The Dreaming Exercise
If you've lived long enough, most likely you have experienced a 'rut'. Sometimes this can be an individual rut, or it could be a rut in a relationship. Either way, it often comes with a feeling of being stuck, and it is often depressing. The Dreaming Exercise is all about trying to shift your focus from stuck, to future-oriented! You want to imagine 3 'buckets' and in these buckets are where your dreams will land. The first bucket is BIG dreams (the proverbial 'bucket list'), the second is for middle of the road dreams, and the third is for small dreaming. The dreams could either be things that you have done in the past, or things that you have pondered doing, but either way the key is that they have (or could) bring you pleasure and enjoyment. Big dreams require a lot of efforts, often money, planning, and resources in order to accomplish it. The small dreams are things that cost little to no money, can be accessed just about any time, and require little to no planning. The middle (well, exactly that). So a big dream may be to someday hike to base camp in the Himalayas (what, you've never been?!?). Small dreaming may be to take your pet on a walk down a different path than you normally take. A medium could be trying the new restaurant you have been thinking about for too long. You will want to be a little judicious in your lists (maybe top 5 for each?). If your partner has also been in a rut, ask them to complete their own set of buckets and later you can compare notes (base camp?? you too!?). An added challenge is to actually DO one or two of the small or medium lists items within a reasonable time frame! I hope you find solutions for your rut however and wherever you may roam and can have a little fun and excitement along the way.