Are You Happy Or Are You Just Settling?

Someone asked me this week if I was happy or if I was just settling for whatever came my way. After thinking for a little bit here is what I told her.

With my Advocacy work, I am doing what I believe in and that makes me happy. I think most of us tend to settle for what life gives us and waste a lot of time wishing for and searching for, but not finding, the "happily ever after ending of fairy tales. Life isn't a fairy tale.

You make your happiness with your attitude, your mind and your thoughts. Often, instead of looking at what you have and being grateful, you focus on what you don't have. Sometimes, you envy or become jealous of those who have what you want instead of going out and getting it for yourself. 

To make a dream come true takes action on your part, not just sitting around wishing. Be happy while you are searching.  Don't put off being happy for another day. Be happy today by being grateful for what you do have. Make the best out of whatever circumstances you find yourself in. Don't worry about anything. What does worrying accomplish? Nothing, it just brings you down.

Look for the gifts in your day. They are there. Appreciate and value them and yourself. Love yourself. Let go of any self-hate that you may be carrying around. Turn your life in the direction you need to go in. Then take that first step toward the future and your dreams.  (((Hugs)))
Patricia

Birthdays And Valentine's Day

February 12 was the birthday of my mother and February 14 was the birthday of one of my abusers, in addition to being Valentine's Day. Most years those dates don't bring me any hurtful feelings to deal with. This year, on February 1, I was aware that both of those dates were coming up soon. The suspense was building all through the days up till then.

I have had dreams also. I wouldn't call them nightmares but I do remember the confusion and I remembered the details of each of them when I would wake up from them each morning of the week leading up to those two days. Without going into those details which are now fading from my memory, what I brought out of each of those dreams was a feeling of being lost and out of control of what was going on in the dreams. One of them even had my uncle in the dream sitting in a living room chair with a dead snake with an irridescent blue stripe down its back in front of him in a round hole in the floor as I was sitting on the floor beside his chair. I don't remember this uncle ever being in my dreams before. Sometimes my mother is in my dreams but she wasn't in this one. I know from a dream class that snake can represent sexuality and spirituality both, energy wise. I rarely see colors in my dream so I know that is important too but I don't know why unless blue is a healing color. I know that my uncle and my dad both damaged my sexuality with the rapes of incest which has lasting scars to this day. Also my trust in God was dented for awhile but that came back alive even stronger for me.

Dream books can only help so much with interpreting our dreams because symbols and their meaning belong to us individually. I would guess my uncle was in the dream and there were children in the dream with us because of the birthday date that was coming up. There was more to the dream but it doesn't pertain to this discussion of those two birthdays.

Only in the past year or two have I started to talk about my uncle as an abuser. I dealt with the abuse from my dad first because it was the most damaging and longer lasting. I guess I hoped by dealing with the abuse from my dad that the abuse from my uncle would be taken care of too. Most people assume that this uncle was a brother of my dad and he was not. He was one of my mother's brothers. All of the other brothers of my mother I loved but this one always scared me even at a young age. One of my earliest memories is of him walking me through the night from my grandmother's house to my parents' house one dark night. I was walking but not in school yet. I would guess from the image in my mind that I was around three or four years old. What I remember about that night was walking side by side and him getting upset with me because I wouldn't make up my mind if I wanted to go home or stay with my grandmother.

I loved my grandmother. She took me in at the age of two when I had whooping cough and the doctor said I couldn't stay at home because if my baby brother got it he would die. I believe that early time with my grandmother is why I never fit in that well with my family of origin and everyone always told me I was different. She gave me my sense of values.

Back to that night, I remember walking with my uncle down the dirt road and being in love with the beauty of the night. It was apparently Summer time because it was a warm, star filled night. The night time sky was awe inspiring, so unlike most three year olds, I was quiet and just enjoying the night. I felt safe in the night. Sometime not long after that I learned to fear the night. I am not sure exactly when my love of the night left me but it did.

With these two dates in February, this year, I felt some grief. I have felt the grief many times. I have learned to feel it, sit with it and then let it go. I used to live with the heaviness of grief as a background feeling that was always there, like the headaches that I have had most of my life. When I started healing and opened the doors to talking about incest and my issues, I could finally give the grief a name and acknowledge it for what it was. It stayed around for awhile until I worked through all of it. I cried at 12-Step meeting for a year once the feelings returned. Today, when an issues comes back up to be healed some more, I experience a day or two of grief and then it leaves. I feel it as the color gray and a heaviness that leaves my mind and body after about two days.

Back on February 5, I caught a brief glimpse of something else during the time that I was listening to a radio program hosted by my Advocate friend Patricia McKnight (Trish) on her Wednesday night program called Survivors World. This particular program was called "Survivors World - Its Teen Night w/ Justice K."  Justice is a teenaged friend of mine who is such a courageous young woman who shares her story of being sexually abused by one of her trusted teachers at the high school that she used to attend. He is now serving time in jail. Because of Justice's courage in turning him in, others are not being abused by him in his classroom. I will put the link to this radio program at the end of the page for anyone who wants to listen to this courageous 18-year-old tell her story.

At an early point during listening to Justice and Trish talking and also reading and responding to comments in the chat room of the program, for just an instant, something inside of me opened up in my mind's eye. All I could see was blackness with a feeling of a lot of hurt for what was done to me as a child. I felt hurt so intense that I had to shut it down. I had to leave the program because my headache just got so bad that I was feeling nauseous too. I went and took a pain pill and laid down for about three hours after that. I didn't actually go to sleep but I just had to be still and quiet. I don't know if this was old stuff coming back up or if it is possibly some of the memories that I don't have getting ready to present themselves. Just for a second, I also felt an anger and disgust for the people that hurt me and for those who didn't protect me. I felt deep sorry for the child that I was back then and also sorrow for the child that I would no longer become.  Except in one of my paintings on anger, I have not seen this blackness before. In my painting, the darkness is full of rage and hurt. The intensity of this blackness is not anything I have felt before. I will remain open to it coming back and letting me see and feel a little more. I hope this is making sense to you.

