I really started noticing the depth of the seasons last year. How the buds look in spring and the beginning of life and watching the transition all the way to winter. Now I watch the beginning of Spring again. Life emerging as it does every year, and the comfort that there is life here. I love looking at my plants and seeing them growing, knowing that they will sustain me. I love the wildness of nature and the idea that all we need is provided to us. We are meant to heal, we have the medicines we need provided to us naturally. How did things get so distorted? The greed? The idea of worth? Fear? Proving? Power? Ego? Maybe it’s all of it. I see the points in history where we learned about power and how we used that against each other instead of learning to harness it together. How quickly we forget that nature has power over us all. But seeing the beginnings of spring this year has made me feel a certain coming alive, a coming into my own. A certain rebirth if you will.
I allowed people to hinder me for too long whether it was because I thought I couldn’t challenge authority, or because I couldn’t articulate an idea, or because I put myself last to help their ideas come forth. We only get so many years and we have no idea how many, so many springs to begin again. It’s hard to accept the concept that we are dealing with finite in an infinite world. Understanding this part of my mortality has made it easier and easier to chip away at the idea that I need to put myself last. I see value in helping others, but I do not see value in helping others who would cut my legs off in the process. There are choices we make every day and we need to make the choices that are really for the greatest good. What good does it do to give the pieces of ourselves to others who never bother to fill their own? That being said, I can’t expect people to give me pieces of themselves either. It is my job to fulfill my purpose.
All the ego, greed, fear, corruption, power won’t give us more time. None of those things can improve the quality of lives for others and it isn’t sustainable for very long. It’s exhausting protecting power. It’s easier to cultivate and maintain our own strength. When we tend to our own garden we become more concerned about our own bloom than what other people are doing. We all have seasons—growth, prosperity, slowing down, death. We go through them every year. We have to stop allowing others to tell us how to live in our seasons. We must appreciate each season, we must appreciate ourselves in each season. There was something in me that feared the bloom for a long time, that feared letting myself be seen in that light. Like there was an expectation of maintaining a certain glow once the bloom hit. We need to learn that we are ok to simply shine. We are meant to bloom and do nothing more than that. Don’t let anyone tell us it’s not the right season to shine. We all bloom in our own time. Let it be seen in its full array regardless of how uncomfortable it makes others. Stand tall in that light.
I didn’t think I wanted to do the work at the hospital anymore. And the truth is I still don’t fully know if I do—but there are things that I struggle to let go of. I have this idea (and lord knows I can hold onto an idea) to the potential of what things can be—so I don’t know if this is me hanging on to that or doing what I know is right. Up until two days ago, things have been thwarted due to misunderstanding, ego, bad timing, and being in the wrong place. I had begun making arrangements to move on and let it be. But when I found myself in a position to actually make a difference—or to at least suggest a difference– it felt good. That feeling good wasn’t from ego-it was from a remembrance of who I am. It wasn’t the power over the situation, it was the act of reclaiming my power. Being a near life-long people-pleaser, it’s really hard to break the habit of doing what I’m told—and I work for someone who expects me to do as I’m told. No one else—specifically me. She often talks about how much she is a rule-follower, but she bends the rules as they fit for her. So I’m often on the receiving end of her disappointment because I hold firm to my boundaries of what I know works for me. Recently this has been weaponized against me (I know you stick to your 40 hours etc.) instead of praising the way in which I manage my workload. That was further confirmation the issue isn’t the hours, it’s that I stick with my boundaries and am not doing what I’m told.
I’ve gone against direction before because I know what is right—not even so much that I am right, but that what I have to do is right. A decision was made regarding a particular employee that I knew was incorrect so I did what I knew the right thing was and I was told I’m insubordinate. The truth is I know that by the literal definition that may be true, but I wasn’t going to put my career on the line from doing what I knew was wrong according to our policy. A circumstance came up to discuss an opportunity as I saw fit, a chance to express what needed to be expressed and to tell the truth about what I am capable of and the direction I felt this program needed to go in. And I was heard—I genuinely felt heard. What’s more is that I felt understood and this didn’t take a whole lot of explanation. That right there confirmed that either I was speaking with the right person or that the concept of what I’ve been trying to put together over the years truly wasn’t that complicated—maybe both.
