image exercise

[Anansi]

Discovered this older recovery book, "Broken Toys, Broken Dreams" in the local Thrift shop and in it this simple but interesting exercise:

Create an image of the relationship between your parents.  What did you get?  ..........  Is this image similar to how you feel?

Mine was a big black blob with a gnat buzzing around (F the blob, M the gnat) and yeah, it does fit my feelings of "agitated depression" 

Anansi

"Codependency is not about a relationship with an addict, it is the absence of relationship with self" - Broken Toys, Broken dreams by Terry Kellogg

p.s.  Happy Canada Day

[moonlight52]

Hi Anansi , I have to think about creating images of my parents .

My Mom would be the color blue with beautiful birds some kind of lovely image, seacape and lighthouse because she was loving and kind.

My dad is very complicated and I have no image just colors black,and red 2 squares red and black maybe deck of cards

moon

[axa]

Hi,

When I think of my parents I see my father as distant and grey and want to run to him but he has walls around him.  My mother is a swirl of red rage that frightens me.  God I feel so sad when I think of this.  I am really beginning to see that co dependancy IS about the absence of a relationship with self.  The more I claim my anger the less codependant and fearful I feel.  It is a process of growing up the hurt and damaged part of myself, slowly.  I think, what has been absent from my life has been nurturing and I have been guilty of that too.  I have put so much energy into nurturing others and abandoned myself.  IT is very difficult changing this pattern but I believe therein lies the freedom to have joy in my life.

Sun shining today, sitting here in my pjamas and feeling ok..........

Axa

[pennyplant]

A couple weeks ago I had a dream which took me a couple hours to understand.  The main images were a tiny infant, very young but with a full head of reddish hair.  Nobody was taking care of her and she was in some peril.  So, I took her under my care along with my husband.  The father was there but he was standing near a table and busily working with something or playing with objects and kind of oblivious to the baby.  He was wearing a fancy smoking jacket made of colorful silk.  The mother wasn't even a thought.  So, my husband and I took care of the baby for awhile then laid her on a couch.  But the father still was engrossed in his project and someone else came a long and the baby was in danger.  So, we realized we really had to just take care of her ourselves.

So, the baby was me and the father in the smoking jacket was my real father and the mother just wasn't there.  It was a dream of my inner child and me and my husband taking care of her (me).  No real connection with either of my parents.  Father there more than mother.  But still not really capable.  Not really "getting" it.

In looking back I think it is strange that I didn't understand the dream until I really thought about it.  While dreaming I was just caught up in what do I do with this tiny little baby and look how unusual her hair is.  Since the man in the smoking jacket didn't look like my father and the jacket itself was quite out of character--I didn't realize who he symbolized while I was dreaming.  But my father was a life long smoker so I believe it had to be him.  Recently I had another dream about a silk robe that had many beautiful colors and designs.  I was the one wearing it this time.  I think for me it symbolizes creativity or one's true purpose in life.  The real self in other words.  So, for my "father" to be wearing something like that in my dream maybe I was seeing his real self--a person who was simply ignorant of the people around him and more able to "connect" with activities and interesting objects and hobbies.    Not malevolent in intention.  Ignorant I suppose.  Unable.

No mother in sight.  I have dreamed of my mother before.  She is usually not just completely absent.  So, I'm not sure why she was not in this dream at all.  Maybe because I'm at a stage with her now that I'm pretty clueless about.  Or maybe, since it was a dream of my inner child, she simply wasn't important to the plot.  In real life I think she thought of me as an extension of herself.  Couldn't accept anything about me that was different from her or her expectations.

Maybe my subconscious can come up with some imagery for her soon. 

Pennyplant

[mum]

wow, very interesting exercise...
Dad: a tall, greek style collumn, radiating golden light, warm....soothing, peaceful and powerful
Mom: blue, cool, water, reflecting the sky and fluffly clouds...deep and dark weeds on the bottom to snare her (her fears)

He and she made such a beautiful pair....like a Maxwell Parrish painting. Mysterious, stunningly rich with beauty and love.
Now that he is gone, I suspect mom spends more time down in the dark weeds....in her disease related dimentia, she is struggling to come up to that restful surface of blue reflecting sky, to be nearer her golden sunlight.
She is both in and out of this world...I'm pretty sure she spends time with hiim when she is not with us....

[Hops]

Amazing dream and wonderful interpretation, PP.

And such beautiful visions of people's parents...

I avoided this topic. I glanced through it and ran. I feared the pain that might come up so I didn't want to do it. It was the only "New" (unread) topic coming up for me for several days. So that tells me I need to do this.

Mother: a gray funnel cloud coming out from above her head, whirling, spinning, as though it's pulling out her life force. A blank face beneath. (She always fears storms, dramatizes every raindrop.)

Father: a warm image of a sweet glowing planet, with child's-mobile-like stars, golden, spinning around it. How I miss him.

