What’s your big dream? You know that one, the wild, improbable goal that you find yourself daydreaming about. In today’s episode, I’m talking about why having dreams for your future is vitally important to feeling younger while growing older. I dive into why many of our dreams remain unfulfilled, how to overcome the obstacles that are in our way to achieving what we want out of life, and what dreaming has to do with longevity.
What’s your big dream? You know that one, the wild, improbable goal that you find yourself daydreaming about. Looking back to 10 years ago, I am currently living what I was dreaming about then: traveling the world and escaping winters forevermore.
In today’s episode, I’m talking about why having dreams for your future is vitally important to feeling younger while growing older. I dive into why many of our dreams remain unfulfilled, how to overcome the obstacles that are in our way to achieving what we want out of life, and what dreaming has to do with longevity.
So many of us are held back by limiting beliefs, fears, and cultural norms. In order to live a vibrant life, we really have to find what is true internally for us, and not just follow what was modeled to us by the people that raised us. The more I've been exposed to different ways of living, the less I feel attached to my humble midwest upbringing.
My guiding principle is that everything I do today and in the near future determines how I will feel and what I will be experiencing in a decade. What are you doing to align with the future that you’re dreaming of? Listen in to learn how you can pursue your dreams and be engaged with the aging process.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or on your favorite podcast platform.
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[00:00:00] Dana Frost: Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host, Dana Frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect: conversations about vitality from the inside out with guests experts in the field of health, culture, and spirituality.
[00:00:33] And solo episodes along the way from me, where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy medicine, and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger while growing older, this is the place for you.
[00:00:52] Hello everyone. This is Dana. Your host coming to you this week for another solo episode. We are going to start today with a story from my awkward preteen years, I grew up in a working class family in St. Joseph, Missouri, according to my dad, rest in peace, Jerry Holt. It was pronounced Missouri. In my early years.
[00:01:14] He was an over the road truck driver, which meant he drove the continental USA in his own way. He had a traveler. This might be why at an early age, I wanted to travel the world. But as a family, we only got as far as Kansas and Arkansas. Although I have to say our camping and boating game was super collect.
[00:01:37] Maybe you remember the thrill of electives when you hit middle school or junior high. I just actually could choose my classes. I have to say I was just thrilled. I remember reading through the electives with eyes wide open. Suddenly my school days opened up like a great frontier. Ultimately, my choice was easy because of course I dreamed of traveling the world and I would need a second language.
[00:02:03] And what is the most romantic language in the world? Even to a squirly twelve-year-old girl in middle America. Knows it's French. I wish I could remember my teacher's name because she was really the best. We had a Claire's, which is a little pastry with cream and celebration of Bastille day. She introduced us to the concept of French cafes with croissants and espresso.
[00:02:29] We're talking about the time pre globalization. This was in the seventies. The only coffee in the Midwest was Folgers and wonder how the market. Our teacher toured us across the seductive country of France. As far as the seventies movie reels could take us 12 year old Dana Senator desk and knew she would see the world.
[00:02:54] I had a dream. I could see myself in a French cafe sipping on espresso and daintily eating croissants. Fast-forward to high school. I continue to take French as my elective. By the time I graduated high school, I had six years of French education, but hadn't stepped a foot outside of the U S. My high school, French class went on a yearly trip to Europe, but my parents wouldn't pay.
[00:03:19] And for all the hours I worked at our local fashion store. Get this, it was called. You're not going to believe this the Paris. I actually just put that together. As I was thinking about the story that I wanted to share. I have to say, I could not gather enough money to afford that annual trip to Europe.
[00:03:37] Nope. Honestly, I was tortured with jealousy each year. My classmates returned, but that would not be the end of my story. As many of you may know, in today's episode, we are talking about your dreams for your future and how to achieve them and why they are vitally important, why they are important to feeling younger while growing old.
[00:04:01] So what's your dream. What's your big dream? My coach trainer, Dr. Martha Beck, referred to these as wigs wildly improbable goals. Do you have one? Do you have a wig? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? I find it helpful to look back in order to look forward. So take a peek back at your life 10 years ago, how did you envision your life looking 10 years in the.
