Have you ever heard the question put by self-development/self-help gurus and teachers: “If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you most like to spend your time?” Or maybe you heard a variant of that, “If money were no object, what would you do with your time?” and of course there’s “What do you want to do with your life?” For many people, those questions inspire the imagination of how their life would look like if they could do anything they wanted with no risks.

But for others, their minds go blank. They freeze. They have been taught by others and by experience not to want anything, that imagination is dangerous. They can’t think of a thing. Because they are afraid to dream.

This happened to me. When my husband asked me what I wanted out of life, my mind went blank. I felt anxious. Why? There were several reasons.

When I told my family I wanted something, they would find a way to hurt my feelings. Because of this, I learned if I wanted something too much, the fates would find a way to cheat me or arrange so I wouldn’t get it. That was for other people, not me, I told myself and I started to be afraid to dream.

I believed I didn’t deserve to want anything. I simply couldn’t imagine my life as being good, because since I was disabled, I didn’t deserve it. I had to earn the right to have dreams of my own, and if I failed, I had to start all over again from scratch., each and every time.

I simply couldn’t envision any kind of future. I would run from it because it overwhelmed me. It wasn’t really my fault, but I just couldn’t envision me living in a nice place, deserving or not, I couldn’t see myself in a car or nice clothes. I just couldn’t relate to it.

What changed things for me, was that I started reading self-development books. It got me to thinking. Started to challenge my beliefs and assumptions. And I tried something. What if I stopped being afraid for just 1 minute? What would happen? What would happen if Imagined myself living in a better house for just one to five minutes? And you know what? I imagined my life living in a townhouse and nothing bad happened. What did happen was that I felt pretty good. I tried that a couple of years ago.

I can do this for 15-30 minutes. The fear does come back, but it’s not as bad as it was. When it comes back, and it does come back or I feel overwhelmed, I step back and start putting the fear away for one minute, then 3 then five minutes, and as it becomes easier, I can go back to what I had before, an hour or two.. So far it seems to be working.