Deciding to go against the mask someone creates is the next obstacle to overcome in situations like this. People create these versions of themselves that the world sees. Sometimes they wear it for so long they convince themselves that’s actually who they are. In some cases it is who they are and they finally let it show. I’ve seen this individual do some amazing things for people and I’ve also seen the shift when you don’t do exactly as they say, or when you don’t agree. She’s asked for action and then tamed it to be manageable for everyone else instead of raising the expectation/setting the bar higher. It is a scary thing to go against that mask and being the challenger is a tough thing because you’re working against an illusion the other person created. We can’t remove the veils from everyone’s faces—they have to decide to take it off themselves so when we start shining the light on things they didn’t know, it can feel isolating and scary because we already see something they don’t. And in all of this mess, I can say that it is scary, but I feel more sane having shared my ideas with someone else and having confirmation that this is something that could work. Do I know what’s going to happen? No. But I’ve taken the next steps and I know that they will lead me to where I need to be, inside or outside.
Today I am grateful for feeling the actual change. I’ve been waking up at 3AM to work out and modifying my diet for the last month (at least M-F). This past week I’ve faced some really tough stomach issues to the point where I knew I didn’t want to work out and I felt like crap, especially on Thursday. I told myself that there is a point where I would have to listen to my body and not do the workout, but until I actually felt like I couldn’t do it I needed to get up. I knew that if I gave myself permission to stop for a day that it would be all to easy to stop moving forward. As much as I hate to admit it, I need to be honest with myself and that means being aware. Stopping isn’t a behavior I do often when it comes to things I commit to, but the truth is I’ve allowed myself to stop things that are good for me when it gets tough all too often. It goes to the back burner. And we all know what happens when we plateau regardless: we stop seeing results so we get discouraged. I’ve also done it where I’ve allowed myself to indulge too much because I started seeing results. But I didn’t do that. I got up and I did the workouts—I did them slower but I did them. They may have been done slower but I finished. I actually did get sick during one of them and I cleaned up and came back to finish. That is real progress—it wasn’t forced, I wanted to do the work to keep my momentum going.
Today I am grateful for following my instinct. Things have taken a turn in my work environment and not necessarily for the better. Some true colors are being shown and I was faced with a verbal threat from an authority figure the other day. In the moment I felt completely trapped, shocked, and completely angered. The words themselves would never come across as threatening but the context and the manner of the delivery made the meaning crystal clear. As it would happen, on Thursday the president of our organization sent out an email offering to meet with people at an open table. Without a second’s hesitation I knew I had to meet with him—not even to discuss what happened to me, but to discuss the potential of my department and where we could offer moving forward. The state of and future of the department has been precarious due to lack of understanding of our purpose and I knew after the threat I was going to have to do something. So I discussed with my employee and on Friday we met with the president. That brief introduction of our ideas led to a request for an additional meeting. For the first time in a long time I felt excitement again. Beyond that I felt power. Not from my ego, but the power that comes from aligning with and following through on exactly what needs to be done. I literally told myself, “This is who the fuck I am.” I told another individual who was aware of the situation and they told me I felt better because I followed my instinct—and that is 100% truth.
Today I am grateful for reaching a limit. Being under a certain amount of stress for too long of a time has absolutely had some adverse effects. Everything from making it difficult to concentrate to physically feeling like crap—and honestly even a few incidents where I genuinely feared for my health. I always knew how lax I was with my boundaries but I didn’t realize the full implications of it. I thought I needed to be nice, to be amendable, to say yes. What ended up happening was true physical risk along with losing some of my identity. I didn’t even know what made sense to me anymore. Working on taking back my health has meant understanding the limits I can push past/ignore and the ones that I need to hold fast to. I don’t need to be afraid of anyone—we are all human. My job is to fulfill my purpose and if there are people in my way it is time to leave that crap, all of the pleasing, all of the fear of how they think, behind. I’ve been fortunate enough to shake hands with billionaires and millionaires and people who genuinely have power and they operate differently than those I struggle with on a daily basis. If I’m trying to better myself, then why am I worried about those who choose to create chains? I need to think like those who fly. I’m at the limit of those around me and I don’t need to be. Sometimes limits are there to show us that we need to pass right through them, and that we don’t need to deal with that crap-to show us what we are willing to deal with.
