I began writing this blog in October of 2013. Even on days that I didn't know what it was going to be when I sat down, the words have always come. At the first of this year, I committed to writing at least 15 minutes each day, and I have reported for duty as promised. The words have been flowing easily every evening...until for the first time last night, the words were not there.
What was the block to my words? The only other time that I have had complete writer's block was for two weeks prior to writing the first draft of Leading from the Heart. I had blocked off two months, and then, like now, the words had always been there. Except they weren't there that day...or the next...or the next. I prayed. I meditated. I saw my therapist three times in a week. I can't say what the block was or what ended it, but suddenly one day, I got up from my meditation, went to the computer, and the words moved through me so fast that I could hardly keep up. They kept coming until the draft was complete.
I said that I would show up every day and write for 15 minutes; I didn't say I would post every day. I wrote...and wrote...and it was all garbage. I spared you. I went to bed disappointed in myself and sad that I may have let down my readers.
Magic worked in my sleep.
Regular readers will recall that I had been in something of a dream desert for the last few years, but since entering my transition and getting a full night's sleep almost every night, the dreams have been back, richly and generously. Almost every night I have remembered at least one dream; most mornings it has been several. One morning I couldn't remember until I sat to meditate, and then I started recalling details, which eventually flowed together. I believe adequate sleep is part of the answer, but I am also confident that the respect that I've been showing the dreams is also a big piece.
Each morning immediately on waking I write whatever I recall, and, as I do, I usually remember more. The volume has been as many as six dreams in a night. This morning I only recollected two but in great detail. I wrote three 8-1/2 x 11-inch pages about the two dreams. Then I go through and note the symbolism of different aspects of the dream. Finally, I journal what the message was to me and what I plan to do about it. The Universe should have no doubt that I am listening.
Over several days, I've received messages that change is occurring now or soon. That shouldn't be a surprise, I am in a conscious period of transition. One of this morning's dreams made clear that I will be going in a totally different direction. Also not a huge leap since I've felt so burned out from my consulting work within the government.
The other persistent theme, which came in spades this morning after last night's block, was the need for more meditation, usually symbolized in dreams by fish. In this dream, I was claiming a message and reached over to buy a very small fish--very small. Get this, I'm trying to get messages, but only putting in a small time for meditation to receive them.
Then I was invited to dinner with someone I met at the message center. He fed me fish that were many times larger that the very small fish I had purchased. Finally, he and a wise old woman invited me for dinner again, and this time she fed me fish that were several times larger than the ones he had fed me.
I would have to be really dense not to get the message here. I need to meditate more.
I am taking a class that demands a lot of time, and I've been trying to get most of the work done in the first 2-1/2 days of the week so that I would have uninterrupted time for the rest of the week. To accomplish that, last night I worked until after midnight. I think that maybe part of the message here is to start my day by asking what I should do, and that might mean stretching the work over several more days.
If that doesn't work, I'll try something else. I am certain that after having had writer's block for only the second time in my life last night that I will listen more often and more intently.
Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dreams. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Friday, January 6, 2017
Dreams
I've long felt that the dreams we have while sleeping are memories from "soul school"--where we go at night to learn lessons to use in waking lives. For years, I captured my dreams on waking, and then immediately afterward, I would journal about them. Rarely did a day pass that I didn't find useful insight from "dream school."
A key component of the Intentional Living Intensives that I used to facilitate with coaching clients was work with their dreams. Most were busy executives or professionals, and when we started, most would say they didn't dream. I had a process that I used to bring dreams forward, and I would just ask them to follow the process. Every time the client started remembering dreams on the first night. By the end of our three days together, some were remembering as many as six, which we then used for our intention work during the day.
I believe that acknowledging and using our dreams is key to remembering them. They are a gift, and when they are treated as a sacred gift, we get more. If we shun them, gifts pushed away stop coming to us. Because my clients were actively using their dreams, an abundance of dreams were available to them.
