The dreams we met…

Hello windy, moody, rainy kick start of the month of March with promises of sun rays here and there.I know that you will warm up to us and us to you. It might just take a mere minute. Meanwhile, take a break, change your plans, cuddle with a nice cup of cocoa, read, watch a good movie and even dance to the flow of the music you love, sing along and hear your voice…Say hello to the new blooms and make a wish.

I would start with the dreams I have and move on a tangent to the places that I carry over and over again in my heart. I have always been a big dreamer. Even as a child, I had the recurring dreams, the fear dreams, the falling dreams, the hiding dreams, the falling in love dreams. I had one reflecting back to me from the story we were told in pre-school “A Little Match Girl” a story by Hans Cristian Andersen ,an author we have been taught and obsessed with for so many years to home. The story is sad and perhaps today I would not encourage the parents to read it to their kids. Not really. In my dream however the story got transformed and I was still that little girl carrying all these matches, in the cold, snowy weather and was not able to cross a road while the cars were coming with their lights on and horns loudly invading my space. One of the dreams where I had to use my voice to shout and ask for help and I could not.

Yet, in reality I would wake up my grandma or someone else as I would shout out loud for help and they would put me back to sleep. I think now it must be the visuals in the books, Hans C. Andersen’s books had beautiful illustrations and these stayed with me. I kind of became one with the characters and felt their stories in a deep space of connection.

More and more I turn to these dreams sometimes as my friends, sometimes my advisors and sometimes might even send me warnings. Sometimes, my friends have dreams with me and I might chose to listen to them or maybe not. Depends on what my previous experience with their dreams about me have been so far. It is still a warning and I take it. Except the visualisation.

So, recently, I got awaken by a dream where I was crying a river and saying to a friend that happens to be next to me except that I cannot remember who that was. I was really upset and with tears pouring down my cheeks, I kept repeating “ I cannot understand how people can be so mean? Was it really necessary? Where is this meanness coming from?” The dream have given me clues now on the person who might me be a bit nasty , red hair perhaps, longer hair … his/her laughter, even the nationality was clearly mentioned as a word and even through the accent. There were two characters laughing their bellies out at me in their dream ,with very clear distinct sound that I would recognize easily and also very clear features. Walking up in the middle of the night gave me a bit of hard time to recover, and notice that I was not crying in real time. It was happening only in my dream. I woke up taking in and checking in with myself and did even a quick analysis. What was the message here I wonder. I quickly concluded where this unpleasant dialogue might happen and I went back to an even deeper sleep as I was really not surprised by it all.

This does not bring me to indifference or to making the dream bigger than it is and obsessing around it. It is really only this morning that I have decided to share it with you.

The situation did happen recently, more or less per my dream, and I have been able to identify the main character. I did fell the arrow going through my heart one early morning, reading my emails and I did stop for a while and was really tempted to write back” “Is it really necessary ? To be that innocently curious and mean ? “ I asked that questions in my mind and just came back to my essence. I stayed my course and did not connect to what others might like to define about me or place a label on a “perceived failure” and laugh their bellies out. There was this beautiful imagery I could always bring back to center me. I could imagine myself as a black panther walking slowly and using gently her paw to swipe anything that felt like a nuisance and harming. Imagine even for a few seconds that you see that gorgeous strong panther really unbothered and gentle clearing her path.

To be also very clear, that image came back to me only now while writing and sharing this vulnerable moment with you all here. I did feel more rage that day and it made a big difference just to breathe in and out and ask only the questions “Is is really necessary? To be innocently curious and mean?” to myself but literally sending the same questions to the intrusive dream-visitor now becoming a real person and fitting all descriptions to the dot.

Have we all been here at least hundreds of times before?

I might know better now, with years or experience and deep curiosity of understanding other people’s point of view that such quick wit, reactions and is coming perhaps from unresolved hurt and perhaps from the fact that they not aware at all on the impact their words might have. We too have been there. We might still be at times. And it does take a journey ,some losses, and also good company and good teachers to show us how we could look in the mirror and remind yourself instances where you were purely mean and had no clue about yourself or the others. Zero clue.

And once we learn to use that mirror, we also learn not to be afraid of that words. We learn that tears might not full us again to the brim. We might learn just to stay ourselves and say “It is what it is” .

