The impossible dream…
So I had this dream. An unbelievable dream. An embarrassing and mortifying one. What does one do when, in a dream, one’s behavior is seriously off the charts of one’s waking personal value system?
Oy, such a question! For starters, I felt absolutely startled remembering the dream after awaking. No! Me? This is just not me, not the “me” I am now. I mean, when I was much, much younger, perhaps, but after all the years of therapy and working hard to be accountable to myself. No, no, no!
Guess again, I still dreamed that dream. Shaking my head in embarrassed disbelief. Even more scary is my concern that, perhaps, I’m not the person I think I am, today. (Am I?)
Waking up, feeling so incredibly startled, followed by a boatload of self-criticism, does not make for an idyllic morning. Had there been hills in the near vicinity, I would have headed for them to soothe my judging heart with a deep nature-dunk. No hills. I was stuck in my present reality of burgeoning self-judgment - all because of a discordant dream! Paddling with my hands, mind you, in a churning sea of self-criticism. (Oh, no, there can’t be sharks here, can there?!)
Stop. Do I really need to do this to myself? (And, for heaven sakes, sharks to boot!) For the most part, I’m a caring and nice human being, though, like all the rest of us, fallible and imperfect. (You’re not fallible and imperfect?!) However, I do try to be accountable to myself, taking some level of responsibility for the thoughts streaming through my oh-so-human psyche.
I don’t pretend to understand dream dynamics or why my psyche presented behavior in a dream that is (really, really!) outside my value system. Nope, nope, nope. BUT, I am accountable for how I treat myself after remembering the dream. My current value system, although breached in the dream, does not embrace “let’s beat up Jan because, well, she’s human and has her foibles.” I’m a pacifist, for heavens sake.
Reaching a tipping point, as they say, I decided self-compassion was a much healthier approach to the contents of this untoward dream. What a concept, offering self-kindness because I’m human and like most other humans, unpredictable, even to myself. Once my focus turned to self-compassion rather than consternation, the dream’s capacity to feel toxic drained away. Literally. Over time, I may gain further insights, but for the moment, the dream’s gift to me is the needed reminder about self-compassion (preferable to paddling in churning, possibly, shark infested waters when self-judgment has washed over me.)