We find out what we like in life, what our talents are, what we are good at,
and especially what we want to do as an adult, from a wholesome childhood,
and we are allowed to investigate, try things out, dream,
learn, and be encouraged to be a doer of your Heart.

In a encouraging home as each year goes by the child tries this or that, is told that if he or she wants to continue something that they can, and if they want to give that up then they can try something else. The parents get active in the child’s dreams and help finance them as well.
To the parents each effort is not a waste of time, because whatever the child tries helps build the child and gives the child a chance to find his or her own place in the world.

In a toxic home the child is full of fear, or abused, taken off the natural path of learning and in some way affected so much so that the child is so busy in Survival Mode that he or she does not learn much about life. Its kind of like climbing a mountain and it is very very windy.
One does not have much time for the view because one is trying to cling on to survive.

In a natural encouraging home dreams and talents bloom.
A child with all his or her needs met, finds it much easier to meet basic life challenges and try things out for themselves.
Later on as an adult he or she has a clear direction of what he or she wants to do, where to go, and no fear or worries about facing lifes future challenges.
Its all progressive, fun, exciting, mentally healthy and good.

How do you know what your talents and dreams are, and what your dreams were as a child?
Well, you know those times when you were a child and you were with others and something just came into your vision or thoughts and you were delighted with your vision, it affected filled your heart and soul, may have even temporarily paralyzed you with excitement for that moment.
You said, “Wow!” but all those around you were not so affected by what attracted you, they couldn’t vision what you were so excited about.

What it is, is that you saw something, say a painting, and when you looked at it ,the whole thing captivated you.
The type of painting, the landscape, the medium it was painted with, the style of the trees, and for a second you thought, “Wow, I love that!” and you stood in awe, and those with you said carelessly that they liked it or they simply ignored it.
Its the thing that captivated you in such a way that you know that if you actively took part in that hobby, idea, thing, it would really make you happy, like fulfilling a dream.
So at least you have to try it, have a go, experience it.

If your life was toxic you may have seen something like a painting, art, experience, etc, and your friends saw your dazzled eyes and they all laughed and shamed the curiosity out of you, and you looked at the ground and frightened of not being approved of you just gave up and quickly walked away hoping that it would never be brought up by your friends again.

Maybe the next morning you wake up all alone with no pressure around you, and remembered what captivated you the day before and may even have cried, or felt sad, because you really wished that you could have given that dream a go. Peer pressure is a killer of dreams, please be weary of that fact.

What is good for you at a certain time of your life is often not what others like, because it is good for you only.
Imagine that you have an enormous talent as a violin player and you are very naturally curious about the instrument and like hearing music with violins playing.
You mention this to a few of your party goer friends and they roar with laughter, and thats it, you give up – they made you feel like an outcast and shamed.
What you don’t realize is that you are so talented in that instrument that you were going to be famous worldwide, and people were to adore your music.
But because the violin is considered an “out of touch” “square” “uncool” instrument and the music boring by your family and “the crowd” you give it up and never play until you are old and realize what you missed, but it is too late to have the dream.

Your dreams are those things that touch you deep within, they captivate you, inspire you, create imaginative thoughts, desires, and you kind of know that this is going to be amazing before it is amazing, you just know. So you know that you just must try it.
You could be in a group of ten people, see your dream, be filled up with instant excitement, desire and delight, and not one of the people around you feels the same.
In fact they could all walk away bored with the whole thing.

So understand that your thing is your thing and no one else can understand what captivates your heart and soul or what it is that you want for your own life, only you know these things.
My suggestion if you are an adult is to look back, remember what you felt as a child, what delighted you, what you wanted to do and be before you became a teenager or were abused and people took away what your future could have been, and now reach out for those things, seek search, try them and enjoy.

Your dreams are powerful, they set you apart from others, they give you your individuality from others, and they make you stand out in your own special way.
The reason that we are often encouraged to:

● Listen to that small voice within.
● Trust our gut feelings.
● Trust our instincts.
● Trust the messages our body sends us about someone or something.
● Get a feel for life, what we want, what we need, what enlightens and inspires us.
● And to trust ourselves.

