“Everything that comes to me
is a reflection of Self so I see
that as within, so too without
leaving me with no doubt
of the work on Self that must be done
in order for Humanity to be consciously One.

Judging none, accepting all,
surrendering to the rise and fall,
fully feeling the pain inside,
from myself I can never hide,
and as I become One with my Soul
I begin to realise my only role
is to love and respect all that’s around me
but firstly love and respect for myself there must be.”

It was during a time of non-dreaming when I was needing answers and none were forthcoming by their usual method of delivery i.e. dreaming, that one day I thought I wonder what would happen if I started treating things, people, events and animals that crossed my path just as I would a dream. Would the answers I was seeking then come to me?

So with great curiosity I made a decision to start looking at life in that way whenever I had a re-action (re-acting out an old subconscious behavioural pattern I didn’t particularly like or experiencing intense emotions i.e. what folk normally refer to as a reaction rather than a response) or with whatever I encountered, bird, reptile, beast, the wind and whatever direction it was coming from, people who crossed my path, traffic lights, slogans and signs that “spoke” to me, numbers, rooms, street names, clouds that formed very definite shapes, types of trees – essentially everything that occurred or crossed my path in my so called “waking” reality in this physical realm of logical and rational thinking.

If for example a water pipe broke, a light bulb went out, a glass smashed, a door became stuck, if I got a red light run or a green light run etc., etc., I treated all exactly as I would a dream i.e. as an aspect of Self just as I would a “sleeping” dream when I woke up each morning. I would use the method I have developed for working with a dream, for always the present situation, our questions and feelings about it and the answer to any question or pondering we have during our waking reality will be revealed in dreaming. The good majority of us though, have lost the knowledge of how dreams speak to us and in fact how life truly speaks to us.

What I discovered amazed and excited me for when I started bringing the personal symbolic meanings I had spent a great deal of time getting to know, which I used in my dream analysis, along with my way of working with a dream, into my daily life, my experiences clearly showed me I was essentially in fact living one huge dream of my own creation whether “awake” or “asleep”.

Ever since I have therefore treated ALL that crosses my path as a symbolic aspect of my Self whenever I have needed to make a decision about which path to take at crossroads; to assist with just “knowing” whether something was right for me or not; or whenever there has been anything I haven’t quite understood which I do need to see and understand. It takes time to actually get the hang of this but if a person starts practising it a whole new awareness can open up and it truly will amaze.

The reality and biggest bonus for all being that folk don’t necessarily need to experience dreaming in what we term “sleep” in order to understand the deeper meanings behind the veil of illusion of everyday so called “waking” life that dreaming gives us.

When we start to look at daily life symbolically, as we would a dream, we find situations which arise are taken less personally and the ability can be gained to see a little deeper into the issue i.e. what it is teaching us about ourselves and the action we need to take, or not take, in relation to it.

We soon come to realise that messages for our personal growth, use and guidance are abundant and this is especially true when we are dealing with challenges (not problems) I personally believe, as John Lennon once said, “There are no problems, only solutions.” Challenges if you like, that we set up for ourselves to find creative solutions to, to test our skills, knowledge and growth and whether or not we have actually healed a wound that would normally create a re-action, as opposed to a response.

Often we will learn something and for a time it is only a theory that just makes perfect sense to us and resonates with us, then we will experience it i.e. we are given the chance and opportunity to put that theory into practice. Some lessons true, take longer to sink in than others, many refer to those repetitive lessons as mistakes or if they experience something that isn’t pleasant those too are seen as mistakes rather than just the learning curves that they are and folk will often throw a negative connotation on them but we will repeat something several times in various different scenarios until yep we now not only “know” it, as in the theory of it, but more importantly we have experienced it, integrated it and we now understand it and can apply it in our lives. As an example I can share for many many years I appeared to attract abusive behaviour by others, once I stopped abusing myself the reflection of that no longer appeared in others.

How many times do we encounter people who we feel treat us badly? We are often faced with situations that bring up emotions such as anger, frustration, sadness and disappointment. We, or the other person, are often left feeling the intensity of our emotions. Sometimes we confront the person and try to sort out the difficulty, other times we don’t. Often the issue is never mentioned again as we try to pretend nothing has happened yet we feel an invisible barrier with these folk, or we simply avoid the person who we think has caused our distress or discomfort. We often take “offence” to something another has done or said and therein lays a very interesting word. “Offence” when I play with it I get “A fence” – i.e. a barrier put up so strongly that no-one can get through it.

