Sometimes we give up on our dreams because we decide they are too big. Unrealistically big.
But what if they are the very thing our heart longs for the most?
The thing that makes us feel alive and inspired?
Denise Linn’s answer to this question, in her book The Soul Loves the Truth, is no—definitely not. And her answer is convincing, because it is supported by facts from her own life.
Her greatest dream was to have her own seminar center. For her, realizing such a thing felt almost like a miracle, so the main thing she did was pray and visualize, trying to attract the right life circumstances. Time passed, years went by, and nothing happened. Then she began to wonder whether this meant that what she wanted was simply too big, and that she should give it up.
The answer that came to her was that the problem was not that she wanted something unrealistic. The problem was that she was doing nothing real to make it happen in practice. She was doing nothing real because the dream seemed too big, and she did not know where to begin in order to bring it into her life.
And real things are usually small and attainable. Like starting to hold her seminars in the family’s rural cabin. Although the cabin was small and had only two bedrooms, Denise Linn managed to turn the yard into a camp of six tents, complete with an outdoor dining area. That very year, people from all over the world began signing up for the summer seminars at her improvised tent camp. Years later, her big dream became reality—she managed to purchase the Summerhill Ranch property on the central coast of California, finally creating her own center.
I, too, have come to understand that the key to fulfilling our dreams is to forget how big they are and how small we are. Then to see what is the very small and realistically achievable thing we can do for them now. What is the first step—the very first one? Not the second, not the third—the first. If we trust the energy of desire and of life itself, this step will lead us to the second, the second to the third, and one day we will discover that with the last small step we have achieved the dream that once seemed completely impossible.
This applies to everything. For me, it was having my own home and work that gives me the freedom to do what I love most. For Denise Linn, it was buying an expensive property on the central coast of California in order to create her center. For someone else, it may be something entirely different.
Denise Linn gives the example of Americans who dream of visiting Europe. The small and realistic steps toward fulfilling such a dream might begin with getting an international passport. The next small step could be researching suitable routes and affordable hotels for the planned journey. And if this goal still seems impossibly far away in time:
“You might also visit places close to home, such as an English garden in a park, an Italian pizzeria in your neighborhood, a French pastry shop, or a local Scandinavian festival. Begin absorbing the culture of the country you want to visit wherever you find it, and fill yourself with the feelings you hope to experience during your trip to Europe. These are small steps that help keep your dream alive.”
Another example she gives is weight loss:
“Who says you have to lose all 15 kilograms at once? Try starting with small steps and reach your goal by losing one kilogram over a certain period of time. Then, when you reach your goal of losing that one kilogram, celebrate it properly!”
—Denise Linn, The Soul Loves the Truth, p. 141
We know Lao Tzu’s famous saying that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Another wise teacher, Bert Hellinger, says that “we reach our goal with the last step”—that everything before that has only been preparation.
In fact, life is what happens between our first and our last step. So if we want to go farther—as far as our dreams now seem to reach—the only thing we need to do is begin walking, taking small, real steps. This is the only thing that can pull us out of the pattern of paralyzing inaction and an uninspired life in which we do not believe that our dreams can become reality. A well-known Bulgarian proverb says, “The vineyard doesn’t need prayers—it needs a hoe.” So if we want the field of our desires to bear fruit one day, we will have to take up the hoe. And start digging somewhere.
One last thing: the desire for things to happen all at once, and to take big strides, is part of the ego’s games. The ego loves Big Things. Small steps, small successes, small achievements disturb it. Instead of seeing what we already have, it sees what we lack. We need to understand these forms of self-sabotage and shift our attention from what is missing to what is already present, in order to receive the flow of energy needed to take the next step. After that, everything will begin to help us keep moving forward.
So if you have a big dream, don’t give up. Dream big, but act small. Take one small, but truly real step forward. And even if you have nothing else—you always have yourself.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
Note: The quotations are translated from Bulgarian and are not presented as verbatim citations.
