Are we stuck at a certain plateau in our recovery? Does it seem as if we’re treading water, not so much sinking but not making any headway, either? Could it be that we need to look at dreaming a bit more so that we can envision a different and more progressive outcome?

This isn’t as far-fetched as it may sound at first. If we haven’t allowed ourselves the time and, indeed, the permission, to dream, then we don’t have a clue what we are missing, do we? Maybe we have been so caught up in our daily schedules of meetings and action items on our recovery agenda – and, rightly so – that we haven’t given any thought to just imagining a slightly different trajectory.

There’s actually nothing wrong with being wholly committed to our day-to-day recovery plans. In fact, we cannot make any demonstrative progress in recovery if we do not attend to these all-important duties. But there is also weight to another idea: Just as we maintain our sobriety by a well-appointed regimen, we also need to expand our horizons. That requires that we do a little imagining of what might be, what could be, and what we can bring about as a result of our actions.

Already the arguments clamor in our mind to be heard. We don’t have time to dream. We don’t like our dreams because they’re too painful and reminders of the past. We don’t know how to dream. What good can dreaming possibly do?

Analyzing these briefly in succession, we should be able to dispel such ideas.

• We all have time to dream. After all, we have to sleep each night or sometime each day. During that period when our waking thoughts are at rest, our subconscious takes over and brings about dreams. So, we all have time to dream.
• While nightmares and painfully vivid reminders of our past misdeeds are tough to handle, we can gradually learn how to prepare our subconscious to create more positive scenarios. One way is to make a list of things that we want to accomplish and look them over before we go to sleep. If there is a question or a way to approach a certain goal, we should put that question to our subconscious and have it mulled over during our sleep. We may dream the solution and wake up knowing it, or work out a problem that has been causing us distress. This kind of dream work is highly productive and beneficial to many forward-thinking individuals.
• There is no primer on how to dream. We just do. But as the previous point establishes, we can help our dream work along with some pre-sleep planning. Focus on what we want to overcome, or how to solve a particular problem in the most effective way, or concentrate on imagining a future traveling down a certain path. By sending such signals to our unconscious, we are setting the stage for the dream to come.
• Dreaming is a necessary part of our restful state. Whether we realize it or not, dreaming helps us purge unnecessary or frightening emotions, clarify problems and create solutions, and open up new horizons for us to pursue. When we awaken from a particularly memorable dream, one that we remember when we open our eyes, and the lingering fabric of that dream causes us to smile and feel hopeful, this can and should impact our day’s activities. It creates a little boost of momentum, galvanizes us to work toward certain goals, and inspires us to create new ones.

Once we give ourselves the freedom to dream, we can take a few moments to dream or imagine different paths that we might take in our waking hours. But after we dream, we must do. That’s the secret of all great men and women. They dream, and then they do.

If someone says that we aren’t spirited, or don’t show any spirit, and we’re in the early stage of recovery, is there anything we can do to find that spirit or even begin to cultivate it? While this may not be at the top of our to-do list, and understandably so, learning how to let our inner spirit show is something that will become more important to us as we gain firmer footing in recovery principles.

For one thing, in order to allow our inner spirit to show, it must be grounded in a strong belief in ourselves. Granted, this isn’t much in abundance for most of us, not during the first few days, weeks, and even months of our newfound sobriety. But the good news is that each and every day as we tackle our schedules and create goals and action plans for ourselves, we do find that there’s something a little more that we have to believe in than we did just the day before.

What signals to us that our spirit is starting to build? We become more energized, excited about the little things as well as the bigger picture. We find ourselves dreaming more, imagining a different future for ourselves or targeting a path that we may never before have allowed ourselves to pursue.

Laughter often signifies a perky spirit, one that sees the lighter side of life and doesn’t dwell in the past or harp on lost opportunities. When we find delight in everyday circumstances, enjoy spending time with our loved ones, family and friends, or immerse ourselves in a hobby, educational pursuit or recreational activity, we are building up our reservoir of spirit.

Does this sound as if there are different versions of inner spirit? The truth is, our spirit is unique to us. It is as much a part of us as our DNA or how tall we are, how we look, and what we think and feel on any given day. That’s an incredibly beautiful aspect about our inner spirit: how much we are truly unique.

Naturally, we may find ourselves gravitating to others who also have an upbeat, forward-looking attitude, one that reflects a generous inner spirit that’s eager to taste life and experience new challenges. We are just more inclined to want to be around such people, as their outward manifestation of a positive inner spirit is something that most of us find very appealing.