Today I am grateful for understanding my needs. I’ve fought for ages to be clear about what I need and I have found myself in a constant battle expressing what I know I need and convincing those to help me get it. There comes a point where it doesn’t matter if others understand what we need, we need to know what we need. That means we have to find a way to get it even if we second guess ourselves because of other’s opinions. We have to trust ourselves—and figure out how to get it. It may take time and effort and a few creative passes, but do not give up on what we know is right for us. I got myself the help I needed mentally, physically, spiritually, and professionally this week and I see how having the right resources in place moves things forward. While we don’t all have the same access, we have the same capability and capacity—and we are able to form our own networks or support. And support is something we need above all.
“It’s ok to do things scared,” Bruce B. I love that this followed my talk on fear yesterday. I want to share this brief follow up because it’s clearly a message we need to share right now, especially if the topic came up two days in a row. We need to know that it’s ok to do it scared. I once wrote about how the body can’t neurologically tell the difference between scared/nervous and excited. So that means so much of what determines how we move forward is how we interpret what our brains are telling us—how we decide to label what we are feeling in that moment. This is another key reason why it’s so important to really connect with ourselves and learn what our bodies are telling us—to discern between discomfort, fear, and excitement—and to learn how to trick ourselves into feeling one of the higher level emotions. If the positive and negative are so closely aligned neurologically, then it’s only a matter of deciding how we want to feel in that moment.
The other side of doing things scared is having faith in our own abilities. Often times we think we need to be perfect at something to do it or to voice an opinion on it. Like if we aren’t an expert, we aren’t allowed to say anything on the matter—or try it. The truth is we learn through sharing ideas and inklings of things. Just as often as we think we need to be perfect, we hinder ourselves because of our own interpretations of who we are. For example, we think people won’t accept us as an authority or a resource on something because we are too short. In those cases we need to remember that we have no confirmation of what people truly think of us and we aren’t meant to. We are meant to know ourselves and decide that we are going to move forward, that we are able to do what we set our minds to. I know for me I have to throw in the issue with ADD because we lose faith in ourselves when we don’t follow through on things because we are trying to do all the things at once. I’m learning to give myself grace in those moments and try to train myself to focus on one thing. But I still do the thing.
We can’t get discouraged if we don’t feel like the lion in the moment. We have to tell ourselves that our progress is ours alone and that a single step is all that it takes to keep us going in the right direction. We can’t progress on all things at the same time at the same rate. We are meant to focus on one thing and take the time to develop that skill, develop our confidence until we can do the next thing. So don’t be afraid to start with one thing. Don’t be afraid to not know everything about that one thing. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and move forward. Allow ourselves patience and grace and acceptance of who we really are, trust that we are guided and that we will find the answers we need—and then do the thing. Even if we aren’t able to tell ourselves that we aren’t scared and manage to move forward, then we need to do it anyway. Don’t let our minds play tricks on us so we fear what we need to do—just do it. It gets easier all the time until the thing is done.
“It’s not the absence of fear, it’s overcoming it. Sometimes you’ve got to blast through and have faith,” Emma Watson. For millennia people have shared similar sentiment and it’s something I want to echo. There are parts of life that are super complex—the intricacies of survival and determining what we need and what we want and how we are going to live aren’t necessarily easy. Perhaps a simple decision, yes, but easy to execute and stand by, no. Life requires a certain finesse of knowing when to alter our decisions and when to stick with our boundaries and when to hold back and when to go for it. There are absolutely times we need to put that fear aside and simply tackle what we want head on. We need to understand that sometimes life is less about doing and more about having faith—and sometimes it’s having faith enough to take action no matter the potential of the outcome.
There will always be something that terrifies our primal brain—we simply work that way as it is part of our survival mechanism. Additionally, none of us are born without emotion so there will always be some type of external influence. We just need to learn to manage that and we need to learn what is ours to carry. Some of those fears aren’t even ours and we need to learn to put them down. It really is ok to say, “I will not be burdened with something that was never my issue in the first place.” That can apply to generational things as well as current coping/adapting behaviors—a parent being afraid of failure doesn’t mean we have to be afraid and just because people demand our energy doesn’t mean we have to give it. The beauty of fear is that every time we face it we learn something more about ourselves that we are capable of. And in order to overcome it, we need to face it.
