Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #DreamTherapy

  • #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    Marriage – Partnership – Dreaming about weddings? Love, proposals, marriage? About The One that got Away? Dreaming about partnership enterprises in general – video gaming, tennis – where an Ideal Partner/Helper’s got your back? It’s very difficult to make it through life without a partner. We’ve got friends who come and go, sometimes special ones, but they’ve got obligations of their own. What if we had a Perfect Friend who made our Best Life their priority? What if we were not only willing to do the same for them but to promise this in public?

      Everybody Deserves Somebody – We come into adulthood with strong memories of familial dependence. We are all attracted to caretaking behaviors and easily seduced by promises to read our minds and give us what we really want – (even if we don’t know what it is ourselves.) Then we discover Desire. Not only for bodies, but for Persons, Lives, Individualities. Other people are a spice, other people are a medicine for everything our lives appear to be lacking. What if we could combine all our needs together in one appetizing package?

      Challenge – We rarely ask our friends to change their lives for us. They are VERY rarely willing to do so. But a partner is someone to actively plan a life with. You get to talk through all the Wants, the Possibles, the Fears. Heady stuff! The challenge is to know Yourself well enough to make any sort of honest statements about who you are, who you CAN be and who you want to be.

      Danger – A substantial number of partnerships fail. We all know this but we keep trying. Then there are the partnerships that evolve into Something Else, a Financial, Real Estate or Caregiving unit that is very necessary but also pretty far from what we originally had in mind. Our challenge is – can we know and be known? Can we evolve with another soul to a higher plane? Can we find our Soulmate? Does such a creature exist? Disappointment and betrayal are all too often the outcomes.

      Opportunity – Soulmates DO exist! And they DO evolve. We WILL change our lives for each other and they will change, blend, merge with us. Any interaction with another requires communication, boundaries, honesty, planning and “rules”. I put rules in quotes because a good partner keeps “transforming” the game and we keep transforming ourselves to meet it. The best way to honestly know yourself is to keep conscious, subconscious and unconscious in alignment. Purposeful dreaming – questioning the subconscious, confronting the unconscious and learning from the collective unconscious – is the best way to do that!

      Models & Mentors – “It’s not lack of love but lack of friendship that makes for unhappy marriages” – Friedrich Nietzsche

      “What counts in making a happy marriage is not compatibility but how you deal with incompatibility” – Leo Tolstoy

      “A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short”
      – Andre Maurois

      “The secret of a happy marriage is finding the right person. You know they’re the right person if you want to be with them all the time” – Julia Child

      Mantra – “I love”

      Meditation –

      #Haiku: Marriage

      Alone we perish
      Jointly immortal
      Heaven is
      Joy maximized

    1. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

      Earth – Resources –Do you dream of wealth? Storehouses of goodies? Digging in the earth and finding treasure? Gold at the end of the rainbow? These are “resource” dreams. In DreamTherapy, the “Earth” represents resources because Earth is the source ofeverything mortal that is valuable to us. Where we are born determines the very language we will use to quantify, remember and share our world.

        You are a Wealthy Heir – We are all born into fabulous possibility. However the fear ofemptiness and the dread of exclusion also start immediately. Focus on the wealth we DON’T have prevents us from identifying the resources we already possess now. Lucid dreaming can help us here. We will dream our way to understanding.

        Challenge – Open your Dream Journal. Let’s figure out what we’ve got going for us. Health? Youth? Sight? Hearing? Intelligence? Talents? Love? Education? Family? Community? Faith? Roof over head? Food on Table? Money coming in? People we candepend on? Is there a patch of sky where we can see the stars? Is there a patch of ground where we can see the flowers?

        Danger – There’s no question all these benefits can be improved upon. They are also subject to depredation, depreciation and degradation. It is a positive force to desire improvements, but it is dangerous to turn “wants” into rage.