Before I close, I want to also share with you that I was one of the call-in-guests on Friday, February 14 on Valentine's Day to Butterfly Dreams Radio and Survivors World for Patricia McKnight's program called "Survivors World - Let's talk about LOVE." The link is also below under Related Links. I shared a little bit about what it has been like for my husband and me to live and love through the years of me healing from incest. I also had one ah-ha moment for myself during the show. I shared it with my husband after the program. It probably won't be obvious to you as you listen but it is more for me to process and think about and decide how I feel about it.
Patricia

Related Links:

Survivors World - Its Teen Night w/ Justice K. @
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2014/02/06/survivors-world--its-teen-night-w-justice-k

Survivors World - Let's talk about LOVE @
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/butterflydreamstalkradio/2014/02/15/survivors-world--lets-talk-about-love

A Dad Issue From My Past Still Affecting Me Today

As the holidays are fast approaching, I have noticed several things from my past coming to the surface. My mom has been in two of my dreams recently. Rarely does either of my parents show up in my dreams. Two nights in a row is a sign of something but I am not sure what, other than the anniversary of her death is coming up on November 20. Maybe this will be a year that I do some more grieving. Maybe there is something that she is trying to teach me but I don't know what it is yet. I will wait to see if I get anything more from her or my dreams.

Everywhere I turn for the past few weeks, some survivor is talking about the silent screams of their abuse. I am familiar with those silent screams held inside of you as a child being physically, sexually abused by an adult. You hold the screams in because of the fear that once they start, you may not be able to stop them. You hold them in because, if your abuser can't deal with your tears, he certainly can't deal with your screams of pain and horror over being raped by a grown man when you are just a small child. You hear the screams in your head but no one else does but another survivor who has them too. I know those silent screams are still there inside of me but have no idea what to do with them other than acknowledge their existence like I am doing now.

Over the past few days, I have been part of two conversations in different groups. In both conversations, I expressed a difference of opinion to the other person's opinion. Both times, my opinion was rejected, which is their right. What is not their right or anyone else's is to say that I am still in victim mode or creating drama just because I voiced a different opinion. I got angry. In talking it out with some friends, I realized that the source of my anger was an old issue from my dad and his controlling behavior. As a child, until I left home at 19, I was not allowed to have a difference of opinion with my dad.

Expressing my opinion is important to me as an adult. I work hard to not do it in an aggressive, abusive way like my dad did with his laws that he stated in my childhood. Everything my dad said was to be accepted as law in our house. He was the dictator. I am not a child to be ruled by anyone today. I am an adult and I do often have an opinion. I respect the opinions of others and I hope they will respect mine.

I can't change or fix another person. I can try to understand them and their view point. I don't mind that others have a view point different than mine. Those differences are what make the world an interesting place to me. When another person starts name calling or treating me like I am inferior to them, then I feel as I did as a child who was not respected, not listened to and not allowed to have an opinion. Don't call me a victim or say that I am creating drama just because I express an opinion different than yours. I have learned not to strike out at a person in anger. I will regret what I say each time. I have learned that if I am angry, it is my issue, usually from the past, that I need to work on.  Usually I work on an issue by writing about it, as I am doing now. The other person's issues are not my business.

Another person's air of superiority can only affect me if I am feeling inferior. I have come to know that a superiority complex means the person is feeling inferior inside and afraid of others seeing it. I know because I used to do this with a sarcastic tongue. What we often see in others is because it is also a part of us. I have been there, done that, when I was younger so I know the fears behind the superiority and the sarcasm. Both keep others from getting too close so they can't hurt you. Today if I use sarcasm it is only in fun and never to hurt someone else.

We all have our own issues to deal with sometimes on a daily basis. Just know that your issues are yours. If someone else triggers you, it isn't their responsibility to fix it or you. It is yours. If you are angry or scared or sad because of something that was said or because of a situation you are in, look to yourself, usually your past, to find the answers. If you concentrate on the other person and what they said or what they did, you won't heal you. You will just add more woundedness to what you already have. My computer says that "woundedness" isn't a word. Well, it should be. Neither is "thriver" and again, it should be. As survivors, we are changing the world, one person at a time. We are inventing a new vocabulary to help us do it. Hope you are loving this late Sunday afternoon, my friends.
Patricia

Belief Systems And Incest

Carla Dippel over at Emerging From Broken blog has written two articles about the belief systems that she inherited from her father.  Her first article she entitled "Illusive but Destructive:  Belief System Inheritance"    [ http://emergingfrombroken.com/?p=722 ].  Carla's second article she named "Unintentional but Destructive:  Belief System Inheritance" [ http://emergingfrombroken.com/?p=750 ]. 

In both of Carla's articles she talks about growing up with a father that she loved but also learning to not value herself because that is what her father modeled for her by not giving himself value.  Her father didn't set out intentionally to teach his daughter that she didn't have value as a person but he did teach this belief to his daughter was what he believed about himself.  That doesn't make him a bad dad or a bad person.  He was probably doing the best that he knew how.  It just wasn't sending the most beneficial belief system to his daughter.  As an adult, that devaluing of herself has created challenges  for Carla in her life.  She is addressing those challenges by looking at the belief system that her father passed on to her.  Until you have an awareness of what you believe about yourself and others, you can't make the needed changes.  I admire Carla's courage for doing this.  I thank Carla for doing this work out in the public on her blog so that others can benefit from her example.  I know it helped me to remember some of the belief systems that set me up to be abused.

In my last article, I shared a recent dream about my uncle.  In that article, I shared that my first remembered sexual abuse was at the hands of my uncle when I was 11 years old.  A major part of all of the healing that I have done around my incest issues has meant going back and looking at the beliefs surrounding each incident and feeling whatever feelings come up from remembering the incident. I really haven't done much of that with my uncle and this first time of being raped by a grown man.

I have had several conversations recently about survivors being attacked when they have broken their silences about the abuse that they have suffered through.  I tend to get angry when I see this happening to others or to myself  because for so many years we weren't allowed to speak or weren't listened to if we did try to speak out.  One of the biggest fears of a lot of survivors of abuse is that they will be blamed if the truth is known and that they won't be believed.  Those two beliefs kept me silent for almost 40 years.

The gun man in my dream [If you haven't read my previous post about this dream, you will find it at http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/04/new-chapter-in-incest-recovery.html ] represents those fears of being rejected, blamed or not believed if I ever told about the incest with my uncle or my dad.  Children also have a fear of dying or being alone if they are taken from their parents.  The gun man would resort to shooting me because of those fears that I carried with me as a child and even as an adult.  I also had a very real fear of this uncle killing me if I ever spoke out against him.  My dad threatened suicide several times in my childhood.

In the dream, I wasn't in a house.  The dream took place in an apartment.  I see an apartment as having different levels.  The door didn't open up to outside.  The outside was always safe for me because I could be alone and I had space to run or hide if I wanted to.  The door opened up into a dark hallway.  This tells me that the healing for this issue is on another level.  I have never had a dream about this uncle before that I remember.  I have also never dreamed that I was in an apartment like this dream was.  So this level of healing will be different than the healing work of the past.  Because of those fears and the darkness, a part of me represented by the gun man is willing to kill to keep me from looking at this issue.  Some part of me is terrified of the truth and remembering.