We are often blinded to our real desires and dreams by the world at large all around us trying to make us like them and lose our dreams in the process.

When parents bring their children up in a wholesome mature manner then the child knows what he or she wants by the age of 18 or so, and then will go do what is needed to have that life.
One of the most important things here to note is that they trusted themselves, their feelings, their own instincts and judgements, what exited their mind, body, soul and they felt this uncontrollable desire to go get that dream.

All the entrepreneur books are full of stories about people who went for their dreams, same as the great inventors who were told that they would fail but succeeded.
And the great pioneers of the past who took great risks but got where they wanted to go and be what they wanted to be.
This is proof that it works, is real, and that we need to get real with ourselves, seek the answer to our own happiness that is within us waiting to be grown from dreams to reality, from a dull life to amazing life that meets our needs, fills us with hope, desire and love.

One of the reasons that we are told to get away from “the noise” of the world is so that we can depart from “toxic dream killing people” and seek our own happiness by listening to our own minds. Those who are brave enough to try what they want are those who are truly happy.

Follow your dreams because they are speaking in your heart, lifting up your soul, enlightening your mind, exciting your body and turning your vision in the direction that your heart and soul want to go.

“Your Dreams” are because, well, you, and only you, have dreams about what you want, what is so important to you, what you love, what you want to be, have, enjoy and to be in your life in the future.

You can see here how obvious and easily understood it is that no one else can tell you what your dreams are, how to live, or what you are thinking.

Some of us have dreams that have sort of haunted us all through our life, certain things that we wanted to try, maybe for relaxation and not a career, but nevertheless we wanted, felt even that we needed, to have a go and try it out.
For me it was guitar playing.I always wanted to play but was always told I was tone-deaf and useless, so I gave up, but over and over again I would dream of playing the guitar, of being good at guitar, of writing my own songs even, and finally I gave up ignoring these feelings and got a guitar and found out that without anyone around me putting me down I got better and better at playing the guitar, wrote my own tunes, and play songs well – my dream was realized and that was a nice thing to happen to me. I would never have experienced that dream and happiness if I had listened to everyone else.

The other dream that keeps coming back is a happy family life, this one has never happened, but it is still always there for me.

Your dreams are there, deep within, and they keep coming back, again and again.
They come back because they are meant for YOU!

Recognizing them is a journey in itself, where you remember the child years, the teen years, and ask yourself,
“What was I always thinking back then?”
“What was I always interested in other than what everyone else was doing?”

Think about what thoughts kept you happy.

And if you played and “Acted out” games, role playing, what roles did you always want to have, who did you always want to be, and as you got older did you become interested in something (could even be a person or lifestyle) and want it ever so badly, so much so that you argued with family about it, and then gave up?Ask yourself if you have ever given up on a dream, “Why did I give up on it?”

Who influenced you “out of your dreams”? Or who changed your Life-Path so that you forgot your dreams?

Think of the activities, people, events, hobbies, jobs, etc, that you walked away from through lack of confidence, fear of failure, worried that people would laugh, or were pressured to walk away, and look into them more deeply.
If we give up on our dreams there are reasons for this, and there are often people who steered us away in another direction, a fruitless path that may still mentally affect us many years later.
Your genuine dreams do not cause unhappiness, mental illness, depression and anxieties, doing the opposite to who you are, what you want and what are your talents and dreams makes you unwell.

Unrequited Love is a good example, it affects the mind, body soul, metal health, brings for much sadness, depression and anxieties.

If people steered you away from your natural state of being and the dreams you so happily desired, are they still in your life now or people like them?
Are you on a determined stubborn path to finding yourself, courage, confidence, self respect and faith in yourself or are you still doing what you were told to do 5 years ago?

If the past was wrong and you were young and too worried about making things right for you, and you can now see, recognize this, are you now as an older person, stronger in self belief, values, desires for becoming confident, courageous and happy, doing anything to make it happen for you?

