Dreams And The Invitation To Return
That which we can carry forward into the new year does not have to be a resolution. There is something about being resolute that feels willful, heavy handed and unmoving. We judge ourselves, have lost faith in ourselves and feel we must take charge. So we make harsh rigid rules for ourselves and then feel like failures when we can’t keep up with the inner taskmaster...and end up feeling even more alone...on our own. We can be so hard on ourselves…so unkind...all ways that the soul is not.
Certain characters in our dreams…those who come to help us with our inner healing…do not ask us to be resolute but they do invite us to return to something…something we have forgotten about ourselves, about how much we are loved and supported, to return to our true selves…our soul selves.
And this invitation in the dream appears in startling ways as these dream teachers often come in outrageous garments…a menacing figure, an abandoned child, a sexual come on…all to invite us to feel something. But most of us don’t want to feel what it is they want to evoke in us and in these moments of difficult feelings…fear…loss…pain…we are afraid to feel…afraid that it will be too much, overwhelming…and so we turn away.
In Natural Dreamwork we have learned that there is another option…we have another choice…and this is what is so meaningful in our particular approach to the dream. As we turn away…to turn yet again…back towards the inner support that is found in our dreams. Trusting this simple embodied movement is not an act of willfulness but a willingness to keep turning towards…and in doing so we re-turn. Feeling our pain returns us to love, feeling our sorrow returns us to joy…space for all of who we are and the soul’s capacity to feel it all.
Rodger Kamenetz, founder of Natural Dreamwork, shared that the Hebrew word, teshuvah, usually translated as ‘to repent,’ really means ‘to return.’ This is so beautiful, an open-armed welcoming us back home to our true self. Nowhere in our dreams does the divine come and tell us what to do, tell us to repent, tell us to be resolute and white knuckle our way through life’s challenges. Without judgment, without blame or shame, the dreams do show us why we learned to turn away…what that turning away behavior looks like in our lives…and if we can learn to feel into what it is they are asking, then with awareness, we continue the movement and can turn again…we return.
Our dreams simply continue to show us, in ways that are tender, challenging, painful, laugh out loud funny...always with love...where our inner self and outer self are not in alignment, how we developed skillful ways to be in the world to protect ourselves and to not feel the feelings that need and want to be felt...the very quality of soul. The way back is neither easy nor is it linear...it is more of a labyrinth. Unlike a maze which has dead ends, the labyrinth is the constant turning of outer towards the inner and back again. Even in those moments when we are turning away…we can choose to continue the movement and in turning once again...we return.
Mary Jo Heyen, M.Ed., was an author, founding member and certified practitioner of Natural Dreamwork until her death in 2022. She had a diverse private practice working with dream clients of all ages and backgrounds. Her practice included her volunteer work with the dreams and visions of those in hospice, their families and grief groups, honoring the gift of their dreams at this most important threshold.