I Dreamed An Awakening On New Years Day
A Message From My Unconscious
So, when I turned around I saw the vacuum cleaner head and handle which was switched on, and attached to the vacuum, sitting on the sand right next to the water and about to start sucking up the ocean.
I freaked and went to grab it. WFT…it was suddenly out of my reach and floating in the ocean. The water went deep quickly and the swell just powerful enough to make me think twice about going in too deep past my knees. I knew I had to say goodbye to the hose and head.
I turned back to tell my daughter and family standing in the kitchen of the fact that I had lost the vacuum hose, handle and head — to the current. I was well aware it had cost over $200 and my father had bought it, and I would need to tell him I had lost it and would need to replace it. I also wouldn’t be able to finish vacuuming the last bits of debris off the floor, and all my kids were standing around waiting for me to do this. They had all finished their cleaning.
I was filled with the knowledge of all this when I suddenly looked back again and now not just the vacuum head and hose was in the current being washed out to sea and moving parallel to the shoreline in the water, but the whole vacuum, and ALL the cleaning gear. Every part. I kept unsuccessfully darting in the water up to my knees trying to rescue parts of it and then backing away as I realized they had moved too deep and too far out for me to attempt to reach them.
The enclosed esky (cooler) bobbed into my view. It was blue with a white lid. I went to grab it and it appeared to ‘speed up’ as it floated alongside. I ran. It moved at the same pace, in line with me, but just out of my reach. I pumped my legs as fast as I could, I was catching up, drawing alongside. I just needed to go into the water now and I would be able to reach it.
As I put a foot in the water it suddenly moved ahead even faster -without any seeming reason why — and try as I might this time, to draw closer it kept accelerating away from me as it floated parallel to me running alongside the water on the sand. I eased off and stopped. I had to let it go.
The surf was full of all my vacuum now in separate parts — and cleaning products and supplies. I thought fleetingly that they might all get washed up on the next tide and I would be able to at least collect them so they would not pollute the ocean by remaining at sea. That thought was discarded the instant I also realized that the tide was currently going OUT and not coming in. I had lost all my cleaning appliances and supplies in an instant. I stood there looking at them all out of reach bobbing on the water.
I woke up.
This is the dream I woke up to this morning, New Years Day. It somehow seemed spiritually significant and relevant to the start of this new year for me. I am trying to sort out why.
I have just come back in the last few days from staying with my pregnant daughter who is about to give birth (her baby, my first grandson, is due on 6 January). When my husband and I stayed with her, the last couple of days we spent packing into boxes all that she is not currently using in her home as her and her partner need to move house this January. We wanted to make it easier for her as she currently at 9 months pregnant, and a soon to be mum so we didn’t want her to be faced with packing at this time.
I also have just made a decision to limit contact with a family member that although being a relief, and the right decision for me, has been a long time in the coming, and I had grappled long and hard for months with my complicated feelings towards the whole situation. Limiting my contact with certain people and permitting myself to say ‘no’ is something I only recently have accepted and realized is necessary if I want to conserve my energy and not be constantly giving out energy to those I consider vampires and getting nothing but depletion in return.
In the last two months, I have noticed a change in my father. He has been a bit more withdrawn. He has his own health issues and issues related to my mother’s health he is dealing with. I know this. But, my child self has been fearful I am losing his love. That by being open about my past and being open about my struggles in my writing that somehow if he finds out he will leave me. He will hate me. He will not want anything to do with me. I will ‘lose’ his love and his support. The fear sits below my belly and at times it rises up.
This last year, 2018 has been filled with letting go, many old beliefs and ways, and consolidating spiritually within myself some new awarenesses. The year ahead feels full of possibility, brimming with awareness and excitement of the new life about to be born, and also a wedding being planned by my elder daughter and her partner. My husband and I both have so much to look forward to.
At the same time, my youngest son told us about a situation that has recently occurred in this life that may have major implications in relation to his employment for the next six months. My heart nearly broke when he told me. I could see what it cost him to open up and tell us. It was hard for him. A number of minor silly mistakes and choices in his last two teenage years led to the situation and now he faces the consequences.
