DREAMING UP ANGER

In the day I seek the light and shun any fears or darker parts of myself aside. I become a great actress with my lines memorized for each and every situation I will encounter that day. It’s how I have learnt to survive in this world.

But at night I enter the darkness and I travel with my dreams into the realms of fear, truth and the many different facets that make me up as a women. 

Last night I dreamt that I moved into a home high up on a hill in the country. The grass was all dried up and the colour of wheat. The air was heavy with humidity. Everything seemed so still. I stood at the doorway of my cottage and peered through the waves of heat at a path that cascaded down the hill. Two people began to approach. As they got closer I could see it was my ex husband and a women who has hurt me in waking life immensely. Even now I still feel the daggers she has left in my back. I was wearing a pretty white dress with a red and white polka dot apron over the top. My hair was out and although I looked soft and feminine a staunch power was surrounding me. My ex-husband stopped and lent on a rock, lit up a cigarette, tilted his head and with a jerk of it he ushered for the woman to approach me. I narrowed my eyes and kissed my teeth. There was no way I was going to let her anywhere near my home. I then realized I was holding a large stick that was carved with all sorts of traditional  Maori patterns. My knuckles began to turn white with the grip I had around it. I stepped through the doorway and in a large, strong and commanding voice I bellowed, “Get off my WHENUA!” (Whenua is the Maori word for land and also placenta.) I said this over and over again but still she walked closer to me, smiling with a smugness that boiled my blood and made me stand even taller and command even stronger for her to leave my land. We came nose to nose, woman to woman and stared each other down. “LEAVE.” I said, with such ferocity that she backed up. Though she still smiled that smug smile. I turned to my right and looked over at my huge black dog that had been watching this all play out. I gave him a look that said “Get rid of her”. He slowly got up and began to snarl and growl. He walked like he was stalking her, ready to kill. She was backing down the hill now, though still reluctantly. My dog and I both barred our teeth and with a deafening bark from him and one last, “Get off my Whenua!!” from me. The woman finally disappeared.

So much self-doubt and confusion has been swirling around me but dreams like this let me know I’m travelling in the dark to seek the darkness in spite of my fears. My miraculous mind is giving me stories of the strong woman within, the angry woman within, the protector woman within and how to mend my heart in waking life using these puzzle pieces that make me up.

Our messages in our dreams are medicinal antidotes to those bigger emotions we seem to suppress such as anger. I find it hard to let the fire of anger burn in the way it needs to and to slowly snuff it out with patience and love. Instead I suppress it and let it burn in a place inside that allows its flames to lick the compassion and empathy right out of me. This is why my dream time is so important. Especially as a mother with very little time in the day to get quiet with myself, I wait until the moon is high and in front and behind my eyelids is darkness. It is then all masks are taken off and my script is left behind.  It is then I slip into the work of spirit.

A x

EMBRACING YOUR DARKNESS

"Fear is a natural reaction of moving closer to the truth" Pema Chodron

Have you ever watched somebody face as you tell them you're depressed? The crinkling in the brow, the slight glaze in their eyes as they subconsciously detach from the pain you are expressing. Even the nostrils begin to flare little as their breath quickens. All these subtle movements are a result of fear. We are afraid of our darkness. We shift uncomfortably when fear creeps into our peripherals, as if agitated by an itch we can't quite get to. Negative emotions are usually met with denial or suppression, but if we just sat in stillness with them letting them come to full fruition we would be amazed at the healing that would follow.