A few years ago I either stopped having or stopped remembering my dreams. When I am being honest, I had become like my Intensive clients before their retreats. I was so busy that if I remembered any of them, it was just gibbets, and because I always seem to race through life, I didn't make time to write down what I did recall. Over time I stopped remembering them at all except for an occasional one on a vacation, when I did record them.
When I embarked on this week's retreat, I had two intentions. Since I am cleaning out and thinking about this new nine-year cycle, one was that I wanted insight about what I should be dreaming about--what I want--in these next years. I've shared a number insights which I got during my retreat. However, as I put the retreat behind me, I was little disappointed that I'd not received any insights about the direction for my metaphorical hopes and dreams.
Then, this morning, I "got it." The Universe is very precise about our requests. When I created my intention, I had metaphorical dreams in mind. The Universe took me very literally. The third night of my retreat I had, and remembered, at least one dream from my sleep. I recorded it in my dream journal and then wrote about it. This morning I recalled three related dreams from last night. They were much more complex and insightful. The gift of just one dream appreciated has been reciprocated with more dreams.
After finishing my dream journal, I meditated on the dreams and the day ahead. Only in that meditation did I realize that I had asked for metaphorical dreams as an intention for my retreat; the Universe sent literal dreams. I literally laughed out loud.
In my case, that's a very good thing. My dreams have been rich sources of insight over many years and I couldn't be more grateful if someone handed me a check for a million dollars. Really!
I expect that when I start working my nighttime dreams regularly again, I will probably get insights on what to dream about metaphorically for this new cycle of life.
Lessons learned: be exact in what I ask for and be grateful when the Universe responds literally.
A key component of the Intentional Living Intensives that I used to facilitate with coaching clients was work with their dreams. Most were busy executives or professionals, and when we started, most would say they didn't dream. I had a process that I used to bring dreams forward, and I would just ask them to follow the process. Every time the client started remembering dreams on the first night. By the end of our three days together, some were remembering as many as six, which we then used for our intention work during the day.
I believe that acknowledging and using our dreams is key to remembering them. They are a gift, and when they are treated as a sacred gift, we get more. If we shun them, gifts pushed away stop coming to us. Because my clients were actively using their dreams, an abundance of dreams were available to them.
A few years ago I either stopped having or stopped remembering my dreams. When I am being honest, I had become like my Intensive clients before their retreats. I was so busy that if I remembered any of them, it was just gibbets, and because I always seem to race through life, I didn't make time to write down what I did recall. Over time I stopped remembering them at all except for an occasional one on a vacation, when I did record them.
When I embarked on this week's retreat, I had two intentions. Since I am cleaning out and thinking about this new nine-year cycle, one was that I wanted insight about what I should be dreaming about--what I want--in these next years. I've shared a number insights which I got during my retreat. However, as I put the retreat behind me, I was little disappointed that I'd not received any insights about the direction for my metaphorical hopes and dreams.
Then, this morning, I "got it." The Universe is very precise about our requests. When I created my intention, I had metaphorical dreams in mind. The Universe took me very literally. The third night of my retreat I had, and remembered, at least one dream from my sleep. I recorded it in my dream journal and then wrote about it. This morning I recalled three related dreams from last night. They were much more complex and insightful. The gift of just one dream appreciated has been reciprocated with more dreams.
After finishing my dream journal, I meditated on the dreams and the day ahead. Only in that meditation did I realize that I had asked for metaphorical dreams as an intention for my retreat; the Universe sent literal dreams. I literally laughed out loud.
In my case, that's a very good thing. My dreams have been rich sources of insight over many years and I couldn't be more grateful if someone handed me a check for a million dollars. Really!
I expect that when I start working my nighttime dreams regularly again, I will probably get insights on what to dream about metaphorically for this new cycle of life.
Lessons learned: be exact in what I ask for and be grateful when the Universe responds literally.
