What if the dream is missing a part of you?
I want you to think back to a time in your life when you believed almost anything was possible. Maybe you were a child, a teenager, or a young adult with ideas about the kind of life you wanted to experience. You may not have known how you were going to make those dreams happen, but that didn't necessarily stop you from imagining them.
Now think about your life today. How often do you give yourself permission to dream that way? Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, many of us become so focused on responsibilities, expectations, and what seems realistic that we gradually stop considering what we genuinely want.
We become very good at doing what needs to be done. We build careers, raise families, maintain relationships, and work toward goals that often reflect what we've been taught success should look like. There's nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. The question is whether we've included ourselves in the life we've been so busy creating.
When I was 14 years old, I dreamed of living in an RV. I couldn't have told you exactly how I was going to make it happen, and I certainly didn't have a detailed plan. It was simply something I wanted to experience. Decades later, when I found myself living that dream, I was reminded of the younger version of me who had imagined it long before it became my reality.
What struck me wasn't simply that I had accomplished something I'd wanted for years. It was the realization that the part of me who knew how to dream had existed long before I knew how to overcome everything life would eventually bring. That understanding became an important part of my keynote, Bringing the Dream Home.
I began wondering how many people have spent so much of their lives becoming who they needed to be that they've lost touch with the person who once believed anything was possible. I see this in people who have accomplished remarkable things. They may have successful businesses, fulfilling careers, beautiful families, or lives that appear to offer everything they could want. Yet when I ask what they genuinely desire for themselves, some struggle to answer.
Not because they're ungrateful for what they have, but because they've spent years considering everyone else's needs and expectations. They've become so accustomed to making decisions based on responsibilities that they may no longer recognize their own desires.
What if the dream you've been working so hard to create isn't missing another accomplishment? What if it's missing a part of YOU?
Before we can bring the dream home, though, I believe we need to consider what home actually means. In my TEDx talk Choose You, I invite people to think about their first sense of home, in the womb. Before we knew the expectations of the world around us, before we learned which parts of ourselves were welcomed and which parts might need to be hidden, we existed without consciously negotiating who we needed to become in order to belong.
As we grow, we begin learning those expectations. We discover that certain expressions of ourselves may be accepted while others create discomfort. We adjust our behavior, suppress feelings, and sometimes abandon desires because we believe doing so will help us maintain connection. In suppressing ourselves, we can gradually leave behind the experience of feeling safe enough to be fully who we are.
Home is not something you lost. It's something you left.
I don't mean that we intentionally abandon ourselves. Often, the ways we learn to adapt are understandable responses to our circumstances. We do what we believe is necessary to maintain connection, manage difficult situations, or move forward in life. But what once helped us navigate those experiences may not be what we need to continue creating the lives we want today.
I believe there comes a point when we have an opportunity to become curious about who we are beyond those learned patterns. We can begin asking what matters to us now, what brings us joy, and which dreams we've dismissed simply because we became convinced they weren't practical or possible.
Sometimes those dreams are surprisingly simple. Perhaps you want more freedom with your time. Maybe you want to travel, return to something creative you once loved, or experience relationships where you feel comfortable expressing yourself honestly. And sometimes the dream isn't about doing anything more. It's about experiencing life differently.
I often invite people to imagine meeting a younger version of themselves, one who remembers what it felt like to dream without immediately questioning whether those dreams were possible. Not to return to the past or pretend that life hasn't changed, but to reconnect with the curiosity and sense of possibility that may have become buried beneath years of expectations.
What might that younger version of you want you to remember? What mattered to you before you began measuring your choices against everyone else's opinions? Is there something you've wanted to experience that you've continued postponing because other things always seemed more important?
Bringing the dreamer H.O.M.E.™ doesn't mean walking away from everything you've created. It means allowing the person you truly are to have a place in what you create next. It means recognizing that your needs, desires, and dreams are worthy of consideration alongside the people and responsibilities you care about.
You can appreciate the life you've built while acknowledging that something may need to change. You can be grateful for your relationships while recognizing where you've been hiding yourself within them. You can honor your past without allowing it to determine every possibility for your future.
If you knew what was possible, would you continue postponing the life you dream of creating? Perhaps the next chapter isn't about achieving something greater. Perhaps it's about making sure the person you've become hasn't left the dreamer behind. Bring the dreamer H.O.M.E.™.
About the author: Jeannine L. Rashidi is a two-time TEDx speaker, bestselling author, Doctor of Ayurveda, and founder of Goodbye Tension. She created Breaking the Belonging Bargain™ and the H.O.M.E.™ framework.
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