Not so sweet dreams!

Luke with my mitten (he knows that he shouldn’t take socks and mittens but he loves stealing them…and he looks so cute!)

One thing that I try to do right before going to sleep, is read something inspiring, soothing or uplifting. I want the last words that my mind sees, to be of a high quality, and I did this last night as well, but dreamed that I was totally misunderstood by a group of people (who were chasing me and meant me harm!) and woke feeling tired.

The trouble was, I’d spent the hour before going to bed in a state of mild frustration over a computer glitch, and I never totally cleared that irritated energy before going to bed. My internet wasn’t working, a movie that we were planning on watching wasn’t downloaded, and instead of letting go, I gave up in frustration and said to Jack, “I just don’t understand this! It must have been the itune upgrade that I just installed. With every upgrade, it seems like it all changes. It’s like getting in your car and they’ve “upgraded” the radio and moved it!…..” on and on I complained for a good 5 minutes…..even though I know better.

At bedtime, I still felt unsettled but hoped that I could sleep it away, and did my little bit of reading. I woke at 2 a.m with an uncomfortable feeling of tension running through me and then thoughts of an unfinished project (that I hadn’t quite figured out how to do) joined in, along with the thought that I hadn’t given an answer to someone concerning a request…..

All of these things, while relatively small, matched the state of mind that I had before going to sleep and suddenly it felt like I was nothing more than a mass of unfinished, confused, details.

A minute and a half of “positive words” right before sleep, was no match for this bundle of discord that was swirling around inside of me.  A spiritual teacher, Esther Hicks, says this is like putting a happy-face sticker on an empty gas tank…if you don’t fill that tank, you are still going to run out of gas. I can put on a veneer of calm but if I’m not calm and peaceful inside, then I need to work a little longer on clearing the inside feeling to match that outer demeanor.

This is one of the reasons that I love dreams…they always show me where I’m at (whether I want to admit it or not) and help me to be honest with myself so real change and growth can happen.

“Dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche, outside the control of the will. They are pure nature; they show us the unvarnished, natural truth, and are therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human nature when our consciousness has strayed too far from its foundations and run into an impasse.”

C. Jung, The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man” (1933)

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Imagining the life of our dreams

Debra Saum's cat Oscar in her tub! Her wonderful website is: http://www.debrasaum.com

A few days ago, I noticed that I was feeling a bit off. Then I had a dream that I was back in school and my sons were babies and I couldn’t get to them…..back in struggle. This is an old dream for me and a signal to look at my thinking. It wasn’t hard to see what I had been envisioning (about this new project that I had taken on). I’d been trying very hard to figure out how to do it. I was feeling somewhat alone and afraid that I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t staying true to the end result and seeing it done, I was mentally and emotionally in the frustration of, “How am I going to do this?” I was actually imagining it failing.

If I am not being totally honest with myself, or self-aware enough to notice what I am thinking during the day time, my dreams always show me. And when they are fought with negative feelings and scenes, I know that my thinking has slipped into an old track and my mind is entertaining negative images and scenarios. Equally true, when my dreams are  filled with wonderful, expansive, new and exciting or interesting scenes, even if I doubt my current path, I am reassured that I am heading in the right direction.

It is as if we are playing repetitive tapes in our minds constantly while we are awake, and get so used to these thoughts and images, they have become so much a part of us, that we don’t question or challenge them. Also, we don’t really think that they are that important, or believe that our thoughts really have much to do with our lives.

Emile Coue once said, “When the imagination and will power are in conflict, are antagonistic, it is always the imagination which wins, without any exception.” So I can want something, have a huge desire for a better life, but if I only imagine difficulty, struggle and lack, no matter how much I “want” something new, what I imagine will win out.

So how do we start playing new tapes?  How do we use imagination to create what we would like instead of what we dread or fear? First, we have to see (become aware of) what we are thinking and then start saying/thinking something new. I love the simple, yet powerful affirmation below. I’ve put it up here before but it is a wonder if used “properly”. If I’ve been thinking unhappy, negative thoughts hundreds of times a day, I won’t change if I start saying something new 3 or 4 times a day. Really give it a try. Write out an affirmation and put it in your pocket and say it, feel it, every hour or half hour, then notice what changes.

Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better. Emile Coue

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Holy Waiting, daring to dream

"Holy Waiting" by Sister Mary Southard*

It seems like there are a lot of us “waiting” at this moment; feeling like we ready to move, or start over, or begin a project, but there is something not quite in place for that to happen…yet. Keeping the vision of our dream fulfilled, and not falling into discouragement and disappointment, when it appears like nothing is happening, is not an easy place to be.

I love stories of how dreams, that seemed impossible, finally manifested, and I also love the comfort of knowing that we are all in this together; that waiting is a part of this life experience for anyone who dares to dream big.

Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Lewis Carroll

*The website of Sister Mary Southard is below. Her artwork is for sale, including (I believe) this magnificent painting       http://www.marysouthardart.org

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intuition: remembering the gift

Bodhi, Noah and Eleanor checking out the new flowers

Many years ago, I was applying to graduate school and was trying to figure out which professors to ask for letters of recommendation. I kept feeling uneasy about one of them; a man who was very friendly and open around me, but something felt off. The night before I was going to ask him, I had a dream that I was listening in on a conversation that he was having with someone else, and the part that I heard was, “I don’t know what I’d do, but I’d let Mary drop.” I woke up knowing not to ask him. Later on, I heard something about him that confirmed my decision had been the right one.

I have learned, over the years, to trust my dreams. In my 20′s and 30′s, when I was much less aware of my inner voice of guidance, I relied heavily on my dream life to inform my decisions. Even though its “language” is highly symbolic, it points the way. It is one of the voices of the intuitive mind.

