Living the Dream

I realized something really important last week. I'm living my dreams. They aren't out there in the future, floating around in my hopes. I'm living my dreams right here, right now.

What prompted this realization was a Power of Moms event we held last Wednesday called "Live Deliberately: Dare, Dream and Do." This event involved 82 wonderful mothers gathering to share their ideas and dreams. We heard powerful talks by April Perry, my wonderful Power of Moms partner whose dream came true when we recently published the book Deliberate Motherhood (all about reaching our motherhood dreams), by Whitney Johnson, one of our advisory board members who wrote the book Dare, Dream, Do and shared some powerful concepts from that book, and by my dear mom, Linda Eyre, who I think is the ultimate example of living her dreams while being an amazing mom and involving her children in her dreams while supporting them in theirs. Macy Robison (creater of the CD, Children Will Listen) sang a gorgeous song about dreams (seemed liked it was written just for this evening) and shared some of her story. We gathered in small groups for facilitated discussion on what dreams we're pursuing, what dreams we're saving for later, what dreams we've decided to let go of, and what we're doing to pursue our dreams. And we ate delicious treats.*

There was serious electricity in that room as it buzzed with smiles and hopes and ideas.

 

Here are some of the 40 fabulous women who help us run Power of Moms and who were able to attend this event. They are helping so many dreams come true for so many moms around the world.

Here are the speakers at the event: Macy, April, me, my mom, and Whitney

Here are some of the 60 moms who helped write our book, Deliberate Motherhood. Some of them we met in person for the first time on Wednesday night! What a powerful book they helped to produce.

I spent a lot of last week working on the details involved in this event - registration lists, sponsorships, agendas, discussion questions, etc. The nit-picky details involved in pulling off these events is NOT my dream. Then my mom, April and I spent Wednesday afternoon picking up plates and napkins and lovely trays of donated treats then hauling all that along with boxes of books through a crazy series of locked doors and elevators in the freezing cold to get to the beautiful room where we'd hold our event and moving furniture and setting up chairs. We laughed together that these activities were NOT our dreams.

But as we talked at the event, I realized that while so much of what I do each day, be it preparing for an event or doing the regular "mom" stuff of making dinner and getting the kids ready and picking up carpools, doesn't feel very "dreamy," it all adds up to some amazing dreams that have come true and continue to come true. I like the quote by Robert Schuller that says, "Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation." Truly, our lives as mothers are full of "unspectacular preparation" that can lead to the little and big achievements that fill our hearts and souls.

I shared this story at the end of the evening:

The night before the event, as I was tucking my kids in bed, I reminded them about how things were going to work while I'd be gone for the event the next afternoon and evening. Isaac asked me what this event was going to be about. I sat down with him and Silas (they share a room) and told them that we'd be talking about our dreams and how to make our dreams come true. Silas said "What are you going to say your dreams are?" I have tons of dreams and I feel like my kids see me doing work towards them all the time - they see me doing all the "mom" stuff like helping with homework and volunteering in their classrooms and cooking dinner that's related to my big dream of having a family and they see me working on my computer and heading off to events for Power of Moms to support my dream of helping other moms be the moms they really want to be. But I realized that perhaps I don't really explain all this action as working towards dreams.

In a moment of inspiration, I took Silas's face in my hands and said, "YOU are my dream. I always dreamed of having wonderful, beautiful, fun kids and you turned out even better than I dreamed." I went on to tell Silas and Isaac how I have tons of dreams and many of them have come true but that THEY, along with their siblings and their dad, are the most important and most precious dreams of my life.

My heart was so full of love and joy when I shared this truth with my sweet boys that when I left their room, I decided to share the same truth with each of the other kids as I tucked them in bed. I was met with beautiful smiles and hugs and experienced some of my best-ever moments in motherhood that night.

So I went into this event on Wednesday starting to really realize something I should have realized long ago: I'm living my dream. And it's harder and crazier and more complicated and deeper than I dreamed it would be. But it's also more beautiful and better than I dreamed it would be.

I'm living my dreams. I really am. I choose this. I hoped for this. I dreamed this. And now, here I am, reaping the consequences, both hard and good, of the dreams I set in motion.

And I'm going to start reminding myself of this every day.

* We're so grateful to our fabulous sponsors:

Zupas (our favorite place to go out for a meal as a family) sponsored delicious chocolate covered strawberries

 Sweet Dreams (in Spanish Fork, UT) donated gorgeous, yummy cupcakes

Paradise Bakery (downtown SLC) donated super tasty cookies