Does being a daydreamer make it easier or harder to live a real life filled with abundance? What does it mean to live an abundant life? And how can we use our daydreams to help us feel more abundant in all areas of our lives?
Let’s begin by considering what we mean by abundance. For many people, the first thing that comes to mind is financial abundance. But abundance goes far beyond money. For me, being abundant means having the resources I need to do the things I want to do. Yes, financial abundance is part of that, but it’s also about having the time, energy and connections to pursue my goals. So in addition to financial abundance, there is time freedom, there is health and vitality, and there is a need to connect with others and to have fulfilling relationships. All of those things are necessary for me to feel abundant.
But like many people, I’m not where I’d like to be in any of those areas of my life. I have a job that doesn’t fulfil me, I struggle to maintain a healthy exercise routine and I long to have deeper and more meaningful friendships. And as a daydreamer, I use my daydreams to make up for what’s missing in my life.
In that context, it’s easy to see daydreaming as part of the problem. We can create an abundant life in our heads, where we can do whatever we like, surrounded by people who truly understand and care for us. But it’s followed by that sense of hopelessness when we come out of the daydream and realise just how far we are from having any of that in reality. We daydreamers tend to dream big, and the gap between where we really are and where we want to be can feel overwhelming. So there’s a danger that we stop trying. We convince ourselves that the only place we can live an abundant life is in our heads, we stop pursuing abundance in real life, and, as a result, we put ourselves into a downward spiral.
But, in fact, the way to live an abundant life is to start noticing and building on what we already have. It starts with gratitude. It starts with appreciation. It starts with knowing that abundance is possible, because in so many ways we already have it. If you think of abundance as something that other people have, or that you would like to have one day; if you think of it as something you have to strive for without ever really defining how you’ll know when you’ve got it, then you’re keeping yourself stuck in a mindset of lacking abundance. It’s as if you’re on one side of a deep gorge, and the abundant life you want is on the other side, and there’s no way to get across to it.
But your daydreams can bridge the gap. By living an abundant life in your daydreams, you are training your mind to feel abundant, you are training yourself to believe that you are worthy of abundance, you are putting yourself in a mindset where you are able to attract and receive abundance. The daydreaming isn’t the problem; the problem comes when you return to reality and have to face the fact that your abundant daydream life isn’t real.
But our daydreams aren’t supposed to be a literal map of how we want our life to be. Our daydreams are a delicious fantasy about what could happen in another universe, with different characters and different rules. What our daydreams give us is a mindset, an energy, a vibration. Some people prepare themselves for a challenging task by listening to a certain type of music, some prefer to meditate, some repeat affirmations. All of those things help us tap into our inner resources, increasing our confidence and self-belief. Our daydreams can do the same. If your alter ego is capable of rising to whatever challenge your plot throws at them, then you are absolutely capable of navigating whatever life throws at you. If your alter ego is worthy of the love and respect of your characters, then you are worthy of love and respect too. If your alter ego is living a life of abundance and fulfilment, then you can take all the feelings that that generates and bring those feelings into your real life. The energy of abundance you take from your daydreams can give you the mindset you need to appreciate the abundance that is already in your life and be open to receiving all the abundance that is yet to come. Because ultimately abundance isn’t about what you have; it’s about how you feel. And we’ve had so much practice feeling those feelings in our daydreams, it’s not such a big step to feel them in real life too.