Have you had a dream for a long time?
Has it been something so important you have been waiting forever for?
These dreams are usually deeply personal, and not seeing them come into fruition can be very painful.
You may begin to think,
This will never happen
I don’t deserve it
I don’t get to have what I truly desire
And as we are entering March, how are you feeling about your Creative dream?
We can start the year so excited and feel such potential, but when things don’t work out the way we want, it can be so easy to get lost feeling discouraged.
Why does it have to take SO long?
Can’t we just speed up the process and get there already?
Have you ever felt this?
I mean, if it hasn’t happened already, the biggest question we may ask is,
WILL it ever happen?
Perhaps, there is another question to ask instead. One that will actually change your life and end the wait.
I’ve had a dream my whole life.
That dream has been a home, one that I would live in for years and years. This home would be where I would create my family and settle down.
Growing up in a military family, we moved every 1-3 years. I had quite an obsession with furniture stores as a child. I would wander the aisles with glee, imagining what furniture I would pick out. Even as a child, I wanted to create a home. One that didn’t change so much.
When I married the first time, I moved to NYC and found an apartment I loved. I made it as personal as I could, but after four and a half years, our lovely neighbor upstairs moved out, and in moved a group of people who had seances at midnight, were very loud, and slammed the door in my face when I asked for quiet.
This led us to actually buy an apartment in Queens, which was a huge move, but I kept the vision of an actual home in my heart. While the apartment had some great features, I could hear our neighbors on all sides, and I quickly found myself in conflict with neighbors who were making noise, smoking in the hallways, and putting up walls in their apartments for family members to move in. I lived in that apartment for 8 years, which was the longest I had ever been in one residence. It was deeply bittersweet.
And then my marriage fell apart. The apartment had to be sold, and I found myself looking for another place to live.
The apartment I went into after my divorce was a healing sanctuary. 300 square feet in my favorite neighborhood in Queens, I healed my heart, and for the first time had neighbors I got along with, plus a shared back yard. I felt hope. And I kept my vision and dream of a home alive.
Four and a half years later, I fell in love.
On our fifth date, I came down to the Jersey Shore for the first time to see his home, which he had just purchased a month prior. He had me close my eyes when he pulled into the driveway, and led me into the home and sat me down at his dining room table and asked me to open my eyes. There in front of me was the house key.
I was stunned….this man was offering the home to me.
This is your home. I want you here.
I felt so TORN. I knew this was the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with, but in truth, I did not love the house, or the neighborhood. It was very far away from the city, and the house needed a lot of work.
Yet, here was this key, here was the MAN I had waited four and a half years for.
So, I made it work.
And together we transformed the home. Replacing floors, lights…endless projects. We got engaged and married, but still my dream was there. I had settled, but not in the way I wanted to. It was my childhood all over again, where my home was chosen for me.
I was falling into the pattern again and again of “just make it work.” Did I know anything else?
Could I create anything else?
So, on New Years Day of 2019, I sat down with my husband, and spoke from my heart. I was terrified, as I knew what a huge gesture it had been to offer this home to me, I shared my dream of finding a home TOGETHER, one I had a say in. One that truly FELT like home to me. It was hard for him to hear, but he did, because this marriage and this man was completely different than my first. And we made a decision to sell the house, but to give it a year.
All during last year, we transformed this house. And I had to wait. I got very sick, actually due to mold exposure that was in the home. Even if we had wanted to put the house on the market, we couldn’t because I was healing.
And then, in mid February, we put the house on the market. Within 6 days, we had four offers on the house, two above asking. We chose the best, and a week later found our forever home.
That quickly.
After so long.
And now, I’m packing up and leaving.
So, what about you?
What is that Creative dream you have held in your heart?
What is that small flame that burns?
The hardest part of this journey for me has been the waiting, but I now realize there was so much that needed to occur in order for me to settle into my home.
I needed to end my marriage.
I needed to learn how to love and have a healthy relationship
I needed to trust myself
And I needed to fully ask for what I want, especially after a lifetime of settling for where I live.
It was a crazy thing to ask my husband….he bought the house in 2017, and two years later, I was asking him to sell it.
But, because all of those other pieces of the puzzle were in place, it moved. Quickly….and yet the path was what was needed.
When we have these big dreams for our Art, take a moment and look at what you are doing, and what is in place….
Do you want to have your work in galleries, but have no idea who to reach out?
Do you want to sell out your concerts, but have little to no fans to buy the tickets?
Do you want to be a New York Times Bestseller, but procrastinate and have no idea on what to write about?
Do you want to book film roles, but question yourself at every audition?
There is a process.
What if the “wait” has actually been the opportunity?
What if this time is for you to hone in on what you need to fully bring your dreams to reality?
Come back to WHY you started your Art in the first place. Truly connect to this. FEEL it.
Light the candle again on your dreams, and then ask the question,
What do I need?
Who can help me with this?
Support is waiting for you. I would never be here without so many amazing teachers and coaches who KNEW my dream, and held it for me. It was actually my coach who looked me straight in the eye in December of 2018 and said,
You are miserable in this house, Nikol. Tell your husband the truth. He loves you and you can both find your home together.
She was right, and telling myself I had to make this home “work” was slowly killing me. It was actually making me sick.
What if you don’t have to “make it work” anymore?
What if you don’t have to settle?
I imagine that would be a HUGE relief, and I imagine you would relax deeply.
And then I imagine you would soar far faster towards your dreams, because you aren’t holding yourself back.
The good news is, your point of power is in the present moment.
Pack up and leave, and enter into your home.
The one you have been waiting for. The one where you truly thrive.