Whew. Got through it.

Hops

[lightofheart]

Thought this sounded easy going in, but I'm with you, Hops; whew. Didn't consider how a dark image might feel. Thanks for this one, Anansi; seems to be calling up telling pictures for everyone.

For my F: nothing, not one image appeared. Definitely a gift in that distance, as it came the hard way.

For Mom: a circle of interlocked hands in motion, from the perspective of looking down; just the blur of hands, like a merry-go-round motion, the bright grassy ground underneath, and the sound of laughter.

Wow. Maybe this is about shared love of life/fun/motion, also everlasting support, the grounded give-and-take between us. Maybe, also, a little nugget of worry about her hand surgery next week?

Pennyplant, your dream gave me back-of-the-neck chills.

[pennyplant]

Hi LoH,

How come my dream gave you chills?  I'm kind of used to those types of images.  But it was a strange one at the time for me because it was so symbolic.  I often dream of my father since he died and he always looks like himself, either younger or older or ill or healthy.  But exactly like himself.  I often dream of infants and always before I think it was about missing my sons being babies or wishing I could have another one.  This was a first that I realized it was my inner child.  She was incredibly small and young.  Weeks old maybe.  But with all this reddish hair.  It's a little embarrassing to think how long it took me in the dream to realize she was my responsibility.

It's interesting to me that so far there have been many vivid images and colors associated with many of the parents.  For me it feels like my images of my parents are deteriorating as I learn more and grow more.  Especially my mother.  I just don't understand her anymore.  No wonder I'm drawing a blank.

I wonder what my kids' images are of "their" parents?  I don't think they worry about it too much.  It seems like they feel they know us.

Pennyplant

[Hops]

Hi PP:
One of the most interesting theories I ever heard about dream interpretation was to look at your dreams like this:

You are every element in your dream. So you can ask your own psyche questions like:

What part of you is the red-headed baby? (That one's easy! ((((precious but sometimes endangered moppet))) )
What part of you is your father?
What part of you wears an elegant silken jacket? (Hmmm. There was your other dream featuring beautiful silk...lovely part of you!)
What part of you IS beautiful, colorful silk?

Like that. I know it's one of many ways of interpreting dreams, but I like this one. Even with disturbing dreams, I can usually make some sense of them this way, and sometimes am very surprised by insights that result...

Sweet dreams,
Hops

[Anansi]

Thanks everybody for sharing.  Perhaps if anybody knows of any other exercises from workshops or books, if they might share it, I would really appreciate it because I can't afford to attend workshops.  Just for one weekend, it costs almost $1,000 up here.
Did anybody do an exercise at a workshop that really helped them in some way? 

in recovery,
Anansi

[Hopalong]

Hi Anansi,
You might try the book The Artist's Way. I've heard it is a very healing experience to just read it and do what the author tells you.

You don't have to be an artist. It could be about tapping your inner healing, creative spirit.

Hopalong

[lightofheart]

Hi Pennyplant,

As to the chills, part of it is that you set a story very well, so I'm there, in it, can feel the little baby's peril and waves of indifference coming off the man in the smoking jacket, who, to me, radiates a powerful and unpredictable force.

Part of the chill is projection on my part. I haven't dreamed about my own F. in years. Also, whenever something dangerous happens in one of my dreams I'm always voiceless to help or warn of the danger. From age 7 (first violence I experienced at home) to age 21 (moved 2.000 miles away) I had thousands of variations on the same nightmare: something awful, terrifying and unseen is after me, breathing down my neck in the woods or just outside the window if I'm indoors, and I'm running for my life. The setting and specifics varied, but three things were always true: never saw what was after me, never had any help, was never able to scream or say a word. I had no idea it was unusual to have nightmares several times a week till I hit Abnormal Psych in college.

Hi Anansi,

Thanks again for this exercise, and the sharing you led us to. I'd second Hops' recommendation of The Artists' Way (it's great), also The Zen of Seeing, and The Awakened Eye (the last 2 are companion books). I don't know what kind of exercises you're most interested in, but I know several people who swear by The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook as a healing tool.

Best to everyone,
LoH

[mum]

Hi, Anansi: Check out www.caroltuttle.com
She has a lot of step by step instructions on physical energy clearing techniques.  EFT (emotional freedom technique) is a way of tapping with fingertips on certain meridians in the body.....anyway explore around there and you will find instructions for that and some other things she recommends.
My own (traditional) therapist uses tapping too, in a similar way, so I don't think it's too far out there.

[ANewSheriff]

Anansi,

This is a great exercise.  Thank you. 

I think my mother would be a room full of demanding, immature, and manipulative toddlers who need constant attention and care.

My father would be a lake - inviting and promising fun, but like all lakes, strewn with old trees on which one might get caught and trapped for those not familiar with the lake.     

ANewSheriff