Meet Bonnie Buckner

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bonnie Buckner a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Bonnie , really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

I work with dreaming and the spontaneous imagination, both of which are ways of looking inside and connecting with our True Self. That True Self gets covered over with things like belief systems, patterns, and perceived pressures from family and society – to “fit in” to a certain mold. Purpose begins to emerge when we reconnect with that True Self that contains our own individual talents and desires. This True Self is naturally contributive and generous because we aren’t trying any longer to compete against those belief systems and patterns. We simply bring our uniqueness to the kaleidoscope of the greater human conversation and possibility.

One example of this is when I was once offered a job – a really great job – by someone I knew well and liked. That same day I was offered a job by a company I was not familiar with, at much less pay, but a job which excited me. The colleague I knew well argued very hard for me to accept his job. However, when I looked inside myself I saw myself as if I was standing in a shadow. When I thought about the unfamiliar company I saw myself bathed in bright light. I chose the light and took the job with the unfamiliar company. That job quickly shifted into greater and greater opportunities within the company and in short time I had surpassed the pay and title offered by the colleague for the other job. More importantly, I had an adventure, met amazing friends I still have 25 years later, and grew enormously as a person.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am the author of The Secret Mind: Unlock the Power of Dreams to Transform Your Life and the Founder and CEO of the International Institute for Dreaming and Imagery®.

My work as a creative dreamwork expert is to teach leaders and creatives across the globe how to harness the power of their dreams. Dreams and the spontaneous imagination are a means for us to turn inward, and look inside ourselves. There, we find where we are blocked, and how to get over the blocks. We discover also our potentials, and new places that we are ready to move into to take our self into new directions. Doing this work enhances creativity, teaches problem-solving tools, and ultimately helps us to reconnect with, and bring to fruition, our Great Dream of Self.

In The Secret Mind, I share this method for translating the mystery of dreams to become a practical tool for not only solving the challenges of your life, but developing your fullest potentials and living a life of purpose. Through the Institute I train others to teach this work, and offer classes for the general public and custom programs for organizations.

An upcoming event I am excited about is a 3 day dreaming workshop in the US at Kripalu yoga center in Stockbridge, MA. https://kripalu.org/experiences/great-dream-self-finding-purpose-through-dreamwork

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

There are three very important skills I’ve been able to cultivate that weave together into one whole. It starts with being able to step away from outside noise, and then being able to look inside and hear what my inner Self is saying to me. The third key step is then taking that inner message and implementing it in waking time. That has not always been easy – it includes saying no to job offers that – on paper – seemed great but which my inner Self was saying no. It includes stepping into the mystery of not knowing where the steps of implementation may take me, such as starting a new company and the mystery of whether or not it will be successful, or who might show up to support it. What has helped me to have the courage to do these things is that I have long practiced paying attention to my inner self, and DOCUMENTING what it tells me. It’s like having a dream journal, but including daytime inner messages/intuitions, and writing them down and documenting what I chose to do with them and how they unfolded. I wrote courage above, but in fact, after years of documenting it becomes less about courage and more about seeing how, through time and testing, the inner self is the most reliable and dependable source.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?

The most important thing my parents did for me was to be open to my inner imagination. At a very early age I began talking to them about dreams and they remained completely open and supportive to it. Many well-meaning adults start to tell children that they need to “get serious” or “find a real pursuit”, whatever that may mean to them. My parents not only listened without judgment to my dreams and love for dreaming, they shared their own dreams with me, particularly my father and my grandmother. This allowed me free space to explore this, and other, interests. In addition to this, both were very curious about the world – as I shared an interest, it piqued their curiosity, and they built upon it by organizing a trip to a relevant museum, or finding books for us to read on the topic. In other words, they took seeds and helped me to plant them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bonniebuckner.com/
• Instagram: bonniebucknerdotcom
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonniebuckner/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BonnieBuckner
• Other: https://institutefordreamingandimagery.com/

Image Credits

Headshot photo by Guillaume Estève
Book cover design by Amanda Weiss; Cover illustration copyright (C) berkahlineart / Adobe Stock; Cover copyright (C) Urano Publishing, and imprint of Urano World USA, Inc.