        Opportunity – Often the one difference between happiness and misery is gratitude. Are you grateful for all you have been given? Do you feel lucky or fortunate in any way? To put things in perspective, lottery winners one year out are usually NOT AS HAPPY as those who have been in a serious accident one year previous!  Obviously, the secret is perspective. The lottery winners thought a pile of money would “solve” everything, the accident sufferers thought they were destroyed forever. Lottery winners learned how wrong they were about what they needed, while accident sufferers were focused on what they still had and what new caring relationships came into their lives. Begin to cultivate apractice of gratitude. It starts with a “Thank You.”

        Models & Mentors – “Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” – Carl Sagan

        “I only feel angry when I see waste, people throwing away things we could use” – Mother Teresa

        “Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed” – Mahatma Gandhi

        “The Earth has music for those who listen” – Shakespeare

        “Earth sustains us and we must sustain her”

        – Chief Dan George

        Mantra – “I thrive”

        Meditation –

        #Haiku: Resentment vs Gratitude

        Look back

        Bitter

        Maims

        Deforms;

        Gratitude

        Welcomes –

        Future

        Gift exchange

      1. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

        The Sun – Truth – Do you dream of a fully lit landscape? Are you basking in warm rays or are you trapped in skin-scorching light? As the Sun sheds light & heat it represents Truth.  It also sheds light on our efforts to locate, explain and exploit that mysterious force.

          You Are a Truth Teller and a Truth Diviner – Truth is complex. Dream are incontestably“real” but do they represent Truth? Can something be true on day and untrue the next?(see Ambivalence.) Is the storytelling child narrating “the truth”? Are myths true? Is the Bible true? Yes to all these questions. But No, also. Because the most important fact about truth is that, like us, it evolves. You easily recognize this in your own life. Something that was true of you twenty years ago is no longer true. You have changed. 

          Evolving Truth – Understandably, in a climate like this, people thirst for Unchanging Truth, and there are a few of these. Benjamin Franklin offered Death and Taxes, Jesus said evil can’t win, and Buddha said life itself is an illusion. The important factor in all this is Us – humanity. We are the eyes that think, the brain that evaluates, the mind that remembers. You are developing skills – Truth Seeking, Truth Telling and Truth Divining– and you are developing definitions. Congratulate yourself. Support yourself and otherson this noblest of enterprises. Because to die in the Truth is to pass eternally into the Light. You are literally making yourself worthy of immortality.

          Challenge – It’s so relaxing when you finally see the Truth. Suddenly you’re in the gulfstream, swimming WITH the tide! This is why fans love mystery stories  – they explain what was REALLY going on and you see all past events in a new light with a new understanding. Our daily life seems to request of us one hideous compromise after another until we wake up one morning feeling that we are lying to everybody – ourselves included.  Your challenge – should you accept it – is to bring your life more in harmonywith what you currently know to be true, all the while seeking a higher elevation of TheTruth.

          Danger – Nobody likes a hard-ass. Is your quest for truth turning you into a rigid, mean-spirited drill sergeant? I used to be authoritatively told by academic bosses that the mysteries I loved weren’t any good, that no way was Raymond Chandler as good as John Steinbeck. Worse, Jane Austen wasn’t as good as Philip Roth! Ugh! I did appreciate that what was “true” for them was NOT true for me but unfortunately for me, THEY did not appreciate that. So, be humble. You can never see (or reveal) all of the Truth. And it will evolve (as hopefully, you will) until you die and in my cosmology, are “perfected” and received into Bliss. You don’t have to believe in Bliss, by the way. Bliss believes in you.

          Opportunity – It’s probably dawned on you at this point that Truth, like everything funand worth doing, is a PROCESS. Welcome aboard! We’re all passengers on this exciting thrill-ride! So buckle up! Assemble a team! Get out your journal! Begin!