Monday, December 28, 2015
Choosing our Dreams...or Not
I've been considering dreams and particularly which ones that I will consciously keep and others that I will intentionally let die. I've discovered that it isn't as easy as I expected.
First there are a host of dreams that I've actually achieved. Consider joining three cousins in being the first generation in our family to graduate from college. Actually, you could even say "go" to college, but we also graduated. It was a very big deal for me, since it took me 22 years after I started college before I graduated.
Then, there was getting a graduate degree. I think I was the first in my family to do that. That allowed me to get the kind of professional work that I had dreamed about. That was followed by the dream to work globally, which I did 25 years ago and to publish a book, then two, which I did almost 20 years ago. What I discovered is that there were a lot of these dreams that once I achieved them, their completion left something of a vacuum that I never consciously either replaced or celebrated and really en-joyed.
Somewhat disturbing to me are some material dreams that were very important to me in my twenties and early thirties. The big house with a pool. Lenox china and Waterford crystal. Later the big house in the woods on a lake. There was the Jaguar XKE. It really was a lot of fun to drive and watch heads turn when I drove down the street. Having grown up in a lower middle class neighborhood, maybe just having the heads turn was a dream. As I reflect on these dreams, they hardly seem worthy of being a dream. Yet, they occupied a lot of psychic space for a number of years.
I've also recalled the dreams that fall in the category of "be careful what you wish for." Thank you, God, that many of those dreams didn't come true. The relationships that I wished wholeheartedly would materialize, and in retrospect, I know they would have been horrible mistakes. Even the relationship I was certain would resurrect itself after 20 years (its been 22) now seems like it would never have worked.
Similarly, there were jobs or even employers that I was certain would have been perfect. Later I worked with people from those companies and discovered that the work those companies did wasn't a good fit for my skills or the culture wouldn't have been nurturing for me.
I've had purpose dreams: I dreamed that I could make the world a better place and even visualized what it would look like when we all loved each other. A ribbon of love that connects the whole world from heart to heart. In times when there is a mass shooting almost daily in the US and some really big ones, like Paris and San Bernardino, not that uncommon, and when ISIS electrifies the internet with beheadings, a world in which we are connected to every single person through love seems very 1990s. That contradicts my dream of living beyond fear.
A friend helped me think through this, and I believe that some dreams "expire," sort of like milk or meat. But when mine have expired, I have not been conscious about choosing to not have them as dreams any more. I am not really sure how this happens in the Universe. If I've prayed for a dream, especially some dreams for years, how do I say, "Uh, God, could we cancel that one?" but some clearly don't feel right any more.
I believe that we communicate with God in feelings. Maybe I will just share with God what the feeling that I want will be and let God figure out how to get me to those feelings. Then, the picture of the dream can change without changing the feeling. I think it is called "Letting God be God." Novel concept, would you say? As I sit in my New Year's meditation, maybe that is the real dream, that I can surrender my dreams and allow myself to experience God's dreams for me...and for the world. Now that will be living my dreams.
First there are a host of dreams that I've actually achieved. Consider joining three cousins in being the first generation in our family to graduate from college. Actually, you could even say "go" to college, but we also graduated. It was a very big deal for me, since it took me 22 years after I started college before I graduated.
Then, there was getting a graduate degree. I think I was the first in my family to do that. That allowed me to get the kind of professional work that I had dreamed about. That was followed by the dream to work globally, which I did 25 years ago and to publish a book, then two, which I did almost 20 years ago. What I discovered is that there were a lot of these dreams that once I achieved them, their completion left something of a vacuum that I never consciously either replaced or celebrated and really en-joyed.
Somewhat disturbing to me are some material dreams that were very important to me in my twenties and early thirties. The big house with a pool. Lenox china and Waterford crystal. Later the big house in the woods on a lake. There was the Jaguar XKE. It really was a lot of fun to drive and watch heads turn when I drove down the street. Having grown up in a lower middle class neighborhood, maybe just having the heads turn was a dream. As I reflect on these dreams, they hardly seem worthy of being a dream. Yet, they occupied a lot of psychic space for a number of years.
