No, this post isn't about Halloween. : /
I was talking to a friend about a situation where she feels like someone else has control over her life & another friend who is trying to have control over someone else's life. This is what I shared with both of them.
I used to have this dream ALL the time when I was a kid. I don't think my parents realized the Evening News 'body count' coming out of the Vietnam War every night was having such an effect on me.
Anyway, the dream was of me running through some rice paddies, in the front door of a shack, out the back door, in the back door of the next & down the line of shacks, with an Asian man following me with a machine gun. When I got to the last shack, there was no back door & I was left cowering in the corner as he came in the front door & pointed his gun at me. Then I would wake up. It was absolutely terrifying.
I had the dream frequently from about age 10 until I was around 30. I was facilitating a workshop at one time about working through dreams using Drama Therapy. We were reenacting our dreams as a partner witnessed us & my partner made a very simple, yet profound suggestion to me when I was through. He told me to reenact the dream again, but this time instead of being the victim, become the guy with the machine gun. In other words, CHANGE MY PERSPECTIVE. I never had the dream again.
The friend who wanted to write a letter to change someone else's behavior? I told her to go ahead & write the letter, but to write it for HERSELF, meaning, that as long as she was writing the letter without ANY EXPECTATION of a reaction or outcome that involved the other person & she was writing it because there was something she needed to express for HERSELF to make HERSELF feel better, that was fine. In fact, expressing her rage, disappointment, sadness or whatever was a good thing & she might not even need to send it after she was through.
We all know there is absolutely NO WAY we're going to change someone. We CAN however work through our feelings by writing them out OR through drama, art, music or whatever works for us. Ultimately, forgiveness & letting go is the only thing that REALLY works, but we each have to find our own way to get there, in our time.
I was talking to a friend about a situation where she feels like someone else has control over her life & another friend who is trying to have control over someone else's life. This is what I shared with both of them.
I used to have this dream ALL the time when I was a kid. I don't think my parents realized the Evening News 'body count' coming out of the Vietnam War every night was having such an effect on me.
Anyway, the dream was of me running through some rice paddies, in the front door of a shack, out the back door, in the back door of the next & down the line of shacks, with an Asian man following me with a machine gun. When I got to the last shack, there was no back door & I was left cowering in the corner as he came in the front door & pointed his gun at me. Then I would wake up. It was absolutely terrifying.
I had the dream frequently from about age 10 until I was around 30. I was facilitating a workshop at one time about working through dreams using Drama Therapy. We were reenacting our dreams as a partner witnessed us & my partner made a very simple, yet profound suggestion to me when I was through. He told me to reenact the dream again, but this time instead of being the victim, become the guy with the machine gun. In other words, CHANGE MY PERSPECTIVE. I never had the dream again.
The friend who wanted to write a letter to change someone else's behavior? I told her to go ahead & write the letter, but to write it for HERSELF, meaning, that as long as she was writing the letter without ANY EXPECTATION of a reaction or outcome that involved the other person & she was writing it because there was something she needed to express for HERSELF to make HERSELF feel better, that was fine. In fact, expressing her rage, disappointment, sadness or whatever was a good thing & she might not even need to send it after she was through.
We all know there is absolutely NO WAY we're going to change someone. We CAN however work through our feelings by writing them out OR through drama, art, music or whatever works for us. Ultimately, forgiveness & letting go is the only thing that REALLY works, but we each have to find our own way to get there, in our time.
