Thankful Thursday – November 1st
Things I am feeling thankful about:
1) Looking up at the sky this morning and seeing an almost-full moon shining and smiling at me from behind the clouds. It made me feel hopeful.
2) I am thankful that my viewpoint is not warped by religion, politics, or stereotypes to the point where I truly believe anyone with an opposing viewpoint is some incarnation of evil.
3) Thankful that I am awake. I had a disturbing dream before I woke up this morning:
I was back in high school, playing volleyball on a school team with actual volleyball players from my old high school, though I hate playing volleyball. The ball was a huge bouncy ball, and I was supposed to serve it over the net but failed miserably. Then, my right upper molars started falling out, so I had to excuse myself from the game. I kept pulling my molars out, including large chunks of the gums, and ended up pulling 6 teeth total. Then, I lost some of the teeth down the sink and a couple of them got ground into tiny pieces that I had to spit out of my mouth. There were two whole teeth left, and I put them in my shirt so I wouldn’t lose them.
I then went back to the volleyball game, but was told by the coach that I couldn’t come back inside unless I was wearing a mask. So, some mask-maker that happened to be at the game said she would make me a mask. She went around asking my friends (dream people) what kind of mask I should have and all of them were shaking their heads and grimacing and saying things like, “Ewww, you’re going to make HER a mask? She’s so weird and gross, she gets all obsessed with nature and doing things that are boring and lame, ugh.” So, the mask I ended up getting was an oval covered in pink garland with holes cut out for the eyes and mouth, with a clown wig sewn onto it. I put the mask on and went back inside the gym, but then decided that it wasn’t worth having to wear a mask just to be in a place I didn’t want to be anyway. So, then I went outside.
At the exit, I was told I couldn’t leave until I went down a waterslide and caught any number of gift boxes along the way that would be donated to charity. The first time, I didn’t catch any boxes because I was very worried about losing the teeth that I’d saved in my shirt so had my arms across my chest. So, they made me go back to the top, and the next time down I caught two boxes but was beat by some little kid that caught four boxes so my boxes were thrown out…
Happily, I woke up at this point.
I acknowledge that I do have a very vivid dream life and remember much more of my dreams than most people do. I have many types of dreams, but this one is a dream that is directly related to things that have been weighing on my mind so it is fairly easy to decipher. I will do a bit of dream interpretation for you, since you don’t actually know what’s been on my mind.
– High School Sports: Insecurity and feelings of inferiority, in the dream I was sad and already confirming to myself how sucky I am because knew I was going to fail at the game and disappoint everyone. This is a reflection of my fluctuating and conflicting emotions/thoughts about my life situation; the questions I frequently ask myself (am I doing the right thing, am I supposed to be doing something else? why am I here? why do I have so much conflict when it should be a very simple solution? how come I’m not good enough? why do I feel like a failure even when I have success? why am I such a disappointment, even though I used to do everything anyone wanted me to even though I didn’t want to do it? why do I fall back into that pushover mode sometimes without thinking about it? why am I like this? why can’t I just know who I am and be who I am without anyone trying to convince me that I should pretend to be someone else?).
– Teeth falling out : Anxiety about how others perceive me. This is 100% related to my album. I just released my first album: ‘Transform’ on Oct. 29th. And, while I am pleased overall, there are certain parts of the recordings that are not quite up to par. My voice is flat in a couple of places, I’m off-key in a few places, and my guitar playing is less than stellar. I can hear these things, and I mentally frown at them. But, at the same time, I know that it’s a cool thing to have an album of my own original songs out for the world. It’s confusing because I want to be proud of my accomplishments, but I don’t let myself be proud or excited because as soon as I do, I will receive some negative reviews or someone will say something that will cause me to justify my prior feelings of worthlessness and self-disdain. I will also, at that point, gain a layer of shame and disgust directed toward myself because I let myself feel good about something I did, even though I knew it was total crap work. /sigh/
Well. Since I already know this about myself, I’ve been trying to keep a relatively neutral stance: I am happy to have made the album, but I recognize that it will likely receive criticism since it isn’t “perfect”. I also recognize that the album represents Me, as the person I am: imperfect by human standards, yet perfect as Me. I am teaching myself to be OK with this stance. It’s difficult for me, but I am sticking to it. Every time those negative thoughts pop up, I look at them and accept them as the negative thoughts they are, then tell myself something that is true, even if it is a tiny success in the eyes of the world, it is still something positive for me as a person.
– Mask: This is an easy one, because it’s quite literally a symbol of my understanding that I do not want to wear a mask, especially one that was made for me by everyone else’s opinions. I need to be me without a mask, even though the real me is unacceptable and wrong and repulsive to everyone else in my life.
– Waterslide: Loss of control, going with the flow. I don’t like going with the flow. It is difficult for me to admit that I have no control of my own life. But, I know it is necessary for me to let go of the illusion of control so that I can move ahead with my life and accomplish those things I NEED to accomplish. It is confusing and it causes me much distress. But, I also realize that clinging to certain thought processes and feelings about myself hinders my spiritual growth. I am finally realizing that it is OK not to know what will happen in the future. I am realizing that it is OK to feel unhappy. I am realizing that it is OK not to have all of the answers, even when other people are looking to me to have the answers. I can’t be anything more than I am, even though other people don’t like this. I can’t please anyone else, so I need to stop trying to.
– Gift grabbing contest on waterslide: This is my fear of being responsible for the success and well-being of other people. There are several people in my life who depend on me for their motivation. It is not a comforting thing. In fact, it is frustrating. I wish people would take responsibility for themselves and not look to me for ALL of their encouragement and motivation. It causes me some anxiety and, to some degree, a feeling of insecurity because I know that there is nobody I can depend on since everyone else depends on me. I hate that feeling. I feel like I am falling and I know there is no net to catch me, so I’m just waiting to splat.
4) I am thankful that I am growing and learning how to cope with these thoughts and emotions that I would otherwise just ignore since I’ve never felt that my feelings were important or worth addressing. I still feel like that, but I am forcing myself to put my well-being ahead of other people’s opinions about me. I feel guilty and selfish doing this, but I know it is a necessary step along my path to complete self-acceptance.
5) I am thankful to feel my emotions, even though they are very painful. Someone told me once that I have a “stronger pain body” than most people, meaning that I feel emotional pain very deeply and very acutely. It is true. Interestingly, physical pain rolls right off me – it doesn’t bother me at all because even when I am in physical pain, I realize it is temporary, so I manage it with my mind. Emotional pain, though, I get lost in. I don’t know how to manage it and I don’t know how to accept it without drowning in it. It is a fine line I walk between feeling too much and feeling too little emotion. I am still learning.