I've also recalled the dreams that fall in the category of "be careful what you wish for." Thank you, God, that many of those dreams didn't come true. The relationships that I wished wholeheartedly would materialize, and in retrospect, I know they would have been horrible mistakes. Even the relationship I was certain would resurrect itself after 20 years (its been 22) now seems like it would never have worked.
Similarly, there were jobs or even employers that I was certain would have been perfect. Later I worked with people from those companies and discovered that the work those companies did wasn't a good fit for my skills or the culture wouldn't have been nurturing for me.
I've had purpose dreams: I dreamed that I could make the world a better place and even visualized what it would look like when we all loved each other. A ribbon of love that connects the whole world from heart to heart. In times when there is a mass shooting almost daily in the US and some really big ones, like Paris and San Bernardino, not that uncommon, and when ISIS electrifies the internet with beheadings, a world in which we are connected to every single person through love seems very 1990s. That contradicts my dream of living beyond fear.
A friend helped me think through this, and I believe that some dreams "expire," sort of like milk or meat. But when mine have expired, I have not been conscious about choosing to not have them as dreams any more. I am not really sure how this happens in the Universe. If I've prayed for a dream, especially some dreams for years, how do I say, "Uh, God, could we cancel that one?" but some clearly don't feel right any more.
I believe that we communicate with God in feelings. Maybe I will just share with God what the feeling that I want will be and let God figure out how to get me to those feelings. Then, the picture of the dream can change without changing the feeling. I think it is called "Letting God be God." Novel concept, would you say? As I sit in my New Year's meditation, maybe that is the real dream, that I can surrender my dreams and allow myself to experience God's dreams for me...and for the world. Now that will be living my dreams.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Back in the Groove Again
I just finished my first tango class is almost 10 months. Wow! Was that ever tedious for a bit? I started with an intermediate class. Even though I'd been doing tango weekly for two years before, it felt like the hard drive between my ears had been totally erased as I danced with the first couple partners.
Then, magically, when it was my turn to dance with the instructor, it all came back almost in an instant. Now anyone who has danced with a professional knows that he/she can make even a rank beginner feel competent. But this was more than that: I was getting my groove back. Once I felt how my body was supposed to feel, I couldn't imagine how I hadn't been able to remember even minutes before. I had dusted off my muscle memory, and suddenly everything felt right.
Earlier this week I went back to the gym for the first time in several months. Our work gym had been being remodeled, and although I did some easy weights and floor exercises at home, mostly I'd been depending in my normal life aerobic activity to keep in shape. Much like the tango class, getting into the routine was stilted at first, but soon it began to flow.
I've also recently gotten back to a more regular meditation routine. I'm not sure when that began to slide, but it was like coming home to spend a few minutes in stillness each day before work.
Those of you who are regular readers have noticed that after slipping during some very long work hours during the spring, I've been getting the writing habit back. Not unlike the tango class and the gym, the first post or two felt laborious and forced, but by yesterday it was flowing. For me, the biggest difference has been my attention to the little things in life that have suggested themselves to me as subjects for a post when my intention to get back to writing has been clear. For several months, I'd been so nose down that I'd just sleepwalked through those inspirations. Writing is both centering and energizing to me. I am glad it is back, or I am back, or both.
The tango, the gym, the meditation, and the writing are all important parts of keeping me in balance, and what each of these resets has taught me is that, when I find my groove, body, mind, and spirit collaborate to shout to me: "This us where you should be."
