A Strange Money in My Wallet? What Is My Worth?
A dream of unfamiliar, otherworldly and strange money becomes a mirror of inner questions. What is my worth beyond career and control? A personal reflection on trusting the unknown and finding the strength to keep moving.
Yesterday, I dreamed that I received strange, otherworldly money. I don’t remember who gave it to me. Suddenly, it was in my wallet these odd banknotes, larger than usual, different in color, different in feeling. I knew in the dream they weren’t real. Or that they came from another world. And yet, there they were, in my possession. I had accepted them unconsciously, perhaps even gratefully. I held them in my hand and asked myself:
What do these bills mean?
Dreams are no coincidence. They come when words fall short and the conscious mind falls silent. They bring images where thoughts lose their way. And they often don’t show us what is but what is working within us.
For some time now, I’ve been “released from duty.” A beautiful word for a new experience. To stay grounded I completed my dissertation after seven years and submitted it on January 24, 2025. A monumental work on language, identity, memory and the loss of heritage language. I wrote it for a world that hardly has time to read. And yet I wrote it. Ever since, I’ve been searching. I write. I ask questions. I listen. And I receive no clear answers. In such a moment, a dream like this can break something open.
Foreign, unfamiliar, perhaps even false money in my own wallet?
Is it just a symbol of deception?
Or is it also a symbol of what we once held valuable and now begin to question?
A mirror held up by the unconscious.
What is your true worth? And who decides it?
I feel that I’m standing at a threshold between two chapters of life. Between certainties that have dissolved and a new beginning that has yet to take shape. In the midst of this uncertainty, writing returned to me. First quietly, then urgently.
The strange money in the dream seems to say, maybe you don’t feel seen, paid, or rewarded right now. But in your wallet, in yourself, there is something you carry. It is different. It stands out. It doesn’t fit the system. It can’t easily be exchanged. Maybe because it’s not meant for what we commonly call “career.” Maybe because it is meant for something deeper.
I believe my worth doesn’t lie in a résumé. It doesn’t live in spreadsheets or reports. It lives in the ability to turn fracture and loss into story, to turn doubt into voice.
Often, I feel we live in a time when foreign and often false money is the rule. Not just in dreams. Constant evaluation, rating, performance. Social media likes, certificates, rankings, KPIs, bring it on. But what is all this worth if no one truly listens? If no one asks?
What truly moves you?
I believe the time for real conversation is returning. The time for language that doesn’t just function, but touches. Perhaps my task right now is not to “enter” somewhere, but to continue writing. To go deeper. Closer to what truly holds.
Sometimes, trust doesn’t mean that things fall into place. Sometimes, it means they fall apart to make space. I’m starting to understand that letting go doesn’t mean giving up. It means making room. It means giving the universe space to bring in what truly fits me now. I don’t need to know everything. I just need to keep going. So I sat with the dream and these words emerged.
Recognize Your Fire
Even when my worth isn’t recognized, I carry the real within me.
I nourish myself from the depths of my soul, from the fire-glow of writing and words.
What now feels foreign and heavy
will shift in my rhythm, in my time.
I am on the way, and the unseen carries me forward.
I trust myself and I recognize my fire.
With the support of Lukas Sommer, my son’s music teacher, and the AI https://suno.com/s/NpokiwfQi7uqwHD0, I transformed my text “Recognize Your Fire” into an English song.
https://www.henryertner.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Even-when-my-worth-isnt-recognized.mp3
The danger of losing oneself is greatest in times when one is not “needed.” But it is precisely then, when we feel superfluous, that space opens for something new. Perhaps I am like the foreign, strange money in the dream. Not because I am worthless, but because my worth is different. Not yet redeemed. Not yet seen. But real.
Perhaps writing is my inner path back to a world I wish to co-create. Not with money. Not with power. But with thought and language. Not through conformity, but through felt presence. If you read my words and see yourself in them.
You are not alone.
We all carry values within us that no one wants to accept. We all ask ourselves whether we are enough. But we also carry the fire, that no one can extinguish.
And when we remember that, we can begin again.
With a sentence.
With a dream.
With a life.
Original Ein fremdes Geld in der Geldbörse? Was ist mein Wert?
