Monday, April 18, 2011

"AWAKEN" From Sleep...A Healing Dream

             I am going through the processes (mentally, emotionally & physically) of publishing my 1 ½ year labor of love. By June of last year, my book was basically as completed as it is now; I just need to push through the polishing phases. Virtually every day, my thoughts drift to the book. I may edit, reread parts, or ponder its meaning on a whole. Some days it steals a mere moment of my time, while others it embezzles hours. Regardless, not a day goes by that I forget it. It has become one of my children . . . only it is a lot quieter and not nearly as cute!
          I cannot summarize the contents of my book because it has an unusual evolution and takes a turn in a direction even I did not see coming . . . AND I AM THE AUTHOR. However, I can tell you one part of it and how it links to another book; Eat Pray Love.
{As I am writing this, I can only happily think to myself, “My greatest hope is that someone will read my book and it will speak to him or her as this one has to me.”}
         
          The part I can summarize about my book:
Almost 2 years ago, I thought I was living my happily ever after love story. The majority of the book is based around that relationship and the setting is primarily in the tiny country of Guatemala. I have visited that little country countless times over the past year and a half . . . not physically, but in my thoughts.
          That’s about all I will share at this point. Now, on to what Elizabeth taught me . . .

Last summer, I went to the bookstore on a mission to purchase the #1 Best Seller. It did not matter what the book was about, I simply wanted to compare my writing style to one who had obviously succeeded. I looked for the prized display sign that all authors desire over their books, “The NY Times #1 Best Seller.” The book was, “Eat Pray Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert. (I also watched the movie.)

Coincidentally, she experienced many of the same bumps in her road as I have; marriage, divorce, a new-found love that did not go so smoothly . . . and was on a search for inner peace.
Ahh, the journey for such a treasure as inner peace . . . it is worth the fight. Crazily, the key is not to figure out others or “life,” but to gain a deeper understanding of YOU . . . the most complex person you will ever meet; but, the one you need to understand the most.
There was a time in the book when she was in India learning to meditate and center herself. This is where she met a man from Texas. (He was my favorite character in the book.) He had a way of saying a small number of words, but those few words carried massive, profound messages.
At one point, she spoke to him about her past loves. She could not seem to move beyond them and let them go. (Not that she still wanted to BE with either of the men, but she still held on to emotional strings from them. She needed to move past the hurt . . . and possibly, even the good.) This man taught her to stop suppressing those feelings.
When her past relationships entered her thoughts, he said it was fine to allow her mind to go there. If she wanted to send thoughts or even love out to those feelings, that was okay. Send out love. He taught her to take the time and release the energy, whether it is good or bad, and then move on with the day.
It is important to get closure with people from our past. Closure does not mean a direct discussion with a person . . . closure WITHIN our minds. One night, he left her alone on top of a building in order for her to spend time with her past. Just her and her mental relationship with those she needed to release.

Though I did not hang out in solitude on a roof in India, it happened to me about 4 nights ago. I am not as far as Elizabeth in my intentional self-help thinking, but her story must have planted a seed in my subliminal mind. I was blessed with a dream.

In short, I will explain what I can in this small writing space.
I experienced a very wonderful, romantic, magical, unbelievable relationship about two years ago. HOWEVER, the relationship was deeper than, “me and a man.” (Well, the “romantic” part was only involving him, but there was so much more to it.) Anyway, the end of that relationship came about as quickly and powerfully as the beginning did. I was down for the count . . . Hence, how I had time to write a book.
As strange as it may sound, the man (the one I thought was my prince/knight in shining armor) is not a real person to me anymore. I do not know how to explain it, but he has evolved in my mind to a character in a book. I have no attached feelings to him or a direct love or hatred with him as an individual. He solely represents a time in my life. I discovered that the man I had assumed him to be was merely in my mind, the real him was quite different. It was a façade.
All the same, a scar was left tattooed on and within me. I gained a lot and lost a lot . . .
In the course of our brief love story, I had joyfully accepted/included 2 additional children (his kids) as my daughters, and they united with my girls as sisters. They took me as their 2nd mother, a role I treasured. In addition, their mother became very important to me in many ways. (She and their father had divorced several years earlier.) My relationship with her was a very one-of-a-kind situation. You would have to read the book to understand the concept; but it was special, priceless and life changing for me. She was and is truly angelic.

As time has passed, I have healed from the intensity that season in my life carried. It was soooo much more than a lost love between me and a man. It was a loss of BELIEVING in love. It carried uncertainty and darkness mixed with a newfound distrust of my own judgment. It wasn’t necessarily because of him, it simply happened to affect me in the way it did due to my life circumstances and timing.
I have not had any contact with my façade love since the relationship ended, nor do I desire to do so. His communication techniques are far too harsh for my taste. I see his words and ways as very sharp and cutting.
Though I would never seek approval from him . . . Thanks to a dream, I have closure from him . . . MY mental version of him.

In the dream, I visited Guatemala. I LITERALLY feel like I have recently returned from there. It is uncanny.
I had the opportunity to see the children again. I could hear their voices, see their beautiful faces and melt into hugs with them. Oh, how precious they are!
Their father was there, as was my ex-husband (The subconscious mind works strangely, yet quite clearly if one can interpret dreams!) Also, their father’s girlfriend was there . . . she had open wounds on her arms and said she had fallen. She was beautiful, but did not speak a lot.
The primary happenings were not very complex. The simple fact that he knew I was there and allowed me to see the children was healing. Also, he insisted that my ex-husband and I would not stay somewhere else, but that we stayed at his home. I could tell he was uncomfortable and not exactly excited, (which also fit the description for me, my ex and his girlfriend,) but he did it as an act of kindness.

Somehow, a place within me found a way to care and accept a kind side of him toward me. Even though things ended badly, part of me KNOWS that he knows I love his children very deeply and that I had no negative intentions regarding any of them . . . even him.
In reality, I cannot imagine that he would invite me and/or my ex-husband to stay at his house . . . but the odds of me and my ex-husband going to Guate together are also incredibly slim! It was a DREAM!

I remember waking up with a feeling of peace within me. I had such a rested, light and happy mood surrounding me all morning. The hole within me that had been left from the bad and the hurtful times was once again filled with a good energy. It did not rekindle a love or feeling for him. Instead, it ignited that time in my life as positive again. Good DID come of that relationship. It was not all bad. There was more to the entire picture than a man, what he said or what he did.
I made peace with him in my dream . . . in my mind. It is a concept his oldest daughter spoke of a year and a half ago. Even though she is a young girl, she had undisrupted clarity to recognize that needed to be done. I simply could not do it at the time. Things were a little too raw.
Through the blessing of a dream united with a concept from Elizabeth Gilbert, I have beautiful closure. We didn’t dance on a rooftop, but we did come face to face and he was civil. That’s all I needed.

What IS in the mind . . . IS!
          Learn to control thoughts. Learn to enjoy life.


Lovin that we can dream,
Kasi

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