At the end of the day the only way to move forward is to face everything—especially our fears. The more we run and choose to ignore what’s in front of us, the longer we delay living or doing what we actually need to do. Plus I can’t tell you how many times the act of facing something I didn’t want to took so much less energy than avoiding it. We build up the things we don’t want to do to a degree they become this unpassable mountain in our minds. Truly, even if there ARE challenging parts, all we need to do is put one foot in front of the other and allow things to pass as they are meant to. It’s a matter of tackling life one thing at a time. The biggest mountains are in our minds—and so is the biggest prison. Master the mind and understand what we need to do and the rest becomes easy. Have faith that we will always know what we are meant to do—and then do it.
I had a long day the other day and I found myself walking around the halls of my job like a zombie, lamenting that I wasn’t outside or with my child. I realized that I often say no to playing with him because I’m exhausted—even though I’m constantly begging for more time with him. When we start playing he never wants to stop and I appreciate that because it shows me that there is purpose in play and that we can always push beyond. At the same time, because he never wants to stop, that often piles onto the exhaustion. Even if I say yes, it’s still not enough—someone is always demanding more attention. I know wholeheartedly that I am exhausted because my cup is empty. Ok, not totally empty, but it is often depleted. I know I’m in an unhealth environment (and I have for a long time) but this is confirmed when I am up at 3AM to work out every day and I feel great but then automatically feel fatigued when I get to work. There are places that simply take the life out of us.
When we surround ourselves with light and joy there is always time for play. We don’t have to shirk responsibility but we also don’t have to take this life as seriously as we do. Play creates bonds and alleviates stress and offers a creative platform. But it has to be genuine play that stimulates us, not forced play where we have to give more than we have. We have to find work that complements us, that allows us to share our gifts but also replenishes that cup so we have the desire and drive to do more. We need to do what we need to do to fill our cups including taking a day or making something we really love doing a priority. This is the only way to truly connect, not only with others, but with ourselves.
I could go on a rant about how this society, the way we live today is thrilled to have us exhausted. That it’s designed to keep us exhausted so we are kept in our place. I don’t want to go off on my theories about that but I do believe it’s true. When we are distracted and tired we become complacent and less likely to push for our own desires/dreams or our purpose/joy. Too often people are comfortable putting those feelings up as the norm—that because the majority of people feel that way that it’s normal. The truth is that in the animal kingdom there is always a hierarchy, but that is often based on survival—and I have written many pieces about the transfer of the human need to actually survive and the evolution into the ego’s need to survive. We truly don’t need to waste our energy and resources in this pissing contest of power and the game of who got more. In fact playing that game feeds into the system even more and perpetuates the cycle. We need to wake up to our lives and embrace them, love them, and fully live them. To do that we need to play and we need to set boundaries, make time for what is important to us. You never know, maybe that will be the example to others.
Oh my stubborn brain and it’s desire to maintain the status quo. I’ve been having a lot of issues at work in regards to staffing, self-esteem, and belief in self—trusting myself is more like it. Nonetheless, because of these challenges, I’ve been required to do more than usual to an unprecedented level. As I’ve shared, I have a department with one brand new hire and another department that’s about to be down two staff members. The reason I share this is because I find myself compelled to do things even if I don’t want to, to prove I’m working, that I’m getting the job done. So I’m filling in for one department, training a new hire, recruiting for another, balancing opinions of reviews in a third and then my son woke up two nights in a row having thrown up in his bed. I reached my limit. I told my husband that I had meetings and an interview today and that my trainee was expecting me as well. I’m not blaming any one aspect of these things because we can’t help them, but in that moment I knew that I was literally expected to be in four places at once—a pressure that would not be placed on my coworkers.
Given this followed my epiphany about not needing anyone, I made a plan to handle all the contingencies, knowing my husband couldn’t stay home and that I would have to figure it out. So I did. I also realized that I don’t need to be around people who expect me to be in four places at once, especially if they wouldn’t do it themselves or they wouldn’t hold that expectation of others. I can’t keep up with that. Physically, the brain doesn’t work that way and the body doesn’t function like that. It isn’t possible. So following the realization of how I want to feel, I was given the opportunity to fight it or deal with it or walk away. It isn’t about maintaining anything anymore—it’s about creating an environment that I want to be in and surrounding myself with people who respect that. People who don’t need me to prove myself to them. I am not a superhero and I don’t need to try to be. It’s ok to let some of those plates fall when it is no longer healthy for us. And if the people around us only try to add more plates and criticize how fast we are spinning them, then it’s time to walk away.
