Fears of "not enough" revealed in dream

[Gaining Strength]

My fears of "not enough" were revealed again in a dream.  This has become my constant theme.  I am working on changing this message during the day but I am thankful that my dreams are telling me where I need to work.

Last night the dream began by my needing to ready 4 or 5 houses for the market.  I was behind on cleaning up and getting the houses listed.  The person who was overseeing my work was not visible but was a large presense looming over me, ticking off the time that was running out.

This transitioned into travelling down the road and ending up at a luxury hotel filled with fear about how I was going to get back and get my work done.  I couldnt tell anyone my predicament (I would be "caught") and had to pretend that I belonged where I was. All along I am beginning to panic.  I see a well dressed business man on the sidewalk. He drops his room key and I pick it up and put it in my pocket hoping to get to his room while he is in meetings.  I get inside and pretend to know where I am going but end up in a small auditorium where a long lost friend is performing.  After the performance everyone piles out into the halls where there is a sumptuous buffet.  My need for food is miraculously provided.  I venture down the hall to my brother's room and two unknown men come sit near me.  They want to wait with me and go it as well.  When my brother finally comes to the door these strangers come in.  I am trying to figure out how to get some help to get back to that little town where my car and my work is.  My brother has a huge financial deal to work on and can't be bothered to help nor is he going to lend me money I have to trick him or come by it fortuitously as I came by the food. 

The fear of not having enough, not being enough is the fear I have carried my whole life.  It is about "resources" and it has a life long history from my family.  Christmas really brings it out because I don't have enough money to buy the gifts or do the preparations that I would like but yet I am surrounded by family and extended family that just oozes money.  It is such an elephant in the living room.  No one talks about it and I am just a problem no one want to deal with.

The solution is to trust God and keep my heart and thoughts pointed in the right direction.  What I need will be provided just as the food was provided in the dream.  One of the common dream themes with my FOO is that I don't have a voice.  In this dream, I couldn't ask for what I needed because I feared the response.  I had to provide for myself but i didn't have the necessary resources. 

This is sort of the last frontier for me in my healing, resolving this gripping fear of not having enough, not being enough, of being alone and left out and expected to perform without the necessary tools.  - thanks for listening - Gaining Strength

[seasons]

((GS))

Your insightful posts are amazing. There is always something I can connect with, wich feels good not to have these thoughts alone.
Not having enough has been a struggle for me also.

((((you can take care of you)))) much love seasons

[Gaining Strength]

Seasons - How remarkable this site is that we can put our struggles out there and connect with someone else.  I am so very thankful for this.  It has brought real healing for me.  I am finally in a place and have enough "techniques" developed to use to overcome these deep seeded psychological problems.  It is such a gift.

I found myself lamenting that I had not found this healing earlier in life and then I immediately realized that I could have gone another 20 years without discovering my way out.  The way out is focusing on the hope not the fear, focusing on what I have that I love rather than what I wanted and didn't get.  How simple and yet so difficult for me. - GS

[Gaining Strength]

Bean - thanks for sharing your story.  It is so hard to imagine that our families can treat us that way!  Even having lived it  - I still am astonished.  I have learned through experience that others are not only not interested in hearing such a "hard luck" story but the more I reached out to others the more I got shunned and the more I got shunned the angrier I got and the whole thing just got worse and worse.  I am so thankful now to be able to change my attitude - to finally be able to fully put into practice the knowledge that the only thing I can control is ME and even that took LOTS of trial and error practice.

For several years I did not give very much but I also knew that I was being criticized by my siblings and their families about what I gave and so I felt (my overused descriptive word) paralyzed when it came to gift giving time because I didn't have money to give what I would like to give and because What ever I gave was going to be criticized or unappreciated. ( A version of "damned if you do and damned if you don't.)

I still don't have money but this year is the first year I haven't worried about what they think about my gifts and so it has been more fun.  next year I plan on having a little money.

Thanks again for sharing your story.  It is so wonderful to have a place where people understand these crazy family experiences.

lots of holiday cheer - Gaining Strength

[axa]

Interesting topic to me also.  Some years ago I learned around my FOO that they had nothing to give me.  I have contact with them but have NO expectations.  They do not want to hear about my life/pain etc.  They only want to hear the "happy" things.  It took me a long time to learn that this is the reality of the situation.  I do not go to them with my sadness/pain etc it scares the living daylights out of them. 

I now see them for what they are.  Very, very damaged people, and I say this with compassion.  I have been the lucky one, I have looked at the challenges and worked on moving past the abuse we all suffered as children.  They have shut down and are running and that is how they choose to live their lives.  This is what they can do.  I used to be so angry with them but they are doing the best they can.  Loosing my expectations made room in my life for compassion for them.  They are not bad people, they are just as damaged and hurt as me.  They just deal with it in a different way.

axa

[Gaining Strength]

Axa - I have come to see my FOO and my grandparents in the same way.  I find that viewing them with compassion rather than anger truly helps me in my healing process.  Thanks for sharing that.  One of the things I didn't get from them and that I am learning to get here is validation.  My family cannot offer that and I never understood until recently. - GS

[axa]

GS

I think my FOO feel sort of sorry for me but in some ways i think they are envious.   I am a bit of a black sheep...........read not rich financially.  I have stepped outside the box as in some ways I feel quite secure in myself.  I gave up the secure job I hated, took on new challenges, had adventures, some good some bad.

As far validation goes. It seems to me it is what we all need to give ourselves.  It is wonderful to have the support here and the validation here but something in me says its just GOT to come from ourselves if we are to break the cycle.

xxx

axa

[Hopalong]

Socks.
Gave them all socks.
Nice socks, cheerful and/or whimsical socks.
But just socks.

And an extra gift or two for mother and D.

That's it! (Told my friends years ago I'd give to blood relatives only.)
Just hate the frenzy and finally realized it's just like anything else, have to stop being frenzied myself, ain't nobody else going to detach from the holiday crazies FOR me.

It's so much calmer for me this year. I'm not gritting my teeth and caring less, I am truly caring less.

One year after Mom's gone, I will take a cruise at this time of year. Or something like that.

Hops

[Gaining Strength]

Axa -

its just GOT to come from ourselves if we are to break the cycle.

Ultimately, you are right, but I need to experience somewhere before I can internalize it and I am so glad to know what it feels like here.  In time I hope to be able to conjure up validation for myself, to trust my own word and to be grounded. - Peace to you all this dark time of year. - GS

[Gaining Strength]

Yeah, I think, Bean - that's it!!!

I dream all of the time and my dreams are usually anxiety provoking, dredging up the dark unconscious of my youth and cesspool of self doubt and self-condemnation - voices that I internalized and unconsciously made my own. As much as I hate these dreams and the feelings they bring, I am thankful that I have a window into that destructive unconscious that I tote around. 

I do believe that I can heal those dark thoughts and that is my aim. 

I do love a new year.  It gives me a feeling of starting anew.  And this year it is more welcome than ever because finally I am functioning, perhaps not well but functioning none-the-less.  And I am very, very thankful - GS

[Hopalong]

I do believe that I can heal those dark thoughts

I BELIEVE YOU CAN TOO, GS!!!!!!!!!
Hops

[Gaining Strength]

  Thank you Hops. Merry Christmas