[00:04:32] Is that the life you're living? If so, Bravo, a decade ago, after having lived in the tropics for eight years only to be thrust back into the bitterly cold windy winters of Chicago. I had a very clear understanding of my weather preference. My tropical experience shattered the illusion that a white Christmas is more magical than having Christmas dinner in the garden.
[00:04:59] So I set my dream and intention on never in during winter, as soon as my nest was empty and I've been able to make that dream a reality, looking back 10 years, I am living what I was dreaming about 10 years ago. The first year my nest was empty. I was away for part of the winter. The second year, a little bit more last year was the third year.
[00:05:22] And I escaped until March. And this year Beatty, Miami beach is my home. I will tell you this didn't happen without planning in 2017, we downsized so that our main home in Chicago was a turnkey. We left our family home and moved to a condo where we had no responsibility, zero responsibilities for weather related upkeep like shoveling sidewalks in our absence.
[00:05:48] Now I've shared two of my wildly improbable goals, traveling the world and escaping winters for evermore. I would love to know yours. And by the end of this episode, you'll know how to align yourself for the fulfillment of yours. For those of you who are not living the dreams you had 10 years ago, whatever you do do not judge yourself.
[00:06:15] You are not allowed. Nope. Not on my clock. You're only invited to curiosity. A curious mind is going to help you discover why you aren't. Uh, judgmental mind will keep you trapped forever. Now let's just talk about why do dreams remain unfulfilled? And I see them fitting into one of three or a combination of the following reasons.
[00:06:41] Number one, limiting beliefs. Number two, fears and number three, familial and cultural norms are contracts. So let's look at limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs. Like I don't have the knowledge. I don't have the resources. I don't have connections. I can't, I shouldn't, I'm not allowed, I don't have the money, but what about my kids?
[00:07:05] There are so many reasons, so many limiting. Now, if any of those beliefs resonate with you, or you can identify your own limiting beliefs, police do the work. And by this, I mean the work by Byron Katie examine your beliefs and set yourself free. And you are the only one who can do this work and she makes it so easy.
[00:07:27] She has so many videos online where you get to see her live. Or actually, I would say it's recorded doing the work with people, helping them to turn around limiting beliefs. I will put the link to the work website in the show. A very simple example of a limiting belief for my own life or could have been for my own life is my choice to make Florida my primary residence, even though my husband cannot, Miami is my home base and Chicago is his.
[00:07:58] Now I will say that an earlier version of myself probably wouldn't have created this condition because I was under the belief that husband and wife lived together all the time. I grew up that way. That was the model I had in reality. I learned that this is simply a limiting belief and I was ex I've been exposed to enough models and different ways of having a family that that was dismantled.
[00:08:22] And it's easy for all of us to see. There are so many conditions in which couples live apart for periods of time, military service, education, and training multi-month work cycles, overseas assignments. Those are just a few. Okay. So let's look at fear. The life I'm living, although it is not what I desire is safer than what I have not yet experienced.
[00:08:44] It's like the devil, you know, is better than the devil. You don't know. We simply lack the courage to change our situation, or we get gripped by fear easily. We don't understand that sometimes fear. Is the motivation to make that change. I know in my own life, when I, I can distinguish the dangerous kind of fear from the fear that is like, Dana, go, go in this direction.
[00:09:09] Even though you don't have all the answers, you don't know the way you don't know what it's going to look like. You got to go, you got to go girl, you're following a dream. And quite frankly, I mean, I was afraid to start a podcast. I've been afraid to do anything that I've not done for the first time. And I've just learned through practice.
[00:09:25] It's okay. I'm going to get through it. And that fear, it's just a feeling and it's going to pass. I have to say I'm absolutely dogged on this one. This whole issue with fear. Honestly, I don't have a lot of compassion. I want to say, pull your big girl or boy pants up and go for it. Or suffer and you will feel older while growing older.