I sat at my kitchen bench oneday, my favourite spot in the house. It has the nice contrast of the cold marble beneath my arms and the warm sun filtering through the window heating my cheeks, turning them a dusty pink. My son all milky white sits at my feet which dangle off the breakfast stool. He's making his own magnificent orchestra with the pots and pans. My daughter lays sleeplily on the couch twirling a lock of her copper hair. I have everything to be greatful for, yet in the pit of my stomach there is a heaviness. When I start to become aware of it my heart is signaled to beat faster as I become afraid of this feeling. But, for whatever reason, that day I plucked up the courage to close my eyes and drop into that churning sorrow in the pit of my stomach. As I did this I felt as though I was falling off a high cliff into a deep dark crevice. As I fell into the engulfing darkeness the full realization of my pain began to take over. It was no longer islolated to my stomach, it soared through my body quaking with its power. Just when I thought I couldn't feel anymore grief I felt myself softly land at the bottom of the crevice. No longer did I feel isolated but instead a part of the darkness and the earth that surrounded me. It was if my bones were making themselves home in the rock and sediment. I was whole yet everywhere. It was a feeling of absoloute expansion. Then a memory came and I was a little girl again, seven years old, seated on my fathers couch afraid, tearful and angry. My brother and I had been subject to deep emotional abuse from another family member, only one of the many times. I remember hearing my dad come home from work and running into his arms, briefly taking in his comforting smell of sandalwood, house paint and cigarettes, then heaving into sobs trying to tell him through gasping breaths what had happened. My young self with her soul shattered was seeking comfort and justice. A justice that never came. So, I was going to see it right instead. I saw myself now as a mother and an adult take the 7 year old me into my arms and I cradled her and let her weep into my chest. I stroked her golden hair and kissed her soft rosy cheeks. I told her I was going to fight for her and she didnt have to be afraid anymore. I looked into her wet blue eyes and whispered that she didn't have to hold onto this pain any longer and I was going to take over now. I pressed my forehead against my young self and breathed unconditional love into her. I then held her even closer to me and with a very stern and powerful voice I told those who had betrayed my younger self exactly what I thought of them and that they no longer had the power to hurt us. They were deeply sorry and I saw their own pain and trauma in their lives. It was no excuse, but I had an understanding. I then took this younger me to a beautiful room with all of her favouite things and tucked her into a feathery soft bed where she could now peacefully rest. It was then I noticed that the grief and pain I had been holding onto was gone. I felt serene and empowered.

When I opened my eyes I took a deep breath in and wiped my tear stained face. I looked over at my children playing happily together on the couch, blissfully unaware of mummy's little trip to the depth of her soul. I felt like a better mother. A piece of me had been mended and so now I could love more fully. I embraced my darkness and it has brought me an immense amount of peace and reconciliation within myself. When I feel something tap tap tapping from my insides I no longer fear it, I invite it in and ask to feel all of it because it has been in my darkness that I have found my most brightest and most luminous light.

Astrid xx

FEAR OF FAILURE

Hey my name is George (my real name is Anthony, but that's another story)

And well, I have a fear of failure.

I pushed blame, created guilt, wallowed in resentment and proactively promoted procrastination. All to fuel my fear of failure. I have used every excuse to push aside any passions and ambitions and denied myself any sense of achievement by focusing only on my failings.

It seems easier to allow myself to feel stupid than to see the good in what I do.

I just simply punched in and out of life's "time clock" allowing my thoughts to play out the void my life was accustomed too.

I don't know when it began... or maybe I do, but I have allowed this fear to control my life and wipe away any memory of purpose, leaving fear standing over me, hiding in my shadows and controlling me like a puppet. I feel like Pinocchio waiting to become a real boy. A real man. Someone with purpose.

And what is it?

Fear sucks, it literally sucks. It actually sucks any ambitious thoughts into a whirl pool of "you're not good enough."

I have heard the subconscious reacts 5 times faster than your conscious mind and what your subconscious says to you is usually the response you have conditioned yourself to think. This is from years and years of conditioning that plays out faster than your conscious mind leaving your positive affirmations in the dust while your beliefs eat away at you.

Every excuse and anxious thought that makes up the fear we live daily is a constant reminder that we live in an imperfect world, this world has turmoil and chaos and yet so much beauty and magnificence.

This world is authentic and honest and we can decide to be the same or we can choose to live in fear. The greatest lie we tell ourselves is that something that hasn't taken place is real and so, it will be our demise.

But in reality its a fragmented memory that continues to repeat over and over again as if we needed a constant reminder, like an alarm clock that wakes us up from our dream filled with beauty and magnificence.

I guess the hope is that by saying hey my name is... and I have a fear of failure, it might just stop that subconscious alarm clock causing you to wake up to a new dawn filled with hope and wonderment where creativity awaits, longingly to be explored and ambition fills the air with a sweet aroma that brings out the wonderment and beauty of hope.

Maybe fear isn't the enemy maybe its an indication to finding what we are most passionate about maybe its the reason to carry on, in spite of fear, so that one day this world's beauty will be fully revealed within our most hidden treasures.

 

George.