What Happened to the Dreamer in You?

If you’re new here, welcome. And if you’re returning, I’m so glad you’re back. And if you’re part of the Dreamer Society, you recently got an email from me asking you to complete a survey. On the surface, I was asking questions because I want to know who is actually in this community, where you are in this season, what you’re navigating, and what kind of support would genuinely help you. But there’s another reason I sent it... I’ve been thinking about you. Not demographics. Not content strategy. Not what I can create and convince you that you need. I’ve been thinking about the actual people on the other side of these posts, emails, blogs, and conversations. And one question keeps bothering me: What happened to the dreamer in you? I don't mean the version of you with the Pinterest board, five-year plan, and cute notebook full of goals. I mean the part of you that once believed something was possible before life gave you enough evidence to start second-guessing yourself. Where did that person go? Because one thing has bothered me for years, long before there was a Dreamer Society and honestly, long before I had language for what Professional Dreamer could become.

I cannot stand watching people live beneath their potential.

There. I said it. And I know "potential" can sound like one of those motivational words people slap on a coffee mug right next to Rise and Grind, but that's not what I mean.

I've always been drawn to the person nobody else sees coming. The underdog. The one sitting quietly in the back who doesn't realize everybody else in the room isn't necessarily more qualified; they may just be more willing to raise their hand. The person with the idea who keeps saying, "Somebody should..." Ummm, Dreamer, that somebody is you. 🤭

The person who can tell me seventeen reasons why something won't work while simultaneously describing exactly how they would make it work if somebody else gave them permission. The person who has become an expert at recognizing everybody else's gifts while conveniently developing spiritual amnesia concerning their own. Yes. Those are my people.

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I Know What It Looks Like to Shrink

Here's the part where I have to mind my own business, too. Because I haven't only watched other people do this. I've done it. There have been seasons when parts of me became quieter because quiet felt safer. Seasons when responsibilities took priority, life happened, plans changed, and certain dreams got moved farther and farther down the list.

Some of that was necessary. Some of it was wisdom. Some of it was survival. And some of it? If we're telling the truth... was fear wearing a reasonable outfit. Fear doesn't always look like hiding underneath the covers saying, "I'm scared." Sometimes fear is extremely responsible. It will pay bills. Go to work. Take care of everybody. Meet deadlines. Serve at church. It finishes assignments, or even helps somebody else launch their thing. And still somehow never get around to the thing that has been tugging at you for years. Fear can build an entire respectable life around avoiding what makes you feel exposed. Ask me how I know. Actually, don't. We're keeping some business off the internet. 🤭But I know enough now to recognize the difference.

And This Is Where I've Had to Correct Myself

I've always been an encourager. If you've known me for any length of time, you already know that. I can see possibility in people sometimes before they see it in themselves. But I've had to confront something about the way I've encouraged people. Sometimes I have been so committed to making people feel comfortable that I softened what I actually wanted to say. I pacified when I should have challenged. I affirmed the explanation when I could clearly see the pattern. I said, "I understand," when another part of me wanted to ask: "Okay...but what are you going to do about it?"And before somebody closes the tab, hear me. 😂 Compassion matters. Context matters. Life happens. Grief happens. Disappointment happens. Bills happen. Children need raising. Bodies get tired. Careers change. Relationships change. Doors close. Sometimes the dream you had at twenty-five genuinely does not fit the person you are at forty. I am not interested in bullying people into productivity. I want us to be honest about when grace has quietly turned into permission to stay somewhere we've already outgrown. There's a difference, and I think I've sometimes been afraid to say that plainly because I know what it feels like to need grace. But grace and accountability are not enemies. Sometimes love comforts you. And sometimes love looks you dead in your face and says, "Now you know good and well..." 🤭I think we're going to need both around here because mediocrity has never been shy!

Now, this is the part that may get me in trouble.

Have you ever looked around and thought: How in the WORLD did they get up there? Don't act too saved now. 😂I'm not talking about tearing people down or deciding someone doesn't deserve what they have. We don't know what it took for another person to get where they are. But I am talking about what happens when capable people continually remove themselves from consideration. While you're waiting to feel completely qualified, somebody else applied. While you're rewriting the proposal for the fourteenth time, somebody else submitted theirs. While you're wondering whether your voice matters, somebody with half the experience turned the microphone on. While you're praying, researching, preparing, second-guessing, asking three more people what they think, waiting for a sign, and asking the Lord to send Gideon's fleece back with a notarized letter...Somebody moved. 😂

That doesn't mean moving quickly is always wisdom. It means hiding indefinitely isn't wisdom either. And maybe mediocrity doesn't always take center stage because it is better.

