I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning. No, I am not depressed. Hardly. I am in love with my life and have been for a good long while (give or take bouts of hot flashes, my teenagers being challenging or fleeting moments of financial real estate fear.) I don’t give up a content state of mind without a fight. But the dreams I had last night were so vivid, and real, involving a troublesome person, I was shook. I vacillated between a good cry, a self love meditation on Insight Timer, eating some of cookies we baked last night for breakfast, or just to go back to sleep.
Instead, I laid there and wondered what the dreams meant. Whenever I would get feelings of panic about some kind of dark story about myself, or thinking I needed to go into a monastic cave to make sure I was safe to be in public, I would simply pull myself back to my body. I would go back to a neutral space and then ponder the dream again. Essentially, the dream was about me giving up my precious time as a writer to focus on a person who didn’t serve me or love me like I hoped. Ahhh the dreams we sign up for that are not on the reality screen. Luckily I came to my senses last year, and of course in hindsight was shocked I was such a fool… but that doesn’t mean the subconscious isn’t concerned about me making sure I never give my creativity away to foolishness again.
That foolishness is ultimately driven by the untended heart of our inner child. Last night, it is no coincidence, I hosted Session Eleven of my series No Longer Abused last night. The subject was The Inner Child from Chapter 11 of my book No Longer Denying Sexual Abuse: Making The Choices That Can Change Your Life. Eleven years in recovery from sexual abuse and the denial of its existence, this topic still blindsides me the next day, which was exactly what was happening as I laid in bed debating a day under the covers. I still am tender inside from my childhood, and sometimes that sad inner child runs the show. My dreams were warning me to show up as an adult so I could make decisions that protected my dreams and desires, not give them away as a people pleaser.
I have a client writing a book about her life and the Inner Child. I am so happy she is doing so because when I read her chapter she submitted this morning, it broke me open. Tears poured down my face and I thought, that's me. How does she know? Hell, I only wrote one chapter on this subject in my book and she is writing a whole book on it. I was impressed, and floored. I was grateful. I felt seen and heard. While on one hand I am the hired book coach, on the other, I was also the abuse survivor she had shared her soul with. She had been my twin flame on the page. Do you know how hard that is to do as a writer?
My Monday morning which started on two wheels was right sized by her words, and then of course we get taken up by life. Dealing with the broken boiler in the condo complex which was giving me intermittent water, and then a couple business calls, as well as tending to some appointments. Next thing I knew it was time to write this column, which I try to do in advance but hadn’t, and I believe this whole epiphany is why. Sometimes I am not my authentic self because I want you to like me when the truth is, I need to be the fullest expression even if my inner child is scared.
Writing this column today feels risky. It feels messy and untended and wobbly. But sometimes I have to shed off the writer skin and be the unvarnished self who was in the potent fields of the subconscious last night. Who has been a bit shaky all day about the truths of what I dreamed and the warnings. I get to know I am mostly happy, and if I feel sad and perplexed, there is validity. I don’t need to throw away the whole day and sink into some kind of deep pit of overthinking. I get to stay in action, but also tend to the heart that continues to evolve, break, mend and love again.
Luckily I am meeting a friend for coffee who doesn’t sign up at all for this kind of talk. She would look at me like, my Inner Child? What ev. She is practical in an enviable sort of way. So she will take me away from allowing more sadness to creep in as I suck down my oat milk splashed iced tea, and talk about our businesses. I will notice the lady who looks nice in her hat to protect her face from the sun, and the man sitting in a slouch with a t-shirt worn in the armpits. I will feel the slight breeze around the dry hot sun, and I will connect with my feet on the ground to the here and now.
I will hope my dreams stay at bay tonight, but they may not. I may be up to discover and heal something, and that is as important as anything else on my schedule on Monday.