A dream I had - now shifting out of passivity

[Gaining Strength]

I had a dream Sunday night that marked a shift for me and shines a light on a perspective or dynamic that I have been living in.

  I was in a swimming pool.  There were two others in the pool - one in a swimming lane and the other in the rest of it.  There was also a lifeguard/swimming coach watching over the swimming lane.  The other swimmer stood for a family member.  We were both just treading water.  I decided to swim, to get some exercise.  I started just swimming towards the shallow end.  The other treader clearly wanted to keep me from getting exercise without overtly stopping me.  He just got in my way.  I started treading again.  But I really wanted to exercise and I looked up and the lifeguard/coach was watching me from the side of the pool encouraging me to swim, calling out how many laps and what strokes.  As I swam he kept encouraging me and pushing me on.  It was the greatest feeling in the world to suddenly overcome the "barrier" in my way and to actually get a human being encouraging me.  I almost cried.

When I woke up I immediately knew that something had shifted, that I am on my way to overcoming this bizarre passivity that keeps me bound into some kind of encouraged determination of moving forward.

The extraordinary difference in life between having huge barriers vs. one person cheering, pushing forward, encouraging is like the difference between canoeing down river in whitewater and paddling against the current.  In the latter it takes all the power possible to maintain status quo - NO hope of getting anywhere and little hope of maintaining.  In the former - it takes zero effort to get somewhere fast and only some effort to guide and control where you are going.  I have lived life paddling up stream and getting no where.  I believe that my dream is a foreshadowing of a shift in my life to come.

As I have been setting up my little business plans I have met indescribable internal resistance that I hated to even admit to myself but now I better understand what it is.  I could hardly bear to make progress because I have been paddling up stream for so long and getting nowhere - that the thought of adding my responsibility was just unbearable - too much - WAY too much.  But this dream tells me that something is about to shift.  That's good news because i could not make it if it doesn't.  It is impossible to make progress paddling upstream.  It is not a matter of getting stronger or working harder or doing better. None of that makes a significant difference. It is a matter of heading in the right direction - that's the key.

[Gaining Strength]

The other day when Izzy started the thread about "Board Slowdown" I was struck by her 2nd post,

"Have you ever had the feeling that you were the only human left on earth?"

Though I don't know what it meant to you Izzy, I was resonating with that sentiment when I've posted expressions that were meaningful to me and got no response.  That's a time when I feel so alone.  I came online with just a brief minute to post today to this new thread and thought of your line - Yikes - I feel so alone.  I am sure this dream and what I came to post about today are dome of the most significant for me (self-absorbed for sure) since I have been here and I felt so alone that noone has commented.

I think of times when I am driving and speak to my son behind me and hear - silence.  I feel immediate irritation and say to him, "When someone speaks to you you must acknowledge them.  It's RUDE to keep silent."  Then I'm washed with embarrassment at my own sense of demand and need.  No question this is a sore spot in my woundedness but I wanted to share that here before I share what I came for.

(A 2nd asside:)
My son is very hyper and inattentive, very impulsive.  We will be doing something and he will say, "I want to ...."  I fall in line and change directions and begin planning to do .... Before I can even open my mouth he is moving on to a final step or to something else entirely.  No sense of  (fill in the blank.)

For so long now it has sent me into a downward spiral which took me a long time to understand.  But finally, in recent months I figured it out.  My father would demand things of me (us) and before I could act to do what he demanded he would be angry because it wasn't done.  (couldn't have been done.)  I was left feeling indescribably inadequate.  That inadequacy would lead to self-condemnation because no discussion was allowed, no second chance, no way out of the place of condemnation.  Because I could not (psychologically) get angry at him the anger was stored up until adolescence or adulthood and spewed out when similar, unrelated experiences triggered those original wounding memories.  My son's impulsivity has triggered those wounds and i have reacted out of the old stuff, creating a cycle of behavior. 

This helps me understand how this behavior is passed down generation after generation.

The reason I came here was to pick up on the theme of encouragement that was opened to me in that dream.  Today, I met with a group of people who gets together on Tuesdays for a few weeks in the fall and spring.  It is a group who pray intercessory prayers for people who are in another room.  In that group today, several things came together that seem to have broken a spell that has been the remnant of the paralysis. 

After I broke through the shame I had some freedom to get things done but it was not complete and there have been days and periods when I was quite stuck, not as much as before but not free enough to really accomplish what I need to to work and keep house.  But today I think I have experienced that necessary breakthrough. 

I am going to use specifically Christian words here - not in an attempt to exclude anyone else here who does not find the meaning that I will but because these words do have meaning for this particular experience that I want to share.  I do hope that my words will not give offense to any non-christians.  No offense is meant.

The words are Condemnation, Resentment, Repentence and Redemption.  I immediately saw how I was caught in a cycle of experiencing condemnation and reacting with resentment.  This cycle has generated debilitating, paralyzing anxiety.  But the word interjected by someone else was repentence.  That is a very loaded word and usually carries enormous baggage of judgmentalness for me.  But suddenly I saw that repenting or acknowledging the cycle of condemnation and resentment will actually crack the cycle and open my heart to receive the redemption or opening up of my heart.

When I came home, I was only sorry that I did not have more time to work and clean. 

