Building Capacity for Your Dreams
How to identify your edges, widen your capacity, hold more without doing more, and expand smart.
So much of the foundation work that I do on my evolutionary journey and with my clients is about capacity building.
You can think about your capacity as your container to hold your life—And I mean the full spectrum of life…your deaths, your relationships, your career, your wealth, your medicine, your magic, your creative projects, children, your dreams, your emotions, your thoughts and beliefs, consciousness, your expression, etc.
So many of us have big, bold, beautiful, expansive dreams that we wish to weave into the world.
And maybe you look at those dreams and think that they are inevitable and not so big at all.
Or maybe just the feeling of one of your dreams sends you into a spiral of fear, insecurity, doubt, and contraction.
This is a reflection of your current capacity.
I want you to pause right now and write down three dreams you have for your life right now.
The first dream I want you to write down is something that feels easy. Maybe it’s a creative project you are working on now and you know it’s just a matter of time before the dream is materialize.
With the second dream you write down, I want you to feel some stretching in this. Meaning it feels just outside your comfort zone. Maybe this is a dream you’ve been holding for a long time but there are still some fears or contractive feelings that arise when you feel into it. It should feel easy to peer into, but perhaps there is some hesitation or resistance there.
And with the third dream you write down, make this extremely expansive and far out. Something that feels way outside your comfort zone and big. Maybe this is the biggest and longest dream you’ve ever had, or maybe it just popped in from Divine Destiny asking you to claim it, but it feels scary. Maybe you even feel shame or embarrassment to write it down. All of this is good.
The first dream feels light and easy. You don’t need to stretch your capacity to hold this, as your capacity is already a match. You can feel this by the way your nervous system responds to the physical, mental, emotional, and energetic work required to bring this dream into form.
With the second dream, you feel an edge. Your capacity needs to stretch a bit to match this vision and you have a bit of alignment work to do to step into this vision.
With the third dream, when you think of stepping into this reality, you feel yourself wanting to run and hide. Your nervous system probably has an immediate response. This is because your capacity simply cannot show up for this dream at this time. This is ok. It is not because you don’t desire it, but you just have some more capacity-building to do before this dream can anchor. And it may take years, Be patient and stay the course. When there is this much contraction and “far away-ness” between you and a dream, there is just a lot more threshold work to do before you can hold it. Meaning more to let go of, things to let die, and change to walk through.
Whatever visions we are wanting to materialize must match our current capacity, or we must choose to widen that capacity to match them.
I am going to share with you some ways you can focus on building your capacity to hold the visions you have for your life.
Physical Capacity -
When wanting to hold more life we actually have to be strong enough to carry it. When I was living in Santa Fe I had horrible issues with my lungs that I thought would never go away. To be able to simply breathe in enough air, I had to focus on my lung capacity in a way I never had. I’ve been studying and practicing breathwork since 2017, but I suddenly found myself having to show up for this practice daily just to be able to walk up my stairs or get through the day without coughing up a lung. Eventually, I started running to build even more capacity for my breath. The breath is a MAJOR tool for our expansion, expression, and transformation. The deeper and fuller we can breathe, the more life we can take in, and the more life we can express. So I spent a year purging from my lungs to create space for new life and my truth to anchor. Which, as a writer/artist, is directly connected to anything I dream.
Wherever you carry weakness in your body will need to be addressed when moving through your expansion. Have you ever had an old injury surface or even a new injury come up when going through big life shifts? That’s because our body is needing our attention to grow our physical capacity. Our physical capacity not only relates to how much we can hold but also our capacity for boundaries, containment of our feminine process, and more. We can not bypass the body when focusing on our creative and spiritual growth for it is the body that allows us to hold the material reality we are dreaming up!
Emotional Capacity -
If we do not have the emotional capacity to be with our grief, our sadness, or our pain, we will not have the capacity to hold more joy or pleasure as we weave our dreams. Many humans (consciously and unconsciously) resist their expansion because they are resisting their contraction, meaning they are not allowing themselves to feel the depth that is being asked of them to create space for new life. Think of your body like a garden. Each day life brings you new seeds of potential, you have to clear the soil to make room for these seeds, but also birds come and eat some of your seeds, rains come and demolish your sprouting seedlings, the wind blows everything about and makes a mess, and so on...you get the idea. Life happens. But without a proper drainage system, without enough consistent watering, and without necessary weeding to create space around the plants you really want to thrive, nothing can survive. You must cultivate space to cleanse and clear for the new life to grow. If we are not feeling through and letting go of our stagnant emotions, we will not have space for new life.