The conscious mind (rational mind) always wants concrete proof. It loves to argue. If it cannot be explained in logical terms, the conscious mind dismisses it. Our intuitive hunches and nudges, when followed are the things that lead us out of the confusion, out of the mental debates, into lives that flow and work well. Following the intuitive mind leads to a sense of inner peace; a knowing that we can trust ourselves, and at the same time, are not overly suspicious of others because we know who we are. The intuitive mind is the lowly, humble, almost unrecognized path that leads to brilliant flashes of insight, love, success, happiness, peace and our true heart’s desire.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Albert Einstein

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The question that stops us

Me holding"Wonder" Saturday night...a miracle that I never could have figured out. He went from being a feral kitten, who would not let me touch him, to being a such a loving little guy.(Patty, his "owner" was trying out a new app on her IPhone that takes old-fashioned looking photographs....

Jack and I are leaving for Maine this morning. I have taken a lot of virtual tours of homes in Maine over the past month, and now we are going to do drive-bys of the actual houses. We know what we want in a home; age, size, location, neighborhood, yard. We just have no idea at all, how we can do it. I mean none.

So many big ideas, plans and dreams are stopped by the question, “How are you going to do that?” It is just a part of the way we seem to be made, or maybe its conditioning…it doesn’t really matter where it comes from, there is a part of our mind (some call it the left brain) that needs to figure everything out and will not shut up until it does. This happened to me Saturday night.

A little 2 am visitor woke me up with the words, “How do you think you will be able to swing this move? What you want is impossible.” I suddenly got very hot and threw my covers off. For a couple of minutes, I lay there with a sinking feeling and the thought, “You are not going to do this and then everyone will know that you failed.”Ouch! that is a big one. I am not worried about being talked out of my dreams by others, as a matter of fact, I can see and feel that people have more confidence in me than I do in myself sometimes. At breakfast Sunday morning, I told my father that Jack and I were going to Maine for a little vacation and he said, “You are going to end up moving there. How are we going to meet for breakfast next year?” It was one of the few times when his self-concern made me feel better!

It is my own doubts, and the nagging need to figure out how I can make it happen, that I am most concerned with. It is the boogeyman who lives right between my ears that gives me the most grief, and always waits for the time when I am tired, hungry,or  not centered to start with the questions, comments, little seeds of doubt. If it cannot figure out a way for the thing to happen, it starts throwing around all of the reasons why it won’t work, couldn’t work, is dangerous, risky, foolish, has no precedent. It says that my idea is impossible, and its’ “proof” is that I cannot tell it how I will make this dream come true.

But a part of me also thinks that it will happen, and I look forward to telling the story. I would like to collect an entire book of “impossible dreams” that came true. I could fill a good section with my own life. I just forget this, at times, when I am stretching for something beyond my known experience. It is good to come back to “my part” in making my dream come true which is to first of all, know what I want, imagine it, and then let go (something that I need to keep doing over and over) and trust that each step will be revealed as long as I am looking for the signs.

“The “hows” are the domain of the Universe. It always knows the shortest, quickest, fastest, most harmonious way between you and your dream“. Mike Dooley

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God’s “behind the scenes” workers

Fred sitting with fan running. All of our other cats hide from the fan. Fred doesn't care.

At what point in our lives, does something that we want to do, be, or have, become limited by what we have already done, been or had? If my future was destined to become only a reproduction of what I have earned, accomplished, experienced or even wanted  up until now, life would lose a lot of its luster. I want things today that did not even exist 10 years ago (like the Macbook air that a friend just told me about, my iPhone, or even Fred). I saw a commercial for a car, that is so smart, it will brake for you. Say you are backing up and don’t see the pole 10 feet behind you (like I didn’t on Monday!) the car will stop before you hit it. I am feeling that this is a good car to have. In the meantime, I’ll pay more attention and not eat a submarine sandwich while backing up my car…poor Luke and Jack (we are all fine!)

I have an idea for a home that I want, and am so aware of that voice that keeps popping up saying, “That type of home is way out of your price range.” What is a “price range” but what I  have already manifested? Dreams constellate energy around them. They are like shining a light on a path so the things that we are hoping to experience can more easily find us.

Many years ago, I worked for the Monks of New Skete. They raise german shepherds and their puppies are in high demand. People used to be on the waiting list for years. Part of my job involved calls to applicants, letting them know that we had a puppy for them. I never got tired of these calls. I felt like I was a part of making someone’s dream come true.

One day, an older couple drove up to the monastery and I happened to be walking on the road.  As we chatted, the woman said, “We have been on the list for a puppy for so long! It is just so discouraging…..” I gave her a little pep talk (about positive thinking and the power of words to create reality) and she said she would give it a try. I had taken her name, found their application, and brought it to the brother in charge of the puppy program. The puppy that they were looking for was temperamentally an exact match to a puppy that was still available. I then had the thought,

“This is how God works. Behind the scenes, rearranging circumstances, moving people to action, prompting us to take a drive, write that letter, …..working through others to make our dreams come true.” Because I knew something that this couple, at that moment, did not know; when they arrived back home, there would be a call on their answering machine saying that they had a puppy . I was, in this case, one of God’s behind the scenes workers.

There are invisible forces working for our good, bringing all sorts of people, resources, financial abundance, and opportunities to us. What is my part? To know what I want and to hold that dream. To talk with those who believe in me and to keep quiet around naysayers (including the biggest one who lives within my own head!). When I hear myself thinking about all of the impossibilities; I’m too old, it has never happened before, I can’t imagine how it could happen, I will get my hopes up and then be really disappointed so I better keep my dreams small, or the other million and one reasons why something won’t happen, I like to remind myself there are also countless numbers of “God’s behind the scenes” workers helping me too….and you too!

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