Guilt is a horrible thing, especially unearned guilt.
I remember clearly believing at one time - in the not-too-distant past - that I didn't have the right to have a life, to have interests outside of my family, work and church, and I felt guilty for dreaming of a better life.
When I began to heal from the hurts of my childhood and from my dysfunctional beliefs and relationships, I started to dream again, to envision possibilities, to hope for more than what I had known.
I'd studied all about dreams at college - you know - the kind that happen while you're asleep. I knew what the elements of a dream meant, how to interpret a dream so as to find out what a person's preoccupations were, what they were hiding from themselves, how they really saw themselves.
But waking dreams - nobody talked about those - seemed beyond my grasp. Hopes, aspirations, "what-if" plans. It had all seemed so selfish, so beyond what I felt I deserved.
Since I have been in this healing process, I see that those kinds of dreams are a sign of a healthy individual. I have started to have those dreams again. Oh, don't get me wrong, I had always had ambition, hopes of getting ahead, making more money, etc., - but these dreams are different. They're of being a better person, seeing miracles happen, playing a part (however small) in making a difference in people's lives.
And they intrude upon my night-time dreams, which had always been filled with dread and fear of losing whatever blessing I had been given. I still have those too... occasionally. Not nearly as often, though. My night-time dreams are more about building, climbing, and accomplishing now. Occasionally I will have a really rip-snorting nightmare filled with disturbing images of death, dying, violence, decay and the like, but even these are triggers for me to examine why these things are coming to me now. Usually it's because I have heard, read, or seen something that is disturbing and didn't deal with it when it happened, shoved my feelings down inside - either out of embarrassment or out of feeling that it was inappropriate in the situation.
But what occupies my mind most these days is the waking kind of dream. Being about 2/3 of the way through my life expectancy, I am realizing more and more that life is way too short to be wasting it on wondering what might have been "if only." And the last couple of years, as I have slowly gotten unwrapped from those old rags of the past, I have actually been starting to live my dreams in reality. I believe I am a better person than I used to be. I've seen miracles happen in my life and in the lives of those I care about. And sometimes I've been the agent of those miracles.
Life is more and more rewarding the more I really "live" it. Dreams do come true.
I remember clearly believing at one time - in the not-too-distant past - that I didn't have the right to have a life, to have interests outside of my family, work and church, and I felt guilty for dreaming of a better life.
When I began to heal from the hurts of my childhood and from my dysfunctional beliefs and relationships, I started to dream again, to envision possibilities, to hope for more than what I had known.
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| I found this weird house through Google Images at: http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/ 2009/06/i-hope-youre-not-what-you-live-in.html |
But waking dreams - nobody talked about those - seemed beyond my grasp. Hopes, aspirations, "what-if" plans. It had all seemed so selfish, so beyond what I felt I deserved.
Since I have been in this healing process, I see that those kinds of dreams are a sign of a healthy individual. I have started to have those dreams again. Oh, don't get me wrong, I had always had ambition, hopes of getting ahead, making more money, etc., - but these dreams are different. They're of being a better person, seeing miracles happen, playing a part (however small) in making a difference in people's lives.
And they intrude upon my night-time dreams, which had always been filled with dread and fear of losing whatever blessing I had been given. I still have those too... occasionally. Not nearly as often, though. My night-time dreams are more about building, climbing, and accomplishing now. Occasionally I will have a really rip-snorting nightmare filled with disturbing images of death, dying, violence, decay and the like, but even these are triggers for me to examine why these things are coming to me now. Usually it's because I have heard, read, or seen something that is disturbing and didn't deal with it when it happened, shoved my feelings down inside - either out of embarrassment or out of feeling that it was inappropriate in the situation.
But what occupies my mind most these days is the waking kind of dream. Being about 2/3 of the way through my life expectancy, I am realizing more and more that life is way too short to be wasting it on wondering what might have been "if only." And the last couple of years, as I have slowly gotten unwrapped from those old rags of the past, I have actually been starting to live my dreams in reality. I believe I am a better person than I used to be. I've seen miracles happen in my life and in the lives of those I care about. And sometimes I've been the agent of those miracles.
Life is more and more rewarding the more I really "live" it. Dreams do come true.
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