Dreams can’t come from lack of action – they only become reality from action, your action.
So once we understand what we wanted, why we didn’t get it, who we listened to, we need to ask ourselves, are we still listening to the same people or the same types of people who were killing our dreams?

When you look back into the past try to remember those forgotten experiences and dreams because they tell a  story, and they give you and idea what you once loved before the world took your dreams away.

For example:I used to love laying on my back in the Summertime and staring at the sky, the blue, the clouds, and at night staring at the stars, moon, milky way etc.
At school I was always in trouble for daydreaming.
Years later, I read that people who didn’t like conformity as a child and daydreamed a lot are inventive as they use their imaginations a lot and even if their dreaming gets them into regular trouble they still go ahead and do it. When you get into trouble for something but do it anyway, its what you really wanted and not even punishment would put you off.

Did you dream in such a way, act, do things, that you loved so much but they still got you into trouble?

Do you remember anything special, anything that stood out?
Remember what you really like may have been blocked out with other people laughing at you when you expressed a desire or like for something, so some feelings, desires, dreams and likes may take a while to surface.

Always keep a look out in your past for people who dimmed your dreams, the one’s who laughed at you,
pointed the finger and judged you,
because as long as you remember who they were you may get an inclination of what you have forgotten.

Your childhood dreams are like buried treasures, they exist, but have were buried a long time ago.

Did you walk into a room, see a piano and fall in love with it immediately?

I jogged one evening at a rugby practice, a friend who was in the team asked me to go to practice with him so I joined in for the fun of it, I was fitter than the entire two teams yet I was a smoker and didn’t do any sport.
The coach said that he liked what he saw and he wanted me on the team, I asked mother and she said, “No!” end of story.

Other people, even parents, can kill our dreams.
In some cases like mine (Dad didn’t really care) they can refuse us the right to participate in a domineering controlling way, and in other cases they can smother us with attention so much so that we forget what it is that we like because the attention is making us happy.

During your teenage years, childhood, adult years, what came that you liked but didn’t try?

Did you start to get into a certain era of movies, music, and also always look for such in your mind and thinking that was not what the crowd did, that is you being an individual, doing things on your own your own way, own those thoughts.

What about a certain parent, did you go on trips with friends of the family, relations, aunties and uncles, what did you enjoy on these occasions?

Write all your thoughts on paper/PC and such, no matter how silly you think that they are now, do it.

Get a notepad and write down what you liked, what inspired you, who inspired you, and what you did that was different to what everyone else did.
What did you want to be, a nurse, doctor, artist?

I was always a big Beach Boys fan, so when everyone was getting down to other forms of music like punk, disco,whatever, I was mentally in the 1960’s in a teenage era that was not my own and enjoying music that was very uncool for the decade I was in as a teenager.
I liked the music because it was uplifting and made me happy.

You can use titles like in your Notepad/Notebook like:
What I liked the most.
What I loved?
Who did I like being with?
What ideas did I have for a career?

Did you like horse riding?
Did you want to compete on a horse, but all your friends were pushing you into partying and so you went that way?
Did you have a best friend who was into a sport you did like, but you threw away your dreams helping them?

I remember for the High School North Island running champs one year my best friend was having an asthma attack and I was easily going to be in the top 3 and I threw away my position to help him and I came in near last.
The next years I cruised to 3rd without really trying but mother refused to let me go to the Champs so I missed out and I gave up running, I felt that there was no point to competing.
I always loved running, especially long distance, but back then if the parents said no, the school didn’t push it, neither did coaches.
These days they find ways to raise money for the team member.

Did you want to be famous, doing what?
What did you expect to be doing in 5 years at the age of 8, 5, 14?
What were your real dreams, the one’s you didn’t tell people about, what made your heart lift with desire and happiness?

What did you enjoy as a child?

Did you try dancing?
Did you like painting or want to paint?

Remember, this is not about what you did, it is about what you wanted to do and sometimes what you tried briefly before the world tugged you away.
Sit back on your bed and let your mind wander back into the past, be relaxed.

