new year’s return...
(this is in part a reposting from last new year's blog)
That which I will carry forward into 2016 is not a resolution. There is something about being resolute that feels heavy handed and unmoving. We judge ourselves and feel we must be in charge. We make rules and then feel like failures when we can’t keep up with the inner taskmaster...and we end up feeling alone...on our own. These are all harsh ways we can be towards ourselves...all ways that the soul is not.
My own dream practice has taught me to keep turning towards the inner support...the inner divine...feeling my pain…in fear turning away...and then this is what’s so meaningful for me...to turn yet again back to the divine...this simple embodied willingness to keep turning towards...I re-turn...feeling my pain returns me to love, feeling my sorrow returns me to joy...space for all of who I am.
My dream teacher, Rodger Kamenetz, shared that the Hebrew word, Teshuveh, usually translated as ‘to repent,’ really means ‘to return.’ I find this so beautiful, an open-armed welcoming me home to my true self. No where in my dreams does the divine come and tell me what to do, tell me to repent, tell me to be resolute and white knuckle my way through life’s challenges.
My dreams simply continue to show me, in ways that are tender, challenging, painful, laugh out loud funny...always with love...where my inner self and outer self are not in alignment, how I developed skillful ways to be in the world to protect myself 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 linear...it is more of a labyrinth, which unlike a maze which has dead ends and trickery...the labyrinth is the constant turning of outer towards the inner and back again. Even in those moments when I am turning away...the movement continues and I turn again...I return.
Mary Jo Heyen
Archetypal Dreamwork Practitioner
Author of the dream primer, “Who are Those Guys?”
mjheyen@gmail.com
Dream sessions in person, via Skype or on the phone
website: http://maryjoheyen.com/