I was once a child full of dreams. I wanted to be a painter or a famous violin player. I wanted to dance and go see the world. I dreamed of having a castle of my own. I used to draw all the time, trees, and lakes and flowers. Everyone told me I was so good. My parents even wanted to enroll me to a music school so that I could really learn how to play the violin, or to enroll me into some drawing classes. They even got me some books on drawing.
However, I refused all of that. I can't really remember why. I think I didn't want to learn music notes because someone told me how difficult it was to learn them. When I think about it now, it really is a shame that I didn't even try.
And then, somehow, all of my dreams faded.
I was a very merry child and I used to laugh a lot. But then I went through some bullying in primary school (I think you call it middle school in the US), and I withdrew from other people. I built a wall around myself and didn't really let anyone in. Don't get me wrong, I always had a few friends, and I was also very lucky to meet my 3 best friends in high-school, who still mean a lot to me. But I was always emotionally distant. This helped me in a way, because it protected me from getting hurt and allowed me to heal from the bullying.
But when I finished high-school, I realized that this figurative wall that I had built no longer served my purpose. It actually stopped me from living the life that I wanted to live. But perhaps the biggest setback was, I realized, that I didn't let myself dream anymore. Everything that might hurt me I considered a threat and did my best to avoid it (and what hurts more than a broken dream?). This, obviously, wasn't a recipe for a happy life. It was okay for me for a while, but it was time to change something.
This was when I started consciously working on bettering myself. I first heard of the famous Secret, then the Law of Attraction, I began to read more and more self-help books, and popular science. You Tube, of course, was, and still is, an inexhaustible source of lectures, advice, and guidance of wise people. I took some yoga classes at my college where I also first encountered meditation. I switched my major to anthropology, because that's what I wanted in the first place so I decided finally to follow my heart. It was worth it because it broadened my horizons so very much, and made me realize how big and diverse the world really is and it put some things into perspective.
My growth is still an ongoing process, and I believe it will always be so, but I think I can say that I learned so much during this time. However, I just recently started to really dive deeper and connecting with that deeper and bigger part of myself, and it's been so wonderful and freeing. This part of me was there all the time, and I wasn't even aware of it!
The point is that, growing up, I shut myself off from this source that I was connected to when I was a child, when I had dreams and when I laughed from my heart, and was curious about life. I feel like I'm finally reconnecting to that part of myself, I'm breaking down my walls, and even though, for now, I have just caught glimpses of it, I know that this is the way to getting my dreams back 💖