I don't know how I feel about this dream and this issue yet.  I am calm and I am waiting to see what comes up.  I have asked for Divine Guidance in dealing with this issue and for what direction I am supposed to go with this.

What Carla's two articles reminded me of is that I was afraid of hurting my uncle's feelings if I didn't do as he asked, if I didn't do what he wanted.  I put his feelings above my own.  I allowed him to hurt me so that I wouldn't hurt him.  My parents taught me well about respecting adults and always obeying them and never speaking out.  I wasn't taught that I had value.  I was just a kid who was supposed to do what I was told by the adults.  Adults ruled my world.  Their safety and authority were more important than what I thought or felt or needed.  I was supposed to shut up and do what I was told so I did.

I can feel that I am not ready to give you the details of that time with my uncle just yet.  Today I honor the timing of the telling of my story.  I also honor the scared inner child who isn't quite brave enough yet for me to tell her story.  She and I both know the time is soon.  She is willing to take a step closer to the telling.  She is willing to trust the adult me to protect her when we do speak.  I thank you for your patience.  We are almost there.
Patricia and little Patty

A New Chapter In Incest Recovery

I have done no healing work on being molested by my uncle when I was 11 years old.  This happened a few short weeks before the incest was initiated by my dad.  I thought, I guess I hoped, that working on my issues with my dad and mom would take care of it since they seemed more important.

Maybe it is now time to look at my incest issues with my uncle since I had a dream about it in the early morning hours of Easter Sunday.  I didn't remember the dream when I first woke up that morning so some of the memory of the dream was lost.  I wrote the dream down later in the afternoon when I did remember having it.  Here is what I wrote down that afternoon:

I was in a house with my uncle and a woman, maybe my grandmother.  I am not clear about who the woman was.  I forgot parts of the dream in the waking time that I used to get ready to take my mother-in-law to church this morning.

In the dream, I had a conversation with my uncle, but I don't remember most of it.  I do remember there was a sexual element to the dream and I remember that I was angry.  I was an adult in the dream.  My uncle was making demands and I refused to give in to his demands.  I said some words to the effect that I would tell someone if he didn't leave me alone.  I know he then got angry.  I wasn't afraid of him like I was as a child.

Next he was gone from the dream.  There was a knock on the front door.  I opened the door into a hallway like I was in an apartment building instead of in a house.  A man with a gun in his hand was there to kill me because I was going to talk about the incest and my uncle.  I remember waking up when the man put the gun to my head.

I woke myself up from the dream frightened and confused.  After a short while I went back to sleep and had another dream that I don't remember at all.


I know that this dream came about because I have been reading Dan L. Hays' book Freedom's Just Another Word.  [ http://www.danlhays.com/freedom.html ]  [ http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/04/freedoms-just-another-word-book-review.html ].  I also know the dream came about because obviously it is time for me to work on recovery from the incest experiences with my uncle.

One thing that I have learned from reading Dan's book is that we sometimes have to revisit different time periods and the different people who have affected our lives rather than just dumping all of the issues into one big pile. 

I have hesitated to post about my uncle because he still has sons and daughters living.  I won't use his name for that reason to protect the privacy of his children.  I don't know if he abused any of them or not.  I don't know how they feel about him either. 

He died back in the 1980's or 1990's.  I don't know the exact year so I am not in fear of him hiring someone to kill me like he did in my dream.  The killer represents that part of me that is still very afraid of talking about this topic and this man.  The threat of shooting me tells me how very deep this fear is.   As a child, I thought my uncle was capable of killing me or hiring someone to do it.  When he was raping me I didn't know whether he would kill me or not afterwards.  I was afraid of him for reasons that I won't share here. 

I don't know where this part of my journey is going to take me but I am willing to go along to the end.
Patricia

Dreams About Tigers---What They Mean To Me

I recently read an article called "Talk of Tigers/The Tiger Unveiled" and watched a video about his dream about tigers that was written by Dan L. Hays at his blog Thoughts Along The Road to Healing. I ask that you watch the video first. You will find it at the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/fhs1968writerman#p/a/u/0/ary8eVG_e94

After you have watched the video, then go to the following link to read Dan's article about the dream:

http://danlhays.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/talk-of-tigersthe-tiger-unveiled/

Then come back here and finish reading my article. I will wait on you to return. Be sure to read the comments at the end of Dan's article and video.

Why is reading about Dan's Tiger dream so important to me? Because I have my own Tiger dream which started having sometime after my 7th birthday. How do I know how old I was? Because the house that is in my dream was the house that my grandmother lived in when I was 7 years old. She only lived there for a part of that one year.

Before I go any further, I want to tell you my Tiger dream. I have briefly mentioned it in a few of my past articles. Here it is:

I am about 7 years old and I am alone in my grandmother's house. No one else is around. I am frightened. There is a huge golden and black striped tiger walking around outside the house. As he walks completely around the house, I follow him from door to window to window watching him. He is talking to me as we both walk. He says in this really deep voice, "I am going to eat you." He keeps talking and telling me this over and over again as he walks around the house looking for a way to get inside. I make sure that each door and each window is closed and locked. I am so afraid. I don't know how long the dream goes on before I wake up terrified. I don't go back to sleep for a very long time afterwards.

I dreamed this dream quit often over the years of my childhood and young adulthood. I can't tell you when I had this dream last. It was sometimes after I started the 12-Step programs of Al-Anon and Adult Children of Alcoholics. It was always the same, never changing any of the elements of the dream. I was always terrified, even as an adult when I had this dream. I was always around 7 years old in the dream.

I know that for me to always be 7 in the dream that some kind of developmental stage stopped for me at that age. I don't know why that year is so important for me. I have always known that something monumental happened that year without knowing what it was. As I said in my comment to Dan's article, I can still see the dream in my mind so clearly after all of these years.

I never could figure out what the tiger stood for in my dream. When Dan said that his Tiger represented his rage that was buried way below the surface and was even hidden from him, I felt chills going through me. I recognised that as a truth for me as well. Dan said that the Tiger (his rage) was dangerous to him and anyone who got close to him. My rage was very much like that when I was in denial of its existence. I would suppress my rage as long as I could. Do you know how much of my energy was wasted suppressing that rage? Because of it, I was so tired all of the time for many, many years. As a young child, I knew what bone-weary tired felt like.