          Models & Mentors – “The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.” – David Foster Wallace

          “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act” – George Orwell

          “Speaking your truth is the most powerful tool you have” – Oprah Winfrey

          “Truth is like the Sun. You can shut it out for a while, but it ain’t going away”

          – Elvis Presley

          Mantra – “I see”

          Meditation –

          #Haiku: Truth

          Truth is all things

          That happened

          Closely shadowed by

          All things

          That didn’t

        1. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

          The Moon – Influence – You can’t feel it, but you can dream it. Something is pressing on you, like gravity, the way the moon’s pressure rolls the tide.
          Your Subconscious Knows – You are a secret to yourself but your subconscious has all the answers. She only reveals herself in dreams. Time for some interpretation. Object dreams are fear dreams, people dreams are love dreams, motion dreams are time dreams. The opposite of fear, remember, is attraction, the opposite of love is hate and the opposite of yearning is stasis. Each forward pulse contains its opposite.


          Challenge – With the knowledge of this assistance, you can interpret your own dreams. Open your Dream journal. If you are an artist, draw or paint it. Don’t look for rigid accuracy – we seek connections, not edges, walls and blocks. The purpose of dreaming is to address blocks. If you are a writer write out not only the dream but its connections, what it makes you think about, what if it reminds you of. If there was a prominent object, animal or person in the dream seek out a picture on the internet, gaze at it for insight.


          Danger – We seek to heighten, not damage, your self will. Others in your life – relative, friends, advertisers, politicians – are trying to take control of you. Don’t let them. The way to stop it is to take control of your fears yourself, so that you will not be ruled by them. Remember, the opposite of fear is attraction. We always seek a way upward. The direction of the spiral must be UP.


          Opportunity – This is a unique opportunity for self-definition and growth. Form a Dream Group where you discuss your dreams, offer positive (i.e. helpful and growth oriented) interpretations of each other’s dreams and attempt some lucid dreaming together. The way to do this is to promote s Sacred Circle with drumming, hand-holding, music and yoga. Choose a late evening hour when you are naturally tired. Like on the floor – protected by yoga mats, a comforter or a comfy carpet. Inaugurate a round of deep breathing, punctuated by soft, rhythmic chanting. “OM” is easiest and most effective. The first person to wake prepares a floral, herbal tea such as chamomile, puts on soft music and slowly wakes the others. Discuss and write down everything you remember. This is usually a dynamic way to take control of your dreams and begin dreaming as a group.

            Mantra – “Fearless”

            Models & Mentors – “Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars”

            – J. R. R Tolkien

            “Like the Moon, come out from behind the clouds. Shine!”– Buddha

            “Everyone is a Moon, and has a dark side he never shows to anybody”

            – Mark Twain

            “The moon gives pure solitude and tranquility”
            – Haruki Murakami

            Meditation –

            #Haiku: Dream Group

            Souls
            Wake
            Together
            Floating;
            Prison dissolved;
            Share
            Language with
            The moon.

          1. #Dream Therapy – Dream Journaling With Alysse Aallyn

            The Shadow – Dissonance –

            Dreaming of reversals? Sudden surprises or a creeping sense of unease? Upsets? Do you wake with a sense of having forgotten something important you almost understood? Feeling lost?

              Some dreams just leave us unsettled, feeling “weird”. Something touched us, but we are of a divided mind as to whether it was pleasant or not.

              You Are A Sensitive Instrument registering seismic shifts and deep tectonic disturbances below the threshold of consciousness. Remember, what we call “consciousness” is many-layered. Beneath your conscious is your subconscious – the things you’ve put out of mind.. Below that is your unconscious –the things you don’t know you know – it is the unconscious that is accessible to us in dreams.

              The Subconscious is noisy, like a neglected child. It will occupy all your attention if you let it. But the Unconscious is a lot more interesting. Something always IS “going on” OUTSIDE YOURSELF and you are alert to the many warning signals! This can be exhausting. We have been dreaming of relaxation, peace and quiet, the clear blue sky with not a single cloud, and here are all these depthless mutterings.

