She Never Stopped Dreaming

Who were you before the world turned your volume down?

When I was a little girl my mom would send me out to the garden to pull weeds. I remember kneeling between the rows of plants, dirt under my fingernails, sun on the back of my neck, pulling weeds that seemed to grow back faster than I could clear them. And somewhere in that boredom, my mind would wander off to a place much bigger than our garden.

I would wonder about how I would help people if I were president.

In my head I stood in front of crowds and gave speeches. I sat with people who were sad, asked them what hurts, and actually listened. Nobody had told me yet that these were big thoughts for a little girl. Nobody had told me yet that I was a girl who dreamt too much. It was just me, the weeds, and a head full of plans for helping the world.

Fast forward thirty years. As a psychologist and psychotherapist, I help women entrepreneurs set boundaries with themselves, their families, and their businesses so they can live out their mission. I help people on a daily basis work through their beliefs, their dysregulated nervous systems, and fears, helping them to find that version of themselves they were before the world told them “they are too much”. That little girl from the garden is still powering my every move.

And I know she lives inside you, too.

Maybe she wasn’t in a garden. Maybe she was lying on her bed staring at the ceiling, or riding in the back seat of the car with her forehead pressed against the window. She was the girl who asked one question too many, who cried over cartoons, who announced at the dinner table that one day she would have her own school, her own shop, her own house by the sea. Maybe someone laughed. Maybe someone told her to come back down to earth. So she learnt to dream a little more quietly. But she never stopped dreaming. She is the one who makes your heart race when you think about the thing you haven’t told anyone yet.

Through my work with women in business, I’ve discovered that every one of them has a story like this. Each one has been told at one moment she was too sensitive, talked too much, asked too much, desired too much, daydreamed too much. Hence, they created a version of themselves to survive the world, and the version of them they love the most they have hidden.

But here is the funny thing: the very reason someone in the past told them they are too much is the very reason why clients choose her today.

What was once too much is now abundance.

An abundance of creativity, wisdom, personal stories, ideas, and presence, and from it they create outer abundance. Only when they started to see that inner abundance as something worthwhile, as a gift they brought to this Earth for others, did they see more abundance in the material world as well. Partners who loved them for who they are, clients who said yes before even asking how much, and money in their accounts as confirmation of how valuable a resource they are to this world.

Money is the consequence of serving your community with the innate gifts that God (the Universe, Life, whatever you want to call it) has given you. That version of you is waiting to be rediscovered, loved, and shown to the world.

She is the source of your success. She is the one every strategy works for because her strength doesn’t depend on validation from the outside. It comes from an endless source within.

You are your business. I’m sure you’ve heard that before.

If we translate that into something you can act on today, it would be this question: For what kind of person would it make complete sense to have what I want?

I am sure you will find that it has a lot to do with that little visionary inside you. Once you embody that identity, your desires come true as a consequence. Because that version of you calls to you through the desires that won’t leave you alone. The ones that wake you up at 3 a.m. so you can type them into your phone before you forget. The ones you scribble on the back page of your notebook so they don’t disappear.

Desires are an invitation into the experience your soul came here to have. They lead you toward the most authentic, the freest and the most successful version of you.

Be weird. Be different. Be loud. Be you.
The you who existed before the world turned your volume down.

Be free, because all children are free to just be until the world tells them who they should be.

If I can leave you with one message through this piece, let it be this: embrace everything that made you too much for someone, because hidden in that inner abundance is the key to all the outer abundance you long for.

Today, thirty years later, that little girl is helping me write this for you, and she’s smiling. She dreamt of helping people, and now she does.

So I ask you: Who were you before the world told you who you needed to be in order to be successful and loved?

The next version of you, the one who has everything you want, is the first version of you, the original. The canvas that existed before the world painted over it.

And you already are her. You just need to remember.

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Milica Marković

Clinical Psychologist, Certified Psychotherapist and mentor for setting golden boundaries that get you out of “the good girl” role and into the most confident version of yourself. 

Lets stay in touch.

Lets grow together.