Dan said that his legacy of rage came from his father. I think that my dream took place in my grandmother's house because family was probably where my legacy of rage came from. My grandmother was a quiet person. My mother was in denial of all of her feelings. As a teenager, I figured out that my mother and grandmother were quietly angry with one another. I never knew why. If I had asked either one, they would have denied it. Do you know how destructive silent rage can be? I suspect that the anger had something to do with my grandfather. He died when I was 2 years old. My mother was the baby of the family and extremely spoiled and protected by her daddy. I wonder if the anger between my grandmother and mother was possibly jealousy because of that attention that my mother got from her father. All 3 are dead now so I have no one to ask about it.

The denied rage could also have come down from my grandfather and his parents. When my grandfather was just a baby, his mother left him and his father and ran off. My great-grandfather was so angry that he would never tell my grandfather his mother's name. He grew up never knowing anything about his mother or her family. When my grandfather would ask about her, his father would not answer. He refused to talk about her at all. When my grandfather was 10 years old, his father died and left him to be raised by neighbors who took him in. Since he died when I was 2 years old, I don't know if my grandfather carried the rage of his father forward into the next generation or not.

Just like alcoholism, which is rampant in my dad's family background, rage was be passed down the generations. My dad's grandfather was well known for being a mean S.O.B. He wasn't nice to his wives or children. His first wife died shortly after childbirth and he wanted to bury the baby girl with her. He apparently didn't think much of girls. A neighbor took the baby girl and raised her. His second wife divorced him and got a restraining order against him in the early 1900's. She kept the 5 children that they had together. My great-grandmother was his 3rd wife. She left him after he tried to poison her several times. When my great-grandmother died in the 1920's, both of their sons went to live with their dad. He was well-known for beating his animals also. Would you say that he probably had a rage problem too?

I know that I suppressed my own rage for many years, denying its existence in every way possible. I stuffed my feelings with food and still do to a smaller degree. I refused to acknowledge its existence. If you asked me, I would have said that I wasn't angry. Good little girls, respectful of their parents and all adults, didn't get angry, much less feel rage. My dad was a rageaholic. I knew what it looked like. I didn't want to feel that way too. It hurt too much. I didn't like my dad when he was raging. He was very abusive when he was raging. I didn't want to see myself as that way, capable of hurting myself and others that same way that my dad did.

As I have said before, I was like a pressure cooker who occasionally blew my safety valve when the stream became too great from stuffing the rage. When I was raging, like my dad, I felt no compassion for anyone. I took no prisoners. Fear was the monster that fueled my rage. Fear was also what kept me from facing my rage. I thought that anger and rage were the same thing and always very dangerous. My dad's rages were always dangerous. Rage always came with the threat of violence. For many years, I was afraid that if I let my rage out that I might kill someone with its intensity.

Except for in my dreams, I have never been afraid of Tigers. To me they are the most beautiful creature that God ever created. Have you ever seen a color more beautiful that they golden orange color of Tigers? Have you ever seen a creature more powerful and majestic than a Tiger? A Tiger reminds me of how powerful I can be as a creation of God. A Tiger bows down to no man. A Tiger is a victim to no one.

A Tiger, to me, represents the strength that I needed to overcome the effects of incest on my life. I have pictures and a small stuffed Tiger to remind me of the beauty and power of Tigers. As Dan said, Tigers spend most of their lives alone. I can relate to that also in that I have felt alone for much of my life, separated from others because of the lack of trust and fear of abandonment that I lived with for so many years because of the incest.

Thank you, Dan Hays, for your video and article on your Tiger dream. Dan and I have had a few conversations about the uncanny similarities between us that have come out from his sharing his Tiger dream. I look forward to reading more of Dan's blog articles and future discussions. I look forward to reading Dan's book The Tiger Unveiled when he finishes writing and getting it published.

Dan also has a Radio show called "Minute to Freedom" with Dan Hays that you can find at the following link:

http://www.radiokevin.com/minutetofreedom.htm

I haven't listened to any of the radio programs yet, but I am excited to hear them soon. Now I am off to read some more of Dan's blog articles. I hope that you will join me. Have a glorious day of exploring your world.
Patricia

Movies, Dreams, Grieving, Books and Feelings

I haven't written a post since the end of January. I have been processing some of my stuff. For that, I needed to be quiet and feel what all of that means to me before I can voice it to you or anybody else.

I have been reading about homeopathy for the past several weeks and experimenting on myself with a few remedies that I thought might be helpful to me physically and emotionally. I started out by going online and doing a Google Search. Then I visited the two health food stores in Hot Springs. My reason for doing this is that regular medicines haven't been working for me for awhile so I need to find something that will work.

I found a remedy called ignatia amara which on the bottle says it is for "nervousness, due to everyday stress." In several of the books on homeopathy that I have read, it says that ignatia amara is for unresolved grief. For that reason, I bought it and have been taking it several times a day for the past week. I was not aware of any unresolved grief but wanted to find out if I had any that I was still carrying around.


I think I have mentioned that several months ago, I started going to a Grieving Class that an old friend of mine is teaching. Most of the information so far is not new to me. I learned it over 20 years ago from this same friend when I was in the middle of working on my incest issues and the grieving that work brought up. So far what I have discovered is how much I have changed and grown. Thank you, Jack. I feel like I am beginning to open up in this class. Feelings are beginning to come up. I keep going to the class because it feels like this is the place for me to be.


This past Wednesday night a friend and I went to the movies to see "The Lovely Bones." It was my friend's choice. She had read the book and wanted to see the movie. I wasn't so sure but went along with her choice.

I knew from the advertisements that a 14-year-old girl gets kidnapped and killed by a neighbor. The story is also about the struggles of the family to accept her death. The mother deals with her death by running away and the father and younger sister go after the killer and finally figure out who he is. In the meantime, the 14-year-old hangs around and watches them. There is more to the movie that I won't tell you.

It is a really good movie to watch. Still, because of the feelings that came up for me, I can't say that it was a movie that I liked. I will not watch it again. It was difficult for me, because of my incest issues, to sit and watch the movie. You don't actually see the violence of the young girl's death or sexual abuse. They are both implied by all of the blood and the secrecy of the scene. In some ways being implied is worse because it causes you to use your imagination. As an incest survivor, I can imagine plenty. I cried throughout the movie. The movie brought up feelings from my own childhood incest.