I have to let go and trust he will handle the difficulty and hope it is not catastrophic for him.
So, what do I think my dream means?
What is my unconscious wanting me to know? When I awoke I instantly had the sense I needed to understand some things the dream was telling me, as I was going forward into the new year.
I can never know another. It is hard enough to ‘know’ me. I can only work on me. My inner work. I have to let go and let others (specifically my adult children) make their own journey and learn their own lessons. They do not need me to ‘help’. Clean my own floor but let others find their way for cleaning their own little ‘messes’.
Maybe I also don’t need appliances- I don’t need a vacuum (a tool to help me, to clean me up). I don’t need to keep looking for the right book, or the right course, or the right method to heal me. None of these are wrong or bad. But I have never trusted fully in myself. However, the answers are all to be found within me. Maybe I am clean enough already? I am okay just as I am with a few crumbs left on the floor of my life.
My Dad has supplied me life and love, I do not need to replace the love he gave me with a never-ending need or feeling that I always have to ‘buy back’ his love by what I say and do. I give love to him as and when I am compelled but not due to a fear of ‘losing him’. I have allowed part of my healing tool to be releasing into the vast ocean of the world some of my deeply held fears and feelings and stories about my past. Maybe I am fearful that by letting go my fear of judgment of myself and by others and exposing my inner self ‘my dirt’ —he will see that I am vacuuming up the dirt of my past and I will lose a tool that has helped me (his love and him).
I fear to lose the means to clean up. I tried desperately to get it out the water and get it back. The ocean swallowed it all and would not give it up. I feared the hoover end ‘sucking’ up the ocean water and the electricals shorting out. Maybe I am scared I will lose the love of people if they are exposed to ‘my dirt’. People will ‘explode’ around me and short out if they hear certain things. Certain people will be ‘cut off’ just by me being open about me. Open about my thoughts and feelings and my exposing of my life to the ocean of the world.
I don’t need a vacuum or a conduit to dive into the world. I can wade in and swim. I don’t need to try and ‘catch’ the latest thing to delve into my unconscious or, outside help to heal me. It is okay if the vacuum or ones short out and get cut off in the process of me letting go. It is okay. The ocean will support and carry them also. I don’t need to protect them from me. It is out of my hands.
I only can be me. I only am me.
The ocean was taking away the esky (the cooler box). I need to let go all the pain I put in the lidded box. The box which contains painful memories. I have no need to hang onto it, capture it again, or have it near me.
The ocean has taken it away. She has said to me — it is no longer yours to carry. I will carry it and absorb it into myself now.
Sigh…Oh, I so love this ocean.
What does it mean that I felt a bit fearful of my children’s reaction to my loss of all the cleaning gear? They have looked to me as their main support, as their one whom they turn to for guidance. I have sometimes supplied what has helped me and pointed them in directions which assisted me. I must realize that I no longer have to do this. It is okay if I do offer help, but I do not HAVE to do this. Not HAVING to do this, is what I must realize in myself. The expectation to do things has come from within me, and not from them.
They are all independent. They already are cleaning their own houses (symbolically). The surface dirt on the floor was what I was about to tackle when I lost my vacuum head. I can be invited to ‘help’ but I only need offer ME. I don’t need tools to assist them. I do not have to offer money, or physically do ‘anything’ to keep and have their love. I can allow them to clean their own flats and leave crumbs on their floors. They can sort that out. It is their little mess. Their life. They won’t be angry or upset. Not at all.
I AM ENOUGH. JUST ME. JUST by being me.
Fully accepting and realizing this is very powerful.
All I need to do is sit with myself in my own presence and I will find the answers I seek. I need no extra outside help, no other more ‘plugged in’ person. The ocean has said — “As the wave is part of the sea, and the sea is all of the waves, so I am part of God and God is all of me”.
This is enough. I am the sea. I am the wave. I am.
Me.
