Written by Edgar Luna

When you were young and dreaming of growing up and becoming someone that you envisioned, someone that would make you feel fulfilled. And as you grow and invest more time into developing into what you love doing and starting to feel confident as you get better and better at what you love. Then you start seeing that maybe you have a chance to become someone accomplished at what you love doing. That dream might be anything: music, sports, science, food, theater or anything else you might think of. And with that possibility of becoming someone you have dreamt , there is also that doubt, the fear of asking yourself some questions:

” Am I good enough?”

” Can I do this?”

It is hard enough to muster up the courage to follow your dreams, and in order to keep you motivated you may also require a support person or persons to encourage you when you start questioning your abilities and effort.

However you find that support person or persons that might be very nice to you, seem to be good friends or partners, however you start to find that when you are going to do something related to what you love, they do something or make some comment that brings you down.

It could be someone in your family circle or someone that you admire or like for some time and you just can’t understand why they seem to get upset when you are ready to take one more step towards realizing your dream.

What I have experienced is that sometimes those people that “love you”, might want to protect you, maybe thinking that if you don’t risk it, you will not get hurt and that it’s better to play it safe and not try to go all in.

Maybe there is a person you recently met, and you start to develop strong feelings towards them and for some reason that person does things to bring you down, maybe getting mad when your dreams start to take shape and materializing, acting out to a point where that person becomes very vocal and uses your feelings towards them against you.

Is that person afraid that you might be successful and potentially leave them?

Is that person jealous of your commitment and drive and wants to hold you back?

Maybe that person knows that they found a gem and want to keep it for themselves?

Whatever reason someone is trying to discourage you to move forward, evaluate and think if their intentions are good.

When you are growing as a person it is normal to feel fear and question yourself, but I feel that when someone really cares about you, they will be happy when you are moving forward with your dreams.

Some people’s dreams are maybe to become famous and touch many lives, others might be becoming head of family and help mold their children to become good human beings.

Whatever your dreams are, be mindful of the people around you and if they are supporting you or are they feeding your fears.

When people feed your fears, it feels comfortable, familiar and those people might be nice to you while you are in that comfort zone.

However, truly search your feelings and try to find that thing in you that is choosing what you really want to do.

We all need someone to love us and support us, but if that someone is really using your feelings for them against you, be careful.

Real love is supporting someone to be better and helping them reach their maximum potential, not protecting you so you don’t get hurt.

When someone really loves you they will be there to encourage you to go higher and pick you up when you fall.

Whatever you choose, remember it’s your decision and you can change your mind. However if someone is really sabotaging your true love, it is time to let them go, even if it hurts. The pain of letting go will eventually pass.

There are so many movies about this and it seems cliché, but I have found that many people that I talk to go through something like this in real life.

Be courageous and try to determine what you want and take steps to follow your dream, whatever they might be and watch out for the dream thieves, because without you realizing it, they are feeding your fears and taking you away from the real you .

E.Luna