Sharon is an attractive, twenty-eight year old with some very common life issues. She makes herself quickly dependent on people that she loves so that she feels vulnerable and is hurt easily by what they do and say and don’t do and say. She still doesn’t know what she wants to do for a career, and this bothers her. She isn’t assertive. She wonders why she doesn’t manage to voice her own needs clearly.
These are very common issues that many people have. The first one, dependency on others, keeps you from singing your own song and dancing your own dance. It also makes it easy to blame others when you don’t reach your goals. In addition, it doesn’t use dependency as a valuable tool designed to create a foundation for the development of independence, which can then be used as a foundation for the development of interdependence. The second issue, not knowing what you want to do for a career, keeps growth from being focused in some form of giving that builds deep and lasting value in your life. The third issue, a lack of assertiveness, will keep you fluctuating between passivity and aggressiveness, not only toward others, first mistaking silence for love and then abuse for honesty, but toward yourself.
What Sharon does in this interview is create two visual metaphors for herself. The first, a stone hovering above her head like a Sword of Damocles, ready to smash her at any moment, gives form to her constant state of fear-based vigilance, which leads to over-reactivity and destroys any chance for inner peace. The second, a sun-lit wood, provides an alternative narrative, or way to approach her life, or life script, that presents itself as a solution to her three life issues.
The following is a reframing of what Sharon told herself in the interview. It is derived from the interview itself, which follows. More examples of interviews can be found on the blog where this is posted as well as the blog at DreamYoga.Com.
“You have an emerging potential that personifies your own strength and power. It scares you. It threatens you, not because of anything it does, but because of how you relate to it. You see your strength and power as heavy, threatening, and something external to you—you won’t own the power that you have, the power that can come out of you! You don’t want your power.
You may be able to accept your power and strength as an emerging potential if you experience it as something open, encompassing, alive, and full of light. If you think of your power and strength in this way it will be of more service to you. It will encompass you instead of threatening you.
Why do so? If you reframe your power and strength in such a way you will feel confident, because it is a much bigger and freer way of experiencing your power and strength.
You will feel good experiencing your power and strength. You will feel that you have energy and power to give. You will feel very present, in the here and now, alive and beautiful, with great inner peace because you are so present. You will create a friendly atmosphere that will cause you to forget about your worries; they will seem relatively unimportant.
While your perspective will be much expanded, it still will not see the whole picture. But it would see much more than you now see, and quite enough for what you need.
If you practice taking this perspective on your power and strength your life will be totally different. You will rest within yourself, have more inner peace, will not be moved so quickly, and have some inner standing. You will not get hurt so easily. You will feel much freer. You will see many more choices than now.
Be more yourself as opposed to the Sharon who doesn’t dare to be herself. You don’t have to continue to be someone or something that you think others would like you to be. You imagine what other people would like you to be like, which she thinks is pretty immature and stupid, but which your power and strength thinks is a reflection of how totally unconscious of it you are and how focused you are on your externalized fears.
You forget that you are free to move. You don’t have to stay fixated on your fears, threatened, in the role of Victim. If you exercise your freedom you will find much more in life to feel besides fear!
To grow out of your dependency on the love of others, know that any love that is real is always there, and will always return. To grow into a sense of your life work focus more into one direction. To voice your own needs clearly, begin by defining what your needs really are for yourself, to yourself. Then you won’t be afraid to voice them.
Focus on staying in touch with the natural, alive, open, lighted power that is within you, particularly when you feel insecure in your own truth. If you do, you’ll stay out of drama. You will be a much freer person.
You are remembering who you really are. This presence has always been there; you’ve just stayed so focused on the “stone” that you pushed it into the far background of your awareness. Keep remembering who you are! To do so, imagine during the course of a normal day that you are walking through a sunlit wood!
Sharon summarized what she heard by saying,
”See your potential! Don’t belittle yourself! Don’t make yourself so small!”
