My Room of Impossible Dreams
Self-renewal, visiting locked away dreams and unlocking potential in personal and professional lives
"When I was a child, the world was my playground. I could imagine the bizarre, the illogical, the a-rational. In my play, an object could take a life of its own, it could fly without wings, it could sail the waters and fly in the skies at the same time. I was the imaginator and the creator, without bounds. I could draw a tree with pink roots, purple stems and flowers that could change colours as they pleased. My imagination was not bound by reality or the 'natural' When adults saw my imagination, they would laugh at the incredulity and naivete of my creations and sometimes tell me how 'wrong' they were.
As I grew up, life experiences taught me the ways of the world. I learnt what lay in the realm of the possible, rational and logical. The dreams I had for myself and the world became narrower, more 'streamlined', I was encouraged to be focused, practical, pragmatic. I was told that life goals needed to be SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. Today, my dreams are tailored by these parameters, one's that I can write down in bullet points and form a bucket-list.
In this process, a lot of the dreams that I wished for myself, for others, my context got set aside because they could not fit into the 'real' world. Whenever such a dream would show up, I would test it against the SMART parameters and if it did not stand the test of the demands – of specificity, measurability and feasibility, I would take it and keep in a room where I store all these impossible dreams. It's a room I have not visited for many years, in fact – it's a room I never visit. I open its doors only when I have to shove another impossible dream into it. In fact, I don't visit that room because I fear that it may be pointless and self destructive.
These days, when I am asked to 'think out of the box', I find that my 'out of the box' thoughts stem from 'within the box'. They are conditioned by the boundaries I have internalised. These boundaries are of feasibility, effectiveness and conditioned with an assurance of impact."
Do you resonate with this voice? Do you feel that your imagination and creativity, your ability to 'think out of the box' has become restricted? Do you feel sad and restless that no matter what you do, you find yourself within the bounds of the predictable, safe and boring? Do you feel that nothing you create truly surprises and excites you – that even your best efforts at doing something new ends up in re-doing what has been done before? Does it make you doubt your ability to see new colours, feel new sensations, touch new skin, smell new fragrances have been dulled?
My Room of Impossible Dreams is a personal growth programme for people of all ages, from all walks of life – professionals in the corporate and business sectors, teachers and administrators in the education sector, lawyers and doctors, researchers and practitioners, policy makers and bureaucrats. The programme is meant for people who feel the need for renewal for themselves, inputs to help them realise their potential in their personal and professional lives. It is an experiential programme for adults who want to re-connect with their inner child, their seat of creativity and imagination, that will enable them energise themselves, their relationships and their role taking in their families and organisations.
The programme has been conceived by ChangeMantras. The facilitators of the programme are amongst a multi-disciplinary team of behavioural scientists, process workers, psychologists, facilitators and management professionals.
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Facilitators
