Who to Share Your Dreams With and When
I’m learning that I can’t tell everyone everything. For a long time, my habit has been to gather opinions from everyone around me when I’m making a decision or going through a difficult time and need some guidance.
I remember when I started dating a guy a few weeks before Valentine’s Day. As February 14 approached, he told me he would rather not make a big deal of the holiday–too much pressure, too soon. I sort of understood his reasoning and tried not to read too much into it. However, the next day at work I proceeded to poll half the women in my office to find out what he “meant” by that. As a result, I received about 40 varying opinions. Everything from, “Chill out. That doesn’t mean anything” to, “RUN!”
All the voices of these women in my head sent me home more anxious than I had been on my way to work that morning.
That was the day I began to wonder if I should be more careful about who I share important information with and who I seek wisdom from. What to share, with whom, and when.
This is what I try to ask myself now. And more recently I’ve been doing this in the area of my dreams and passions. Wondering who I should share them with so that I don’t cry all the way home with 40 different voices in my head–voices that range from overly encouraging to “you’re an idiot.”
It is such a delicate balance. It is taking seriously the pearls to swine metaphor. And it often takes the negative and hurtful responses to teach us this.
If you are really honest with yourself, you probably know who your safe people are. You know the friends and family who are wise and caring with the secrets and stories you tell them, and you know the friends and family who are not so wise and caring and who have wounded you. Those people are still an important part of our lives. You probably enjoy them and like them and don’t want to stop telling them things altogether, but can you trust them with your pearls–the secret fears and dreams–when you know they’re more likely to manhandle the information than they are to hold it lightly and talk it through with you? Probably not.
In my current life phase, I’m excited about pursuing new dreams but I’m protecting what I say to whom and when. It’s not being guarded as much as it is being careful.
It’s hard for me to not blurt out every idea and struggle, poll my entire office building and send out mass texts to different friend groups. I want people to give me feedback and tell me what to do, but I also know that I can make decisions and progress without hearing from numerous people in my life first, and that in the end, there are only a handful of voices I should be listening to anyways, starting with the one that’s inside.
{This blog is a re-post from a few years ago. I do this from time to time when something I wrote a while back feels relevant in my life again. It’s a way to remind myself of something important and a way for new readers to get a look at my older stuff.}
I’m learning this lesson to at 42 years old. I found this great quote the other day that I find myself referring to often:
“At issue here is the question: “To whom do I belong? God or to the world?” Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down. Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me.
As long as I keep running about asking: “Do you love me? Do you really love me?” I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with “ifs.” The world says: “Yes, I love you if you are good-looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you if you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much, and buy much.” There are endless “ifs” hidden in the world’s love. These “ifs” enslave me, since it is impossible to respond adequately to all of them. The world’s love is and always will be conditional. As long as I keep looking for my true self in the world of conditional love, I will remain “hooked” to the world-trying, failing, and trying again. It is a world that fosters addictions because what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest craving of my heart.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen
I sit on God’s lap a lot – my feelings get hurt easily so I lay everything on HIM. HE understands everything so I have a tendency to stay in my shell. That is not always good but tender feelings are protected.
Andrea wow your blog really touched me. I am older than dirt and I still struggle with whom I can share my thoughts and dreams. I will say I am getting better. I could never express it as well as you have. Thank you
[…] Who to Share Your Dreams With and When – Andrea Lucado […]
Such an important lesson, I often over share, trusting peoples judgments more than my own. Not anymore! Time to put this into practice;-)
I have been blessed to have friends at all stages who encourage my dreams, often pushing me out of my comfort zone when the voice of doubt is my own. Even people I hardly know, but who have read my writing, encourage me. My family? Not so much. Most of them are of the idea that ‘work’ means going to an office for eight hours every day, until you retire at 65. They don’t understand my aversion to that life, and my desire to make something of my writing talent. Therefore, I never take my dreams to them, ever. They would shrivel up and die under the weight of their worry and questions.
I have one amazing friend who’s my sounding board for just about everything, who will ask me the tough questions, get beyond any doubts and cancel my fears in Jesus’ name. Besides the Lord, she’s the only person I trust with the truth of my dreams and goals, and I’m blessed to have her in my life. Thank God I complimented her shoes that day back in college 😉
I would encourage everyone to write down your dreams, concerns or whatever you’d ask people’s opinions on and pray about it. There’s always at least one person you can talk to, so if you need some help figuring it out, go that one person. Fight the impulse to poll people, as it will only make you crazy trying to sift through all the different opinions. People respond based on their experiences and fears and concerns. Don’t take on those burdens.
What we need to do is continue to remember the lessons we have been taught. Paul the Apostle said that as long as he was in this body here on earth he would strive to put us in remembrance of those thing of which we have been taught. It seems not only our eagerness to share is at stake and all things work together for the good as we pray in the Spirit but the busyness of life often times takes its toll on us that sometimes we need to be put in remembramce not to be seen as a negative but a positive because it is like watering the seed of truth to bring forth that harvest we all are waiting for. God bless as we continue to walk by faith and not by sight.