As I've gotten these aspects of my life in balance, I've also started sleeping better, remembering my dreams, and this morning awakening with a creative inspiration that is quite exciting. It is almost as if our personal spiritual programs knows when we are where we should be and cheers us on. How did I lose touch with that core of my being? I do not know, but I am glad I am back in the groove again.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Then, magically, when it was my turn to dance with the instructor, it all came back almost in an instant. Now anyone who has danced with a professional knows that he/she can make even a rank beginner feel competent. But this was more than that: I was getting my groove back. Once I felt how my body was supposed to feel, I couldn't imagine how I hadn't been able to remember even minutes before. I had dusted off my muscle memory, and suddenly everything felt right.
Earlier this week I went back to the gym for the first time in several months. Our work gym had been being remodeled, and although I did some easy weights and floor exercises at home, mostly I'd been depending in my normal life aerobic activity to keep in shape. Much like the tango class, getting into the routine was stilted at first, but soon it began to flow.
I've also recently gotten back to a more regular meditation routine. I'm not sure when that began to slide, but it was like coming home to spend a few minutes in stillness each day before work.
Those of you who are regular readers have noticed that after slipping during some very long work hours during the spring, I've been getting the writing habit back. Not unlike the tango class and the gym, the first post or two felt laborious and forced, but by yesterday it was flowing. For me, the biggest difference has been my attention to the little things in life that have suggested themselves to me as subjects for a post when my intention to get back to writing has been clear. For several months, I'd been so nose down that I'd just sleepwalked through those inspirations. Writing is both centering and energizing to me. I am glad it is back, or I am back, or both.
The tango, the gym, the meditation, and the writing are all important parts of keeping me in balance, and what each of these resets has taught me is that, when I find my groove, body, mind, and spirit collaborate to shout to me: "This us where you should be."
As I've gotten these aspects of my life in balance, I've also started sleeping better, remembering my dreams, and this morning awakening with a creative inspiration that is quite exciting. It is almost as if our personal spiritual programs knows when we are where we should be and cheers us on. How did I lose touch with that core of my being? I do not know, but I am glad I am back in the groove again.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Monday, March 10, 2014
Am I Nuts or What?
In Sacred texts, God often speaks to people. Sometimes those "words" are literal words, but often God speaks to people in other ways. He spoke to Joseph through dreams. Others had visions that shared a message. Sometimes God speaks to us in our meditations. Somehow most of us don't have any problem with God speaking to those people way back when, but somewhere along the way, many, if not most, of us lost our faith in the credulity of God speaking to our contemporaries.
Last night I watched the first episode of the revival of the Carl Sagan's 1980 program "Cosmos." The story of a 16th Century Dominican friar Giordano Bruno consumed one portion of the hour. Bruno had a dream that he was sure have come from his "infinite God," which showed him an infinite universe in which the Earth rotated around the sun, and in fact, our sun was really a star, like countless other suns which were also stars, going on forever. Now, this was at a time when telescopes didn't exist, and it was "well established fact" that the sun rotated around the Earth, and that the only planets were the ones that could be seen with the naked eye.
Bruno believed so completely that God had spoken to him and shared this vision that after he was kicked out of his monastery, he went to several different countries to teach and write books. He was kicked out of each of them. Eventually, he was tried and burned at the stake...along with his books...for heresy...for claiming God had shown him something that was "well known" that it was false. He never recanted what he knew to be the truth.
The problem is that he was right. And he had been right in knowing that the vision of the Universe which had been revealed to him was precisely accurate. With the passing of each year, as space discovery vehicles probe more and more deeply into space, his accuracy continues to be affirmed. The more we know, the more we know Bruno was right.
Most of us have had an amazing, even revelatory dream, at some time. Countless stories have been shared of premonitory dreams that foretold a situation and allowed someone to "save the day." Yet, how many of us would go to the mat for what we learned in a dream?
I am certain that God speaks to us all the time, in dreams and other ways. I have absolutely no expectation that God would have stopped speaking the human beings when the ink was dry on the Bible. When I look around the world at the messes we've collectively gotten ourselves into, I can't keep but wonder isn't there a Joseph out there somewhere who is sitting on a dream that would reveal what should be done or a Moses who has been talking to a burning bush and knows how to lead people out of their misery?
