Sweeping...

(Image: Ian Parker)

Dream - There’s two of us sweeping. Same activity. Wide bottom floor brooms. My broom handle has a little open door in it with something beautiful inside the broom handle. Like a flower. It's small but I see it. It makes me smile.This reminds me of those little alcoves or shrines that people pray at. Little places with flowers or symbols or statues. But mine is tiny to be in a broom handle. My associations with brooms is two fold: Firstly, I had a job nights and weekends for four years cleaning toilets and sweeping floors at the horse race track. It took all my spare time but let me more away from home and be in university. I appreciated that. Secondly, I have always liked the Buddhist (I think) quote, "You can be in bliss just sweeping the floor.” I forget the exact quote. But the concept that even with seemingly mundane or unpleasant activities, one can be at peace with themselves or even in bliss. It has stood as something I aspire to achieve. I can't say I'm there. But I certainly feel this energy more in my life in many places. It opens up space for me to just enjoy where I am. I would like to take the feeling of this dream with me. I also like that I'm not alone. I've got a partner doing the exact same thing. The not being alone somehow makes a big difference. Maybe all the difference.Dream - I am with a woman and intermittently a child.  There is a multi-step task I watch... that seems relatively simple. The woman struggles to do it.  But the child seems just do it. I feel my discomfort in not having the words to explain to the woman. I think something like: "she needs to be the child, but you can't tell her that since she wouldn't understand".This dream reminds me of myself and my realization that things are no big deal. I am that woman who still gets stuck and muddled. I also am that child who can do it. I see both parts of me in this dream. It also reminds me of what it's like to work with dreams with people. You can see the potential there for change in a positive direction. I can say something at times. But on some level they need to figure it out.It is interesting what’s not happening in these dreams. I've been working with my dreams (mostly via a facilitator) for the last five years since I knew I wasn't where I wanted to be. Daily life often felt like a battle in a war.I’m noticing more and more over the past many months that I’m having fewer war related dreams. After so many years of frequent war-themed dreams, the war theme is just less present. I can feel this in my inner world and outer world. I feel less tormented. Less at war with myself. I also feel less in conflict with my wife and kids. Less in conflict with my biological family. Less in conflict with everyone. It's not that conflict isn't happening. It is. Perhaps I'm not "projecting the expectation of war" everywhere. I'm just better able to be with it. I've had prior dreams of taking bullets. (I've never been physically shot.) Painful as that felt at the time, on some level it feels like it was both metaphorically reminding me of my past, and preparing me for my future in that there are indeed people that will want to "shoot you down" verbally (if not literally). Not everyone is going to approve of what I'm doing. And that has to be okay with me if I'm going to live the life I want. Not looking for the approval of others, which I have done too much. Not needing to get positive reinforcement for my behaviours, which I have done too much. Anyways, it's a different place, for now at least.Maybe the wars, inner or outer, will come again. But I feel better prepared now for when they do, to not lose myself.Dr. Darren Jakubec is a Natural Dreamwork Practitioner working with clients throughout the country and abroad in person, phone or Skype. He also works as an emergency room physician and anesthetist.Learn more about his work with dreams at www.thetruthiswithin.com or www.thenaturaldream.com.