Many of us were never taught and still have not mastered effective communication skills or good confrontational skills. Most of us run a mile rather than confront another about any discomfort we may be experiencing due to what another has said, done or not done. Our whole conditioning in our western culture has been one of competition, of win or lose, of right and wrong, of my way or the highway, yet with effective communication skills and good confrontational skills it does not need to be this way. Interactions can move from discomfort, strong emotion or attack and blame scenarios to one of clear boundaries, assertive and effective communication, self-confidence and mutual respect with a desire to understand where each other is coming from by asking questions, by being curious, rather than judging, accusing, assuming, blaming, shaming, attempting to “make” another feel guilty or creating a fence.

Once we begin to look at absolutely everything and everyone who crosses our path as being a symbolic aspect of Self/part of Self we start to feel acceptance and gratitude for whatever comes our way, although granted we certainly may not feel that when the event that has triggered our own subconscious distress and re-active behaviour first occurs!

It is however OUR distress to deal with. No-one can “make” another feel anything – they are OUR feelings, no-one else’s. Learning and understanding what I perceive to be the lost language of dreams can help us all enormously for it is one of our greatest allies, providing a wealth of healing, knowledge and wisdom accessible to every single person on the planet freely and frequently.

Everywhere we go, everything we hear, everything we overhear, everyone we meet and every single situation we encounter has a deeper meaning when treated symbolically. Messages are EVERYWHERE yet we rarely see them, let alone give thanks for them or the priceless gifts they and others bring into our lives. We are usually too busy rushing here or there and realistically where are we all really rushing to? Many say “I’m getting there” where exactly is “there”?

Often folk are so busy talking about a situation, feeling we are hard done by, or rehashing events that have upset us over and over in our minds to stop and be still enough to truly listen and see the truth of what is really occurring.

Often we struggle and suffer through our experiences, judging, blaming, resenting, accusing, making assumptions and trying to figure out why another has behaved the way they have, yet rarely do we even ask them why or ask what is going on for them. More times than not most folk will discuss the issue with someone else, with both assuming or trying to guess why another has done or said whatever they have done or said to supposedly cause another distress or upset.

Sometimes we even go so far as to not even speak to those who we feel caused our distress. Our ingrained subconscious conditioning is to continually project ourselves onto others blaming them for whatever happens in OUR lives and whatever emotions WE feel.

Every single experience we have had or do have in life we have created at a deeper level for ourselves. Each one of us has been given “free will” and once we truly get this we have learnt to accept FULL responsibility for everything that has and does occur in our lives.

One of the quickest, most beautiful and easiest empowering words any of us can ever use is “I”. I feel, I think, I am wondering, I need to, I should, I must, I will, rather than using words like “you make me”, “you think I”, “you need to”, “you should/shouldn’t”, “you must/mustn’t”, “you don’t” etc.

So many times the use of “you” lands up in an argument with raised voices and intense emotions coming to the surface. It seems to me that often when we don’t feel heard or understood we automatically raise our voice perhaps in a subconscious effort to be heard yet it is not the volume attached to what we need to say that is creating the misunderstanding in most situations – saying something louder doesn’t make it any better understood, it just leads to the other person raising their voice also. It is rather synchronistic that as I am typing this in the background I can hear a classic “YOU”, “YOU”, “YOU” argument which is occurring quite loudly on the television which another in the Bat Cave has turned on.

The moment we use the word you in front of any other word, more particularly when we are experiencing strong emotional re-actions or discomfort, we are projecting onto another person and we will automatically create a barrier between that person and our Self.

Whereas if we replace “you” with “I” we neither give our own personal power away, nor our Self responsibility, nor will another throw up an invisible barrier that “you” smacks them in the face with as being a personal attack on them, which then pushes them into a space of instant defence caused by offence, and further away.

There is a nursery rhyme I am sure many will remember which on the surface means diddly squat really and yet it holds great and profound wisdom:-

“Row Row Row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily
Life is but a Dream!”

When looked at symbolically this rhyme holds far greater meaning than we generally give it credit for, for realistically most of us give it no credit and perhaps think of it as a cute but silly little nursery rhyme young children seem to have enjoyed hearing and singing over time.

Essentially a boat is a vessel that journeys on top of and through water. Our bodies are the vessels we journey through life in. Water is generally symbolic of our emotions. Therefore symbolically speaking the boat represents us and how we could be handling the emotions we travel through, if we all truly realised Life is But a Dream, of our own creation.

Cheers, Cheryl.

© Cheryl O’Connor 2014.

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