Let go. Receive. Be open to love. Give more hugs.
"Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be."
--- Jose Ortega y Gasset
Have you ever had a recurring dream that you remember so vividly that you wonder if you had actually lived that moment in a parallel universe? Quite the question, I know. I’ve had two dreams like that, and they always pop up whenever I’m changing trajectory or procrastinating about some life decisions. The flying one is my favourite.
I’ve always been fascinated by dreams, but apart from the odd Google search, I’ve never done much about it. Last week as I was scrolling through a friend’s Instagram, I read a comment that was talking about a dream interpretation workshop. It was meant to be in-person that weekend, but because of the lockdown, had moved it to Zoom.
Here’s the thing, I’m not a fan of Zoom. Dislike, yes. Hate? I wouldn’t go that far. I easily get distracted with whatever my face is doing, conversations never flow, and somehow the silence is more awkward as you all stare intensely at the screen.
The Deciphering Dreams, Visions or Life Events by Sarah Marlowe Spence was more about teaching you meditation and visualisation techniques, rather than Sarah listening to your dream and interpreting it. It helped me to quieten my logical brain and find answers within myself. Before the workshop, Sarah encouraged us to write down a recent dream we’ve had to the workshop. I brought one of my recurring dreams - it’s a simple one, though the details have changed over the years.
“The dream starts with me walking along a gloomy hallway with a man (he feels familiar but not someone in real life) in an old, worn down grand hotel. We’re walking to a lift, and I notice the large window to my right - it’s night time, and I could see the street lights below. The man and I get into the lift - there are no doors but like one those concertina barriers. I reach for the down button and notice there’s a tape over it. You couldn’t go down, only up. We got out and ended up taking the stairs.”
I’ve had this dream a few times over the years, sometimes there are other people with me, other times I’m alone. This was the dream I brought to the workshop. The dream usually pops up whenever these issues present themselves: I feel like I’m repeating an old cycle, becoming frustrated with my dating life (read ‘lack of’), or just feeling stuck in general. I can’t say I’ve ever tried to get to the heart of the matter before, but it was surprising how much I unpacked in those two hours.
The final visualisation was the most fascinating, because I could physically feel emotional layers and self-imposed barriers peel away. Before the meditation, we had to come up with one question, mine was, “What are the next steps I need to take to remove barriers in my relationships?” The meditation was 17 minutes long and involved asking the question several times, using different breathing and visualisations techniques that quietens the logical brain and overthinking.
What was the answer? “Let go. Receive. Be open to love. Give more hugs.”
Ok, maybe just metaphorical hugs since we’re in the middle of a lockdown. I came away from the workshop much lighter, with more clarity and happy that I followed my curiosity and clicked on Sarah’s comment on Instagram.
This week I was working on a project and felt a bit stuck. I reached out to my manager to be my soundboard to help me progress my idea. During our email ping-pong she wrote, “I don’t envy your job, people expect you to come up with things they haven’t thought of yet.” Like that last visualisation, to actually create something by design (not just to make it look ‘pretty’), you have to ask a lot of questions. Questions with the intention of getting answers that create action steps. Steps that move you closer to the end-game. It can sometimes feel tedious if you have a client who ‘knows what they want when they see it’ (I’m pretty lucky because I did have a lot of creative freedom in this one), and flexing creative juices comes to nothing if the client doesn’t get it.
Even though I’ve dated over the years, I’ve closed myself off to the idea of a relationship for the longest time. In my dream, the concertina barrier reminded me that those barriers can always be moved. My heart was never locked away, but I was just hiding myself. The down button was broken, forcing me to take the stairs, because like emotional intimacy, I had to make the choice to have that in my life again. Let go. Receive. Be open to love. Give more hugs. It feels good, so I’m going to do just that.
xo Ronna Grace
fivefootronna is Ronna Grace Funtelar - a thirtyish adventurer, sometimes poet and lover of cheese. She has a unique brand of optimism that is a combination of her great enthusiasm for life and cups of coffee during the day.