perhaps for some boys as well—between the clarity of knowing who they are and what they want to do in the world when they are 11 or 12, and the fog of puberty that descends, sometimes not lifting until much later, after the kids are grown and menopause is nigh.
I’d love for girls to retrieve their strong sense of self and their dreams MUCH sooner. Why does it take so long? Well, some of it has to do with the whole process of moving into and through puberty, trying so hard to fit in and to fulfill the expectations of others that one’s sense of self fades. And once plunged into having a family, unless you’ve already established a clear passionate pursuit for yourself, it’s simply lost in the press of doing what needs to be done.
But the other part of it has to do with what happens to our dreams. An overwhelming majority of girls get their dreams “squashed.” In small or large ways, they come to believe their dreams are not possible or not worth pursuing. In the process, their self esteem crashes, their confidence in their inner guidance wavers, and their passion for life is diminished. When this happens, the whole world loses out. The power of one person living a life they love is tremendous—affecting everyone that person comes into contact with.
You can help by being a Dream Keeper.
There are specific rules to Dream Keeping and being a Dream Keeper. Stay tuned—I’ll share those with you next week!