How many times have you woken up and said, “Wow, weird dream.” How many times have you been talking to someone who shifted the topic by saying, “I had such a weird dream last night.” Every time I say or hear these comments I think, “when is a dream NOT weird.”
Dreams are inherently cryptic. The unconscious is playing around in your brain. It has no logic or coherent timeline. People are identified as someone you know but look nothing like them. You’re able to do things you would never be capable of due to gravity and other natural constraints. Time shifts at will. People morph into animals or pulsing blobs. We try to make sense of them in our logical waking brains, but for the most part it’s pretty much a frustrating folly.
Ironically, all this said, I had a dream that kind of made sense the other night. I am a theatre and movie lover. I’m not big on award shows but I always watch the Oscars. In this dream, I was a presenter at the Oscars. It was a little different than most in that one person said the names of the nominees and then five people came up to talk more about each of those nominees. I was to talk about Helen Mirren. As we all went up, I realized that everyone else had an envelope in their hand, except me. I started to panic and went to a table at the side of the stage to find out where my envelope was. This ruined the flow of the whole show. So someone else took the reins and simply skipped the step we 5 were to do and announced the winner – Helen Mirren. I was mortified. Not only did I screw up the show, I also didn’t get to talk about one of my heroes who ended up with a statuette. I couldn’t even possibly talk to her now after what I had done.
I awoke from the dream and was quite agitated. I went into that space so many of us go to so often – beating myself up for a stupid mistake. I went around and around with it for a few laps in my head before I, in a more awake state, realized, “wait a second, it’s bad enough to do that when you’re conscious, this was a DREAM!”
It struck me how easy it is for us to get into the beat myself up mode. It’s such a useless place to dwell. It does us no good whatsoever.
For one, what’s done is done. Replaying it over and over like a bad piece of music isn’t going to help or change anything. All it will do is make you crazy and self conscious. You’ll become less likely to take chances or to speak up. You’ll start to beat yourself down until you become a shell of yourself.
Also, why dwell on the negative? Think about it – when you do something that doesn’t turn out very well, do you think about the dozen things you did well before or after that one event? No. Human nature is to keep that one moment in the brain in full technicolor on repeat.
Why not pick something you did exceptionally well and put that on the repeato panel? Think about the results: rather than beating yourself down, you’d be building yourself up. You might discover that you’re more willing to take chances and speak your mind. Your sense of self will remain in tact and grow stronger. You will go boldly through your life with confidence knowing that we all make missteps and it’s not such a big deal.
So, my lovely kitties, remember to focus on the positive, even in your subconscious moments. Be Beautiful, Be YOU and celebrate your great moments.
Love ya!