Posted by AmySanderMontanez at 1/4/2011 4:41 PM | Add Comment

Awakening from a Dream

Awakening from a Dream

October 5, 2010

“Open your eyes.  Take a deep breath.  Sit up.  You’re dreaming,” I told myself over and over.  Awakening from these kind of dreams, the ones that you feel so deeply in your body you are sure they are happening, is a precarious act.  My dream, my unconscious, was pulling me back in.  I, my waking self, wanted to get out.  It was an uncomfortable tension.    This particular dream did not feel good.  I was troubled upon awakening.  I wanted to shake it off, to get out of it.  Yet I knew it was trying to tell me something, and probably something I did not want to hear and something I did not already know.  Because I believe that all dreams come to us in the service of our wholeness and healing, I was able to allow myself a few more minutes within the dream.  I did finally sit up in bed, encouraging myself to breathe, to pray, to ask for holy guidance as I opened myself to the possibilities of the dream message.

This dream, I believe, was taking me back about thirty years.  I was being asked to consider, to reconsider, the meaning of certain events from that time in my life.  New light was being shed thirty years later.  I was being asked to do another layer of emotional work and to allow for new healing.  The vulnerability I was feeling left me weak and scared.  I wanted my husband, who was out of town, and a girl friend, who lives in another city, to hold me.  Sitting with this alone was not fun; still I think it was meant to be.  I needed the time to sit with all of my fears and to let the presence of the Holy Mystery soothe me.

Why am I dreaming this?  What do these symbols mean?  Who is this person in the dream?  How is it that this stirs me so deeply?  As I held all of these questions in my awareness the possibilities began to unfold.  Events from a friend’s life were triggering events from my earlier life.  I needed another look at all of that and was provided, through this dream, a new lens.  It didn’t feel good. Still doesn’t.  I am not thrilled about feeling this and looking at this again.  Thought I was done with all of this.

There’s a saying, “ If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”  I laughed remembering this saying. “Okay,” I heard myself saying.  “You win.  I am not done with this and you are not done with me.  You want me to be healed from the inside out.  That light You are shedding is a little startling, though.   I am squinting at best.  A little dimmer, a little slower would be better.  I promise to hang in there.  I believe I am not alone.”

Healing is like this.  It doesn’t usually happen all at once.  We revisit the wounds in our life time and time again to find another layer of grace and mercy, another possible way that our wounds will be used, another place that needs to be surrendered to the Great Healer.  It might hurt.  It might be scary.  My mother use to say, “Being responsible is not for the faint of heart.”  She was right, and I believe the healing journey is worth the pain and fear.

Amy Sander Montanez, D.Min.