Emotion cannot be metabolized with the mind, it must be fully felt and moved through the body. And there are so many tools and practices that can support this! But if we are not wanting to deal with our pain and heartache, or fears and insecurities, we are actually telling the universe that we don't want to hold what we want to bring forth.
Mental Capacity -
A sharp, clear, and focused mind is a great tool on our evolutionary journey. When our mind is clear we can easily act on our intuition, make clear decisions, feel connected to our inner knowing and wisdom, and have trust in life. The problem is, we are overstimulated as a culture, taking in more information and stimulus every day than any of the previous humans/eras. This is the reason for a lot of attention and mental disorders and anxiety. Our minds just don't naturally have the capacity to hold the stimulus of the modern age. But lucky for us, our brains are like plastic, not stone, and can be stretched and molded as needed. But it requires work! We don't have to live with chronic overwhelm, brain fog, distraction, and excess stimulus, but we must devote ourselves to building mental capacity if we want to thrive as highly sensitive beings in the modern age, having full capacity to use our minds in the most efficient and optimal ways.
When it comes to mental capacity we can also throw in subconscious capacity. This has to do with our subconscious beliefs. If you don't believe that you can have your dream, that is showing you where your mental capacity is at. If your dream is to call in $100,000 this season, but you believe that making that much money is shameful, then that is showing you your mental/subconscious capacity around money. All limiting beliefs are just stories (threads) we are carrying within us and then weaving with. If you believe in scarcity, you will experience scarcity. If you believe you are not good enough for your dream, you are widening the gap between yourself and your dream. Any limiting beliefs you have that widen the gap between you and your dream need your mental capacity to be expanded to close that gap so that you can mentally hold this dream with a sound mind, discernment, knowing, truth, and clarity.
Energetic Capacity -
Our energetic capacity speaks to the more ethereal realms. If we are hiding or using our energy incorrectly for us, we will have a weak and dim auric field. It is the aura that actually can magnetize our dreams to us, so we want it to be big and bright! A big, bright aura that takes up a lot of energetic space can hold a lot of energy, which is required to hold a dream. This isn't about being big and bold and flashy necessarily, but it does mean speaking your truth, shining your authenticity, moving in energetic alignment (making choices from your soul), being clear with your energy, not being afraid to be seen, and strengthening your energetic boundaries. All of this matters greatly.
We can tell what our energetic capacity is simply by tuning in with our own auric field, energy centers, and even how we feel energetically (energy levels and sensitivities). If we are feeling extremely sensitive, fatigued, and not able to move or hold a lot of energy, we are at an energetic capacity. But there are so many ways we can strengthen our auras and build energetic capacity!
Hitting any capacity, whether energetically or physically, does not need a label, or diagnosis, nor does it mean you can't pursue your dream. It just needs your attention and intention! The first step is to check in and get clarity on where you are needing to widen your capacity and place your attention. When you meet an edge, when you feel yourself at capacity as you pursue a vision or creative project, check in with the following/;
Physical:
How is my body? Am I physically healthy and strong enough for this? Where am I feeling weak or physically depleted? What is my body telling me? What is my body calling for to expand to this next level of creative capacity?
Oftentimes a specific plant ally as well, movement practice or exercise can come through to support in this realm. Maybe you need more sleep in this season as you tend to a certain vision, or to spend more time grounding with the earth. Sometimes you may need to change your diet and feed yourself in a different way to accommodate your needs as my capacity expands.
Emotional:
How is my heart? Am I feeling things fully and letting go? Do I still have some residual anger or grief that needs attention before I step into a new reality? Am I overwhelmed because I am not giving myself the emotional support that I need? Do I need more nurturing in my life to step into this next level of creative capacity? How can I call this in?
