Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Beauty

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    The Soul – Do you dream of hummingbirds? The impossible flight of the bumblebee? According to C.S. Lewis, we are not a Body with a Soul, we are a Soul with a Body. Our body may be very mutable, but our soul can be immortal. Do you dream of past lives? See yourself in historical contexts? Do you ever have dreams of utter bodilessness where you are totally free, seeming to travel invisibly through the power of your mind?

    Accept Your Immortality – Can we destroy our own immortality through abuse and disbelief? Some of us would like to! Many people fearfully, officiously, vocally, and publicly, refuse this gift. But even if heaven and hell are choices some continuation of our will and our energy will continue. If we fight against this, it’s as tragic as battling against one of our talents (“I’m never going near that guitar.”) Think: Who are you harming? The direction we need to travel is in making our own company a reliable, eternal pleasure.

    Challenge – What if our mind changes inevitably – just the way our body does? Think about the differences between you, all grown up, and you at say, three years old. Imagine the joyous understanding with which you finally “get” the previously incomprehensible. If you just accept that future possibility, you can enjoy future understanding now. List in your Dream Journal the incomprehensible things you would like to understand NOW.

    Dangers – Christians locate the misery of non-progress in “sin”. Buddhists call it “clinging”. We grab on to any passing thing to stay our flight but of course it doesn’t work! The G forces start building up, creating a suction around us, meanwhile we are clinging to some crappy object, or some person who’s on an inevitably different trajectory. Relax. Let those things go. Don’t be frightened by your feelings, just study them, turn them imaginatively into huge iridescent bubbles, and “blow” them out. Enjoy the flight.

    Opportunity – Think about one of the parables, in which everyone is invited to a glorious feast. People are so threatened by this, they not only don’t attend, they murder the messenger. Watch the glorious film, Groundhog Day. Poor weather forecaster Bill Murray is sentenced to living the same things over and over and over again, trying everything to get out of these repeats, including suicide. Finally he decides to learn how to simply just enjoy himself, while being as nice as possible to the other frightened, enraged, confused souls around him. Only then is he able to move on to the next level – which turns out to be the rewarding, much-desired love of his dreams.

    Models & Mentors – “the living soul, once conscious of its power, cannot be quelled” – Horace Mann

    “The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.” – Carolyne Myss

    “Without applied awareness of the soul, happiness can’t arise”

    – Dada Bhagwan

    “The desire to know your own soul ends all other desires” – Rumi

    Mantra – “Love is forever”

    Meditation –

    #Haiku: Last Minute

    Bone grows
    Mind crashed
    Soul merge
    Skin graft
    Intervention –
    Light shaft
    Angel…?
    Laughed.

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    Beauty – Are your dreams so beautiful you regret waking up? Do you dream of possessing great beauty yourself, caressing gorgeous flesh, or having a gorgeous lover turn diamond eyes upon you? Do you dream of beautiful places, caverns, waterfalls, chapels – that are spectacular in their glamor? We are all visual learners, attracted to beauty, hypnotized by color. Our relationship to the universe is naturally worshipful.

    You Don’t Know How Beautiful You Are – We never do. People who think they are beautiful are trapped into fetishizing the ephemeral, which everyone knows is mysterious and evanescent, just like wildflowers. But there is a beauty that lasts forever and training oneself to recognize it fills our lives to overflowing with constant pleasure. Puppies doing anything, kittens doing everything, a dance class of toddlers (all doing the wrong thing), flowers coming up through cement, a piece of brilliant stained glass on a utility truck, a book of cave paintings, the swirl in our coffee, old photographs, our beloved’s sleepy morning face – once you start collecting a list you realize beauty is all around you. Open your Dream Journal and lose yourself in the pleasures of making a list.

    Challenge – Take joy in your surroundings. Cultivate your own pleasure in the beautiful. Marie Kondo became famous for having few possessions and arranging them like jewels. Clutter is frustrating for the brain. We love sharing beautiful pictures, but momentarily “beautiful” people have taken to hogging the space. The more difficult it is to take a seemingly “perfect” picture with filters and Photoshop, the more they treasure it. Be discriminating. Think of the wildflower. Is all this fakery the path of joy or depression?

