The Suprising Benefits of Daydreaming
Ready for a thought experiment?
What if a magical fairy appeared on your pillow tomorrow morning, offering to make your life dream come true… but you only had 2 minutes to tell her your wish?
In that place between sleep and waking, I wonder how many of us would know how to respond.
To be perfectly honest, there were times in the past when I wouldn’t have had a clue. If pressed, I’d probably have requested to live on a horse farm and never have to work again. Maybe in Ireland if I was getting spicy about it.
In other words, I’d have wished for an escape. Escape into a life that sounded good in my fantasies, but one I hadn’t ever really thought through.
One of the things I’ve witnessed as a coach is that the majority of us don’t put much stock in daydreaming about our desired future state. We may imagine movie-perfect vacations, or what we’d do if we won the lottery, but never for long… and not with any degree of specificity.
Daydreaming is often considered child’s play.
That's a shame, because the benefits of play for adults are legion (and well-documented). How we decided child's play is not a productive use of Serious Adult Time is beyond me. Especially when what I see us doing instead is something far less useful.
Rather than daydreaming, the average adult human expends a valuable share of their mental energy replaying the things in life that are painful. The stuff we want OUT of, such as:
difficult emotions
challenging relationships
unsatisfying work
burnout and exhaustion
disappointing outcomes
embarrassing and shameful moments
It's not our fault, really. Our brians are hardwired with negativity bias. It's an evolutionary trait that inclines the mind to naturally notice, focus on, and become aware of the negative things in life rather than the positive.
A-ha! So THAT explains why I used to be such an expert at articulating my problems, but wasn't spending nearly enough of my brainpower on crafting realistic solutions.
If this sounds at all like you too, believe me I get it. Rest assured that you're not doing anything wrong... it's simply how we're designed.
We know what we DON'T want, but we’re not often as clear about what we DO.
The funny thing is that while daydreaming is often perceived as a waste of energy, few people question the time spent ruminating on the stuff that’s “going wrong.”
It wasn’t until I worked with a coach who pushed me to get clear and specific about the life I WANTED, rather than memorizing the terrain of the things that I longed to escape, that my course in life began to rapidly shift.
Now if that magical wish-fairy hit my pillow tomorrow, I'd know just what to tell her.
The psychology and neuroscience behind why future-crafting works could fill a book, but I’ll try to keep it brief.
Here’s the deal: when you get really focused on an outcome that you want, and then vividly paint that picture over and over again in your mind, you prime the brain to find it. And when you enlist your subconscious in the process with techniques such as drawing, mental visualizations, and daydreaming, it’s like you’ve suddenly got a bloodhound on the case!
I want to be clear that I’m not talking about “Manifesting.” I may be a mystic, but you'll never hear me suggesting that we put a wish into the Universe, hope it comes true, and proceed merrily along with the status quo. No. No. Nooooooo!
I believe in clarifying one’s intentions, and taking aligned action in order to achieve them.
Planting seeds—whether out in the garden or inside our own mind—requires that we tend them! But no dream will ever come to pass if we fail to pick out at least one seed and plant the damn thing.
Do I always get what I want? No! Life's not like that. Hard things happen, plans go awry, and what I visualize doesn't always turn out exactly as I pictured it. But is my subconscious compass pointing me in the right direction at all times, and siezing every opportunity to get me into alignment with the life I want to create at every turn? Absolutely.
Ready to give it a try?
If you’d like to begin cultivating your mental garden this spring, here’s a couple prompts to get those wheels turning.
JOURNAL PROMPTS to get your DAYDREAM on:
I’m connected to my life purpose when…
What would I do or be if I knew I couldn’t fail?
It’s three years from now, and I’m exactly where I want to be in life. What does a typical day look like?
Want an embodied experience of this process?
If you’d to see how visioning and planting seeds works, I invite you to attend one of my upcoming New Moon Circles. As we weave sacred space together, you’ll have time to journal and think, clarifying what you’d like to create next in your life. We'll then invite your subconscious to come join the party with a guided visualization. And finally, we drive it all home by identifying one action you can take to start putting your intention in motion.
Here's what one woman from a recent Moon Circle had to say about it:
"Thank you so much for last night. I loved it! I especially appreciated all the Eagle energy of the evening and LOVED doing the drawing to anchor it in. Very effective for me!" - Mary C.
In so many cultures and traditions, Spring is the time of year when new visons and dreams are ready to emerge. So as those new buds and blossoms continue to pop all around us, allow them to work their magic! Find the space and time you need to tend what’s ready to bloom inside you.
need A companion in the process?
The decision to work with a coach was hands down the best gift I ever gave myself. I’m not sure if I would have pushed through the layers of fear, resistence, or doubt that have cropped up along the way without her steady presence. Change happens in stages, and in coaching we take it step by step. Together.
If you’d like a soul companion to walk beside you on your path, consider a complimentary call to see if working with me might be a fit. I’d love to make some magic together!