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3 Warning Signs Your Dreams Are Frozen

By on 05/04/2011 in Remy Gervais - Pro Photography Dream

Ok dreamers. My dream is frozen.

Not just stuck, jammed or hesitant. The temperature of my top photographer dreams these days is heading towards frigid.

Our editor Catherine tells me it happens to all of us. Dream progress can move in stages – and there is no guarantee when you start dreaming that all phases are equal in length of time or level of intensity.

Sitting here in the dark, trying to pull this post from my heart and soul, I wonder if she being nice or is she is totally full of it.

Are you frozen in your dream progress?

How do these warning signs resonate with you?

1. You fight to keep your dream alive by defending it, justifying it or feeling guilty.

My emotions regarding my dream – especially where I feel like I have stopped making progress – have been oddly disproportionate lately. It’s the protective feeling I get inside when someone is teasing my son – that hot rush of superhero strength that wants to come to the defense of the little guy who cant help himself.

A question as simple as “hey, how is that photography dream of yours coming along?” starts a fast tailspin, and I listen to myself over-justify the reasons why I haven’t been loyal or as committed to making real progress. When I get defensive in other areas of my life (like in work or significant relationships) I get this dull ache in the bottom of my belly – and that is usually a sign that I need to look at what I’m choosing and the reasons why I’m choosing it.

The dull ache has arrived, and it’s kicking ass and taking names. I hate self reflection some times. Its always painful and raw and most of the solutions are actions I’ve been resisting for a while anyway.

2. You take your dream for granted by ignoring it or pretending you don’t need it to thrive.

When I first started dreaming with 8 Women Dream a year and a half ago, living a life of photography was all I could think about. I sought out challenges and contests, took risks and practiced. There are now days where the camera just sits there, untouched – and I realize how my attention to it has changed. Photography was something I used to plan my time around; its becoming the thing I have to find time for and squeeze in when I can. Why is that?

I don’t think its as simple as “one day its my dream and the next day it’s not.” Photography has always been important to me. My eyes automatically ‘frame’ shots everywhere I look. I can’t turn it off. Photography challenges me to question my perceptions, look for non obvious answers, and most of all, it gives me a declarative voice when I cant physically or emotionally speak for myself.

It is when I’m shooting that I feel at my most genuine, honest and real self. I don’t just want to do it, I know I need to do it.

3. You get angry about your dream and resist listening to your instincts.

I have a chance to follow my dreams every day by just taking my camera with me and shooting images of what I see and by practicing and pushing myself to learn things I don’t know. There have been times lately that I reach to take the camera in my hands and a real energy force pushes back – like when you try to push the bottom of two magnets together. No matter how hard you push them and try to get them to snap together, they keep resisting.

When I’m stressed, the familiar ” fight or flight” urge takes over. It’s not a logical resistance to my dream – it’s an emotional one. Some days I put up a fight and hang on with all I have. Other days I cant run away fast enough. And I’m not that fast of a runner.

So that’s where I’m at. There are no magic answers or cool wrap up sentences to this post, my fellow top photographers. I”m at a loss for inspirational thoughts and self motivating action.

Between now and next Wednesday’s post, I’ll be doing what I can to figure out how to turn up the heat. Mentor me – and tell me what you think I should do.

What do you do when your dreams are frozen?

Until next photo,

Rem

Remy’s dream is creating opportunities for photography showings and public displays of her work and to ultimately be recognized nationally as a photographer . . . then the world. Remy is CEO of Cornerstone Creative, a business consulting practice in Northern California. Remy’s post day is Wednesday.

Remy’s dream is creating opportunities for photography showings and public displays of her work and to ultimately be recognized nationally as a respected photographer . . . then the world. Remy is CEO of Cornerstone Creative, a business consulting practice in Northern California. Remy’s post day is Wednesday. +Remy Gervais

This content is published under the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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  • Katie

    I am sending you some Mac and Cheese pizza stat!

    Until you take your big photography trip, check out Bay to Breakers next weekend to snap some wacky photos, uncontrollably laugh and meet new people :)

    • Remy Gervais, Top Photographer

      yum! and That sounds fantastic!!!

  • Remy Gervais, Top Photographer

    I’m on it Fitz!

  • http://twitter.com/fitz Fitz

    Grab a heater and defrost!

  • http://www.2knowmyself.com M.Farouk

    Are you possibly depressed? One of the well known symptoms of depression is lack of motivation where you will find yourself unable to do some of the tasks that you used to do. When someone becomes depressed they will usually experience a loss in energy which in turn makes them less motivated to do anything. A person becomes motivated to do something when

    1) They know exactly what to do, and
    2) When they believes that doing this task will help them reach their goals.