    Danger – We soon find ourselves in a frenzy of “likes”. A “like” button can have a plethora of meanings, but we don’t care, we need likes the way a drunk needs booze. Otherwise we’re nothing. Possible approval from strangers – or at least momentary attention – how needy can you get? The quiet joy of certain pleasure inside your own head as you follow your bliss – “I restore old cars” and share them with loved ones – “This is what I’m working on” – is lasting pleasure.

    Opportunity – Artists teach us to appreciate new beauty. Incredible as it may seem, the magical paintings of the Impressionists were first seen as offensively ugly. Lady Gaga, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, all are educators of our eye. We can become appreciative not just “ahead of the wave” but of the past – African masks, Egyptian art, illuminated manuscripts all possess a special beauty. Not only are we learning to love our past and hope for our future, we are beginning to see the natural beauty in ourselves – learning to appreciate the splendid gifts we have each been given.

    Models & Mentors – “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it” – Confucius

    “Beauty is a light in the heart” – Khalil Gibran

    “Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself” – Coco Chanel

    “Don’t think of all the misery but the beauty that remains” – Anne Frank

    “Beauty is reality seen with the eyes of love” – Rabindranath Tagore

    Mantra – “I revel”

    Meditation –

    #Haiku: “Flawsome”

    Individuality is
    Beauty; be
    Irre-
    Placeably
    You.

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    Art – Do you dream of artistic products – paintings, sculpture, film – or artistic endeavors such as performance and construction? Do you get ideas for fresh pieces and experience nonconformist thinking that seem to evaporate upon waking? Art is our poetic confrontation with the world, it is also our prime avenue for non-verbal healing. Only non-verbal healing can address pain we can’t even quantify. Your inner self is signaling to you that it is time for you to access another language – art – become expert in its terms, and start inventing some of your own. Only art can establish the connection with others required to nourish you now.

    You Are An Artist – Every single one of us chooses mode and objects of expression, consciously or unconsciously, every single day. We buy one object over another because it gives us pleasure, we arrange our living spaces to express some intangible quality about ourselves – a self-definition that signals to others who we are and where we are on our journey.

    Challenge – Art demands individuality. We begin by copying but we must move on to expressing our uniqueness or our soul can’t evolve. If we are happy being part of an unthinking mass we are truly “unborn.” This exploration will grant you a deep peace about being alone with yourself, a strong confidence in who you really are and a feeling of spiritual value.

    Danger – This exploration is awkward at first, and in other people’s eyes it may remain awkward forever. Why wouldn’t you copy what’s popular? Why not mimic the uncontroversially successful? The problem is, while you are doing that the core of your self-hood is dying like an unwatered plant. And if your soul is dying, you are dying. Also, being bullied by the “art enforcers” is not the only danger here because we bully ourselves worse than they could ever do. Constantly shaming yourself as a no-talent, pretending poseur is horrifyingly destructive to our precious infant specialness struggling for life. Make a resolution to start supporting yourself. The fact that a work is unsuccessful, even a horrific mess, doesn’t mean it isn’t an advance for your vision, insight and style. These are the building blocks of creation. Don’t get hung up on approval. You need teachers, not fans. Read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

    Opportunity – Open your Dream Journal. If you familiarize yourself with the lives of artists you will instantly see MESS EVERYWHERE. For the purposes of confidence building, the disastrous misfires among artists you admire the more helps you respect your own efforts and forgive your failures. Astonishing talent does exist – we learn less from these natural geniuses, much as we admire them, and more from artists who seem more in tune with our own two steps forward, four steps back methods of composition. We are trying to build the confidence to experiment. You don’t have to call yourself “an artist” if that’s too intimidating (most of us have day jobs) – you can say you’re “communing with yourself on a psychic level, and learning the language to interact with others more deeply. Because you are. It enormously enhances our pleasure in day to day existence!