Because we tend to forget, IDL lists the recommendations that were in the interview and encourages the creation of a monitoring and accountability system. Here is Sharon’s:
Look back over the interview and list the specific recommendations that were made:
Imagine myself walking through the Wood when I feel insecure.
Get up and move! Don’t lie under the stone!
Look at what is around you! Stop staring at the stone in fear!
Don’t lose myself in many possibilites. Focus!
Ask my wood if it recommends a certain direction to focus on.
Wear brighter colors! (A suggestion from a listener that the Wood strongly supported)
Every night before you go to sleep read over the recommendations. Score yourself 0-10 on how you did on each. Read the interview over several nights a week to incubate a non-drama alternative reality in your dreams.
Find a partner or a support person, like another person who you exchange interviews with or an IDL Practitioner. Exchange emails. Send a report each week on how you have done on applying your recommendations. Don’t worry about perfection; just focus on making a game out of doing better!
We are all in the process of waking up. You will wake up faster if you do IDL interviews on your dreams and life issues. The more awake you become, the less stuck you will be; the more out of your own way you will be; the less you will see events and people as obstacles and obstructions; the more you will experience life as a series of opportunities to awaken into luminosity, cosmic, humor, and abundance. In short, the sacred.
Here is Sharon’s interview:
What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?
1 Why do I make myself dependent so quickly on people that I love?
2 Why do I not know what I want to do in life professionally?
3 Why don’t I manage to voice my own needs clearly?
Which issue brings up the strongest feelings for you?
Why do I make myself dependent so quickly on people that I love?
What feelings does this issue bring up for you?
Emptiness; sadness; not being self-directed.
If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?
Dark violet, green, blue.
Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.
Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?
Either like a stone about to fall on my side or onto my stomach. Like a bell-shaped object.
Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor? It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are the shape that took form from your color and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind. If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!
Stone, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?
I’m a stone. I’m over Sharon.
Stone, what do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?
That I’m heavy; I really have some weight. I am heavy and I have power! I can be threatening! I
Stone, what do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses? What are they?
No.
Stone, what aspect of Sharon do you represent or most closely personify?
I represent her strength and her power that can come out of her.
How could that be if you are not in her and are instead outside of her?
She won’t let me in!
Why not, stone?
She doesn’t want me.
Do you like that or not or don’t care?
I don’t care.
Stone, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change? If so, how?
I don’t want to stay where I am. I would like to be a wood flooded with sun.
How come, stone?
Because I think I can be of greater service to Sharon than by hovering over her head.
How?
I can encompass her instead of threatening her.
(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)
Wood flooded with sun, how would you score yourself 0-10, in each of the following six qualities: confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, inner peace, and witnessing? Why?
Confidence, 0-10. Why? 8 I am much bigger, much freer than a stone.
Compassion, 0-10. Why? 10 I’m good to experience! I feel good!
Wisdom, 0-10. Why? 10 I can give energy, power.
Acceptance, 0-10. Why? 9 I am very present, in the here and now. I have high trees growing in me. I have a lot of beauty to offer.
Inner Peace, 0-10. Why? 12! Very strong! I am so present and I create such a friendly atmosphere with my sun shining through m e that I make your forget about other things. They seem unimportant.
Witnessing, 0-10. Why? 8 Though I am big and powerful I am not aware of everything. Though my perspective is big, it is not big enough to see the whole picture.
Wood, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different? If so, how?
Maybe that would be unreal!
Wood, how would Sharon’s life be different if she naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?
Totally different! She would rest within herself, have more inner peace, couldn’t be moved so quickly, have some inner standing. Wouldn’t get hurt so easily. She would feel much freer. She would see many more choices than now.
Wood, if you could live Sharon’s life for her, how would you live it differently?
I would be more myself; I would be more Sharon. As opposed to Sharon who doesn’t dare to be herself. She is insead something that she thinks others would like her to be. She imagines what other people would like her to be like.
What do you think about that, Wood?
