Dream on…

So I had this dream. An unbelievable dream. An embarrassing and mortifying one, emphasis on embarrassing and mortifying. What does one do when, in a dream, one’s behavior is seriously off the charts of your waking personal value system?

Sigh.

That’s the question. For starters, I felt absolutely startled remembering the dream after awaking. No!  Me? That is just not me, not the “me” I am now. I mean, when I was much, much younger, maybe, but after all the years of therapy and working hard to be accountable to myself - No!

Well, guess again, I still dreamed the dream. Then beating myself up began. “How could you?,” shaking my head in disbelief. Even more scary is the thought that, perhaps, I’m not the person I think I am today. Whew!

Let me just say that waking up feeling so startled, followed by a boatload of self-criticism, does not make for an idyllic morning. I would have physically “headed for the hills” as an escape, had there been hills around me. I was stuck in my present reality, sitting in a figurative boat (of my own dream-making) on a sea of self-criticism. And wow, those waters were really churning.

Another deep sigh.

Stop. Do I really need to do this to myself? Do I really want to put myself through this. No. For the most part, I’m a caring and nice human being, though, like all the rest of us, fallible and imperfect. HOWEVER, I also try to be accountable to myself, accountable for my actions and even, on occasion, for the thoughts in my head (or in a dream.)

Ah, “that’s the ticket!” (For all you old Saturday Night Live fans.) My personal choice is to be accountable to myself, as best I can, in the context of my human fallibility. So what the heck does this mean, Jan, with that damn dream?!

I don’t pretend to understand dream dynamics, or why my psyche presented behavior in a dream that is outside my value system. Nope, nope, nope.  I don’t get it. BUT, I am accountable for how I treat myself after remembering the dream. And if you recall from a few paragraphs above, I felt like I was rowing in a churning sea of self-criticism with, possibly, an iota of self flagellation thrown in.

My current value system, although breached in the dream, does not embrace “let’s beat up Jan, 101.” (I’m a pacifist, for heavens sake.) Beating myself up for a dream that I don’t understand contributes nothing to the morning ahead of me or to my mental health. Nothing.

I reached a tipping point, as they say, and decided self compassion was a much healthier approach with regard to my dream. Being kind to myself, as if I were a friend. (What a concept!) Once I decided to focus on self-compassion rather than consternation, the dream’s power disappeared. Literally. Poof. Over time, I may gain some insights into the dream, but for the moment, its gift to me is the needed reminder about self-compassion and being accountable to myself.

❤️If you’re enjoying “This Being Human Thing,” I’d be grateful if you’d share with others, including, perhaps, the reason you appreciate reading these stories. 🙏🏽🙏🏾🙏🏻