Whose Sandcastle Are You Building?

Lately, I've been thinking about the metaphorical sandcastles we women build and I have two questions to ask you, my dear reader, how are you building the castle and is it really your castle that you're building?

I lived in Florida most of my adult life. I went to college and graduate school there, and that's where I raised my children. Having lived so close to the ocean, I know a thing or two about building sandcastles because that's how we spent many of our afternoons. Unlike people who reside in other geographical locations, there weren't many parks or green spaces near our home. Instead, there were vast expanses of beach and that became our playground!

I remember vividly the time my children and I spent sitting on the warm sand, feeling the water of the Atlantic washing over our bare legs. The sun hot on our backs and shoulders. We would work for hours building our sandcastles looking around in amazement at the amateurs who made poor architectural choices.

You see there are rules for building the perfect sandcastle: it's more than just water and sand!

Perhaps the first step is securing the perfect location for your masterpiece. It has to be a place that has access to the water but won't be washed away too soon with the incoming tide or trampled by running feet! Keeping the sand moist is important because dry sand is unmalleable. Without the surface tension, the wet sand provides, each grain of sand will go its own way and it's impossible to build anything, Ideally, you'll want to create a water hole so that you have a never-ending supply of water.

Have you found the ideal place for your dreams to flourish or are you trying to build where others can carelessly trample your ideas? Is where you're building safe and near an unending source of living water that feeds your soul and encourages you to keep on going or is it a dry place that leaves you feeling frustrated and exhausted wondering why your dream can't get off the ground?

When building a physical sandcastle, it's important to build strong walls to support your structure. This, too, applies, to the dreams each of us is building. Have you erected the walls, the boundaries, that protect you, your dreams, your soul? Have you partitioned off time to dream, to create, to build? Or are you accessible to everyone at all times? Allowing people to scale your walls, plunder your castle, and take what's yours and claim it as their own?

The next step when building a sandcastle is combining the structures so that it's truly a castle, and not, say a house. This also applies to the dreams we're building. Ask yourself if you're truly in community with women who freely share their time, talents, and resources with you, and you with them, so that what you're building is bigger and better together or is it a race to see whose can be the best?

Finally, you add the finishing touches, the creative flourishes that set your sandcastle apart: the moat, the bailey, and the battlements; the unique additions that make what you're building special and truly your own! Are you courageously relying on your own creativity or are you following the crowd to play it safe?

Please come back next week for Part 2 of Whose Sandcastle Are You Building?