    Models & Mentors – “Creativity takes courage” – Henri Matisse

    “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see” – Henry David Thoreau

    “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight without vision”

    – Helen Keller

    “You were born an original, don’t die a copy” – Jon Mason

    “Life beats down and crushes the art in your soul to remind you that you have one” – Stella Adler

    “There are no rules, only confidence, aplomb, style & joy” – Neil Gaiman

    Mantra – “I create”

    Meditation –

    Haiku: In the Art Monastery

    Silence blooms; bold
    Heart plunges
    Deep;
    Dares blood;
    Mind annexes Sun
    Births
    Moons

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    Fruit – Harvest – Do you dream of fruit, perfectly ripe? Do you love to cook and entertain? Are you attracted by movies with long family dinner scenes, outdoors beneath an arbor? Is touring wine country a popular fantasy of yours? You are a person who is propelled forward by imagining smiles on the faces of others as the work of community and family harmony is celebrated and enjoyed. This vision can keep us going through bitter hardships.

    Challenge – Keeping these visions alive during the planting phase is hard, because the growth cycle is long and can be boring and uneventful. That’s why planting occurs in stages, so all your psychic eggs aren’t resting in the same basket. Learn to enjoy all the seasons, without hungering for a single season. This is a good time to contrast group versus individual gratification and ask ourselves, “What’s that about?”

    Danger – We become obsessed with gratification until it takes more and more to gratify us. The next thing you know you are in an addiction and no longer a planting cycle. We need to look forward to the abstemious times, sitting around the fire telling stories, without requiring “success” to be an endless party. Write these challenges in your Dream Journal and strategize with Dream Group about how to replenish your inner souls. Luckily sleep and dreams are the best model of fruitful dormancy. We need those periods and we need to look forward to their relief and imaginative nourishment.

    Opportunity – Every family’s celebration of the success and nourishment cycle is different. Are there leftover behaviors that no longer serve you? What fresh, exciting new ideas might you add? Is everyone in the family/community being well-served or are there grumpy holdouts? It’s also fruitful to listen to what the grumpy holdouts say, occasionally. How might they do things differently? If all they want is to harsh everyone else’s buzz, maybe they should no longer expect an automatic invitation to the feast.

    Models & Mentors – “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you will get but by the seeds you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

    “In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter, enjoy” – William Blake

    “Every deed sows a seed, though the harvest you may not see”
    – Ella Wheeler Wilcox

    “We are each other’s harvest, we are each other’s business, we are each other’s magnitude and bond” – Gwendolyn Brooks

    Mantra – “I thrive”

    Meditation –

    #Haiku: Fruition

    Self expands –
    No more
    “For” or
    “Against”;
    Blend
    Seamlessly with
    Mother Mind

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    Ambisextrous – Do you dream of being the “opposite” sex? IS there an opposite sex? Are these threatening dreams or pleasurable ones? Do you dream of the fetish trophies of gender; makeup, wigs, shoes, sports equipment? Do you have frequent “freedom” dreams: flying, swimming? Wake up damp, pulses pounding? Sometimes we want to be our own romantic partner, the subject of a lifelong pursuit. This is nothing but the honorable, deep desire to truly know oneself, to master our selfhood before we leave the planet. C.S. Lewis says we are not a body with a soul, we are a Soul with a body.

    Remember – In the Dream, you are everyone. In dreams we confront ourselves, we challenge ourselves, we evolve ourselves. Write in your Dream Journal what it would be like to be your own opposite, your own Desire.

    Challenge – Woody Allen says bisexuality doubles your chances to get a date on Saturday night. Anything wrong with that? Nobody should force themselves to perform sexually; it is important at all times to move as slowly as you feel comfortable with. The sexual revolution was a lot of fun, but it was spoiled for many people by a witless prejudice against “hang-ups.” Revulsion and doubt tell us plenty. We are on this earth to hone our “gut” instinct as well as our sensitivities. Gavin de Becker, danger specialist, reminds us that fear is a “gift.” Honor it.

    Danger – Most “bad sex” stories when one sex disappoints or violates the other, start with substance abuse, undertaken with a nervous desire to get into a more relaxed or even transcendental state. All it actually does is skip over the “informed consent” part that is such an important feature of identity and will. Predators with a need for speed drug their prey! Afterwards the complex feelings of violation an shame take a life time to deal with. These facts mean we need to study trust before we study sex. What is trust? Safety? Honor? Let’s work on those issues while we develop a free space to evolve, experiment and grow.

    Opportunity – Fresh interpretations of gender make this a glorious time to be alive. I can recall when gender was a prison sentence! Now it is an invitation to live more fully, to experience oneself and others more richly, to participate in that fruitful life of which we all dream.