“Think of all the times you’ve upgraded certain aspects of your life. All of this is the power of what it feels like to continuously evolve and view life through a higher lens. Life’s number one skill that you need to develop is programming you..deciding what outcomes you want, setting goals,” Rob Dyrdek. Rob shared this wisdom after telling the story of how he bought his first ’93 Honda Civic and knowing that he overextended himself. He said he overshot the mark. But he shared this in the respect that he was upgrading his life and that he needed something a little beyond reach to keep him moving forward. To get bigger you need bigger goals and bigger vision. You need something to keep you growing.
I never enjoyed the kind of pressure of taking on a project I knew couldn’t be achieved. I mean I had an outright aversion to it. Plus I had a chip on my shoulder about being the kid who did the project all those years in school—if I didn’t want a bad grade I had to do it myself. Ironically, even though I have this aversion, one of my favorite quotes is from Eleanor Roosevelt, “Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll still land amongst the stars.” I love the idea behind it, but I secretly always knew I would hit my mark—if I wanted the moon, that’s what I would get. I wanted more but I settled for mediocre so I wouldn’t get stuck with something I didn’t want long term. Putting the idea of going for something just out reach into context with Rob’s quote, I understand the point because if you aim for more than what you have and more than where you think you can go, you will get further than you would have with a smaller goal in mind—even if you don’t get the exact goal.
For me it was a matter of fear—fear of judgment or other people telling me I could/couldn’t do something. I didn’t want to make a big production out of it because of the fear of failure. And believe me, I always had a contingency plan. I always knew what I would do if I failed—I would make it not my fault saying so and so needed me or I was supposed to do x and when those things didn’t come through I could say it wasn’t my fault. I was scared of the task, I was scared of success. I didn’t know how to listen to my body or my mind or my soul—it was all outside influences and fear that directed me. Now I want to set the bar a bit further ahead because I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want my progress contingent on what other people do. It isn’t so much about the pressure, it’s about learning what we are capable of. If we tell ourselves we are only capable of x, when we hit x we will stop. So go for y.
“The purpose of your life isn’t to love yourself but to love BEING yourself,” Abraham-Hicks. This quote is life changing. All this time I’ve been working on teaching people to love themselves and I will always stand by what I’ve shared, learned, said, and believe. But I’ve also learned that there is another level to this: it isn’t enough to merely accept—we need to love ourselves enough to believe that we are capable of what we want, that we are worthy to receive it, and that we are meant to take action toward that goal. We are meant to love what we do and how we do it. I still believe that in order to love being ourselves we need to love ourselves first, but it is when we love being ourselves that we find the deepest depths of who we are and allow it to bloom. We have a tendency to show this false bravado in our facades so people view us a certain way and it’s never the whole picture of who we are. If we can say we love how we do things and our process in life then we have mastered a new level beyond self-love—we love existence.
Though the idea of loving oneself and loving being oneself are closely related, there is a fine but important distinction. Loving ourselves is fine and opens the doors to accepting our power, honoring who we are, and setting boundaries whereas loving being oneself happens after we step through the door. That’s when we put the method to the test and we have a sense of completeness and peace. There is no asking for permission in that state, there is no guilt, there is simply doing. Simply being who we are. And, not to be redundant, life itself becomes simpler. There are fewer things we need to define ourselves or make ourselves feel accepted. There isn’t as much stuff we need to hold close to the chest or carry around. We also stop worrying about carrying other people’s stuff—that is a clear boundary. So while it may take a while to get the concept of loving oneself, once we are there we learn that isn’t enough: we have to love being ourselves as well. We can all love ourselves in different ways and to different degrees, that is a teachable thing. We can’t hand anyone the guidebook on how or who to be. Trust that you are exactly as you are meant to be and work on being the best at that. If you’re not happy with where you’re at, then try again.
