THE DREAM ZONE |
with Lauri Quinn Loewenberg I have recurring dreams about my ex-husband. In them we're still married and the children are little (they're both in college now). In my dream last night my son was a baby and I was nursing him.
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I'm on a spiritual path that has led me to the dark corners of my psyche.
It started a few years ago when I took some classes in an energy-healing technique. Shortly after the last class, I had an emotional breakdown when, after a very bad day, I began crying like a young child. This had never happened to me before.
A few months later I started therapy. I continue to have episodes when grief, rage or just visceral, emotional pain comes to the surface. I'm willing to experience this, with the hope that it'll ultimately lead to healing on a deep level.
I believe most of this pain is related to my childhood. I suspect there was neglect and serious issues at the Catholic grade school I attended.
How much longer will this go on? It's been almost five years since the initial breakdown. These episodes aren't a daily occurrence, but they demand complete attention and sap my strength. I'm self-employed as a writer, and while I've had some success, I feel I can't completely devote myself to the work I really want to do until I'm done with this process. I also feel that my support system isn't very strong, which makes this a lonely path.
Is this process really helping? How much longer will it take? And do you see any help along the way?
Dear WW,
Unless you're doing something to give these extreme emotions a purpose, you're really using them as an excuse for vacillation. Each time you allow the emotions to take charge, you're giving them more power. Ask your therapist to help you concentrate on a way to disengage from an "episode" before you allow it to take control. You're not at the mercy of your emotions or you wouldn't have been able to function before that "energy-healing technique" (which should only be done in the presence of a professional psychologist or psychiatrist).
Get the following books: There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem, by Wayne Dyer, and The Superbeings, by John Randolph Price. The first book helps bring you meaning for these experiences and the second allows you to restart your life right now. Read both books before you do any of the exercises in The Superbeings.
Spend the next 16 weeks writing the book about your childhood experiences: It doesn't matter if you intend to publish it or not, or if you turn the lead character (you) into a fictional one; it doesn't matter how the character is presented; it's only important that the character chronologically negotiates each challenge. You create the story so you become the hero. The goal of this work is for you to predestine your future based on the struggle of the past. Once it's completed, don't allow yourself to engage the emotions attached to those past events. Learn to view those events as the fabric of your past, not the material of your future.
Coincidentally, 16 weeks takes you to the end of 2005, and it's important that as of 2006, you don't allow yourself to indulge the emotions of the past to affect your sense of the present. There are wonderful adventures awaiting you once you pass through this phase and they begin once you resolve the past. You needed to recognize your pain for it to have purpose. You're not a victim, you're a healer and what heals everything is compassionate love. Your gift will be that you'll know another's pain—now the pain has purpose.
An elephant will stay tethered with a small rope. When young, the elephant learns it isn't strong enough to break the rope, so it believes, even as it gets older and stronger, that the rope will always hold. You've created your own rope and are allowing it to hold you to the past. Break the rope and be brave enough to charge into your future.
Mona Van Joseph is a licensed professional in the psychic arts through the city of Las Vegas. Her show, Midnights with Mona, airs weeknights on KDWN 720 AM. You may e-mail questions to [email protected].