    Mantra – “I become”

    Models & Mentors – “The great gift of human beings is we all have empathy. We can sense a mysterious connection to each other” – Meryl Streep

    “Leadership is about empathy. It is about relating to people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives” – Oprah Winfrey

    “The capacity for empathy leads to a genuine encounter I which heart speaks to heart” – Pope Francis

    “I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization” – Roger Ebert

    “Empathy has no script…there is no right way or wrong way…there is only listening, emotionally connecting, communicating the incredibly healing message ‘You’re not alone” – Brene Brown

    Meditation –

    #Haiku – Ambisextrous

    Ambisexuality:
    Joyously roused;
    By beauty
    Everywhere

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    The Firefly – False Love – Do you dream of masked balls? Betrayals? Loved and known faces turning demonic? People becoming animals? Mazes and puzzles that melt and change?

    Learn to understand these terms: Narcissism, Narcissistic Personality Disorder – Covert and Overt; Love Bombing, Traumatic Bonding, Gaslighting, Projections, DARVO, Emotional Abuse and Emotional Empathy. Write these down in your Dream Journal. They are important.

    You Will Be Offered False Love at some point in your life (for some people, it’s at birth.) Something in you will recognize this, but your conscious self desperately resists this knowledge. Dreams, however, are The Great Revealer.
    Narcissists Lack Empathy. They may be sadistic as a result of their own trauma bonding experiences, but that makes them no less dangerous. They long to kill your innocence and joy to compensate for their lack of these treasured emotions.

    The Firefly is not the only creature using illusion for the purposes of seduction. Seduction is Love-Bombing. They hop to addict you so that you will stay throughout the coming Bad Times, arguing, bargaining, placating and Trying to Figure Out What Went Wrong. This is emotional abuse.

    False Lovers lives in a shifting Potemkin Village of mirrors. This is gaslighting. Narcissists are uninterested in the truth, they are only interested in manipulation; what they can make you do. The main thing they hope to achieve is shifting responsibility for their hopes and needs entirely onto you.

    They, on the other hand, are not responsible for any damage done to you (and if they have their Way, much will be.) This is entirely “your own fault.”

    Projection is the narcissistic claim that others are seeking to destroy them. Guess who’s REALLY seeking to destroy whom? Projection enables DARVO.

    DARVO – Deny: Lies and fabrications follow any confronting.
    Attack: They claim it’s you who is at fault. Brings up something from the past as well to try and show you evidence that you are to blame for their abuse towards you.
    Reverse Victim and Offender: Says that they have been victimized by you, YOU are the abuser, YOU are the narcissist.

    Challenge – Don’t feel sorry for yourself. God put us on this earth to harden Love Warriors for Heaven. You need to know what evil lurks in human hearts, how to recognize, confront and destroy. Just as the deceptive catfish forces the lazy cod to keep moving (and improving!) when they would rather lie sluggishly on the bottom, the False Lover improves our game.

    We realize we are part of a very complex universe where wings disguise themselves as eyes and flowers are chameleons. Stay alert. Realize you are energy. Realize others wish to capture your energy and use it for their own fuel. Get smart.

    Danger – Don’t become a False Lover yourself. Their options are far too restricted. Humans are more than energy. Real Empathy allow us to live multiple lives – to become Immortal like God Herself. Love is more than fuel, it is living water as well as unquenchable fire. It is more than worthwhile to hold out for the Real Thing. Real Love stands the test of Time. We are playing this game to get to the next level, and you can’t do that with such a narrow view of existence, where all of Creation is means to an end – the end of You, slick and fat, lying sluggish at the bottom of the Universe. We are commanded to Rise, and so we will.

    Opportunity – Expand your inner and outer vision. We are multidimensional beings and our emotions – our very orgasms – can become multidimensional as well when we appreciate the historic, the inter-generational, the cosmic ramifications of everything we do and think and are. The marriage service talks about hanging in there through sickness and poverty, and it is a proven fact that people who have been through terrible experiences have a deeper connection. It becomes a secret language others just don’t “understand”. When you have children, you gain the ability to live through them – this is a multi-player, multi-avatar game! Life itself can be a terrible (as well as wonderful) experience. So buckle up! Those who are not alert will be eaten.