I went home still disturbed by the movie and my feelings that had come up. I went to bed and before morning had the following dream:

I was in a car by myself. Other people were around. I drove up a hill and stopped. Suddenly the car was rolling backwards down the hill. I knew, without seeing it, that a lake was behind me. As I rolled down the hill, I turned the steering wheel of the car until the car was turned around and facing the lake which I still couldn't see but knew was there. For an instance, I was sitting in the back seat with no one driving the car. Then I was back in the driver's seat still rolling toward the lake. I woke up as the car hit the water but continued the dream. I realized that the driver's side window was down. I had to choose to get out of the car now or wait for the water to start coming in. I decided to get out through the window instead of waiting. I used my feet to push off from the car. Then I realized that I still couldn't swim. That is when I stopped the dream.

I have had many car in the water dreams before but not one recently. I have even written on my blog about them. I knew that this dream was about the movie and my feelings about the movie. As a friend pointed out to me, in this dream, I turned and faced the water this time. That says that I am willing to face my emotions this time. Another first was the open window. I gave myself a way to escape from the car before it was completely submerged. For a brief moment I was in the back seat instead of driving the car. A part of me still feels out of control of the situation. Many times in the past, I have been in the back seat instead of being the driver. In the past, I would have waken up and stopped the dream the second I hit the water if not before I hit the water. For years, I would come to the edge of the water and wake up. It took years before I would allow myself to go into the water. I have had dreams in which I actually swam in the water. I haven't learned to swim in this lifetime and that sometimes carries over into my dreams but not always. In this dream, I remembered that I couldn't swim and didn't know who was going to rescue me so some part of me is still waiting for someone else to rescue me from the feelings which is what the water represents in my dreams.


On Thursday night, I went to the Grieving Class. We were all laughing about something that someone said and I started to cry. I did not know that I was going to cry. I did so silently not wanting anyone to see and at the same time hoping that someone would ask. There is a child inside of me that is still wanting someone to ask so that she can tell about the hurting. Why can't I just come out and say that I am hurting? Why is it still so hard to do? After the class, I stated that the house where the class is held is a safe place for me to cry. But I didn't stay and talk and cry. I went back to another friend's house with the intention of talking to her and crying but when we got to her house a friend was there so I turned off the feelings and the tears.


As my husband picked me up, my friend gave me a book to read. The book is called The Shack written by William Paul Young, In collaboration with Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings, windblown Media, Los Angeles, California, 2007. I started reading the book shortly after getting home. I read it and cried over the next three days. It is a novel that starts out with the kidnapping and murder of a six and a half year old little girl. The book is about her father and his struggles with her death. In his struggle, he gets a letter from Papa and an invitation to meet him at the shack where his daughter's bloody clothes were found. Papa is what his wife calls God. I won't tell you the rest of the story because you really need to read it for yourself. The subtitle of the book is "Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity."

The book is about how Papa (God) uses our tragedies to bring us back to our relationship with Him/Her. Papa actually starts out as a big black woman who is so full of humor and love that She is almost overwhelming (to me). This is a wonderful book about our relationship to God. It was a wonderful, very emotional end to my week's journey through feelings.

I still haven't figured out everything that is going on with me because of the movie and the book. I will continue to take the homeopathic remedy as well to see what else comes up. I just love the way the Universe works to bring up the stuff that I need to work with in a time that I am willing to look at it. This story isn't ended yet. I still have more to look at.
Patricia

Related Posts:
Dream Interpretation found at http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/10/dream-interpretation.html

As A Survivor, I Had To Learn To Take Care Of Myself found at http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2009/06/as-survivor-i-had-to-learn-to-take-care.html

As A Survivor, I Had To Learn To Take Care of Myself

Today my blog went over the 200 mark with subscribers for the first time. Thanks to all of you who are reading my blog. I appreciate you and your comments.

As an incest survivor two of the things that I have had to learn to do are feel my emotions and take care of my body so that it doesn't get sick. Sometimes I do good with these two and sometimes I slip back into old habits of numbing feelings and ignoring how my body feels.

This week my emotions have been all over the place. Last night I went to an Al-Anon meeting and told everyone that I was mad, no, that should be "MAD" at the world. If you said hi to me this week, that was reason enough for me to get mad at you. I haven't figured out where all the anger is coming from yet but I know who my target was---my husband. How do I know? Two of my friends who never agree on anything both told me so. Also my exasperated husband finally asked why I was being so mean to him. I didn't say much to his yesterday because I knew the words would come out angry. I went to an Al-Anon meeting instead. At one point in the meeting last night, I told the group that me admitting that I was angry was such progress for me. I was taught as child that good girls don't get angry. That is such a bunch of bull. Getting angry is part of living. So is being sad, being happy, being hurt. I learned not to feel anything. My life was safer that way. That was one of my survival tools that no longer serves me today.

Part of this week, I have been overeating to not feel all of the rage that has been inside of me this week. My awareness of the emotions inside of me came from a dream. I think I have talked about what I call my fear of drowning dreams before. I have had these dreams for most of my adult life, maybe even as a child. In my dream of a few nights ago, I was in a car, possibly a limonsine with at least 3 other people. Someone else was driving. I was at the rear of the car when I saw water over the road in front of us. We didn't stop. Instead the driver drove off the side of the road and straight into the water. I remember being in the back of the car alone and thinking, "I can't swim." I sat and watched the water totally surround the car through the glass of the windows and a sun roof. Next the water is coming from the front of the car inside the car. Just before the water hit me full force, I woke up.

Something that was different in this dream was that I wasn't afraid when I woke up. I was disturbed. What I was was angry. I woke up at 4:00 a.m. from this dream. I didn't sleep well after that. What I remember about the dream is that while I was dreaming it, the dream felt more real than all of my other dreams.

I woke up from a dream the night after in which I remember talking about how real the drowning dream from the night before was, not that it seemed real but that it was real. I am not sure of the significance of that sensation of realness. I haven't experienced it very often.

Water, from a dream class that I took a few years ago, represents emotions. The car represents a part of myself. I wasn't driving it so I feel out of control of some part of my life. Duh. My emotions were out of control this week or at least it felt that way to me. I have gone into the water before but this is one of my first dreams in which I have gone under the water and not instantly waken myself up so some part of me is more comfortable with the emotions. I have worked really hard on feeling my emotions and still sometimes I numb out and stuff them with overeating. Still sometimes it takes me awhile to recognise what I am feeling. Sometimes it takes someone else to point out to me that I am angry (husband and two friends). Sometimes just saying that I am angry is enough to release it. Sometimes I need to talk about it to realize what is going on. As I have said before sometimes dreams can provide a source of healing for me.