Who among us doesn’t yearn to feel great about ourselves, to be spontaneous in our appreciation of and delight in new experiences, in meeting new people, and in taking our recovery to the next step? But how do we really get there? How can we jump-start our inner spirit?

Try focusing on the present. Find something new or different about an everyday situation or task that you can marvel in. By that we mean there is always another perspective that we can have, even about things we encounter on a daily basis. If we’re tired of attending the same 12-Step meeting week in and week out, why not check out another group nearby, at least as a slight break from our normal home group. This doesn’t mean we throw out our regular group, just that we augment it with an opportunity to see new faces, hear new ideas being shared, and possibly discover new friends.

Any time that we can add to our repertoire of positive experiences by broadening our outlook, our circle of acquaintances and friends, and expanding our activities, we are helping to build our inner spirit. When we take it in small increments, not looking to make radical changes, but just to experience some positive outcome today that we work toward achieving, we will find that our inner spirit will start to grow and continue to grow.

It will also become very apparent to others, since our inner spirit will begin to show in everything we say and think and do.

Do we dare to dream? Have we allocated any time during our day to think about, mull over, fantasize or envision a future that we aspire to realize? If we overlook this opportunity to see past any current situation, we may not be doing ourselves any favors. The fact is that all of us need to see beyond the here and now, if for no other reason than to broaden our horizons and to give us a motivation for pushing harder and tackling ever more challenging tasks.

What should be our highest aspirations? For those of us in recovery, this may seem like something that we shouldn’t even think about until we’ve had years of solid sobriety. But the truth is that even the newcomer to recovery needs to have a reason to keep moving forward, to identify and work toward some set of goals, even if they are small ones to begin with.

We shouldn’t be worried about categorizing or even listing what our highest aspiration should be. Instead, start writing down things that we’d like to do, to accomplish, to realize, and to achieve in both the near- and far-term. This is actually sufficient to get us started. The good news is that we each have daily things that we can put on our to-do list, and mark them off as complete as we finish them. This helps us see, physically, that we have made progress. It also helps boost our self-esteem, add to our self-confidence, and make us more likely to want to do more.

Nothing succeeds like success. We grow as we learn new things, accomplish a succession of tasks, and achieve a series of goals that we’ve set for ourselves. The more we do, the better we get at it. That’s a fact of recovery that many of us don’t give much credence to, but we should.

Let’s look for a minute at aspirations, what they can mean for us and our future in recovery. It’s good to have an overarching goal, one that spurs us on and motivates us to continue doing whatever effort it takes to achieve them. Suppose we want to become a doctor, to help others heal, or a teacher, to help others find inspiration and grow? We need to first envision ourselves as that doctor or that teacher. See how it looks, and imagine how we’d feel doing the work that we want to do.

Then, start jotting down the steps it will take for us to achieve that goal? What kind of education or degree or training do we need? How much money will it cost to finance our continuing education or training? What other changes in our current situation will be required?

Suppose, as we’re making progress toward an identified goal, even if it is one that is far off on our horizon, we have a change of heart, or something happens to remove that goal from our list? It may be that we decide on a different goal, or that we encounter a financial difficulty that precludes our continuing toward the goal at this time. Does this mean we’re a failure? No, it doesn’t. What it does mean is that our goals will fluctuate based on new information, new opportunities, new directions that we decide we want to take.

We never know where our future will take us. All we can do is to dream about where we want to go, make plans and do the work required to help us get there, and revise those plans and goals as we go along. We may not achieve that far-off goal, but we will learn a great deal in the process. We are constantly evolving, learning and growing. This makes us better people, more self-confident, more satisfied, more optimistic about our lives in recovery.

The other point to be made about our highest aspirations is that they reinforce our belief in ourselves and our abilities. Aspiring to reach a certain level or realize a particular goal is both inspiring and galvanizing. There is great beauty in seeing the goal stretching out before us, and tremendous satisfaction in our efforts to achieve it. Learn from that and enjoy the process of discovery.

Dreams are the fabric with which we weave a blanket of hope. That is, it is for those of us who have the good sense to recognize that dreams can enable us to awaken with a sense of purpose and enthusiasm to tackle the tasks at hand.

This isn’t always easy for any of us to remember, particularly if we’ve been prone to having nightmares or unsettled sleep due to any number of misgivings or haunted incidents from our past. It takes time and some distance to be able to shed the unpleasantness that we carry along with us into recovery. Again, this isn’t true for everyone, but it does affect many people, especially in early recovery.

