Drew Rozell, Ph.D.

Author and Coach

The Skill of Dreaming

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Dreaming?

Skill?

Really?

Yes, I think so.

I know. Sounds weird at first, right? Like, how much skill does dreaming take? Just plop yourself down on a couch, close your eyes, and let ‘er fly!

But, going deeper, there’s more to it than that.

In my work, I talk to a lot of people. In short, they talk to me because they want more; they want to fast-track their personal evolution. At some point in our relationship, the conversation turns to the possibilities for their lives.

What are your dreams?

What would you love to create in your life?

Pretty simple questions.

And yet most people have no clear answers for those simple questions. And even if they do offer an answer, deep down, they don’t really believe their dreams could become reality.

And why is that?

From what I have noticed, most people have learned (from their parents, teachers, culture) not to want a lot. Not to expect much. Not to dream. We kneel to our fears and choose to teach our kids how to survive, not thrive.

As a result, the ability to dream — which I believe to be an innate ability  — gets stamped out of us.

Because of this tendency, in order to create what’s really possible in our lives, we need to regain access to our ability to dream. Dreaming becomes a skill. A learnable, teachable skill.

If you to create something new, something bigger in your life (and who doesn’t?), then it’s a good idea to check in with your current level of mastery with this skill.

What’s your dream?

Can you see it? Can you immediately access the feeling of what it would be like to have that desire manifested in your life right now? Are you free of all resistance and doubt?

Or do you get stuck? Or not even bother to try?

Dreaming is a skill that holds the power to provide a return on investment that dwarfs the returns from any of the skills we currently value and teach. It’s worth your time. It’s worth your awareness. And it’s worth your practice.

Because everything you want depends your ability to dream it first.


Words. Matter.

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Having breakfast with my friend this morning.

Over oatmeal and coffee we talk about our lives and discuss ideas how to make them better.

We got on the subject of words, and their importance.

Words activate thoughts. Thoughts activate feelings. Feelings give off an energetic signal. The energetic signal you put out to the world is the same energetic signal you will see and experience in your life.

A good way to make inroads in changing your life is to change your language. To some who’ve been around the personal evolution game a while, this makes perfect sense. Yet to my friend — a writer no less — the idea seemed new and foreign.

Through awareness and practice there are certain words that just no longer show up in my vocabulary. I do not use words like hate, awful, horrible, terrible, tragic… and so on.

When I hear people use those sorts of words it strikes me like a piano hitting the wrong key; those words are no longer in tune with where I am at. And the person using them is usually going down the rabbit hole of telling a story, attracting one dark thought after another. They do not feel good telling it, and I do not wish to listen to them tell it.

Some people push back on this idea:

But it’s true! It was awful! She really did die!

or Isn’t it terrible what’s going on with health care?

or [insert story here!]

Events, wanted and unwanted, happen in everyone’s life. The key to an easier, better life comes in how you respond to those events.  I notice that the people who talk about all the terrible things in the world tend to notice lots of terrible events. Look more closely and you’ll notice that they attract more terrible events to talk about than those who focus more on what pleases them rather than what upsets them.

“But I talk too fast to watch what I say,” my friend said.

“If I were to choose my words, I’d have to be aware of what I say all the time,” he added.

“Exactly,” I said.