This week I have been taking care of my body nutritionally by eating more raw veggies and less cooked veggies. I am also cutting the soy out of my diet because some sources say that soy isn't as good for us as the soy industry wants us to believe. I went to our Farmer's Market for the first time last Saturday. That is an education in itself. I met some interesting people.

I am also resting and not getting out in the heat until I feel better. I am also reading another book. This one is on "The Four Keys to Energizing Your Body, Mind & Spirit" (from the front cover of the book). The book is called Power Healing and is written by Dr. Zhi Gang Sha with a foreword by Dr. John Gray. I am learning ways to shift and harmonize the chi or energy in my body. I used one of the methods to lessen and then do away with a sinus headache that I have had the past few days all from balancing the energy in my body.

I have also been listening to Stephen Halpern's Chakra Suite when I go to bed at night to balance the chakras. All of this is helping me to self-heal rather than self-medicate my body.

One article that I read online a few days ago has some really good tips on paying attention to and taking care of your body. I want to share that site with you. The name of the blog is Rejuvenation Lounge.
http://thehealthylivinglounge.com/2009/06/23/24-ways-to-give-your-body-the-extra-attention-it-deserves/ . Check it out for the valuable information that the article provides.
Patricia

Related Articles:
A Week Of Introspection: http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/11/week-of-introspection.html

Fear Is My Friend: http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2009/01/fear-is-my-friend.html

Being Honest With Myself: http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/06/being-honest-with-myself.html

How Dreams Can Help You Heal From Childhood Sexual Abuse: http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-dreams-can-help-you-heal-from.html

Dreams Can Teach Us About Ourselves: http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/06/dreams-can-teach-us-about-ourselves.html

Raw Salad Dressings: http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/11/raw-salad-dressings.html

Link Love And Raw Foods: http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2009/01/link-love-and-raw-foods.html

How Dreams Can Help You Heal From Childhood Sexual Abuse

From The Complete Dream Dictionary written by Pamela Ball, Chartwell Books, Inc., Edison, New Jersey, 2000, page 324:
"If ideas of rape appear in a dream, then it can be as much to do with violation of personal space as with the sexual act. Sexual rape is unlikely to appear in the dreams of sexually abused children, though the adult may later suffer from nightmares. Rape itself may only manifest when the adult is ready to deal with the trauma. Most rape dreams are based around the need for, or perception of power issues between the male and female."

Why did I search out the above quote to share with you? I had a dream a few days ago in which I was raped. I looked in my dream dictionary for more meaning to the dream than I, alone, may have given it.

This isn't the first dream of rape that I have ever had. Years ago, after I had been working on my incest issues for awhile and was learning about choices, I had a dream in which a man was going to rape me. I remember that there were two men and that I couldn't prevent the rape but I could choose which of the two men were going to rape me. I remember looking into the eyes of both men and making my decision. I knew that one would be kinder than the other. He is the one that I chose to rape me. I woke up in a lot of confusion until I realized that the dream was more about the fact that I had choices, that I could actually choose the path that my life and my recovery was going to take. That is when I really learned that our choices control the path that we take in life. Choices, which I never felt that I had as a child, gave me a sense of freedom that I had never experienced before that dream.

I do believe that many of my dreams are about healing. As small as making the choice of who would rape me would seem to others, for me, it was the beginning of knowing, really knowing, that I could make a better life for myself, a life in which I felt safe and valued. My choices, my opinions mattered. Unless you are a survivor, you may not understand how really big that dream was to me.

In my dream of a few days ago, I didn't see the rape happen. I just knew that I had been raped as well as the other two women in my dream. I may have dreamed about the rape happening but if I did, I didn't carry those memories to my waking state. I remember leaving the two women behind as I walked and cried, walked and cried, walked and cried. I have cried over the years in my waking state with the grief of dealing with my incest issues. I have never cried with the deep, deep grief that I cried in this dream. The grief was so consuming that I can see myself stopping and just crying before starting to walk again until more grief came through.

In the next part of the dream, I found myself walking into a courtroom with people all around. I knew that I was going to tell them about the rape. That is when I woke up. Just as I woke up, I heard the word "justice" and knew that was why I chose a courthouse. I knew that I wasn't going to remain quiet as I did after my childhood rapes by my uncle and dad. I knew that I would no longer be silenced by the men.

I believe that this was a healing dream in that I deeply grieved and I was willing to seek justice for myself whether the other two women did or not. Also, those two women are reflections of female parts of me that are still living in the abuse and afraid to speak for themselves. So there is still some healing for me to do.

I have been taught that numbers are always important in dreams. In my dream there were three women, counting myself. I called a friend who does numerology and asked her the significance of the number three. She told me that the number three is about expression, creativity and the trinity. In this case, I think that the trinity has to do with my healing on the emotional, physical and spiritual levels of my being. Emotional healing also means physical healing because of the tears and pain that my body releases and no longer carries around. Any time that you let go of emotional pain, it gives more room for spiritual growth and love to enter your body and heart.

As my dream dictionary says the rape happened in my dream because I have made the decision to deal with any remaining incest issues that may come up. Because of this dream, I know that my decision is right. Divine timing is always right. I am exactly where I am supposed to be in my journey.

Thanks to Enola ( http://enola-survivor.blogspot.com/2009/04/wear-blue-on-friday-child-abuse.html ) and Surviving by Grace ( http://thethirdfloorwindow.blogspot.com/ ) for letting me know that April is Child Abuse Prevention Month across the U. S. Use this month to make yourself more knowledgable about the signs of Child Abuse and how you might be able to do something to save a child.
Patricia

Dream Interpretation

One day last week I had a dream that I want to share with you. I didn't write it down immediately or at all until now. That is one of the first things you will learn in a Dream Class is to write down your dreams as soon as you wake up and remember it. Because I didn't write it down I have lost a lot of the details. What I do remember is important to me. Here goes:

I remember that Daniel (my spouse) was with me on a bus with a small group of people. We filled the back half of the bus. The front half was empty except for the male bus driver. I only remember two of the other people. One was a curly, dark-haired little boy of maybe 9-10 years old. (I don't actually remember him being on the bus until later in the dream.) The other person that I recognise is one of my younger aunts. (She is only one year older than me.) I know that Daniel and I are on vacation.

The first part of the dream, once we get off the bus, I have lost the memory of. I know that the group was walking somewhere and that the little boy causes trouble of some kind. I remember thinking he was being really mean. I didn't like him. That is all that I remember of that part of the dream.

