The Dreams We Buried

Giving ourselves permission to want more.

I was updating my resume recently and applied for work to supplement my self-employment income as my business continues to grow.

I came to one question: Do you have a college degree?

No.

I clicked the box and felt something crack open in my heart.

Not shame.

Not regret.

Not the expectations of others.

Longing.

A deep, undeniable longing that seemed to arrive out of nowhere.

Except it didn’t come out of nowhere, it came from a dream I had buried 13 years ago.

I was working full-time at the bank, figuring out how to be a wife and mother, and pursuing my bachelor’s degree in business.

I was exhausted, but I was also proud of myself.

I wanted more for my life.

I wanted to learn.

I wanted to grow.

Unfortunately, I was not supported in that pursuit in my marriage.

I was repeatedly told that I was a bad mother and wife for wanting a degree or doing anything to better myself.

Over time, the emotional abuse sank in.

I stopped.

The dream was packed away and placed on the highest shelf, hidden from my awareness.

For many years and even after I left the unhealthy marriage, I told myself I didn’t really need a degree anyway.

Part of that was true.

It did not hold me back in my career in banking.

I’ve taught meditation and yoga, guided healing work, facilitated groups, written, coached, and supported many people through beautiful transformations.

I know my worth is not determined by a credential.

I have built a meaningful life without one.

But another part of my story was protection.

If I convinced myself I didn’t want it, I didn’t have to grieve it.

I didn’t have to acknowledge the dream I abandoned.

And I certainly didn’t have to risk wanting it again.

Yet there I was, staring at a simple checkbox and feeling something very important happening in my body.

The same night my friend came over and shared about her experience beginning the journey to go back to school to get her master’s in psychology.

Coincidence?

I think not.

The dream had officially returned.

Not as the many whispers that I’d been resisting for a few years.

As a giant, uncomfortable YES.

I was up until midnight researching degree programs, requesting my transcripts, and applying to the local community college to finish up my transfer units.

And then a new layer became very clear.

Social work.

The more I learned, the more everything inside me came alive.

Social work is not only about helping individuals heal.

It is also about understanding and transforming the systems that contribute to suffering in the first place.

It asks questions like:

How do we help people heal while also addressing the systems, environments, inequalities, and structures contributing to their suffering?

How do we address the conditions that make healing necessary?

How do we create healthier families, communities, organizations, and societies?

How do we create meaningful change?

Reading about social work basically summarized why I know I am here on the planet.

To make an impact.

To create systemic change.

More ah-ha’s continued to flood in.

It was like I was zooming out and looking at my life, seeing all of the weirdly shapes pieces somehow fit together perfectly.

Twenty years in banking.

Many years doing the reps to get over my paralyzing fear of public speaking.

Meditation, somatic practices, coaching, energy work, writing, and facilitating groups.

The fire that roars within me about injustice, inequality, societal conditioning, harmful family dynamics, and unprocessed trauma of all varieties.

All the inner work that is continually asked of me so I can live the life I’m meant to live and support others.

I have been training.

Of course, buckets of fear also arrived.

Overwhelm, paralysis, the endless list of reasons why this might not work.

I’m too old.

It’s too expensive.

It will take too long.

What if I fail?

What if I succeed?

But beneath all of that noise was something much louder.

Alignment.

This matters and I know I can do this.

The beautiful thing is that I don’t need to figure out the entire path today.

I don’t need a bachelor’s degree today.

I don’t need a master’s degree today.

I don’t need to know exactly how the next five years will unfold.

I just need to take the next right step.

And then the next.

This isn’t just about suddenly deciding to go back to school.

It’s about giving ourselves permission to have desires.

It can feel so scary and vulnerable.

We are taught to make ourselves smaller.

More practical.

More reasonable.

We learn to explain away our dreams before anyone else can.

Then one day, something cracks open and we realize that the dream never left.

. . .

I want to leave you with an invitation to explore.

What dream have you buried?

What longing still lives quietly beneath the responsibilities, the disappointments, the stories you’ve told yourself about what is or isn’t possible?

What dream feels too big?

Too expensive?

Too late?

Too impractical?

Too much?

Maybe those reasons are true.

Or maybe they’re fear.

Your dreams deserve to be acknowledged.

Your desires deserve to be acknowledged.

YOU deserve to be acknowledged.

This is your life.

Take a breath.

Allow yourself to imagine.

Feel into what’s alive in your body.

You don’t need to take a giant leap.

You don’t need to know how.

You only need to take the next step.

And then the next.

You are magic.

I am magic.

We are surrounded by magic.

Let’s stop forgetting that.

Wielding my wand,

Melissa