For months now I have focused on those few minutes of feeling "on the verge" of cleaning and restoring order.  When the old shame and paralysis took over I did not let myself slide into the spiral of feeling guilty for not being free.  I kept being thankful for those few moments when I felt almost able to get up and clean.  I never stopped planning and envisioning how that would happen.  I chose to believe that the more I believed that, that idea and vision would grow and grow until it took over. 

I continue to believe that. 

In the past two days I found myself slipping down and having to hold on to a fragile, tentative absense of anxiety.  I would feel the fear of slipping back to where I was coming on strong.  I had to fight it.  So when I got this concept today of repentance as gift as opposed to someone pointing a finger at me and saying with judgment, "Repent", I suddenly knew that I had a word that would help me break that cycle.  Up until now I had these elaborate processes or as I have referred to here "techniques" that I have used to help relieve the spiral or wretched anxiety.  But those were lengthy processes and were not instantaneous.  I don't belittle them because I believe they have helped me tremendously but they could take hours or an entire day to bring relief and suddenly I have help that is bringing instant to not permanent relief.

My hope is strengthened and I actually see the end in sight.

The amazing thing about this is that I have always had some comfort in the fact that when my mother dies, my third of her estate will be enough to live off of if I never had another income.  But suddenly - yesterday - that comfort disappeared with the all but total devaluation of Wachovia.  The majority of her estate was held in Wachovia - GONE. 

The miracle for me is that I have not slid into despair.  There is no parachute for me.  Though she has other assets - enough for the rest of her life, thank goodness, there will not be enough to sustain my child and me.  I've got lots of work to do and I am thankful for the miraculous breakthrough today and the timing of it.

I wanted to share this here.  I have nowhere else to share it and noone who I know will understand.  I don't expect that even here many will understand but I know someone will.

I am thankful.  Still cautious but thankful.  Take care - I've got years of mess waiting for me to clean up.  Not just in my house but some financial stuff and legal stuff and on and on.  Finally, I have the strength and courage to begin the long process.  Thanks to this place and the way it functions as a whole.  It has been my great encourager.  That is what I have always needed - an encourager.  That is what my dream told me - the encourager is here and will help encourage me to have the strength to overcome the barriers.

[Izzy_*now*]

Hi SS
I do not comprehend the meanings of  MY dreams, so I have far more of a problem with others. The only thing about my dreams is that there are always people I know... and if it is my N-sister being pleasant then I expect all the other people were being dreamed as opposites as well.

Feeling like the only person left on Earth....... is not a bad feeling and not a happy feeling, just a mid-range but it takes place when there is absolutely no noise--TV or music here, and no showers, toilets flushin, water running, hammering, vacuuming, police sirens and other traffic outside. Total silence and no one had answered my post---everybody here was 'gone'  I was the only person left.

So our difference is that you feel 'alone' (downer) and I am just alone (as usual)

Here is something rather amusing, sort of on topic:
My younger sister and me on the farm, sharing the same double bed. We were chattering away in the total dark, on various topics and then she had to go to the bathroom. It was downstairs off the kitchen, so took a little longer than current days.

She came back, got into bed and I said nothing, nor did she....it was so silent from before that she suddenly said,"Have you ever had the feeling you got into the wrong bed?"
=====
Well we laughed!
=====
I am now past my toxic family, am okay with my 44 yr. old daughter, so it is just me and my work, movies, reading etc., and I have done nothing in my 'new' life to upset my applecart.

So your Mom invested in Wachovia? and the bottom fell out of the market with no chance to recover. That is some loss as there is a degree of security knowing you will see it through to my age and still have money.

Money is necessary, as we all know and either one works for it all one's life, or inherits it, one wins a lottery, or is in a bad car crash and files a civil suit.

Boy! June 6/69 I had $12.00 , a daughter and regular bills, awaiting payday on the 15th. On June 7/69 I crashed and I sometimes think that God did that on purpose so I could sue. If I had said "Yes" to sex instead of "No" there would have been no angry driving by him. I just settle for the easiest conclusion when I will never know the answer.

I didn't really address your post, but I did reply because my being alone means I don't have people around me who depress me, arouse my concern, anxiety etc.


Take care
Izzy

[Gaining Strength]

Izzy - thank you so much for your post.  It helped me feel that I wasn't the only person on earth. Sometimes I feel like I have taken a wrong turn and gotten onto the wrong "board."  LOL.  I got a chuckle out of your sister's line.

Boy! June 6/69 I had $12.00 , a daughter and regular bills, awaiting payday on the 15th. On June 7/69 I crashed and I sometimes think that God did that on purpose so I could sue. If I had said "Yes" to sex instead of "No" there would have been no angry driving by him. I just settle for the easiest conclusion when I will never know the answer.


There is so much packed into this one paragraph.  An entire movie.  I can't say anything.  IT requires more than I can say in one post. So many ifs ....  I am struck now as I have been when you have written before by his character ...  no words...

[Izzy_*now*]

OK SS

Yes that one paragraph almost holds one's lifetime. I understand why you say...a movie.

To write in depth about all that would take quite a few pages.

and no even when we think, have that feeling, of being the last one on earth, we actually know we are not!

xx
Izzy