    Models & Mentors – “Remember sometimes not getting what you want can be a wonderful stroke of luck”
    – Dalai Lama

    “Let it hurt. Let it bleed. Let it heal. Let it go.” – Nikita Gill

    “Don’t waste your love on someone who doesn’t value it” – Wm Shakespeare

    “Temporary people teach permanent lessons” – Alysse Aallyn

    “Love dies of wounds, errors and betrayals” – Anais Nin

    “Attitude toward gratitude defines a person” – Eli Wiesel

    Mantra – “I rise”

    Meditation –

    Haiku: The Firefly – False Love

    Glitter is
    Hypnotic:
    Brain freezes
    Heartbeat slows
    Wallet
    Disappears

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    Spring – Hope – Do you dream of undiscovered worlds? Are your dreams so delicious you don’t want to wake up? Do you think about your dreams during the day? When you go to sleep at night do you eagerly summon up that sense of childhood ecstasy? Ask your Dream Journal.

    Hope springs anew with every flush of oxygen and blood through our systems. Is Spring your favorite season? Do you dream of unfolding buds and exploding flowers? Spring is a season of the heart, of the will. Hope is the fuel we run on. Hope is eternal. Do you feel you are on a quest? Do you dream of uncovering buried truths? Do you lose yourself in detection, or treasure-hunting dreams? Is “the mustard seed” your favorite parable?

    You are A Discoverer – Hope is not about “resolution” but about envisioning a future you had a hand in promoting. You have a sense of awe, but also ownership and a little pride. This is YOUR discovery. Now you want to share it with the whole world.

    Challenge – Don’t waste your imagination on too many games. Games can be a training ground but all too often our society seeks to harness and entrap your energies onto a treadmill that benefits only the few. Your dreams, your aspirations, your thirst for knowledge, is wider than this. You know the complexities of the universe are even more amazing than anyone has guessed and you want to call attention to them. You need to learn how.

    Dangers – are tunnel vision, paranoia and megalomania. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Obsession becomes obvious when harms become visible. You don’t “give up” just because you can’t seem to impose your vision on the world. Are you eating and sleeping? Maintaining your relationships? You can’t achieve bigtime without a team and you need to keep your team happy. Conflating the majesty of the discovery with your own personal majesty – needing that majesty – separates you from human kind and that can’t go well. It blinds you. Paranoia then comes into play. You ask yourself, are others stealing from you, riding on the coattails of your majesty, tarnishing your legacy? But if you surrender to the process of discovery you find out that every discovery leads to more understanding, more possibility. The discoveries – and hopefully the discoverers – never stop! Practice humility and gratitude. Aren’t you lucky to be a part of this? Isn’t it wonderful?

    Opportunity – Assembling a “team” is critical. TEAM isn’t a formal concept and it doesn’t mean maintaining a payroll. It requires finding the energy to keep your hope alive while keeping it realistic. It implies explaining yourself over and over, developing your idea. Allowing others to offer the energy of their perspectives. Even when you see them as wrong-headed, they operate as a whetstone, sharpening your vision. Most important are supporters who catch a “contact high” from the joy of your insights. This happiness creates a nourishing environment that powers us forward. Move confidently in the direction of growth and away from diminishment, remembering that it is not about you – it is about a world of treasure waiting to be discovered.

    Models & Mentors – “Hope is being able to see there is light in spite of the darkness” – Desmond Tutu

    “What I try to cultivate is not blind optimism but radical hope” – Junot Diaz

    “Be astonished. Tell about it”. – Mary Oliver

    “Everything that is done in this world is done by hope” – Martin Luther

    “Only in darkness can you see the stars” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Mantra – “I discover”

    Meditation –

    #Haiku: Spring Is a State of Mind

    Vaulting
    Out of bed
    New projects:
    Fresh thinking: I’m
    My hero –
    Progress

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    Breakthrough – Epiphany – Are you battering against barriers in your dreams? Do you grind your teeth and clench your jaw while unconscious? Are you breasting tape, cresting mountaintops, intent on shedding light on the darkness? You are seeking, or experiencing an epiphany.