              And there’s a deeper layer yet! The collective unconscious connects us to other people, living and dead, the memories of your relatives, of history itself.

              Challenge – We are not going to get rid of our spidey senses and we must refuse to numb, ignore or inflate them. The key to intelligent management of dissonance is to think of the world as an orchestra playing a symphony. The more able we are to distinguish the varied instruments and musical lines the more we will appreciate and enjoy the experience. Balance is always key. In this cacophony, YOU are the important one. We accept all the levels of consciousness without fear; they will not control us. They are asking us to control them. We will schedule regular periods of rest and renewal where we put problems far away from mind and give thanks for this body, this moment, this sense of appreciation and wonder.

              Danger – Avoid a “bunker mentality.” The universe has many bunkers, but is bigger than any single one. We cultivate a hierarchy of response. Get out of bed in the middle of the night for a fire alarm, not a phone notification. Don’t allow yourself to ever feel helpless but seek out advice and encouragement from others who understand a healthy growth process. All of us live in groups, curate your group to promote intelligent awareness in an atmosphere of hope. Dissonance is never doom.

              Opportunity – We each have a chance to spend our night on the watchtower, but you don’t need to spend every night there. Consider dissonance an invitation to maturity. We are putting away childish things. The sky is NOT falling, however the climate is under legitimate scientific threat. Strategize ways to band together to take useful action. This is an opportunity to show self-love, as well as love for the group, the environment, the world and the future. Open your Dream Journal. The attitude, “I care about you so I’m going to take care of you” keeps us sensitive to the message of Universal Love that is waiting to embrace us.

              Models & Mentors – Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to fads, trends and popular opinion”
              – Jack Kerouac

              “Better to fail in originality than succeed in imitation”
              – Herman Melville

              “If you don’t fit in, you’re probably doing the right thing” – Henry David Thoreau

              “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth”

              – John F. Kennedy

              Mantra – “I Hear You”

              Meditation –

              Haiku: Dissonance

              Nonsense;
              Clues disappeared
              Fragmenting circle
              Unsolvable
              Mystery

            1. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

              Synchronicity – Education –

                Dreaming of longed for events?  Ultimate fulfillment? These are the kinds of dreams we are unwilling to wake up from, long, glorious parties of perfect happiness where everything seems to be unfolding exactly the way it should. Synchronous events are harmonious, asif the universe is a vast perfectly working clockwork machine.  These are “longing for security” dreams.

                What Provides Security?  Facts. Maps. Charts. Dictionaries. Understanding machines,systems, attribution and calibration – all the subjects of the educational process. This isthe reason we spend the first twenty plus years of our lives in instructive settings.

                Our Biggest Psychological Mistake – We take it personally (“God is against me!”) rather than understanding the systems behind disaster (soil depletion, germ theory, ozone destruction, overcrowding, nutritional deficiency, etc.) It’s called “fundamental attribution error.”

                You Can Learn – In fact you are a fierce absorber or knowledge. Advertisers know this, asdo the designers of games and entertainment generally. We adore self-educating mazes.

                Challenge – Open up that Dream Journal.  Assemble your Dream Buddies. We need todesign a life long learning plan that benefits US, not one that puts our hard earnedmoney in someone else’s pocket.

                Danger – we are seduceable. We get tired, we long for reinforcements and approval. Wejust want to put our feet up.

                Opportunity – But we are smart! Our self-designed goal system must contain refreshmentand renewal breaks. Most importantly, we will be needing a buddy as we go through thesystem, and a spiritual guru who provably has our best interests at heart.

                Models & Mentors – “Education is the key to unlocking the world. It is the passport to freedom.” – Oprah Winfrey

                “Learning never exhausts the mind.” – Leonardo da Vinci

                “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela

                “Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today” – Malcolm X

                Today’s Mantra – “I love to learn”

                Meditation –

                #Haiku: Higher Education

                Go on,

                Splurge!

