Accepting and loving myself

I strive to love myself, and most days I do. I love my unique blend of abilities to think, to feel, to intuit, to attract, to act, and to control.  

Think. Feel. Intuit. Attract. Act. Control.  

These are all vital functions of the psyche.  I could wish for a little more in the intuition and attraction departments, but mostly, I am grateful. Everyone is unique, and everyone has a place in the world. I like how I was made. If anyone tries to change me, I react with scorn and indignation.  I am grateful for who I am!

I do wish I were better at releasing the right functions at the right time.  Sometimes I Think when I should be Feeling, or Act when I should be Intuiting, and so on.  But... I suppose... Who's in charge of "should"? It's a matter of using the function at the right time that gets a result that makes me happy, ultimately. But I am not very good at judging which is the right one for the situation, nor of controlling which one rises up, when. It's like each function has a mind of its own and rises up when it wants to. It often produces awkward moments, where I feel out of place with the world, unsure of myself and unhappy with the results. But even this awkwardness, if it is what it is, is how I was made, and I should love it. I'm doing me. And I'm trying to love it.  Maybe I will get more skilled in regulating and controlling all of these functions as I grow older and keep trying.

The function I have been pondering a lot lately is the Thinking function.  It might be my strongest one.  It's my default.  I am very conscientious--I have a very strong sense of "should," and always strive for what is "right."  I have a firm grasp on reality, and a head for logic.  I am critical and skeptical.  I love this about myself. It keeps me honest, open minded, realistic, consistent, and accurate. It sometimes paralyzes me in over-analysis, which can be annoying. And it sometimes leads me to self-judgement and  harshness, which sometimes leaks out onto others as well.  If people only knew-- as judgmental as I can be of others, I'm 100 times more so with myself. 

So, obviously, this trait can be dysfunctional, but it has a lot of strengths, too. I am an excellent editor. I can figure things out. I can create structures and systems that work flawlessly. I can see through bullshit.  I can discuss intellectual ideas.  

To love my strengths is to remove the poison from them, preventing them from becoming weaknesses. Right? So the theory goes; we shall see. Loving myself. It's no small thing.  Because despite how hard I've tried, my life hasn't been what I wanted.

I do hope I can do better than I have in the past to make the most use out of how I was made. Looking back, I think I have wasted a lot of what I was given, even though I always tried so hard. But I can't change that. Only now counts.  I hope I can learn to be as grateful for my past as I am for the present and for my potentials. 

This is why I react so strongly against someone trying to change me, even slightly. Nobody has the right to control me, and nobody has the capability of, or motivation for, scrutinizing my life as I, myself, already do. Nobody could be more serious about improving my life than I already am, and nobody understands the long string of circumstances and choices that brought me to where I am. Nobody knows more deeply than I do, that in each circumstance that arose in my life, I tried my absolute hardest to do what was right. For anyone to presume that they know better, that they can take over my ability to think, is highly insulting.  Maybe I overreact a bit when it happens, I don't know...

I struggle with the fact that I struggle. It's a weird tension between loving what is and working for making things better.  If I love what is, what motivation do I have to notice injustice, dysfunction, imbalance, and suffering, and to use my gifts to alleviate those things? How do I find the resolution between these two things--resting in what is and working towards what should be? 

And then, how can I both love myself and come to terms with the fact that "me-doing-me" sometimes leads to mistakes, pain, suffering, and injustice? When I am harsh with myself, I know that is violence and ingratitude, but maybe me being harsh with myself is also part of who I am. Why would I shut down part of who I am, if I am supposed to love who I am?  How do I resolve this, grow through it, and hold on to love?

Vinegar and Vomit

Last night I dreamed there was a pot of disgusting, brown, chunky liquid on my counter, and I kept adding vinegar to it, but it never got fuller.  Every time I added vinegar, it fizzed and bubbled.