You may need to clear emotional attachments to move deeper emotions, or even call on better emotional support in your life as you dance through creation. The heart capacity also speaks to our capacity to receive love. Do you need to open your heart wider to trust and receive more love?
Mental:
How is my mind? Am I experiencing information overload? Is my brain at capacity and unable to problem solve and think through the materialization of my dream? Am I experiencing brain fog or lack of clarity that is preventing me from moving forward? Am I experiencing anxiety that needs to be addressed? Is my mind trying to process my big emotions and using all my mental energy? Do I have the mental energy to contain my vision and bring it into form? What does my mind need to have the clarity and peace of mind needed to birth my dream?
If you are experiencing overwhelm or anxiety, this is often a sign that you have reached you mental capacity. Typically in these spaces, to build greater mental capacity, you need to empty out your brain!
Energetic:
This is where we go a bit deeper. Of course, all these layers are connected but we can zoom in directly to the energetic body and tune into where energy is stagnant or leaky, where we can resource energy from to support other areas of our healing, and overall just give us more clues around what needs to be shifted to expand our capacity. This is where we can identify any threads of karma that are ready to be cut in order to free up our energy to weave our dreams with. There are many techniques you can use to tune into your energetic frequency such as a body/energy scan using your psychic senses to receive information. Understanding how you read energy is key for this. You may experience vibrational information energetically, physically, emotionally, with your inner vision, through sound/words, a direct download through your knowing, through touching your body, psychic taste, smell, and so on. If you are an energy practitioner or a reader you are most likely very attuned to when your energy is off and you’ve reached your energetic capacity.
We also need to think about our energetic capacity as the ability to hold energy. A 2-hour online workshop with 15 people is a LOT less energy to hold than a 9-month deep mentorship container with 3 people. A 1:1 private client is a lot less energy to hold than a small group for a retreat. Dream #1 that you wrote about, is most likely a lot lighter to hold than Dream #3. Do you see what I am getting at here? If your dream is not materializing, you might want to reflect on your energetic capacity, which can also be worked through by working on your physical, mental, and emotional bodies.
Dream weaving is alchemy work. It requires us to transform, transmute, and continue to go deeper and deeper still to resurrect the parts of self that are aligned with our truest soul visions.
It takes grit. It takes being intimate with death. It takes knowing yourself so deeply and honoring your truth and vision. It takes risks of the heart. It even sometimes takes getting your heart cracked open from time to time so its capacity can widen. It may take hitting rock bottom so that you can take the time to find and cultivate your medicine there. It takes a willingness to not know, to dive into the mystery again and again, and swim to your depths while holding strong to the light of your soul.
This is how we build capacity.
You can't sustain making more money by working more hours that deplete you.
You can't hold more love in your life by pushing people to love you who don’t.
You can't get that dream job by frustratingly proving to the company why you should be hired...because deep down you don't even believe it yourself.
These are all acts of force, and are not smart ways to expand your capacity, because they deplete your life force by acting out of alignment with your soul, and instead in alignment with your wounded ego.
Capacity building is actually about UNDOING, not doing more. To unravel, fall apart, let go, be more vulnerable, change your mind, cry a million tears for the old you, fall into the mystery, do nothing but rest, heal, and sit in discomfort as you stretch, and naturally discover your truth, wisdom, and magic along the way.
Your dreams want you just as much as you want them.
Don't let your capacity and fear limit you from expanding to greet your dreams. Learn to hold more, and the universe will so beautifully and effortlessly hold you in return.
xo,
Ash
Free tools for capacity building:
Your breath. Consistent breathwork heals your nervous system, clear stuck energy and emotions, and expands your capacity to breathe in more life.
Your heart. Opening your heart and feeling through your emotions creates space for you to hold more.
Stillness and spaciousness. Give your mind a break with meditation, laying on the earth and participating the art of nothing, cultivate quiet time to simply be, go on a walk when overwhelmed, or simply take a nap.
Courage. Practice stepping outside of your comfort zone from time to time and trying new things. It’s good for you!
Dancing. Movement helps our body clear energy, cultivate more flow in life, feel into taking up more space, and strengthens the aura.
Share your dreams in the comments any what capacities you are being met with as you explore them!
Beautifully written. Thank you for sharing these tools for capacity building
This is so wonderful