                Throw yourself at

                Knowledge!

                Nothing to lose but

                Ignorance…

              1. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

                Solitude – Self-sufficiency –

                  Dreaming of time alone? Fearing it, perhaps?  We are born into a cacophony of voices. It is vital that we carve out time to reflect on all that is happening to us and the part we play and want to play. Our dreams alone could fill a shelf of books – plus we need time to cultivate, curate and care for a daytime self. Sometimes we have other people to care for and relationships to manage. We need to learn how to be our own best friend.

                  Your Mind Is Your Most Important Tool – Your mind determines your experience which controls your mind which develops your experience in a perfect feedback loop. In a culture based on “likes” from strangers we are all too ready to hand the reins of our brain over to God know who. Advertisers,influencers and partisans do NOT have your best interests at heart. We must learn how to develop that feedback loop into an upward trending spiral.

                  Challenge – We are determined to develop self-confidence. We need to trust, not fear, our ownreactions. This takes practice – “reps” in the words of the physical trainers. There is no need for two weeks alone on the Appalachian Trail (nice as that would be) because we are already alone inside our heads. Open your Dream Journal and consider: Check your voices: what are you saying to yourself?“Good effort” or “Idiot”? It matters! Many of us treat ourselves worse than we would treat any otherhuman (or animal.) That changes today.

                  Danger – We are not proposing a life without feedback or a divorce from reality. If you really were yourown best friend, you would protect, not exalt yourself. You would strategize towards health and sharing,not secrecy and isolation.

                  Opportunity – find a voice you respect and admire to model your internal voice. Strategize with Dream Buddies. Can you check with this person that you are on the right path? We all need a life coach or acheerleader in our corner. 

                  Learn to enjoy time alone by building in rewards – indulging in nourishinghobbies as simple as walking and reading. You don’t need rocket science, you need a healthful day today peaceful retreat inside your own head.

                  Models & Mentors – “Loneliness is the poverty of self – Solitude is the richness of self.” – May Sarton

                  “The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude”  – Voltaire

                  “Solitude is necessary for creativity” – Picasso

                  “The best thinking is done in solitude” – Thomas Edison

                  Mantra: “I am enough”

                  Meditation –

                  #Haiku: Solitude – Self-Sufficiency

                  Plaited rhyme of

                  Past and future voices

                  Advise, protect

                  Entertain

                1. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

                  Peace – Serenity – The Power of Happy Dreams – Do you have a mental happy place to retreat to whenever you need a psychic lift?  It doesn’t even need to be a place you’ve ever actually been for you to dream about it. Multiverse proponents would argue that you’ve already been there. Do your dreams involve beaches, vacation, relaxation, memories of happy times when you hadnothing to do but enjoy yourself and revel in the moment?

                  Happy Dreams are prophecies of all the peace and serenity that await us, greeting us whenwe first came into the world.

                  Peace is Possible. Serenity is an Idea. Most of us are familiar with the “serenity prayer”  written by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:

                  “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; taking this world as it is and not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right.”

                  It’s possible to maintain serenity, even when things are awful. The Serenity Prayer works as aninoculation against pointless worry, which is seen as “borrowing trouble.”

                  Challenge – Like meditation, serenity is a mental state that takes practice. Take out your your Dream Journal.Make a list of your most pressing concerns. Can you do anything about any of them today? If so,appoint a time when you will take a step towards resolving this concern. If you can’t do anything aboutit, put it forcefully out of your mind. Imagine your worries as a bunch of balloons. Now let them go, one by one. Put each useless worry on a piece of paper and burn them slowly, each by each. Give yourself a“mantra”; a word or phrase you find comforting and centering, and repeat it out loud to yourself. St. Julian of Norwich recommended: ”All things will be well”, Coué offered, “Every day, in every way I amgetting better and better”, some yoga enthusiasts chant a simple “Om.” You can use a phrase from yourown past said to you by a Beloved Person – “now you’ll be fine” “You’re safe” “You’re perfect”“Everything’s all right”or the tried and true: “I love you.” My favorite is from Revelation: “Every tear wiped away.”