It's a powerful image that brought tears to my eyes today when I remembered it, even before I knew what it meant.  Still, I probably wouldn't have interpreted it, had I not experienced a synchronicity--I went over to a friend's house, and there in the sink was a crock pot that was soaking, waiting to be washed.  It was full of -- you guessed it -- brown chunky liquid.  It was at that point that I decided to interpret the dream.

The dream references a few recent events from my waking life.  One is something that happened sometime last week. I tried to make biscuits using baking soda instead of baking powder, and I used vinegar to try to neutralize the alkaline of the soda. When I added vinegar to the dough, it fizzed in the same way as the dream. Despite my chemical ingenuity, the biscuits still turned out terribly!  The other event this dream references is the stomach bug I got a few nights ago, that had me vomiting every hour, all night.  (The brown stuff in the dream was kind of like the vomit in the toilet. Very gross.) I am, today, still recovering, though I'm feeling better and haven't vomited since.  The dream happened while in recovery from my illness.

What does it mean? In the dream I was trying to neutralize a concoction, bring a balance between acid and base. The dream is about me trying to force a balance into an issue of life. This balancing effort will probably not be successful, like the biscuits, unless I look deeper and do some smarter intervention.  Now I'll examine the symbols.
First, the vomit.  It's something that's supposed to be inside, nourishing my body, but it has come out into the open.  I need to ask myself, "Where in my life do I feel like what is supposed to be inside, nourishing me, is misplaced?"
Next, the vinegar--acid.  Words I associate with vinegar are: burning, sharp, strong, and salad dressing.  The efforts I'm using are more sharpness, more strength.  It could be something good, if I mixed it with better ingredients, like when I make salad dressing with vinegar as one of the ingredients; but in its raw state, it is too harsh.  It creates bubbles and boils, rather than balance and beauty.  "Where in my life am I using too much sharpness and strength?"

Aha.  When I asked myself these questions, the meaning of the dream became clear.  The evening before the dream, I lost my temper at someone close to me.  I was already feeling physically terrible, due to being sick, and what this person did just infuriated me.  All I wanted to do was GET TO BED so I could REST, and he was putting all these obstacles in my path AND being mean on top of that!   On a normal day I probably would have managed it better, but I was not feeling well, and I blew my top.
I immediately regretted losing my temper, and apologized, but that guilt remained.  I don't believe in violence.  How could I have let myself be so harsh?  I know better ways of dealing with these situations.  Where did that anger come from? The dream is showing that, despite efforts I've made to the contrary, I still have a gut-level belief that harshness will "correct" bad behavior, even though I know, mentally, that it won't.  It shows that I am taking what should be nurturing feelings (giving into a relationship with someone I love), and making those feelings about ME, and then trying to correct that selfishness in an inappropriate way.

It's important to remember that every symbol in the dream somehow is about the dreamer.  The vomit in the dream is my view of the bad behavior. The vomit doesn't represent the actions of the person I was angry at, but rather how I FEEL about those actions.  The vinegar is my harsh strength that came spilling out through the weakness, called sickness, it found in my armor. When I use harshness to try to correct someone, I'm REALLY trying to bring relief and balance to my own feelings, not to his behaviors alone.  How much better to be "neutral" (pun unintentionally discovered!) and focus on his actions alone, without trying to bring my feelings into the mix?

What I can do to neutralize my feelings and lose my temper less?  Visualize that pot of disgusting liquid turning into a fresh, crisp, healthful, vibrant salad, and the vinegar becoming my favorite salad dressing (Annie's Green Garlic).  I'll visualize this several times a day for a month, until I feel a shift in how I respond to irritating situations.

What this exercise does: Changes my feelings about bad behavior. Rather than other people's irritating behavior being perceived as something disgusting to be eradicated, like vomit, they are opportunities to learn and grow, just as a salad is an opportunity to become more healthy.  My anger can be harnessed in healthy ways, as vinegar can be mixed with other ingredients and made into a delicious salad dressing.


What a gross dream!  Have you had a gross dream you would like interpreted?  Go to my website to learn how I can help you!  www.sleepingrealities.com