Make this a very exciting task.

If you like painting, and actually did it, what did you enjoy the most about painting?
Or what about bicycling riding, jogging, dancing, playing with friends, etc?
Please write down your feelings that you remember, the excitement, the joys from getting a goal at soccer, netball, racing to the finish-line.

Get excited, we are in a search for the real you and the things that you really deep down inside would love to do.

Did you spend hours listening to grownups talk?
Were you pushed into being a grownup too early and lost opportunities you once wanted to try or the future that you wanted to have?
What did you miss out on that disappointed you?

Did you lay in bed and imagine that you were a singer, or what about someone like Mother Teresa, or an architect etc?
What was the thing that you wanted that gave you a buzz deep inside?
You see, you may not have painted on a canvas, but you may have laid in bed and happily dreamed about it while awake and got up feeling really good knowing that one day you would be an artist, but the world took that dream that away from you.

Many people try a hobby halfway and regretted not continuing.

Now after doing this for a few days and letting those memories come flooding in, and the smiles and happiness as the memories take on the old life that they once had in your heart, you will notice that there will be themes, write those down.

If you found that you were helping people a lot, enjoyed being kind to animals, being compassionate, you may find out that the reason, the theme, was because you wanted people to be like that for you so you were going overboard for everyone else and letting your own dreams and happiness go in the process.

The things that you will remember, the ones that really touched your heart and soul, they had a reason for doing that.
Anything that affects your emotions, heart, feeling and desires has a reason for doing that.

You can start seeing how everything that you loved, wanted to be, what excited you genuinely (and only you) has a very strong and personal purpose behind them.

Now, after a few days, go back and read what you have come up with in about 3-4 days.
You should see what you really cared about, and what you really thought was important and beautiful, amazing and what you really really wanted to be a part of.

When you look back into the past and wistfully smile at the dreams that you used to have,
and you wonder where time and life have gone, you can now ask yourself,
“What was the value of those dreams, can I have them back?”

For example, you wanted to be a nurse when you were 6 years old.
Maybe you read about Florence Nightingale and was inspired, maybe your destiny was to do something great in the field of health, hospitals or the like – why did you want to be a nurse? Because you suddenly realized as you look back into the past that you wanted to help people, you wanted to give people who were feeling sad and lonely in a hospital bed hope, compassion and a reason to live.
When you realise that you had a meaningful deep set reason for wanting your dreams you realise how important it was for you to be meaningful in other people’s lives.

We need to realise that when we get older, our early teens, that adults and other people can get us involved in undesirable activities and we then use our compassion for others.
If we are a loving person we can become a people pleaser in sports and always trying to win and be the best because that is what people expect of us and what family want, so we go far and beyond to succeeded and be admired, and from that we become vain and conceited without even realising that this mental transformation has happened.

If we are introduced to sex at a young age we can become a sex people pleaser.
What they call a “Hottie” always pleasuring others to make them happy (instead of being a nurse),
and feeling that each person that leaves you happy is an accomplishment, when in reality it is the opposite.

Your childhood dreams had a meaning and life has removed that meaning for your life or at least used that meaning for undesirable deeds.

Please remember that the childhoods dreams are of innocence, you were innocent.

Often they may have been simple such as wanting to sail the oceans, or of a one off event such as sailing the world on your own just for the pure pleasure of the trip, the sea, the solitude.

Please remember that “careers” were human made, not natural, so you don’t have to love something to make a career out of it, but you can as well.If you really enjoy being with children then there is a huge range of ideas there for a career.
If you like cycling you could be a bicycle mechanic, a sports cycling writer, a competitor, etc.
Or you could be, just like me, a cyclist who enjoys getting out there in nature and relaxing while cycling, and cycle when you can wherever you live for your entire life.

You don’t have to make a career out of those important childhood dreams, but you can still enjoy them during your life as they will bring you a meaningful life and pleasure – in other words they will give life meaning for you, validity and a reason to live, while also being something that you look forward to doing each or most days.