Pretty immature! It’s a bit stupid!
Is that you thinking it’s immature and stupid, Wood, or is that Sharon?
That’s some other part of Sharon. I don’t believe she is immature and stupid. I think she is totally unconscious of me as a part of her, the sun-flooded wood. She keeps staring at that stone!
What do you think of that, Wood?
I don’t understand why she can’t take her eyes off that stone?
Is she afraid maybe it will fall on her?
Actually, I think she thinks it’s going to fall on her! I think it’s pretty self-destructive like that. I see her lying under that stone, staring at it expecting it to fall. There’s free space all around her. She could move a bit and be out of the danger zone.
But then life wouldn’t be nearly as exciting!
No, life would not be boring because she could get up and be walking. She could walk over any stones she met.
But there’s so much excitement and drama in staying under that stone! She wouldn’t want to give that up, would she Wood?
Quite on the contrary! I don’t think life would be at all boring! Being under the stone allows for only one feeling! Being away from it allows a variety of feelings!
Wood, if you could live Sharon’s waking life for her today, would you handle Sharon’s three life issues differently? If so, how?
1 Why do I make myself dependent so quickly on people that I love?
She needs that feeling to be loved so much that it causes her to be afraid she will lose that love. I don’t think about these things the way Sharon does. I don’t worry that the sun is going away. I know it will always come back.
2 Why do I not know what I want to do in life professionally?
If I were her I would try to focus more into one direction. She tries to look at too many things at the same time.
3 Why don’t I manage to voice my own needs clearly?
First I would define what my needs really are for myself, to myself. Then I wouldn’t be afraid to voice my needs. I can suffer rejection too, so to speak. If I say I want more light, more minerals. I could be afraid. I’m not because if I don’t voice my needs I have no chance to get what I need.
Wood, what life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of Sharon’s life?
1. I would focus on staying who I am. If I look at my scores and these qualities I have good reason to try to maintain who I am.
Wood, in what life situations would it be most beneficial for Sharon to imagine that she is you and act as you would?
Particularly when she feels insecure in her own truth.
Wood, do you do drama? Do you get into playing the Victim, Persecutor, or Rescuer? If not, why not?
I’m not interested in it! I’m alive enough without it, thank you!
Wood, What is your secret for staying out of drama?
I’m pretty aware that If I did get stuck in the Drama Triangle I would lose my inner peace, my beauty. I would lose what makes me me.
Wood, you are imaginary. Why should Sharon pay attention to anything you say?
I know I am important because when she walks through me she will be a much freer person.
Wood, why do you think that you are in Sharon’s life?
Actually, Sharon does know me. This is not my first appearance.
Wood, how is Sharon most likely to ignore what you are saying to him/her?
By forgetting me!
Wood, what would you recommend that she do about that?
It would have to be something that helped her remember to feel how beautiful it is to not lie under this stone. She ought to imagine in a normal day that she’s walking through me.
Thank you, Wood! Now here are a couple of questions for Sharon:
If this experience were a wake-up call from your inner compass, what do you think it would be saying to you?
See your potential! Don’t belittle yourself! Don’t make yourself so small!
When I am in this wood, if I want to see all the tress at oce I do’t get anywhere; I don’t see the whole thing.
Look back over the interview and list the specific recommendations that were made:
Imagine myself walking through the Wood when I feel insecure.
Get up and move! Don’t lie under the stone!
Look at what is around you! Stop staring at the stone in fear!
Don’t lose myself in many possibilites. Focus!
Ask my wood if it recommends a certain direction to focus on.
Wear brighter colors!
Every night before you go to sleep read over the recommendations. Score yourself 0-10 on how you did on each. Read the interview over several nights a week to incubate a non-drama alternative reality in your dreams.
Find a partner or a support person, like another person who you exchange interviews with or an IDL Practitioner. Exchange emails. Send a report each week on how you have done on applying your recommendations. Don’t worry about perfection; just focus on making a game out of doing better!