    Now what depression does is that it either makes you helpless and unable to determine the next step you should take or it either lets you lose hope in the solutions you are currently working on.

    That’s why the key to ending depression and restoring your motivation levels is to find a way to bring back hope. Once you do your depression will disappear and you will become motivated once again, or possibly in your case ‘un-frozen’.

    Best of luck to you.

    • Remy Gervais, Top Photographer

      M – Thank you for your thoughtful reply! I will really take a look at what you said….certainly anything is possible. xo Rem

  • Thad

    If I were a betting man I’d wager a guess that you are not interacting with enough people. When ever staff is stuck (uh frozen) it’s because they have cut themselves off from meeting with others on the team. Are you spending too much time alone?

    • Remy Gervais, Top Photographer

      Thad, you are correct! I will have to test your theory! xo Rem

  • http://www.aweekinthelifeofaredhead.com Catherine Hughes, Editor & Chief

    LOL!! Full of it – NOT.

    Here’s what Laura Bryannan says about being stuck from Getting Unstuck -

    “Getting stuck in one’s personal growth process is not an unusual thing. There you are, making breakthrough after breakthrough and then–poof! the progress stops and nothing you try seems to budge you an inch.

    This is what you might call a plateau issue: you’ve reached a new level of awareness and your consciousness settles in happily like the proverbial couch potato, seemingly having no interest in changing the channel (even with the remote!).

    The other way folks get stuck is when they’re working on revising some troublesome personal programs. When turning your attention to traumas from your past, in order to get to the bottom of undesirable behaviors in the present, it’s very easy to get embroiled in all the darkness and pain and forget about the positive goal you started out with. This is like a broken record: you rev and rev around the pain and can’t get out of the rut long enough to see where you were originally trying to go.

    I’d like to discuss three ways to get yourself unstuck when these frustrating events occur. All of them involve placing yourself and your process within a larger context. This enables you to see where you’ve come from and find pathways to help you get moving again–pathways that might have been hidden from your view when looking at the issues head-on.

    The first and easiest way to do this is to look at your process mythologically. All of the great myths (and fairy tales too, for that matter) involve woundings, challenges, failures and triumphs. By reading up on the myths and stories of a culture interesting to you, you’re bound to find one or two that speak directly to the issues you are working on for yourself.

    Joseph Campbell, in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, discusses his research into the myths of cultures the world over. He has found that a majority of myths follow a predictable pattern–what he has called the mono-myth. The major stages of the mono-myth are:

    The Call to Adventure,
    Refusal of the Call,
    Supernatural Aid,
    Crossing of the Threshold,
    The Road of Trials,
    The Meeting with the Goddess,
    Atonement with the Father, Apotheosis,
    The Ultimate Boon, Refusal of the Return,
    The Magic Flight, Rescue from Without,
    The Crossing of the Return Threshold,
    Master of the Two Worlds,
    and
    Freedom to Live.

    The mono-myth pattern conveniently provides something like a time-line which you can use to determine where you are in your own process. This can be particularly useful when you find yourself in broken record mode. You can locate where you are on the time-line and get a better sense of where you’ve come from and what is left to do. Folks intrigued by this are encouraged to seek out Campbell’s book for a complete explanation of each of the mono-myth stages.

    Another fun way to get unstuck is to mythologize your own story. In Jean Houston’s book, The Search for the Beloved, she provides a wonderful exercise called “The Sacred Wound” that can help you look at yourself in a completely new way.

    This exercise is special because it acknowledges that all heroines and heros suffered great woundings in their lives. It’s all too easy to look at the abuses and betrayals we experienced as children as curses, when they are really the means of the sacred entering into time–the “wounding of the psyche by the Larger Story.”

    Of course you are “frozen” which is something else entirely, right?

    ;-)

    Cath

    • Remy Gervais, Top Photographer

      Totally different kind of frozen! Thanks for your help today. xox rem

      • http://www.aweekinthelifeofaredhead.com Catherine Hughes, Editor & Chief

        LOL, yes, I’d change it this way:

        “There you are, making progress after progress with your dream and then–poof! the progress stops and nothing you try seems to budge you an inch.

        This is what you might call a plateau issue: you’ve reached another level of accomplishment for your dream, and even though you still have much to do to achieve your dream, your consciousness talks you into resting for a while, inviting you to settle at this place where you feel comfortable — like the proverbial frozen couch potato, seemingly having no interest in changing the channel (even with the remote) from where you have comfortably landed.”

        Cath

        • Remy Gervais, Top Photographer

          Thank you !!!