Sadly for many of us our dreams were taken away by adults or people our own age, people who were unhappy so they made us unhappy.
Or maybe we were physically, emotionally, sexually abused, and because this put us into fear and survival mode mentally we completely forgot the dreams we had just before the abuse because we were too busy trying to figure out with our innocent child-like minds what was going on and how to get through it.

Getting back to the dreams is a healing way of finding who we used to be, what we used to like before the world made us like undesirable things, and getting real with the inner-child within that is waiting to in a healthy way express themselves.

If you liked bike riding try to remember why?
Was it the wind in your hair, the realization that traveling by bike was fun, faster than walking, exciting, and you got to see much more on a bike than you could ever see walking?
What was the reason, the depth of your dreams for you?

Please do these mental exercises on your own.
If you do them with someone else they will probably remember their dreams, cloud your mind with their memories, feelings and opinions, leaving you confused, possibly frustrated and your mind clouded.
These exercises are for you only.
No one else has a clue what you felt as a child or what you wanted, so please, don’t let anyone put thoughts in your head or to try to push you in direction you don’t need to go.

Do you remember (I do) of being in groups of children at school and someone bringing up the question:“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
And then you and the others all get excited and jump up and down excitedly telling each other what you want your future to be.
Remember the excitement, the thrills of sharing your dreams, your chosen future,
Do you remember the others dreams, their response to what you said, and did you walk away feeling even ore convinced that you wanted your dream more than anything else in the world?

Dreams for a child are a powerful incentive to keep trying, to live, to keep going, because one day that dream will come true as far as that child is concerned.

Every single one of us was meant to have lifelong dreams, and those dreams were designed to make us excited and to make the future appear meaningful, desirable, powerful and what we really wanted the future to be.

With dreams floating around in our Spiritual Heart we have a direction to go,
a reason for heading on the path that we are on, and this is where we get get stubborn courage,
confidence in our subject as the years go by as we learn more and more about it,
self respect in our endeavour to make it come true because our dreams are worthy,
and the more we head to our dreams the more we gain confidence that everything is going to work out all right.

Along the way, one day, we will meet that special someone who will be on the same or similar path, and we will connect in a strong loving healthy respectful way, marry, and walk that path together as one.

Now, older, years later, having had looked back on your past and now see that many of the important choices, and even life-changing choices you made, were not really your choices and they were not what met your needs, mental health or spiritual well-being.

Knowing this now, much wiser, can you see what choices you could have made and how you could be living now?

The past is not in your power, under bad influences it never was, but from here on, you being much more wiser and all,
seeing who and what steered you off a happy life, what are the choices you would make today?

Another point is, taking the Nurse, Netball examples, you wanted to be a nurse because you wanted to be compassionate, useful and to help people.
In sport you excelled in Netball and wanted to follow that as well.

You are now a qualified nurse, and in the national team or regional team playing Netball and are well recognized for your abilities in that sport, as
well as a few other sports and activities that fitness got you into.

As a party goer, drinker, drug abuser and lots of casual sex would you have made the right choice for marriage?
Maybe your friends got drunk one night and you got into a lesbian act with them all and became a lesbian.
God sends along this nice guy.
Would you laugh because he was a non-drinker, non-smoke, against drug abuse, a real family person?

The choices that you were pushed and pulled into as a young person are the choices that formed your soul, and from that you pulled your experiences from and used them to make future choices – this is why so many people become lifetime losers, when they were young their souls were formed from abuse, toxic relationships, baggage, disappointments, tears, casual and shameful sex, anger, hate, and then someone nice comes into your life you possibly (like I did many times) feel that you were just not good enough, or you laughed at them arrogantly and moved on, or maybe you wanted to marry that person but family and the crowd got in the sway and pulled you from this person and new lifestyle?

The thing that you need to understand is that the past was not in your power, it was in the power of your parents, the education system, your peers, and toxic adults.
Understanding that your soul was bled dry of good and field with Survival Mode and whatever came your way, and that this was all that you had to make choices from, your choices became as bad as the troubled, loss, mess soul that you had.
Your soul was damaged and so were your choices.