Today I am grateful for flexibility. In the spirit of discussing difficulty letting go of the way I’ve always done things, there have been several bumps in the road this week (some of which we will discuss later next week). These things required me to make quick decisions completely against what I would normally decide. I had no other choice but to go with it and, honestly, I found some peace. I don’t know if it was the rest my brain needed, the jog to get me in a new state of mind, but being away from the standard day and then having to work on a day I normally don’t offered new insight. Sometimes we really do need the silence to guide the mind. Being able to work without distraction totally changes the playing field, but when we deal with the hustle and bustle all day, constant distraction, working distraction free becomes awkward or even unfamiliar. We are trained to think it’s unproductive. It’s the most productive we can be. Our worth isn’t determined by how many fires we can put out at once. It’s about how we can be flexible enough to know when we need to adapt and sometimes thinking outside the box to find an alternative solution. It’s about being open to finding a new way of doing things—you may surprise yourself at how good it works out.
Today I am grateful for communication. Even the cards today spoke about communication. Sometimes we know what we want but we struggle to articulate it. For years I’ve felt this thing inside of me that I really couldn’t explain. It was this vague sense of knowing, of feeling a certain way, of seeing things a certain way and knowing that was what I wanted but having no idea how to get there and no idea of what it actually was. I was burned emotionally so much as a child and young adult that I struggled to find safety or trust and I learned to mistrust myself as well. Plus the feeling of not knowing what I actually felt or how to explain it created deeper mistrust in myself. But as I’ve been practicing, these things have been becoming clearer and clearer. With learning to trust feelings and expressing what we want we learn how to voice what we need, what we feel and we learn how to get it. I know I spent too much time worrying about how my actions impacted people—it had its positives as well because I could plan ahead for the best outcome, but it left me a neurotic mess because I was afraid of the negative implications of doing what I wanted. But we have desire and drive and the ability to communicate in so many ways—we just need a little practice sometimes.
Today I am grateful for friends. Sometimes we need those people who force us to come out of our shells, especially when we don’t feel like it. I watch a friend of mine with a beautifully complicated dynamic—she is incredibly giving and loving and caring while also being super firm in her boundaries. I admire her because she has 0 fear in expressing who she is but she openly embraces people for who they are and she understands things about them, the little quirks that make them special. Me being a people pleaser struggled to understand how someone could be that bold without feeling shame or regret, and I realized, I have those ideas as well and I’m vocal as well—but she actually does something about it. We need people who complement us, who make us see the other side of ourselves, who not only accept us, but who encourage us to be who we are meant to be. It took me a long time to find people who accepted me like that and I am so grateful that I did. Their unique talents, their ability to weather any storm, the assistance and community we have built. It’s a gift.
Today I am grateful for living. Going through any change is challenging, especially when we are working on ourselves or our development in particular. Sometimes we want things to be a certain way or we feel so tired that we don’t want to push on (or feel like we can’t) and then something comes up and we have to expend more energy. The other day I was so tired after work and I had a massive headache. Work has been challenging and super busy, I’ve been up early to get in a productive workout, my son has been sick so I’ve been up with him for nights, and I’m balancing an endless to do list. I knew I had to work on Saturday so the last thing I wanted to do was entertain but my husband told me he invited our friends over. I initially told him I was so tired and my head hurt that I really wished he had told me before having people over. At the end of the day, it was best they did come over because we had some good laughs, good foot, and we were able to support each other with our presence. We can never pause life, as much as we may want too, so it was nice to embrace the moment and I am grateful that we have friends who cared enough to join us. Our home, table, hearts, and stomachs were full—what a blessing.
Today I am grateful for decisions. I know that some tough decisions are coming up soon. I know that I need to be prepared for some of these and to do that I really need to be in touch with myself—I have to get really honest about what I want because these are the decisions that are going to change the course of many things to come. There was a time I would let myself get overwhelmed by any decision, and there are times I still get overwhelmed by even the tiniest inconvenience (I’m working on it). Now I see it as a gift. I have so many opportunities in front of me, and as long as I find the clarity and focus, I will make the right decision—and I know it will be the right decision because if I am in that frame of mind I will be aligned with what I am meant to do. Decisions aren’t meant to overwhelm us, they are meant to be a gift to help us cut away the extraneous in our lives, to help narrow our focus to what matters. All we need to do is be honest about who we are and what we feel and the deciding becomes easy because we know exactly what we need to do. Embrace the tough choices because at the end of the day, they really aren’t that tough—they are meant to get us where we need to be and we are lucky to have the option to make those choices.
The Intentional Dreamer 