Who to Share Your Dreams With and When

I’m learning that I can’t tell everyone everything. For a long time, my habit has been to gather opinions from everyone around me when I’m making a decision or going through a difficult time and need some guidance.

I remember when I started dating a guy a few weeks before Valentine’s Day. As February 14 approached, he told me he would rather not make a big deal of the holiday–too much pressure, too soon. I sort of understood his reasoning and tried not to read too much into it. However, the next day at work I proceeded to poll half the women in my office to find out what he “meant” by that. As a result, I received about 40 varying opinions. Everything from, “Chill out. That doesn’t mean anything” to, “RUN!”

All the voices of these women in my head sent me home more anxious than I had been on my way to work that morning.

That was the day I began to wonder if I should be more careful about who I share important information with and who I seek wisdom from. What to share, with whom, and when.

This is what I try to ask myself now. And more recently I’ve been doing this in the area of my dreams and passions. Wondering who I should share them with so that I don’t cry all the way home with 40 different voices in my head–voices that range from overly encouraging to “you’re an idiot.”

It is such a delicate balance. It is taking seriously the pearls to swine metaphor. And it often takes the negative and hurtful responses to teach us this.

If you are really honest with yourself, you probably know who your safe people are. You know the friends and family who are wise and caring with the secrets and stories you tell them, and you know the friends and family who are not so wise and caring and who have wounded you. Those people are still an important part of our lives. You probably enjoy them and like them and don’t want to stop telling them things altogether, but can you trust them with your pearls–the secret fears and dreams–when you know they’re more likely to manhandle the information than they are to hold it lightly and talk it through with you? Probably not.

In my current life phase, I’m excited about pursuing new dreams but I’m protecting what I say to whom and when. It’s not being guarded as much as it is being careful.

It’s hard for me to not blurt out every idea and struggle, poll my entire office building and send out mass texts to different friend groups. I want people to give me feedback and tell me what to do, but I also know that I can make decisions and progress without hearing from numerous people in my life first, and that in the end, there are only a handful of voices I should be listening to anyways, starting with the one that’s inside.

{This blog is a re-post from a few years ago. I do this from time to time when something I wrote a while back feels relevant in my life again. It’s a way to remind myself of something important and a way for new readers to get a look at my older stuff.}

 

The post Who to Share Your Dreams With and When appeared first on Andrea Lucado.

from Andrea Lucado http://andrealucado.com/2016/06/01/who-to-share-your-dreams-with-and-when/