For the next part of the dream, we are back on the bus, still sitting in the last half of the bus. Daniel decides that it is time that we go somewhere else and decides that he is going to drive us. He is in the driver seat and I am standing beside him in the isle. I am not afraid but I do tell him that he is driving too fast. (I know what is going to happen next.) I keep telling him to slow down and he ignores me. Next we come over a small hill and see that the bridge isn't there over the water. My feeling is that the bridge has somehow submerged. There are a group of people nearby. I think some were on the bridge as it submerged. I don't have a clear picture of this part. The submerging is just a feeling that I had about the scene. I think the people were maybe soldiers but I am not sure. They weren't panicked. They were orderly.

Daniel finally sees that he needs to slow the bus down but it is too late. The forward momentum carries us into the water. I see the bus submerging and everyone in the water. We all start to come out of the water. In the way of dreams, I know I was in the water and then I was back on shore looking at the water. Most of the people are out of the water with me. A person comes out of the water to my right. Next I am aware of Daniel on the shore and my aunt on my right side. I see the curly haired little boy just barely under the water. He is staring upward. My aunt and I each step forward into the water to pull the little boy out. My aunt takes his right arm and I take his left arm and pull him out.

The little boy immediately attaches himself to me. His arms and legs are wrapped around my chest and he is holding on so tight that I feel that we are almost merging as one. At this point I woke up. I could still feel that little boy wrapped around my chest as if he were real.


Just writing down this dream now so much symbolism came back to me that I had almost forgotten. All week this dream has stayed with me in the background of my mind. Two important things jumped out at me.

(1.) I didn't wake myself up before hitting the water. For years, I have had variations of dreams of coming around a curve or over a hill and the water being across the road. Until the past two years, I would wake myself up before hitting the water. I have always had a strong fear of drowning. Two years ago I started sometimes going into the water before waking myself up. In this dream, I was in the bus totally submerged in the water. I also chose to go back into the water to help the little boy out.

(2.) The little boy represented a disowned, shadow part of myself. When I first saw him in the dream, he was doing something to get into trouble. The child in me didn't get into trouble. I strived to be the perfect child throughout my childhood. It was less painful and less dangerous if I was the good daughter. I shut down the independent, adventurous, mischievious child, the troublemaker. I didn't let myself be any of those. In letting the little boy cling to me and even merge with the adult me, I have reconnected with that shadow child that is a part of me. I feel really good about that.

I took a dream class about eight years ago and loved it. I was blessed to have a wonderful teacher that taught me that everybody in your dreams represent some part of yourself. Vehicles are about the way you move through your life. Some books on dreams can give you good information. Some don't. I go with what feels right for me personally in interpreting my dreams. You are the only person who knows what your dreams really mean. Books can help but they don't know your symbols and what they mean to you personally.

One of the books that I own mainly because it was on sale at my local bookstore is called The Complete Dream Dictionary written by Pamela Ball. It tells me that "A bus journey is that part of our lives where we are aware of the need to be on the move, but particularly to be with other people, with whom we have a common aim. Such a journey has to do with our public image." (page 142)

(page 140) "The whole symbolism of driving in dreams is particularly obvious. It represents our basic urges, wants, needs and ambitions. If we are driving we are usually in control, though we may be aware of our own inadequacies, particularly if we do not drive in everyday life. If we are uncomfortable when someone else is driving we may not believe in that person, and may not wish to be dependent on them. When someone else takes over, we become passive." Well, until about twelve years ago, I didn't drive in my every day life. My husband did all the driving. I was definitely in the passive mode then. Daniel could represent my own aggressive, stubborn male half who thinks he is always in control and doesn't take direction from others very well. So maybe, I need to listen to my feminine, passive side more in traveling through life. Both sides have value.

(page 138) "Driving into water can be interpreted as trying to find the parts of ourselves which we have suppressed. It can also suggest taking risks which we might not normally do.
Drowning indicates that we may not be in control of our emotions properly and may be in a situation where we can be overcome by them. We are pushing ourselves to the limit.
Floods, being by their nature chaotic and destructive, symbolise the uncontrollable 'welling up' of emotion which can destroy our known way of life. Eventually there has to be some sort of cleansing process."

The above interpretations agree with what I learned in my dream class about my water dreams. In interpreting dreams, you can go into great detail or you can go with the feelings that you bring out of the dream. I do believe that our dreams can teach us a lot about ourselves if we are willing to work with them. I could have gone into a lot of the other details of the dream such as why was everybody sitting in just the last half of the bus? I just wanted to give you a taste what it is like to look at your dreams. There is valuable information in our dreams. I hope this gives you a nudge to start recording and looking at your own dreams. Happy dreams.
Patricia

This Is The Year That My Dreams Come True!

The Daily Word for January 1, 2008 says "This is the year that my dreams come true! This is the year! These words from a beloved poem invite me to eagerly welcome the new year: 'Wonderful, wonderful, fortunate you, This is the year that your dreams come true!'
This is the year that my dreams do come true as I am blessed with life-celebrating opportunities. Some at first may appear to be happenstance. Yet I know that they have come to me by divine appointment.
This is the year that expectations flow from my vision of good. I am an active participant in the joy-filled life of me!
This is the year that I move forward with zeal and enthusiasm, giving and receiving, committing to purposeful, rewarding goals.
This is the year that brings happiness, a year that I will live to bless. Wonderful, wonderful, fortunate me, for this is the year that my dreams come true!"

Today in church was my third time this week to run across this poem. In addition to church and reading the above message on January 1, a friend also emailed me this poem in a New Year's Day card. I decided to write about the significance of this poem to me. It holds a special place in my heart because it was the favorite poem of my dear friend Carol Ann Meadows.

Carol was the person that introduced me to the concept of Master Minding. Four of us got together and formed a Master Mind Group. We would read the poem (I will have to find a copy of the whole poem and share it here later.) to remind us that anything is possible with the help of God and a positive attitude. Before this week, I had not been reminded of this poem since our last Master Mind group met the week before Carol died on December 1, 2005. I can hear Carol's voice as she recited this poem. She believed it with all of her heart. She believed that we create every single part of our world. She is the one who taught me about Unity.

All I can say is, "Ok, Carol, you have my attention." I know that this year will be the one that I create for myself. I know that 2008 is truly going to be the glorious year that I have been wishing for everyone including myself. It is more than a wish. It is a reality that I choose to create. Does that mean there will be no challenges? Not at all. Challenges are how we grow. So have a glorious 2008, I intend to.

