Ep #13: Permission to Dream Bigger
Welcome to the Make Money Living Your Purpose Podcast. I'm Prosperity Coach Karen Powell and this is the podcast for heart-centered leaders, innovators and creatives who dream of leaving their nine-to-five to pursue their passion project but don't know where to start. I'm sharing my proven process that will help you heal your money mindset and figure out your own unique purpose in life. Let's go!
Hey there, welcome to episode 13. Today I want to talk about your dreams. But not just any old dreams. Today I want to talk about your big dreams, the ones that feel very impossible, the ones that you maybe even haven't said out loud yet. And the reason these are the subject of today's episode is because these are the ones that are truly trying to connect with you. Your biggest, most scary, most far-fetched dreams are actually waiting for your permission to allow them into existence.
You'll remember back in episode 4, The Easiest Way To Manifest Anything, where I shared the story of Linda, who really wanted to change her career and lifestyle, who ended up living her dream of saving the endangered leatherback turtles at a research station on the white sandy beaches in the Seychelles. If you didn't hear that episode, you can go back and listen some time, it's a great story.
But what I didn't go into great depths about in that episode when I was telling that story was that it took me quite a while to convince Linda to say what she really wanted. I was asking her questions about her ideal place to live, and she kept bringing herself back to Namibia even though she didn't want to stay in Namibia. She was thinking that where she was living was probably where she had to stay, that she could maybe just get a new job in some other field, but that her lifestyle probably had to stay the way it was because she couldn't see how in the world it could change.
She just wasn't connecting to that possibility or vision for herself because it felt so out of touch with reality. And then, remember in episode 11 with Nelao, who manifested her soulmate after she had declared that it wasn't possible for her, it's for other people, it's not for her in this lifetime? And Nelao told us a story that she had taken that part of her dream that she wanted the most out of the picture because it felt so far from her reality, so far from what she had experienced up until then.
If you haven't listened to Nelao's episode, go back sometime and listen to how she talks about feeling delusional when she would connect with her big dream, which was to experience a true and gentle love from a partner. So much so that she scrapped it completely and said that she just would focus on healing her money blocks and growing her coaching business and just settle on being the rich auntie with her kids, with her sister's kids.
And she says it was only during her Money On Purpose journey with me where I was really pushing everyone to stop watering down their dreams and to connect with what they really wanted on a much higher level, and so almost just to appease me, we laughed about it, she threw her hands up and said, OK, OK, what I really want is true love. What I really want is the kind of love where he puts me first and makes me the priority of his life.
And in the interview in episode 11, she talks about how delusional and far-fetched and even silly that felt to say out loud. And then, spoiler alert, if you haven't listened to that episode yet, I'm going to do a spoiler here, a couple of months later, she meets the man of her dreams, they fall in love, and a few years later they now have a new little baby daughter and an amazing lifestyle together.
So, you might be thinking, yeah, that's great for Nelao, that's great for Linda. Great stories about them manifesting their big impossible dreams. Really happy for them. But you don't know my story, Karen. You don't know my life and the reasons why I can't have what I really want. And what I want to share with you today is a very simple process to get past the feelings of hopelessness and impossibility and into a place where anything really is possible.
Now, I said this is a very simple process, but it's not an easy process. It's very difficult for people to do, but I promise you it's very simple, it's not complicated. So, the first part of the process is to very simply say what you want. So if it's a new house, if it's a true love relationship, if it's publishing your memoir, if it's a new career doing work that you love, whatever it is, just write it down or say it out loud.
Then you're going to sit with that scenario and ask yourself, if it could be even better than that, what would that look like? And then once you've voiced that or written that down, ask yourself that question again and answer it. If it could be even better than that, what would that look like? Now, it's important to go through a few layers of this question because what's sitting on top is hardly ever what you truly want. It takes holding your own hand a little bit and coaxing you into an ever-truer version of what you really want deep down inside.
So do you feel the resistance already? This is what I mean about this being a very simple process. It's not complicated to write something down or say something out loud and then amp it up and say that out loud and then amp it up a bit more until you've gotten to the real wish, not the watered-down version. That's a very simple direction, but I know it's not easy. Now, like if you're on the treadmill or something, or you're in a space where other people are around, you don't want to just blurt it out loud but you also can't write it right now, then just whisper it really softly under your breath. So, no one has to hear but you've taken it that one step further from just being a thought in your head, to being actual physical energy outside of your body, whether it's ink on paper or sound waves coming out of your mouth.