    Eureka! – It’s possible to have that sudden enlightenment and NOT FULLY REALIZE it. Could it be that it is too threatening? Could be that you lack the language to explain the connection you have made. Could be that your “discovery” started down so deep in your consciousness that it’s taking its time to percolate through to the surface. In the meantime, your dreams are attempting to heal the jagged edges of your fear, your incomprehension and your daring. Do not fear them. Open your Dream Journal.

    Challenge – Let’s consider the pieces of your psyche/life that don’t quite add up. Are you a highly accomplished, well-trained professional who acts like a supplicant around a certain somebody? Are you a group member whose leaders make decreasing sense and more self-serving decisions they refuse to acknowledge? Have you been struggling with a knotty historical, mathematic or scientific problem nobody can solve but now you think you’re seeing edges of light?

    Danger – Everybody quits too early. The status quo is just SO attractive. Let somebody else be the adventurer, let somebody else put into words what nobody can say, let some other poor sucker stick their neck out. Let’s look at those fears rationally. It’s OK to protect yourself – in fact, it’s mandatory – remember getting that oxygen mask working on you, first? But that doesn’t stop you from looking at reality, which also contains suspicions, insights, ideas and yes, dreams.

    Opportunity – How often have you had that experience of waking up from a dream whose conclusions were so real they were right in front of you, only to see them melt in the sand like an escaping tide until they’re no longer perceptible. That’s OK. They’re still right on the tip of your psychic tongue, just waiting for a little more encouragement. We are all already familiar with the “sleep on it” suggestion, but anything that takes your mind temporarily off an obsessive problem can be helpful. Sports, prayer, meditation, reading, a massage, a night out, but please – not too much liquor. Hold it at two if you can, if you can’t, don’t start. Liquor affects the brain, killing brain cells. That might keep overlords seeking compliance happy but it’s not good for your growth and development. Keep dreaming. Keep using your fears as stepping stones to climb higher. Never give up. Be clever – like the serpent, as Jesus suggested.

    Models & Mentors – “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” – John Milton

    “Record these epiphanies with care as the most delicate and evanescent of moments” – James Joyce

    “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising”
    – Isaiah 60: 1-3

    “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing” – Henry Miller

    Mantra – “I see”

    Meditation –

    #Haiku: Breakthrough

    Working sleepless
    In my cell
    I revel in goddesses’ sharp
    Applause

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    The Path – Goals – Do you dream of paths diverging in a yellow wood? Checklists? Maps? Are you talking to yourself as you follow your routine? What IS your routine? How has your routine evolved? What efforts have you made to change it to newly perceived needs and discoveries? Or is your routine formed outside you, for the benefit of others?

    If You Have No Goal, Any Path Will Take You There – But you won’t like where you end up. Besides, you DO have a goal, (at least one). Sometimes it’s something as simple as “stopping the pain” or “staying healthy.” As you become more adept at change, you realize dividing effort into “steps” to achieve a goal is critical.

    The Doctor Says Change – Most of us are familiar with being confronted at the doctor’s office with the undeniable fact that he American diet has not been good for our bodies. It’s not kind to our brains or our joints, and if we are going to preserve such things we are going to have to make some changes. Example: the intimidating goal of losing 50 pounds. Yes you can take expensive medication that will make you sick, or you, personally, can change. That won’t happen fast. Your conscious, subconscious, unconscious and collective unconscious (not to mention your pre-conscious!) are going to kick up a helluva fuss. Studying the history of human weight loss attempts we see that if you are not ready for the psychic pushback your body will actually double down and accelerate its weight gain. The same thing happens with alcoholism and drug addiction – trying to “control “ it often drives the supplicant deeper into their disease in a panicked reaction to the “loss” of supply.

    Challenge – But you can be ready. Open your Dream Journal. This is nothing more than the sore-muscled athlete, Day 2, thinking, I CAN’T DO THIS. Guess what? EVERYBODY THINKS THAT! Expect it! You treat yourself with loving compassion and cold compresses, hot baths and massage. In other words, there is an established map, a way to GETH THROUGH THIS. The challenge is to apply such a map to yourself, and then TAILOR and CUSTOMIZE it to your goals.