Sometimes it takes center stage because potential refused to come out of the wings.

Ouch. I know. I felt it too.

So, Where Are You This Season?

That's why I sent the survey. I wasn't merely trying to figure out what kind of emails you like.

I'm trying to listen because, before I decide what the Dreamer Society and Healing & A Better You need to offer, I want to know where the people I'm called to serve are actually standing. What I've learned is some of you are ready to build. Some of you may need to heal. Some need practical direction. And a good bit of you have a dream, but life has buried it underneath so many responsibilities that you don't know whether you still want it.

Some of you need permission to admit that you've changed. And some of you already know exactly what you need to do, but you're scared to move. See? This is why we had to ask. I don't want to build a community around telling everybody to "dream bigger" while ignoring what keeps people disconnected from the capacity to dream in the first place. That isn't transformation. That's just motivational talk with no substance. And y'all know by now I need us to go a little deeper than that.

God Has Been Changing the Way I Think About Potential

For a long time, I thought helping people reach their potential mostly meant encouragement. Believe in them. Remind them who they are.

Help them see what they can't see. And I still believe that deeply, but God has been adding another layer. Potential isn't only about what you could do. It's also about whether you are becoming able to steward what you're asking for. That has required me to rethink some things in my own life. I've had to learn that being capable of carrying something does not automatically make it mine to carry. I've had to become more aware of where my time, energy, attention, and responsibility are actually going. I've had to learn that urgency and obedience are not the same thing. And I've had to stop treating every season of slower growth like proof that nothing was happening. Those lessons are woven throughout the resource I've been quietly revising for the Dreamer Society. What began as a lesson about slowing down has become a much deeper conversation about staying connected to God in ways that affect how we heal, discern, make decisions, carry responsibility, and steward our lives.  

Here is what I'm beginning to understand: I don't just want to help you discover your potential. I want to help you become able to carry it without losing yourself in the process.

That's different. I don't want to hype you into starting something your life cannot sustain.

I don't want to tell you to "just do it" when what you actually need is healing. I also refuse to sit beside you indefinitely, pat your back, and help you decorate a hiding place God has already been calling you out of. No ma'am. No sir. We're not doing that either. 😂The work God has been doing in me has increasingly connected abiding with stewardship. The lesson is becoming less about simply slowing down and more about remaining connected enough to God that our decisions become steadier, clearer, and less driven by pressure. Connection before movement. But eventually...movement.

I Want You to Answer the Question Beneath the Survey

If you're in the Dreamer Society and you've already completed the survey, thank you.

But I've got one more question for you. And if you're one of our nosy cousins reading from the hallway, you can answer it too. 🤭Where have you been shrinking?

Not resting. Not healing. Not wisely waiting. Shrinking. Where have you been pretending you don't want something because wanting it would mean risking failure? Where have you been calling yourself "realistic" when you're actually scared? Where have you gotten so comfortable supporting everybody else's possibility that you stopped exploring your own?

Where have you mistaken being unseen for being unqualified? And perhaps the hardest one: What would you attempt if you stopped requiring yourself to know exactly how it would turn out first? Don't answer quickly. Sit with it. Pray about it. Write it down because we're not entering a season of reckless ambition. We're not striving, forcing fruit, or racing somebody else's timeline. The work I've been doing around abiding keeps bringing me back to the same truth: fruit doesn't appear on demand, but that doesn't mean nothing is growing. We can prepare, obey, practice discipline, and faithfully steward what is already in our hands without trying to manufacture the outcome. That's the balance I want us to learn. We're not going to force what God is growing. And we're not going to keep hiding what He's already grown. There is a difference. I have spent enough years watching incredibly capable people disappear into the shadows. I've spent enough years doing versions of it myself. And I've spent enough time being such a gentle encourager that sometimes I helped people feel better about staying exactly where they were. I still want this to be a soft place to land, but I don't want it to become a comfortable place to hide. I think that's the shift.

So, Dreamer, if you're here because something in you knows there is more, stay close. We're going to talk about healing, potential, and what happens when survival has been driving so long that you've forgotten what you actually want. We'll learn how to discern what belongs to us, how to stop carrying what doesn't, and how to faithfully steward what does.

And every now and then, I'll probably lovingly get in your business. Apparently, that's part of the assignment too. 🤭If you're reading this but haven't joined us yet...Baby, you've read all the way to the bottom. You're not nosy anymore. You're invested. 😂 Come on in. We've got work to do.

Take what you need, leave what you don't, and don't forget to share this! I love you, and I'll talk to you later.