So how about it? You go ahead and do it right now. Say the thing you want, then ask yourself two or three times, if it could be even better than that, what would it look like? You can press pause and come back just now.
Okay, if you've done it, fantastic, well done. If you haven't, it's okay. But I want you to feel what's happening in your body right now. Do you feel tightness? Do you feel flushed or embarrassed or scared? Do you feel constricted, angry, confused? There's no right or wrong here at all. It's just what are you feeling when you try to connect with your big dream?
You might be feeling embarrassed, like who am I to even want such a thing? Or maybe you're feeling resigned, like Nelao, like something like this just isn't available to me, it's for other people. Or maybe you're feeling confused, like Linda was, secretly wanting to live in a tropical place with warm turquoise water and white sandy beaches, but the reality of where she was living was a hot, dry desert, so it felt like such a disconnect, such a big divide between two very different places. And she found it confusing to switch from one to the other in her mind.
This is all so normal. We all experience this. This is the place of resistance between your current life and the life of your dreams. You've brought yourself to the edge of your comfort zone and that edge feels uncomfortable. It feels scary. It feels uncertain. We don't like this edge place. Think about your nice warm cozy bed. Where is it most cozy? Fully inside with the covers on. And now picture yourself pushed right over to the edge of the bed. Maybe the duvet is also just like partly covering you, and you're cold and you're not stretched out; you're teetering at the edge of the bed. That is not a comfy place to be.
Whenever we push the envelope or take a risk or do something that is outside of the status quo, little alarm bells go off inside us to warn us that we're about to venture into unknown territory. And the body sees that as pure danger. No matter what it is, it first assesses that ′different′ is danger. That's just a default setting to keep us safe and to keep us surviving.
And the next alarm bell is going to be, well, what will others think? Because we are wired to stay together to survive. We're wired to look at those around us and try to fit in with what everyone else is doing so that we won't stand out. Because standing out can bring unwanted attention, criticism, jealousy, things that threaten the status quo. And then another reason it's so uncomfortable to allow yourself to dream big is that as soon as you declare what you really want, what your big audacious dream is, that will trigger the spaces deep within you that are ready to be healed. Those spaces that hold your limiting beliefs about yourself, those places that you think define you, but really just hold the limiting belief in place until it's healed.
Now you might have tried to change those beliefs. You might have tried affirmations to turn those beliefs around. You might have tried therapy or talking them out with a close friend. You might have tried journaling them out. You might have “already dealt with them”. If you have that feeling like, ‘Darn I really thought I already dealt with this, why is it coming back or why is it still here? I've done so much work already.′
This is just because our biggest dreams are connected to our deepest blocks and limiting beliefs and just dealing with them is not enough to fully release them. They need to be addressed at their root because while you take steps forward, while you take steps towards your big dream, you don't deal with them when you're ready to execute on your big dream. They actually get triggered and accessed by the act of going for your big dream, and if you can connect with them at the place where they live, then you have access to releasing them at their very roots. But they must be activated first in order to be identified and then connected with in order to be released, released at their roots.
This is true for whoever you are and wherever you are in your life. No matter what your circumstances are right now, you have the opportunity to heal what's standing in the way. Everyone's path will look different, but everyone is equipped to take where they are right now and start the process of connecting with their big dream and healing what is currently standing in the way.
I used to volunteer at a safe house for young street kids who were caught doing petty crimes. They didn't have any families, they were living on the street trying to survive, and the safe house was a place where they could stay while they waited for their case to come up in court so that they wouldn't have to stay in this holding cell with adult criminals. And every week I would go and do a little workshop with these boys and teach them life skills, and I'd also teach them how to think differently and how to use their minds to create different circumstances for themselves.
So, starting with where they were right there and then, I asked them what they wished for. And they would say things like, shoes, clothes, I wish I could go to school. One boy said, to see the ocean. And I showed them how to bump up their dreams a bit, so if they said they wanted shoes I would ask them, what kind of shoes? Do you want old shoes with holes or nice new shoes? Or if they said clothes, I would ask them what kind of clothes do you want, old clothes or nice new clothes?
The look in their eyes was like, wait, that's an option? Like they'd never thought of that before, to be so specific and to bump up their dreams past what they just thought could be available. So eventually they were becoming more specific: I want new soccer shoes; I want a new Nike tracksuit. And I showed them how to stop focusing on what they didn't want and rather focus on what they did want and how to picture that and daydream about that and how to generate the feelings of having the thing, what that would feel like, and also how to generate the feelings of gratitude.
