When Your Dream Becomes Your Prison
Sep 02, 2025Subscribe today and never miss a thing!
What happens when the thing you want most becomes the thing that traps you?
A few years ago, one of my clients was working two full-time jobs, her corporate position and the yoga studio she'd poured her heart into creating. Despite having these two incredible opportunities, she was struggling financially and felt completely stuck. She wanted desperately to go all-in on her studio but felt unsafe giving up the security of her day job.
The problem wasn't her lack of commitment or business skills. The problem was that her identity had become completely fused with being "the yoga studio owner." Her self-worth rose and fell with every class attendance number, every monthly revenue report, every student interaction. She couldn't separate who she was from what she was creating.
This is one of the most common traps I see: when our dreams become our prisons because we attach our entire sense of self to their success or failure.
The breakthrough came when I guided her through one of the most difficult exercises in consciousness work, mentally losing everything she thought defined her. I asked her to visualise locking the studio doors, writing the Instagram post announcing closure, feeling the complete dissolution of this identity she'd built.
She cried for days. But something profound happened in that pain, she discovered she would still be okay. She would still be whole. She would still be her essential self even without the external validation of business success.
This realisation changed everything. When you can mentally lose what you think you need to be someone, you discover the freedom to create without attachment. The studio stopped being a reflection of her worth and became simply an expression of her gifts.
The result? The studio began flourishing in ways it never had before. When she released the desperate energy of needing it to validate her identity, it became a natural extension of her authentic self rather than a performance space for her fears.
This pattern shows up everywhere: the entrepreneur whose self-worth depends on their company's valuation, the parent whose identity is entirely wrapped up in their children's achievements, the healer whose sense of purpose relies on fixing others, the artist who can't create freely because each piece carries the weight of defining their talent.
The question becomes:
- What would you create if you didn't need it to prove who you are?
- How would you show up in relationships if they didn't need to confirm your lovability?
- What risks would you take if failure couldn't touch your essential worth?
The practice isn't about caring less or becoming detached from meaningful pursuits. It's about distinguishing between what you offer and who you are. Your creations, relationships, and achievements can be expressions of your essence without becoming the foundation of your identity.
When you break this fusion, something magical happens. People start responding to you differently. Your energy becomes less desperate, more magnetic. You stop trying to extract validation from every interaction and start showing up authentically. The very things you were grasping for often begin flowing toward you naturally.
Your practice this week:
- Notice where your identity has become attached to external outcomes.
- What would still be true about you if your biggest success disappeared tomorrow?
- What would remain if your primary role or title was taken away?
- Spend time connecting with the part of yourself that exists independently of any achievement, relationship status, or external validation. This isn't who you think you should be or who others need you to be - it's the essential you that would exist regardless of circumstances.
When you know yourself at this level, you can create, love, and risk from a place of wholeness rather than need. Your dreams stop being prisons and become playgrounds for your authentic expression.
The most creative, successful, and fulfilled people I know have mastered this distinction. They create from overflow rather than emptiness, love from completeness rather than need, and take risks from trust rather than desperation. This shift is available to you right now.
Listen to her story on this weeks podcast episode here