But, taking a look at the promise and the beauty of dreams and dreaming, what are we to make of the prospect of how dreams can help us achieve our goals? There is something to be said about imaging, about envisioning what we want and where we want to be. If we aren’t able to do this very well in our conscious day-to-day life, maybe we can give ourselves free reign in our dreams. It’s certainly an excellent place to start.

But dreaming is also done while we are awake, and it’s this state that is one we need to be able to cultivate. We need to allow ourselves – yes, give ourselves permission – to see our life in the future according to what we’d like it to be. We need to get past the past, to forget all the reasons we’ve told ourselves why we shouldn’t or couldn’t achieve this or that goal, and simply imagine ourselves achieving it.

This is the beauty of dreams. They allow us infinite possibilities, and, even more importantly, they help prepare us for a wholly different life than that which we have lived until today. They are a great motivating factor, spurring us on to tackle one step after the other in pursuit of what we want for our life in recovery.

Don’t know where to begin? The best place to begin is to allow our minds to think of something that has always appealed to us. Whether that is a particular career, or getting a degree, or becoming financially independent, or getting married and beginning a family, if it is, or could be, high on our list of goals, then this is something to imagine ourselves achieving. It is, as they say, a good place to start.

What happens when we identify a goal that we want for ourselves, and give ourselves permission to work toward attaining that goal, we automatically begin preparing our mind to come up with action plans as to how to achieve the goal. When we can see ourselves in that goal up ahead, we can trace the route forward to get there. If we come up against obstacles, we can see where we may need additional training, or how to proceed in an orderly fashion, in order to get to that ultimate goal. It’s all about taking things in stride. But first, we have to be able to see where it is that we want to go. When we can appreciate the beauty of our dreams, we can accomplish what we may have thought impossible.

Another way to put it may be that the future belongs to those who dare to dream. Sure, it might seem a little strange at first, seeing who we are and where we might be in the future, but how will we ever get there if we can’t first envision such things to begin with. Start with whatever is most important and allow our dreams to grow and flourish. They certainly will, and we will all be the better for it.

There is a simple way to look at things, countered by a complex manner of doing so. In general, the simpler way is better, because it allows us to free our mind to deal with our tasks at hand in a more orderly and focused fashion. This means that reason shows us the truth, for we are using reason in order to discover what is true.

But if the only way we live is to use reason, we are missing a huge opportunity to expand our boundaries and grow stronger and more secure in our recovery. We also need to use our imagination. When we allow ourselves to imagine, we can see beyond the current truth or reality and envision something that we may never before have believed possible to be true – at least, for us. There are all kinds of factors that come into play that prevent us from giving our imagination free reign, but none of them are very good. In fact, listening to that nay-saying voice in our heads that tells us imagination is for sissies and fools is downright counter-productive. When we don’t allow ourselves to dream, we may simply become stuck in a rut and never really experience what we are truly capable of.

So, what we should be striving to do is to free up our minds, let go of the burden of constant worry and fear about making a mistake or not reaching this or that goal. Let us, instead, give ourselves permission to soak in an exercise of thinking about what might be, what we want our life to be, and how we may be able to craft a plan to get there. Yes, this does involve a little creativity. But isn’t creativity the root of imagination?

Before we say that we aren’t very creative, think about how we’ve done things differently based on something that we thought might happen, given a certain approach that we would take. We probably thought, for example, that it would be impossible to remain clean and sober after treatment, given that we had constant cravings and felt so bad that it was tough to stick to our resolve. But our sponsor recommended that we take it one day at a time, see the positive in life and the opportunity at hand for us right now to make profound changes in our lifestyle. We began to think that maybe, given this here and now approach, we might be able to not only remain clean and sober but even become stronger in our recovery, happier than we’ve been for some time, even successful in our life’s endeavors.

This is the power of imagination, and it helps give our life meaning that goes far beyond the constraints of reason alone. This is not to say that we throw reason out the window. Far from it, in fact. Reason and imagination are like the two gate posts leading to our future in recovery. We need both of them, more or less in equal proportion. Think about this concept for a minute. We can’t just allow ourselves to daydream forever. We need to act, not just dream. And when we do act, it should be based on reasonable assumptions, actionable plans. But those plans, and the goals themselves, begin with our imagination, with seeing how and where we want to go and then devising a path to get there.

Reason and imagination create a perfect synergy, each benefitting the other, each helping make us stronger, more self-confident, and capable in our recovery journey. Keeping a balance between them is important. It also takes time to learn how to do this. But with practice, we do learn, and we do get better. Why not give it a try?