My intention for this space that I carry around for few weeks already was to remind you of a very good and practical book by Edward de Bono, “How to have a beautiful mind”. I have read it many many many years back and all I could remember from the feeling I had that time was that “Yes, it can be done.” , “Oh, yes, I am glad I have found you Mr.De Bono as I have applied some of the tools all my life. Some people called it exaggerated positivity or turning around the reality from some pink glasses perspective and some dire, gloom and tormenting situations might have faced us.

Yet, for me I knew I instinctively that I have relied on such tools to transform my well being and my environment, which would be my mental space and the home my thoughts live in.

How to have a beautiful mind

One of the reasons I also mentioned this is a very practical book is because it is written as a class, structured so well and developed gradually by key topics and would be quite impossible not to have a takeaway from Mr. De Bono. Every chapter comes with a summary and again- you can only take that essence and develop your own theory or see if implemented in a daily routine.

The first chapter is on”How to agree”. And I guess these would be the only quotes I will share with you here as I highly encourage you to take back the book and let’s all go back to this simple and yet difficult to attain mastery.

“Yes,but….

I totally disagree ….

You are wrong there…

This is not so….

This is the person who makes a point of disagreeing with everything that is said. This highly argumentative person seeks to demonstrate superiority through disagreement. Too often, academics or highly educated people behave this manner because they have been encouraged to do so.This type of mind is intensely irritating and is far from being a beautiful mind.

Being right all the time is not the most important thing in the world and is certainly not very beautiful.

A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos.

Gentle disagreement is as valid as aggressive disagreement.

And a snippet of a summary at the end of each chapter:

Chapter 1, Summary, “How to have a beautiful mind”

His classic teachings are not only lectures. We will connect while we advance through all the chapters also with real tools and practical methods on how we can improve our rapport to creating and curating our beautiful mind.

Any word that we say and think of carries a weight with it. Is not about the other person who said or done something. It is first and foremost about taking this moment of reflection and asking ourselves more often , creating this habit of asking the save very question” Is it really necessary for me to say that” “ What did I really mean” “ What was really the point of saying that or being so quick and witty.

A lot of us were born in cultures dipped in sarcasm as a coping method, navigating through some heavy history of occupation perhaps , where hope might not have been the first tool our ancestors grew up with. Maybe hopelessness was the predominant trait. Yet, the same ancestors bred faith and hard work and some other qualities to look up too. Laughter also was a good method to kind of dare to defy all that was heavy then. I do tend to apologize sometimes for my hearty laughter especially if I have a new audience or connect with peers from different cultures. It might be perceived as offensive while this is my automatic response to a lot of situations. Especially when some of us grew up in a non-expressive culture, where we are not accustomed to express our emotions on a plate right when they happen. So, we have laughter. We have tears.

Hey dearest friends and special listeners. I am so into this sharing with you. I feel at times that I should disconnect from the world and lock in my time on Substack for 100 days and write a novel, right here in real time. I would totally love that.

Let me turn around my dreams and all I have said above. It comes back to being kind. It is so easy to practice it. It is an investment that it does not take much and it is also a promise that we might have to unlearn some of the ways we have been familiar with.

So, if I sit back with something mean might have crossed my mind or said it outloud I do find myself saying even” I know that is mean, but I cannot hold it back.” What comes to us to express this meanness, I am still figuring out. I find myself also to apologize often and try not to skip my responsibility. The fact that what we say and how we say it can have such a major impact on someone’s journey. These are words of snippets and reminders to myself.

And I would like to leave you with this movie I came across last evening on Amazon Prime Video with Billy Crystal.

Here Today

It is about genuine kindness. It is about standing by people and supporting either younger or elderly, it is about family and words left unsaid, it is about us losing our mind sometimes and where does that take is. It is about the place we live in sometimes that we cannot ask for help and mask feeling well .It is a about welcoming new friends and their genuine and generous intention to help literally. I guess it encompasses a dream too. We might rush and criticise in our sarcasm of thinking that is really just a dream well filmed - the lovely end and perfect sunset of togetherness and smiles. This is also the dream of the main character Charlie. A dream he did not dare to have until someone came into his life to open his eyes as a genuine reflection of his own kindness. A friend who happen to be lively, funny, fearless and also holding a lot of healthy discernment. Someone who knew when is the time to stay or to say what really matters.

Don’t we all want to have this friend around more often? I leave you here with this question.

Hugs to all. It is windy and gloomy on the island here. Keeping the same hot cocoa mood on and setting a goal of reading another 100 pages of my book - recommended also by a very gentle and genuine new friend.

Namaste!