Well, every week as I pulled up to the safe house, one of those kids would come running out to greet me, Miss Karen, Miss Karen, guess what? Guess what I got? Brand new soccer shoes! And then one little boy who was lucky enough to be able to be placed in a school, not all of them could, but this guy was, and he was the one who dreamed of seeing the ocean one day. He comes out, Ms. Karen, Ms. Karen, guess what? My class is going on a trip to Swakopmund, which is a coastal town here in Namibia. And then one day the head of the organization helping these boys walks over to me and he says, Karen, you won't believe the container of clothes we just received from Germany, it's all brand-new clothes for the boys, with the tags still on! We've never seen a donation like this of new branded clothes never been worn before.
So here's another story of when circumstances seem too far away to change for someone. When my former housekeeper started working for us, when she first started working for us, she was living in a tiny tin shack, and I would ask her about her wishes and dreams. We'd have these conversations, and it was tough to get her to actually say things that she wanted. She wouldn't really land on anything. She just didn't believe that anything could change, so why even talk about it?
So one day I pushed her a little harder and coaxed her into sharing one of her dreams with me. And she told me, Okay, I would like to live in a cement house. But she doesn't have the means to build a cement house. That was a very big stretch to even articulate that wish. So I taught her the process I teach, which by the way, is in my free training, The Ultimate Manifesting Method. I'll link that in the show notes for you.
And one day she comes to work and says, Karen, the municipality came to our area and told us they will be building new cement houses for us just in this area where I'm living. (It was like an upliftment project for that area, and they didn't have to pay for the houses.)
Okay, I'm going to share one more example. I'm thinking of this young woman in one of my workshops. We were making vision boards and everyone's going through magazines and cutting out words and pictures of the things they want to manifest. And at some point I remind everyone as they're doing that, I'm like, dream bigger. Remember to dream bigger, pump it up, say what you really want, not just what you think you can have.
And this woman — I'm going to call her Julie —Julie wanted a new car, and what she really wanted was a new 4x4. But she had found a picture in one of the magazines of a sedan car that she kind of wanted, but she really wanted the 4x4. And she had actually seen the exact 4x4 that she wanted in one of the magazines, but she flipped past it because it felt too out of reach, too impossible. And then when I piped in and implored everyone to go for what you really want and not a watered-down version, she flipped back to the picture of the 4x4 and she ripped it out and glued it onto her vision board.
Well, some months later, a few months later, Julie came to another workshop or a meeting of some sort at my studio, I can't remember what it was, and she said, Karen, I want to show you something outside. Standing there, parked in front of my studio, was Julie's new 4x4. She goes, Remember when we were doing the vision boards and I wanted a new car and I really wanted this 4x4 but I couldn't afford it, and it just felt too far away? So I skipped past the picture in the magazine, tore out a sedan car, (I can't remember which one it was, which sedan car, but) — and then you kept harping on about dreaming bigger and not watering down what we really wanted, so I went back to the picture of the 4x4 and I ripped it out and I put it on my vision board. And she said, And here it is parked in front of your studio! And then she proceeded to tell me that she actually ended up getting both the sedan and the 4x4, by the way.
All right, I have a million stories like these, but I'll save them for other episodes, and I will keep reminding you until I'm blue in the face that the things you have in your heart really do want you as much as you want them. And you have everything you need within you to bring them into reality. You've just got to start with where you are right now and then you move from there.
What lives in your heart but feels impossible is yours to have, but you have to say. You have to connect with it first. You have to be bold enough to articulate the real dream, not the watered-down version of it. When you water down your dreams, you're not making it easier for the universe to serve you, you're actually blocking the goodness that is yours to receive. So pump it up, give yourself permission to dream bigger and let's make it happen.
You can learn the manifesting method that I teach in all my workshops and programs for free today by signing up for my free training at www.kcpowell.com.
Yes, it's scary to dream big; it pushes us outside of our comfort zone and it can bring us face-to-face with our own limiting beliefs. But when you heal your blocks and step into your purpose, you become a force for good in the world. I'll see you next time.
If you're ready to start creating the lifestyle of your dreams, I want to invite you to join GPS, my Gratitude Practice for Success program, where you'll learn my unique and proven manifesting process. It's simple, it's powerful, and it's already helping hundreds of people go from thinking their dreams were impossible, to making them happen quickly. Whether you want to manifest your dream home, your soulmate, a brand new career living your life's purpose, or even financial freedom, it's yours to claim now. Just head over to kcpowell.com/gps and I will show you how.