[00:09:48] And this sounds very cruel, but it is very true. If we bypass the heart's true desires, we can not feel vitally alive. This is when your light fades vitality dims, and we go by the way of normal aging and we do less, we shrink and our fears become magnetic. You know why? Because what you feed grows fuel fear, fear will grow fuel your dreams and your dreams will grow.
[00:10:15] Okay. The last reasons dreams go unfulfilled is cultural and familiar contracts. These are things that we abide by based on our upbringing. And it might be that they no longer serve us. We can limit ourselves based on what our family or culture achieved or. Never never underestimate unconscious patterns that have been in trained through the generations.
[00:10:43] The path of least resistance is to do the thing your ancestors did. And it's tempting to hold ourselves back. When we start making choices that are different from our ancestors. You'll remember one of my episodes, I talk about this. We really have to find what is true internally for us and not just doing the training because from an early age, from pre-birth in the womb to the years that we don't have language, we are being in trained with the culture and contract of our family and our.
[00:11:20] Now I have an explanation actually, but as a young child, I was determined to go my own path. The only explanation I really have for that is that my soul was in control and calling me to different choices. So I really do believe my path was in motion before I even had memories or words. I also think in my case, living abroad, and for those of you who don't know me, I have lived on three kinds.
[00:11:46] Living abroad, living in a different culture, steeping yourself in a different language, a different way of being it naturally for me, loosened familial and cultural ties and beliefs. The more I've been exposed to different ways of doing life. The less I feel hooked into only one way, whether that way was my culture or my family gradually.
[00:12:11] I appreciated that finding my own best version of whatever the situation was served. Me and my family more than following culture or family. I have lots of examples from my life. I remember early in our marriage really, before we left the U S it was just assumed we alternate Christmas Thanksgiving, his family, my family.
[00:12:31] And as you grow mature, that just didn't work for us. And honestly, today, I mean living abroad. It really wasn't an option because we weren't here. And as a family, every year is a little bit different and you know, we have five kids, so we look at each year as individual. Okay. So we've talked about some of the barriers to realizing your dreams.
[00:12:58] And now let's talk about materializing, our dream. How does one materialize their dreams while they don't just happened? I really have experienced and believe they are planned with vision and action. So first you must have a clear vision. Secondly, you need to experience it with all your senses. You need to end the in the mind's eye.
[00:13:22] You need to feel that the dream is a reality. You need to place yourself there. What do you see? Who are you with? What food are you enjoying use? All of your senses. How are you spending your time? What's the ambiance? Like what's the weather? What are the sights and sounds, how do you feel emotionally? You really want to tap into that.
[00:13:43] And if you use a mantra, some people do some people don't, but just a mantra is a simple phrase. If you use a mantra to support your dream use, press. Language say it in the press tense. I live in a tropical climate or I no longer experience winter, whatever your dream is, determine a phrase to support your dream.
[00:14:07] That's in the present tense. And besides having the vision and really seeing yourself in that feeling it, you need to match the vibration of your dream. Now, let me say that again. You must match the vibration of your dream. Do you know why? Because it's all energy like attracts, like your dream will magnetize itself to you for this reason.
[00:14:35] If you remember one suggestion from today's episode, it's this align your energy with your dream. Align your energy with your dream. When we think about energy, you can bring it down to feeling state, to make it easier, your energy determines if you have the capacity for the dream. And there are two routes of all energy, love and fear at any moment, ask yourself if you're operating from love or you're operating from fear.
[00:15:03] And I mean, fear, that's not the fear that's driving you towards your dream or what you want. I mean, the fear that's crippling and that it creates constriction in your body. So you can ask yourself, do you feel tense or relaxed? Love is going to relax your body. The energy of love your body is going to be in flow.
[00:15:25] The energy of fear. It feels like restriction or constriction in the body. Something else really think about when it comes to this idea of energy and aligning your energy to your dreams. Are you holding onto any unforgiveness or bitterness? Unforgiveness is a dream killer grudges bitterness.
