I'm really not into dream interpretation, meaning I never do it ever. But over the past few months, I've been having dreams a few times a week with the same theme; not being listened to. In each dream, I"m in a situation where I need or want people to listen to what I'm saying, like the high school classrooms where I student taught, my Primary classroom, a discussion with my family or in a theater where I'm directing a play. In each instance I'm trying to make myself heard. I'm trying to teach or direct or explain myself to someone. And I can't make myself heard. People are talking over me, or disengaged, and no matter how hard I try, I can't get people to listen to me. I get more and more frustrated until I'm yelling, trying to be heard.
If I'd only had one of these dreams, I'd probably ignore it. But I have a dream like this at least once a week. I know that I've been frustrated recently because I feel like I can't express a lot of what I feel and believe to the people around me. And that frustration is coming out in my dreams.
So recently I've been trying to be more authentic to myself, without causing major problems to my relationships. I quit wearing my garments, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise with my family. This has already caused some problems with my sister, who is close to getting engaged. She is angry at my attitude towards the church, and we got into an argument last week. But even as she was upset with me, and I was trying to explain myself, it felt better to try to explain and to be myself then to lie or keep my mouth shut. It was a nice feeling, not to be scared to tell the truth or frustrated by not saying anything.
So my goal for this year (I guess I'm making a New Year's resolution), is not to be afraid of who I am or what I believe. If I have something to say, I will say it. If I"m going to do something, I'm not going to try to explain myself. There is peace in being who I am and doing what I think is right.
That's awesome. I'm finding so much power in giving myself that permission as well. ~Annie B.
ReplyDeleteSo earlier I thought sharing this dream of mine might qualify as highjacking your post, so I didn't, but I felt like I should share again, so I will.
ReplyDeleteA year or so back as I was learning more about the historical versions of church history I kept having a dream that I found an extra room in my house. The room was different in each dream but in earlier dreams the room was always full of junk that I needed to organize and clean out. Once it was full of knick-knacks and files and junk-mail from dead relatives that I had to sort through and get rid of in order to use the room, another time it was old children's toys like wooden blocks that were grimy, used coloring books, broken toy cars. Eventually the rooms that i found in my dreams started to have some useful things in them like big reams of fabric and dusty wall hangings or sculptures that could be cleaned up and used or sold. In the last dream I had (about a month ago), the room was like a big ornate hall with beautiful furnishings and I was like "yay, I can use this space". I like to think it symbolizes what I've been going through, as the nice room dreams co-incided with the time period that I started speaking my mind more about the doctrinal and historical things in the LDS church that I had issues with.
~Annie B.
No worries about post jacking. I just throw things out I find interesting or need to vent about, and I love it when it sparks things from other people!
ReplyDeleteYour dream is so interesting! I love that as we come to grips with what we believe and who we are, it frees up space to be more productive, to fel less worried and guilty about. It helps us find and/or create beautiful places in ourselves!