Maybe it was the wedding cake...

Maybe it was the wedding cake I had last night (oh, sooooo good!). Or maybe it was the combination of wedding cake and the Topper's Original Cheesestix that I ate at 12:30 this morning.

Somehow, something came together and gave me a crazy dream early this morning. The kind of dream where you wake up and you still feel that it is your reality. The kind of dream where you remember vividly what you said, did, and how it felt. That kind of crazy dream.

And this dream was scary - though it wasn't a nightmare. I was married to someone (not Hubby, that part was clear) who had a bunch of teenagers that I had acquired thru this marriage. I was in our house and these teenagers were so very disrespectful - having friends over without permission, doing whatever they wanted, not going to school, etc. In the dream I was walking up to them one by one and cleaning up the situation (mystery husband, it felt like, was off at work or something). I got rid of the ten kids the boy had brought over because he didn't ask permission (amazing thing was I explained this to him, and he listened, and made his friends leave), I got the girl to change her clothes to something more appropriate and to clean up the mess she had left everywhere. These little 'shake ups' went on thru a few more kids - it felt very much like I was whipping the house and family into shape and doing a whole "new sheriff in town" kind of routine. And then, I opened the door to a new room, having just put all the teenagers straight, and found two small children (like, toddlers). These two children were mine, that I knew. And they were so fully neglected. I know that in the dream, it was standard practice for me to stick them in this room and leave them there all day to entertain themselves. One of them was not even two, and it was so clear he was having developmental problems and needed much more attention. There was someone else in the room - a nanny type who was minimally caring for these two little ones it seemed, and who looked at me with disdain as she picked up the older one and walked away with him. In the dream there was this weird sense of regret, loving and panic all at once as I realized I hadn't even thought of these two children for a couple of days. My mind was racing with the realization that any reversal of this huge oversight was going to take so much time and dedication, and I was panicing inside because I didn't have that kind of time. I had so much else I was supposed to be doing. In the dream I remember trying to formulate a plan - I could get my work done for a few hours in the morning, spend a few hours with the youngest one, have lunch, play with the older one, get more work done, etc. I remember the feeling of panic rising as I closed the door to the room behind me (with these kids still left inside) and this thought of I'll deal with that later in my head. I woke up not long after that, still trying to formulate a plan in my head for caring for these two children properly while still getting everything else done.

It took a few nose bumps from Ringo (who got to sleep in bed with us last night b/c Hubby is a softy) to bring me back to my real life.

But then I wondered, was that my real life?

I've been feeling a need for several weeks now to get a handle on my business. It is going so well, and has taken on such a life of it's own almost. I'm happy and proud to have gotten this far with it so fast, but it is definately swallowing up my life right now. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, I am grateful for every one of my clients! But I do feel that so much else is falling by the wayside - Hubby, my family, my friends, my own pursuits, our house, and even somewhat my goals for the business and for my clients, the list goes on and on.

I've always been fairly self-aware ( or so I think ) and I have been aware that if I don't get a handle on this thing I've made it could really take over my life, and our lives in a way that squeezes so much else out. I've been happy to let it do so in the beginning, because it should and needs to. But already my friends have come to expect that I am "too busy" to do things, and so has much of our family. Already, Hubby isn't fazed when I spend all evening (after spending all day) in front of my computer. Already, we have come to understand him on his laptop, and me on my computer as "time together". I don't want it to be that way. Life should be well-rounded, or at least oblong.

I went to a seminar given by David Jay awhile back, and he verbalized a few things that I had been thinking about. Mainly, why do we define success as being too busy for our real lives? Why, when someone asks me how my business is going, do I not feel that I have given a positive answer unless I can say that I'm buried by work? Why isn't success about having balance - being able to have many facets to your life? My work should serve my life, or at least a more 50/50 arrangement of that.

This morning's dream was kind of a kick in the pants. Call me hippy-dippy, call me fruity, call me anything you want, but I do believe that our subconscious communicates with us occasionally thru dreams. I know mine has before. And I think the message I was being given this morning was pretty clear. I'm not going to play the game of who represented what in this dream. But I think my brain, which has been chewing on this want to round out my life as I end my first full calendar year of business is telling me that it isn't just a want, it is a need. And if I don't start changing some things, I won't be able to.

I've taken a few steps to move towards this goal already in the past few months, and I am planning to implement more. I need to work smarter, not necessarily harder. I need to have time for my husband, my family, my friends, my other interests (shocking, I know, but I do have them). Any changes I make are going to take awhile before I see results, but at least I can move towards them.

I'm sharing this today, well because this blog is as much about my life as it is about Mthree Studio. Afterall, the two are often one and the same. But also because I know I have friends who are also in small business or even in very demanding jobs who are reading this. I hope each of you takes a moment to step back today and truly access your "roundedness" and decide if maybe you need some tweaking of your priorities or perspective too.

Have a great Sunday!