Flexing My Conscious Muscle

Have you ever had a dream so real that when you woke up you swear it really happened? I did, a few weeks ago and I am still processing its impact on me.

I have never had a dream so graphic and powerful (Warning: it is graphic). 

I was hiking up my favorite trail when suddenly I got the inclination to run. Now for those of you that know me this is bizarre. I never feel like running and I am aware of how strange this is in my dream. Then I notice I am being chased by a mountain lion and I panic! I face forward and try to run even faster and then in no time that cat is on top of me and as I hit the ground, I black out.

When I wake up I am in a hospital bed and I am alone. There is a mirror face down on the hospital table in front of me. As I reach for the mirror I am suddenly very aware that I am missing my left arm and my right leg. I can hardly breathe as I hold the mirror up and see that most of my skin has been torn to shreds and my face is unrecognizable. I feel terror take over me. I don’t want this to happen but it already has and I can’t do anything about it. I feel trapped in a body that is not my own. I feel no physical pain except for a tear in my chest from my heart breaking over how I think I should look and what I can no longer do.

I think to myself, “I can’t live like this!” as I stare into the mirror resisting the reflection. As I catch my own eye in the mirror a much more powerful thought takes over, “Yes I can. I can live like this. ” All of a sudden I feel relief. I know that this feeling will pass and I will be ok.

I go on with my life, training myself to live again in a new way. People are inspired by my attitude and a local news station interviews me. The anchor asks me, “After something so horrific how do you stay so positive?”

In my dream (and this is the part I remember most vividly) I said, “I don’t stay positive. I wake up every morning and grieve my body and the way I think I should look. Then I take time to remind myself that I am not just my body. I am not just the way I look. I am so much more than my body. I have an essence, a spirit that deserves life and if I get wrapped up in the way I think I should look then I will never get to experience the magnificence of my spirit and I give up the greatest gift I have: choice.”

That statement was lingering in my mind as I woke up. I spent my first rousing moments in bed reflecting on my dream. I felt SO proud of myself. I liked the way I handled life in that dream. The more I considered my “dream” attitude, I started to think that maybe I had reached a more enlightened way of thinking and that my unconscious mind was disassociating from superficial ideas about who I am.

I started my day with a spring in my step. I felt strong; ready to take on any challenge (Are you sensing the foreshadowing here? Good… the story gets better).  As I review the many items on my to-do list, I’m sure I will tackle each with glowing enthusiasm.

One of the things I needed to take care of was to prepare our spare bedroom for the person we were hosting through AirBnB. Part of my responsibilities as host is to make sure they have clean linens, towels, access the house, etc. As I ran through the checklist I was confident everything was set up so that they would have a comfortable stay in our home.

Later that day I got a voicemail from the person renting our room and she can’t get into the house!  Evidently I left the wrong key in our hide-a-key and she was locked out.  Gahh!

By the time I listened to the voicemail it was an hour after she called and I knew that she was planning to come to our house to freshen up and then go to a rehearsal dinner for a wedding.

As I called her back I was in a panic. I was thinking, “I really screwed up, she can’t get what she needs, I let her down. She is going to be so upset!” She doesn’t answer my call and I continue my internal tirade. “See I knew it!” I thought “I screwed up so bad that she is probably on the other line booking a hotel room in a reliable place where she won’t have to wait for dolts like me to get their acts together.”

In a moment of reprieve I call Lindon, hoping she called him and that she is happily in our home getting ready for her rehearsal dinner. He answers with his happy-go-lucky, chipper attitude that I instantly resent.

I quickly ask, “Honey, did you talk to the girl staying with us?”

“Nope. Haven’t heard from her,” he says in such a calm yet lively way. Instantly I’m aggravated; clearly he isn’t picking up on the urgency in my voice.

“Ergggh! Ok… well… she is locked out of the house and she called me over an hour ago and now I can’t get ahold of her. I am running to the house to see if I can figure out what happened.” 

“Sounds good! I love you.”

“luv u.” I mumble, incensed that he isn’t meeting me in the throes of my emotional upset.

I am worried about the person staying with us. I am disappointed in myself for not double-checking the keys before I left. I resent Lindon because he doesn’t have to deal with this; I magically volunteered to take care of the AirBnB stuff and I am happy to take all the glory of it working out and yet obviously blameful when it doesn’t go as planned.

Long story short it ended up working out. I got back to the house, replaced the key, called the person who was renting from us, left a voicemail apologizing for the mix up and let her know everything had been fixed. Twenty minutes later she sends me a very thankful text. In the end she had decided to go straight to the dinner, no problem.

As I drove back to the office to pick up Lindon I considered all the drama I just put myself through. I was really upset about an honest mistake. If worst came to worst I would have refunded the money she paid and she would have a written less-then-ideal review about us. Which is easy for me to understand when I am not emotionally hijacked… but in the moment, well, that reality wasn’t available to me.

As I got closer to the office my dream flashed in my mind. I thought about the last sentence from my speech; “the greatest gift I have: choice.”  Well I certainty didn’t choose an ideal attitude in the moment of upset nor did I enjoy the way I treated others and myself over the last thirty minutes.   Hmmm.

 

So where does choice occur? In the moment I just reacted. I did not choose how to think and feel. I felt panic, guilt, resentment and self-contempt. As soon as my awareness of my feelings kicked in (thirty minutes later), I started to defuse the reaction and bring myself some peace.

Well I must say my reaction time is getting shorter and shorter. I am bringing myself to conscious choice quickly after my initial triggered reaction. This is great!

All of sudden it occurs to me that these projects and the workshops I do are like a mental and emotional work out. I am strengthening my conscious muscle. As I continue to “work out” I shorten my time spent in reaction and I increase my ability to choose at the moment of feeling triggered.

Navy Seals are trained rigorously through extreme conditioning in harsh situations where they need to choose, in the moment, the “right” thing to do. I am doing a similar type of training. Although my training is very different, I am training for enlightenment. Maybe, just maybe, enlightenment happens at the moment when outside stimulus and internal choice becomes simultaneous. Perhaps, enlightenment is my exercised and strengthened consciousness that can see everything as it is happening in front of me as new and I get to choose how to respond to it.

I reexamined my dream and a drew a new conclusion: There is space between stimulus and response and I choose to continue to work out my consciousness so that it has the strength and speed to get to that moment quickly with time to dance. I have an essence, a spirit, that deserves life and if I get wrapped up in my reactions then I will never get to experience the magnificence of my spirit and I give up the greatest gift I have: choice.