But can you imagine it? Imagine a man coming into Damascus today, saying he'd been out in the mountains having a nice conversation with a burning bush, and that now he knows how to bring the conflict in Syria to an end. Or better yet, think about a woman bolting out of bed tomorrow in Kiev saying that she dreamed the solution to the problem in the Crimea.
Where are the people with the spiritual fortitude of Bruno who might really change the world with what they knew...if they'd just share it. Well, I have that thought right before I have the one about Bruno being burned at the stake. I have no more confidence that our generation would be more receptive of divine information than Bruno's fellow monks. (At least, I hope that we've stopped burning people at the stake.) Today they would probably be turned away because they don't have a Ph.D. from the right universities and the right experience with the right think tanks.
I've heard, and I've acted. Oh, never anything quite as remarkable as a vision of the cosmos as astrophysics has now proven to be correct in a time before the telescope had been invented. People have said I was brave; others have said I was crazy or foolish. But, like Bruno, once I've heard God speak to me, I just couldn't not do what I'd heard.
Last night I watched the first episode of the revival of the Carl Sagan's 1980 program "Cosmos." The story of a 16th Century Dominican friar Giordano Bruno consumed one portion of the hour. Bruno had a dream that he was sure have come from his "infinite God," which showed him an infinite universe in which the Earth rotated around the sun, and in fact, our sun was really a star, like countless other suns which were also stars, going on forever. Now, this was at a time when telescopes didn't exist, and it was "well established fact" that the sun rotated around the Earth, and that the only planets were the ones that could be seen with the naked eye.
Bruno believed so completely that God had spoken to him and shared this vision that after he was kicked out of his monastery, he went to several different countries to teach and write books. He was kicked out of each of them. Eventually, he was tried and burned at the stake...along with his books...for heresy...for claiming God had shown him something that was "well known" that it was false. He never recanted what he knew to be the truth.
The problem is that he was right. And he had been right in knowing that the vision of the Universe which had been revealed to him was precisely accurate. With the passing of each year, as space discovery vehicles probe more and more deeply into space, his accuracy continues to be affirmed. The more we know, the more we know Bruno was right.
Most of us have had an amazing, even revelatory dream, at some time. Countless stories have been shared of premonitory dreams that foretold a situation and allowed someone to "save the day." Yet, how many of us would go to the mat for what we learned in a dream?
I am certain that God speaks to us all the time, in dreams and other ways. I have absolutely no expectation that God would have stopped speaking the human beings when the ink was dry on the Bible. When I look around the world at the messes we've collectively gotten ourselves into, I can't keep but wonder isn't there a Joseph out there somewhere who is sitting on a dream that would reveal what should be done or a Moses who has been talking to a burning bush and knows how to lead people out of their misery?
But can you imagine it? Imagine a man coming into Damascus today, saying he'd been out in the mountains having a nice conversation with a burning bush, and that now he knows how to bring the conflict in Syria to an end. Or better yet, think about a woman bolting out of bed tomorrow in Kiev saying that she dreamed the solution to the problem in the Crimea.
Where are the people with the spiritual fortitude of Bruno who might really change the world with what they knew...if they'd just share it. Well, I have that thought right before I have the one about Bruno being burned at the stake. I have no more confidence that our generation would be more receptive of divine information than Bruno's fellow monks. (At least, I hope that we've stopped burning people at the stake.) Today they would probably be turned away because they don't have a Ph.D. from the right universities and the right experience with the right think tanks.
I've heard, and I've acted. Oh, never anything quite as remarkable as a vision of the cosmos as astrophysics has now proven to be correct in a time before the telescope had been invented. People have said I was brave; others have said I was crazy or foolish. But, like Bruno, once I've heard God speak to me, I just couldn't not do what I'd heard.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)