[00:15:50] Unforgiveness cannot co-exist with dream building. They are polar opposite energies and like attracts like grudges bitterness. Unforgiveness cannot co-exist with dream-building. I say something's twice because they're really. So, how do you align your energy? One, you're just very aware of your emotional experience and the root of anything that you're feeling.
[00:16:15] And you take it back to lover fear, and you get curious, you just, you know, you stay curious, you stay in the moment and. You can align yourself energetically by clearing. So our emotions, you know, we talked about limiting the leaves, so that's, you know, one place that you really need to start, but we also just need to clear the energy.
[00:16:36] So. What do you need to clear to make room for your dreams? And we can clear a lot of things, but honestly, clutter is the easiest. So I would say start there. It seems so simple. And you're like, oh, that doesn't really relate, but oh, it really does relate early in my coaching career, I used a coaching tool called your home as a metaphor.
[00:16:55] This was a Martha Beck tool. It's a writing exercise where you mentally walk through your home and you describe everything you see. And when you're finished, you can insert yourself in the symbols, in your home. Now you literally just sit down paper and pen or at your laptop, and you just walk yourself through your front door and start describing everything you see until you make it all the way through your home.
[00:17:19] Now, I wish I had the copy of the first time I did this in my life coach training, but I do remember the sentiment. This was the sentiment. There was no room for. It looks so orderly on the outside, but open a drawer or look in the closet and it was pretty darn messy. You should totally do this exercise.
[00:17:40] One small sweep of your home. Simply describing what you see is a powerful step towards materializing your dreams. And it's going to help you clear clutter because you're going to see the physical objects in your environment through a keenly insightful. And after clearing clutter, you move on to clearing people, roles and responsibilities.
[00:18:03] So where it comes to people, if you want to achieve your dreams, you need to be with people who are, are achieving there's. This is really simple, and I'll leave it at that. We will only rise to the level of the most functioning person with whom we associate. That's just true. We are who we hang out with.
[00:18:22] In terms of clearing roles and responsibilities, is there room in your life for your big dream or do your current roles and responsibilities limit you? It night not even be the specifics, roles and responsibilities. That might be the way that you're fulfilling the roles and responsibilities. And you need to change.
[00:18:41] You may have limiting beliefs about those roles and responsibilities. This is a tough contemplation, and I urge you to take time to be with the curiosity. Only, you know, how you feel inside the roles and responsibilities you carry. Do they feel heavy or light? You're going to have to wrestle with this one.
[00:19:02] When I was coaching, I encourage people to not make a big career shift immediately in the coaching process, because it's really important first to do some clearing and to. Really look at the limiting beliefs, because as I said, many times, it's just the way that we are seeing our roles and responsibilities.
[00:19:24] So from my experience, the most important tasks. Is to clear limiting beliefs. It's really the foundation of getting over the hurdles in terms of achieving your dreams. Because if you're burdened by limiting beliefs, it's just really impossible to live out your dreams. They just create in-congruent energies that will never align with your dreams.
[00:19:47] And clearing limiting beliefs will help you clear people, roles, and responsibilities. So in summary barriers to achieving your dreams are limiting. Fears and familial and cultural norms or contracts aligning your vibration or energy body to your dreams is vitally important. And you will have to clear things, people, roles, and responsibilities to make room for your dreams.
[00:20:11] So I'm sure you're curious. What does dreaming have to do with longevity or feeling younger while growing older? What's the connection? Everything my. Well, why do we age simply stated our life force diminishes our life force diminishes and that's your life force in all areas, physical, emotional, mental, and eventually the soul exits stage left physically stem cells become an act.
[00:20:43] And telomeres shortened telomeres are the end caps of the DNA as they shorten cells are and capable of reproducing and repairing. And eventually they day off eventually there's no more repair or replication. The body doesn't recover as it did when stem cells were active and cells were properly fueled.
[00:21:00] So over time, it's just this deflation of the physical body. And over time, the light in the physical body dims and our life force loses its vitality. So the light Dems, we are light bodies when there is a lot of light coming in and it meets with the light in our body. There's vitality. This is why last week we did the.