Predators, after you and possibly your own children to abuse, they seek damaged souls, because they know that they are already prepared and damaged and struggle for confidence, courage and suffer depression, anxieties, irrational fears, and the predator just feeds the fears, and that keeps the victim in a constant state of worry, anxieties, depression and with very few coping skills.

Narcissists love weak minded people who were damaged by their parents and society, they love to use and abuse them, and the weak minded person desperate for help see the abusers as help, love, compassion (all of which the manipulator fakes) desperately clings to their greatest enemy giving them all the love and attention that they can I fear of losing that person, what they think is their rock and solid foundation, not realizing that they themselves are supposed to be their own solid rock.

With a list of the things that you have always wanted to do, especially as a child, make it a commitment to do them.
Try one thing a week if you can, and just have a go.

Maybe if it is like paining, paint for that week and see if it is something that you will keep doing and also see if you find that it relaxes you and are you talented at thins?
Society can trick us into thinking that people-pleasing or conforming well means that this is a talent.
Like working in a bank. You are at the counter, are efficient with people’s banking needs, you smile, and the boss, very pleased thanks you and tells you that you are very talented at this and they want to keep you on in the future when they downsize.
What the bank really means is that you are doing well and that false act of smiling, laughing, and making out that you are enjoying the toil of your job saved the company a wealthy customer, believe me, to them you are talented.

You see, a customer can be lost very easily, there are plenty of banks. Your smile, pretty face, trim figure and false demeanor  pleased the wealthy man and he kept his account with the bank. Your people pleasing ways to keep your job and your conformity to the banks rules and ways has you looking very talented, but its not a talent, its more a weakness.

In the case of immoral acts one could be called a “hottie” or amazing and talented at immoral behaviour satisfying people’s weaknesses, but this is not talent.
Once again this is people-pleasing and conformity.
Your talents may or may not be a career, but they are what you are naturally good at that more than likely will have your friends and family turning their nose up at it or laughing.
You will know your talent because you like it and family and friends look down on it.
This shows you that you are not conforming, you are not people-pleasing, you are simply doing something that only you want to do.

Imagine you are a child and you walk into a room where a teacher or parent has set out many activities for children.
Painting, drawing, colouring, carpentry, reading, writing etc. You walk around the room until you find the very thing that you are delighted with and in harmony with your spiritual nature you choose an activity with much excitement and do it, all the time very much enjoying yourself.

When you work in a bank, or shop, deliver papers or goods, you are stressing yourself. You have to lift your act up and people-please, even suck-up to people and bosses, maintain a certain dress, and act a way that is not natural to you and is soul-draining when you have to do it all day.
See the differences between innocent child-fun and adult-work?

By remembering and trying out your childhood dreams you will bring back innocent charming delightful soul-uplifting experiences back into your life.
There is no one to please, no one to suck up to or impress, you are simply having a delightful moment doing something that you and only you have always wanted to do. Enjoy.
You can leave the house a mess, wear whatever you want to wear, and follow your own rules and sometimes just making them up as you go along, and in the end you have your own delightful fulfilling enjoyable experience to feel good about and possibly come back to very soon to do it all over again.
You are not trying to make others happy, you are expressing yourself in some actively, putting you into a drawing, art, pottery, activity, the results are yours and only yours.

You will get up laughing at what you did, sometimes in emotional tears, joy, and sometimes really amazed at the talents that you have unleashed that were buried long ago for many years.
This is all very personal, very intimate, a special time for only you, a special time seeking what is within yourself to bring out into the world and sharing with others or not, this is entirely up to you.

This is what childhood is like or meant to be, fun, soul exploring, innocence, doing things, letting the imagination take its own course, and really just seeing and feeling the results as they take you to an emotional journey that as a delivery boy, businessman, bank attendant, teacher, just can’t give you.
This is finding the real you, what makes you tick, what brings you joy, what empowers you, encourages you, brings you a deep spiritual happiness that comes from within, not from the applause of others.

All the best from
James M Sandbrook.