A Tribute To My Traveling Companion---India Trip---Sept./Oct. 2007

I am home from India. I got home around 8:30 p.m., Central Standard Time, Monday, October 15, 2007 as scheduled. I am back in Hot Springs, Arkansas, USA, feeling spoiled and enjoying every minute of it. I appreciate being born an American more each time that I visit India and all of its hardships.

In this first article about my trip, I want to tell you about my traveling buddy. I could not have asked for a better traveling companion than my friend Sherryl. You met Sherryl very briefly in my article The Most Influencial Person---#5---Best Friends.

Before I made this trip, I knew that Sherryl is a great healer. I tell her that a lot. She is very humble about her healing abilities. Sherryl is my Reiki teacher. I have taken Level I and II from her and plan in the next few years to take Levels III, IV, and V from her and also become a Reiki Master like she is. Sherryl has incredible power in her hands. She is also an extremely caring person.

Sherryl sees things that I miss. She sees auras and has wonderfully detailed dreams most nights. She is a deeply spiritual person.

One day while we were walking through the ashram, she pointed out an older Indian lady who was having problems getting her walker down the stairs. Sherryl and I both rushed over to help the lady down the last few stairs. I happened to get there a little ahead of Sherryl. I moved the walker down the last two stairs and offered my hand to the lady. She thanked me and told us that she had been praying to Swami that he would send help to her. I told her that it was my friend Sherryl who saw her. I would have walked by and never seen her if not for Sherryl pointing her out to me. Because of my illness, I was more focused inward than usual and did not even see that the lady needed help.

I am writing this article to say, Thank You Sherryl for being such a good friend and for taking care of me when I was too sick to take care of myself. You being there with me made the trip much easier when I was too sick to cope on my own. Thank You Swami for having Sherryl come with me.

Sherryl and I have known each other since we met in a meditation class sometime in 1997. Each of our three trips have bought us closer together as friends.

On the second or third day in the ashram at Puttiparthi, I got sick with the worst sinus infection and cough that I have ever had. Not only my head and face hurt but my top teeth were very sore from the infection. I have never had my teeth hurt with a sinus infection. I usually get at least one sinus infection a year so I knew what it was that was wrong with me. My ears were also stopped up, especially the left one which is still filled with fluid.

Another story will be about the healing lessons that I received during my almost sleepless nights with this illness. I coughed really hard during the day and more so at night when I would try to go to sleep. The only way that Sherryl got any sleep was by using ear plugs and taking sleeping pills. I still managed to wake her up a few times when the coughing was especially bad. The last three nights in the ashram, I tried sleeping partially sitting up. It didn't make much difference. I still coughed. Another friend bought me cough medicine which didn't help either.

Before this trip, for several months, I have been experiencing pain across my back where my kidneys are. Sherryl and I both did Reiki on each other's kidneys three to four times during our stay in the ashram.

One evening, my chest started hurting with the coughs. Sherryl asked if I wanted her to cup her hands and beat on my back. I told her if she thought it would help, then yes. She would cup her hands and hit on both sides of the spinal cord but not on the spinal cord itself. She hit pretty hard. The cough did not turn into bronchitis. My chest quit hurting when I coughed. She did this about four times during the trip.

There were three or four different days that I didn't have the energy to leave our room. Sherryl kept me company on the two worst days. She bought me food and water when we were out. I lost over 10 pounds during this trip.

Sherryl, in addition to being a Reiki Master from the Usui Shiki Ryoho school, is a licensed massage therapist, and is trained to do Cranio-Sacral healing work. I will have to ask Sherryl to explain to me exactly what Cranio-Sacral work consists of. I know she works on my head and moves my neck very gently and it feels wonderful. I always feel better later. I know some Chiropractors do Cranio-Sacral work in their practices. Most do not.

Sherryl and I were in what felt like total harmony on this trip. We had a reading done for each of us by an Indian Astrologer who said we were soul mates and have many past lives together. At one point during our stay in the ashram, Sherryl asked me if I was aware that we were reading each other's thoughts and finishing each other's sentences. I wasn't aware of it. I was so sick that I don't think that I was aware of much of anything outside of my own body and mind.

Is this our last trip to India together? If you had asked me when I was so sick, I would have said that I was never going back to India. When I shared that with Sherryl, she said she knew that was what I was thinking. According to Sherryl and her dreams, we are going at least two more times. The next trip is scheduled for three years from now. She dreamed this trip into reality. I didn't. When she told me about the dream, I told her if it was supposed to happen, Swami would work out the details. He did and we went. If he calls, we will go again.

According to the Indian Astrologer, we have many more trips to come in the future. He told me that I would actually live there semi-permanently in the future with just family visits to the states. I smiled and thought, "Only if Swami knows something that I don't." It is in Swami's hands. If he plans it, it will happen.

Again, Thank you, Sherryl for the wonderful care that you took of me while I was sick. Without you, this trip would have been much worse. I hate being sick away from home. And, yes, I know that and the healing lessons that I learned are the reason that I attracted the whole illness. It is good to be home.

Dreams Can Teach Us About Ourselves

A friend once told me that every character in our dreams represents some part of ourselves. With that I mind, I will share the dream that I had this morning.

I have changed the name of the male in my dream "to protect the inocent".

In the dream, I am visiting a friend named Patrick. We are in his office with his young secretary. She apparently said or did something that Patrick did not like. Patrick threw a temper tantrum knocking everything on his secretary's desk to the floor. There was a bed in the room. During Patrick's tantrum, I laid down and pretended to be asleep. I was being polite by pretending not to notice his rage. The secretary was very frightened by Patrick's outburst. She left the room.

I sat up and talked to Patrick about his outburst. (I have forgotten the exact conversation. That is the problem with not remembering the dream until several hours after I woke up. I always lose some of the important details.) Patrick was so upset that he had tears in his eyes. That was the end of the dream.

What do these 3 people represent in me?
Patrick---Am I still raging when I don't get my way? Is it still easier for me to do rage than admit that I am frightened?
The secretary---Am I still frightened by other people's rage?
Me---Am I still hiding from my own feelings? Is there still unaccessed rage hiding inside of me that I haven't acknowledged? Am I still pretending that everything is ok when it isn't?

I need to acknowledge and forgive myself for still continuing in these old patterns of behavior. I need to search out the ways that I am still doing this.

If you are interested in reading more about working with dreams, I read 2 really well written articles by Kara-Leah Masina on her blog. Check them out at http://www.klmasina.co.nz/2007/05/07/how-to-work-with-your-dreams/

and the second article is at http://www.klmasina.co.nz/2007/06/04/how-to-work-with-your-dreams-part-2/