[00:21:29] Basic Schultz meditation. And I had you in basic shelter. Actually, you use the power of light and the warmth of the sun and nature to bring vitality, to restore the body. So the light and the physical body Dems. The other thing that happens the mind does not fire effectively. Now when the light is damned, you can imagine the energy, body and emotional experience fade in tandem as the light DEP.
[00:21:57] The mind does not fire effectively without the light. It has to be activated when we are pursuing our dreams, we're fully engaged. So you think about it. We're active when we're pursuing our dreams. We are active in our body. We're active in our mind and our soul is active. Emotions are popping up. We'll feel disappointment, elation the full spectrum from fear to love.
[00:22:23] Energy creates more energy. As soon as we slow down or opt out our life force dims. I saw this in my maternal grandmother. She happily placed herself in an older person's home, gave up driving and waited a decade to pass away, maybe longer. I don't even know my memory. Maybe doesn't quite serve me, but I just remember thinking.
[00:22:45] She seemed even for my age, too young to say, well, I'm not going to drive any more. And I'm only going to live in this situation where they're only people my age and older, and everybody will take care of me. Now that didn't make sense to me at that age. And it still doesn't make sense to me. I'm not suggesting we push ourselves beyond exhaustion.
[00:23:04] No, that's a Western construct. We can be engaged and pursue our dreams and still have harmonic homelessness. One of my professional idols is Louise hay. She is the author of you can heal your life. And she is the founder of hay house publishing. I will never ever forget an interview with her, where she shared that she was almost 60.
[00:23:28] When her first book you can heal your life was published. I had no idea that that was the case. I was blown away by it. She also shared how every decade she added hobbies to her. I think one time it was gardening and then I think it was calligraphy. And then I remember when she was saying this, this was like 10 years ago.
[00:23:47] And I'm like, oh my gosh, my handwriting is horrific. And look at her, taking up calligraphy in her. I don't know. She might've been in her seventies or eighties. She died of natural causes at age 90 in her home. She really is an icon and inspiration for how to feel younger while growing older. It is never too late friends, never too late.
[00:24:09] You know, something I really don't believe in our Western idea of retired. I think I should look up the Genesis of retirement. If you know what it is, please let me know. I can see how you would change a career focus. But if I look back at our original humanity who we were originally, our design, we were designed to hunt and gather.
[00:24:31] So what does that look like? As we age in our modern world, what does hunting and gathering? We are designed to hunt and gather. What does it look like in our modern world? I invite your curiosity. I'm curious about it. I'm trying to figure it out. I do know for myself, I see myself on the ground with grandchildren being able to run around and play and do all sorts of things with them.
[00:24:57] So that means I've got to stay active. This is one of the reasons I love Chi yoga. It keeps my whole body functional. So how do you want to feel in 10 years? What is your wild. Improbable goal for the next year in five years and a decade from now, I'm curious, how old will you be? I will be 66. And that feels really weird to say, I'll be 66 in 10 years.
[00:25:25] That feels super weird. My guiding principle is that everything I do today and in the near future, determines how I will feel and what I will be experiencing in a decade from that point of knowing I make choices. And so. Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of the Vitaliy you podcast. If you are enjoying the show, please hit subscribe.
[00:25:49] Download the episodes and rate and review. And please, please, please share your favorite episodes with your friends and communities. You can also download my free checklist for daily vitality, and there's a link in the show notes. Thank you to a rose oh 6 9 2 2 1 for being the first reviewer after last week's.
[00:26:09] Please contact me@danafrost.com for your sleeve of life waves, Ian anti-inflammatory patches. And thank you also to capital PCT and S who says enjoyed episode 24. Okay. So episode 24, this is I'm just inserting Kashif Khan was my. He is the CEO and founder of the DNA company. And he was speaking into the practical application of DNA testing and why it provides amazing insights.
[00:26:42] So the reviewer says amazing insights and shares when it comes to age being a number and does not dictate how we feel. Thank you so much PCT and S for taking the time to leave a review. And till next time streaming love from my heart to.