    Danger – Don’t go it alone. A side effect of “lessening supply” is “crazy thinking.” You will hear yourself say things like, “Nobody cares about me so I’ll just drink myself to death”; or “I WANT TO DISAPPEAR INTO THIS VAT OF ICE CREAM.” We all need somebody to talk us off the ledge, somebody who is familiar with not just our goals but what we are going through. Your id is holding the rest of you hostage, and you need an experienced hostage negotiator. So, don’t try making it through this crisis without a buddy AND a coach. AA has an acronym – HALT representing:
    Hungry
    Angry
    Lonely
    Tired
    These are the emotion states in which you make Bad Decisions. So when you see this condition developing – Halt. Call your hostage negotiator immediately.

    Opportunity – You will change! That’s the guarantee! You can’t go back to your old self. We can’t dip our fingers in the same river twice, and it turns out all addictions are an attempt to honor a past golden moment that can never, by definition, return. But you know what’s more interesting? Figuring out what that golden moment was, how it was caused, what it represents, and where the emotion you treasured is in your present life. And if it’ not there, how to get it. Trust me, there’s a world of love out there. If in doubt, see the movie UP. Now watch it again.

    Models & Mentors – “Setting goals is the first step into turning the invisible into the visible” – Tony Robbins

    “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not people or things”
    – Albert Einstein

    “A goal without a plan is just a wish” – Antoine St. Exupery

    “Always remember your focus determines your reality” – George Lucas

    Mantra – “I Plan”

    Meditation –

    #Haiku: Goals

    Courage is
    Constant map redesign:
    Looking backward
    Planning forward

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    Transformation – Metamorphosis – Are you a SciFi fan? Do you dream of bionic humans? Robots? Cryogenics? How about caterpillars becoming moths and butterflies? Acorns don’t look like oak trees, pollywogs don’t resemble frogs. It is quite common in nature to evolve into some unexpected form. What a metaphor for us, as Ovid’s Metamorphoses postulated centuries ago. We speculate about humans becoming invisible, disguising themselves as bats or wolves; Greek gods “became” swans and bulls to serve their purposes. Our imagination is rich with all these possibilities, as is our literature, theatre and film. At a funeral, we look at a bird invading the church is a whole new light. Is it a message? An incarnation?

    You Contain Multitudes – Every time you buy a bottle with an animal on the label you are calling on the powers of that creature just as your ancestors did. We suspect eating the flesh of creatures might confer their powers. We‘ve also heard the legend that when a human husk breathes its last, the soul escapes and may reincarnate in heaven or another life as something different, without blemish, wholly beautiful for once and for all.

    Challenge – Who’s your power animal? What supernatural gifts do you desire? Give yourself the freedom to think about the gifts you yearn for and the purposes you’d put them to. You can define yourself this way, experiment and play. You might not wish to be a dragon every day of the week, but once in a while it could be fun. How can you cultivate these gifts, desires and yearnings in your present-day life? Open your Dream Journal and spend some time considering. Don’t these dreams make you a bigger, more important person, even if nobody knows? What if they did know? How might you tell them and who would you tell?

    Danger – We don’t want to jump off buildings pretending we can fly. We’re expanding our psychic repertoire, not trying to escape into fantasy. The most commonly yearned for gift is omnipotence. But think how terrible life would be – not just for others but for YOU if your whims and fantasies were never checked? Often our wish is that we be spared the pain of growing up. But who wants to remain a toddler forever? As we get older we are REALLY coming into our own and knowing and sharing our true self. A joy not to be missed. Pity the toddler who prays to fly through the air so he doesn’t have to learn to walk and risk falling down.

    Opportunity – These metaphors are a great way to connect with others on a psychic level. It’s not just fun finding people to share our dreams and games, it’ a bonding experience. We are the Tiger people! We are the Mastodons! We are the Raptors! Every member of the team adds skills to create a Group Being who is stronger than all of us, and who could become our family and community.

    Models & Mentors – “Nothing gets transformed in your life until your mind is transformed” – Ifeanyl Enoch Onuoha

    “Every success story is a tale or adaptation, constant revision, and change”
    – Richard Branson

    “Perfection is constant transformation” – Nia Peeples

    “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not fighting the old but building the new” – Socrates

    Mantra – “I become”

    Meditation –

    #Haiku: Transformation – Metamorphosis

    Cells
    Seed change;
    Unwilled at birth;
    Conscious in adulthood:
    What
    Will you be?