I am everyone - in my dreams

On and off yesterday, I had this nagging feeling that despite working hard and getting to a good place that nothing was really different. I finished the three courses that make up the foundation of a transformational learning and leadership program. I created two projects, one of which was to organize the people on my street in JP to have their first block party ever. And I've connected with dozens of people around the issue of fertility and the struggle to find peace in the pursuit of parenthood in a world where Kate(mother of 8 through fertility treatments) and Nadya (the "octomom") are pitted against one another for the public to judge and ridicule. I've learned to let go of disappointment and regret more easily.

And yet, I found myself with no plans yesterday and running errands and then sitting on my couch listening to NPR on a hot but beautiful day because I had no one to spend it with and these days the dog is too weak for me to have her as my walking/hiking companion. And I had this nagging feeling that I am really the same. But I pushed it away - calling friends who needed help moving and going to see a moving with one of them after we'd finished.

Still when I got home at 10 pm, instead of going to bed I watched more than an hour of a DVD of shorts. Perhaps it was the final story of a dysfunctional family yelling at one another that I was watching as I was falling asleep or the very violent film that filled me with anger that we had seen, or perhaps they were both combined with the nagging feeling I'd had all day - but this morning I woke from a dream in which I was being evaluated along with a close friend by someone who was a gate keeper you might say to the next level of courses or growth in the center where I had taken my leadership and self expression course. My friend and I answered questions - most of which I don't remember - and then the "instructor" told us whether we were ready or not to move on. My friend went first and was passed. Then it was my turn and I was told that I was not ready. The dream me - exploded with rage - not anger but rage. I chased the woman around the room screaming at her that she didn't know what she was talking about begging her to see all the change but of course even as I did it some part of the dream me - or perhaps through the consciousness of my friend - knew that of course by reacting with so much rage and violent anger I had in fact proven the point of the instructor. The rest of the dream is me rushing angrily out of the center; having the "friend" tell me that from what she saw I hadn't really fully opened up or shared in my class honestly and that what I shared was only the surface; and then finding my teacher and having him placate me as my awareness of failure rose.

And then I woke up stunned and full of residual dream sadness, turmoil and a sense of being on the brink of failure. I lay there for a few minutes thinking about the dream and about the emotions and remembering something that a therapist told me about one philosophy of dream interpretation. That you are everyone in your dreams. Which of course makes some sense since I am in the consciousness of all the characters. So if I am everyone in my dream that clearly that nagging feeling I had all day was a voice I need to listen to and since I couldn't or wouldn't look at and listen to it while I was awake - my inner self - my soul or the part of me that wants and knows what is my highest and best - figured out how to yell or shout at me to literally wake me up. So here I am now awake and recognizing how I was/have been slipping into old patterns and habits and feelings of loss and fear. Not seizing the day or making plans to create a day or life full of the meaning I want - living life powerfully and living a life that I love - (which was/is the promise of the courses I took).

What do I do with that knowledge? A list I subscribed to recently asked us to look at what we believe is missing from our lives and one things we wish we had. Are they the same? If we look carefully do we find that the having of that thing will make us truly happy - or fill the thing that is missing. The question of course resonated with the philosophy of the course I just finished - that I have the power to create my own life and to live it powerfully and fulfilled or not. It is my choice. If I were to answer the question honestly the answer to what is missing in my life is partnership - the opportunity to love and be loved by someone and share my life the highs and lows with someone else to have companionship and a shared future to imagine together. That is what is missing from my life. I suppose others might expect me to say a child - since I am trying to get pregnant. And yes that is something that I want. But more and more I have come to realize that while I am still committed to pursuing pregnancy and want that too - what I really want is family of my own. A partner and a child or two - a family to grow and learn and explore and share this crazy up and down life with. I don't really care how the family comes together - if the children are mine own or some combination of mine and his. I just want that - I want all the love and challenge and hardship and joy that I see around me that comes from that. That is what I see missing from my life the thing I want. So what am I doing to pursue it? Trying to get pregnant - half-heartedly putting myself in the dating game but then not really following through on emails. Riding the roller coaster of fertility and dating someone who lives more than 400 miles away. Trying to change my habits of eating and exercise to feel more powerful in my life. So I am doing something. But I also know that I still have so many "can't" messages in my head. Messages that stop me from acting powerfully to pursue what I tell myself and others that I want. Treating myself and my life as I have taught myself I should based on my past instead of creating the possibility of the future I want and living into that future powerfully.

I've disconnected the cable but I still have the TV and as in the past am able to find crap to watch just to distract me from the loneliness I feel. A step in the right direction but only half way. I swam a mile last weekend after not having been in a pool for over a year and reminded myself how much I love that form of exercise but I haven't made a plan to give myself the gift of swimming. And I've spoken to many people about the project I've created to collect stories from people who are or have dealt with fertility issues but I haven't done enough to follow up on collecting the stories - or revising the website or creating the graphics.

But I am here now writing and confronting and feeling my feelings and that is important. I am learning to take charge and call friends even last minute and not to feel left out if I don't have plans. I am recognizing the power I have to create the life I want. Which sometimes means learning to see what I do have as opportunity instead of lack. I'm getting much better at that - much better.

So I can see how I am everyone in my dreams

• the teacher who told my dream self that I haven't fully enacted my newly found power
• the friend who is both competition and a loving truth teller
• the "dream self" who is full of rage at the others who are telling the truth
• the teacher who consoles and reframes the issue

I am all those selves and now that I am awake again, I can see how to integrate with love and creativity all the different perspectives to grasp again at the power I know myself to have and use it to recommit to living my life powerfully and creating a life that I love. I know it is a challenge and this isn't a pollyanna moment of everything will be all right now - it is a moment of remembering that I am the only one who can create the life I want. I just have to act from love.

In this course, we use the language of possibility to express who we are. We choose a possibility or two or three that resonate with who we want or know ourselves to be and that is how we introduce ourselves in class. The possibilities I chose were - abundance, love and creativity. I am still trying them on and learning to see if they fit and what it means to live my life from the context of being those possibilities in life and in the world - not just for myself but for everyone. Wondering what it means to live life in the context of the possibility of abundance, love and creativity. I think I am learning what it means to live life from the possibility of love - of being love. I am trying on abundance in this time of scarcity and lack - learning to think of it not simply in terms of money and means but what if I lived my whole life - everything I want to create - from the context of abundance. And creativity - a wish more than a context - something I know myself to have but that I have shut down for so long that it is painful to exercise those atrophied muscles consistently and with confidence in relationship to the things I want.

So perhaps the dream, which was set in the context of the course I just finished, was a reminder of who I have chosen to be. A reminder to live my life from that context. That who I am in the possibility of abundance, love and creativity and what is possible what does life look like coming from that context?