                  Danger – We are all worried about missing something, or someone. Often that “centering person”, that reassuring person from our past is not just the one who gave us the relaxation code, but is also the one who told us what to worry about: ie.”Make sure all the locks are locked” “Have you done yourhomework?” There certainly are things to be concerned about (“Are you registered to vote?”) but there are plenty of worries we CAN’T help with. Return to the serenity prayer and start weeding out – onpaper – your Justifiable Concrns. One of the best things about Anxiety – and I mean this – is it offers anopportunity to ask for help. Yes, I say “opportunity”! Because life is  all about RELATIONSHIPS. Soworries offer us a unique chance to forge a meaningful, worthwhile relaionship with Someone Else. Who? It depends. Get ready to experiment. As with every other relationship in your life, yourrequirements, tolerance, communication goals are unique. Many people want to speak to a professional– therapist or life coach – and plenty of professionals out there are auditioning for a little – or a lot – ofyour hard-earned cash. An excellent place to start is with Proven Gurus like Tolle Eckhart or Pema Chodon who can be accessed from any library. See what you think. Evaluate their assistance. Inquirefurther.

                  Opportunity – This is a perfect moment to harness the power of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreams are INTENTIONAL. Imagine that! You could go to that happy place ANY TIME you needed it and, best of all, use your night time rest as an arena and your “happy place” as a vessel to anchor your subconscious. We have worries we don’t even know about yet! But we also have powerful forces onour side. Practice sleeping to “special music” with a mental picture of your “happy place.” Aaah.

                  Models & Mentors – “Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” – The Dalai Lama

                  “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Reinhold Niebuhr

                  “Serenity of spirit and turbulence of action make up the sum of life”

                  – Vita Sackville-West

                  “Enjoy the peace of nature and declutter your inner world” – Amit Ray

                  Meditation –

                  #Haiku: Wealth

                  Peace to dream

                  Play to share

                  Health to dance

                  Worlds to

                  Explore

                  Joy to

                  Extend

                2. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

                  Recovery & Rebirth –

                  The compulsion of recurring dreams torments us. These re-envisagings of past events re-enact Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for all to see, shaming and blaming at the same time.

                  My recurring dreams all involve writing, my sister’s involve the car accident she was in at four years old.  Get out your Dream Journal. Consult your Dream Buddies. Do you have recurring dreams? What are they trying to tell you?

                  Don’t be afraid – You’ve got this. We’re going to change your dreamscape. We’re going to begin dreaming about rebirth.

                  You’re the Pilot – “The bad news is time flies – the good news is, you’re the pilot.”  What do memories in general – these memories in particular – symbolize for you? 

                  “Recovery begins to happen we repel a demonic force that kept us in thrall” – could beaddiction, illusion, corruption, compulsive behavior; even a poisonous culture.   Were we hostage to another human being who didn’t have our best interests at heart?  This requires deep thought about our best interests. As our brains clear we get ideas. Ernest Hemingway used to say we are “stronger at the broken places”; Nietzsche expressed it as “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”. Healing provides peace as well as joy.  We give thanks that wehave begun the journey.

                  Challenge: Expect to stumble.  Watching toddlers try to “rise and walk” we consider it lucky thatthey don’t mind being laughed at. (In fact, they love it.)  It takes them time to figure out this new modality.  Like beginning skiers, they cling to objects, sway exaggeratedly back and forth, slam into others, and plop down SPLAT; not just once or twice but over and over.  In fact the toddler hasn’t been born who suddenly vaults up suavely and starts swanning around in a sophisticated manner.

                  Embrace the First step of Recovery: “Expect to go splat.”  Of course we don’t WANT to –fingers crossed –  it’s dangerous and bruising.  We’d better arrange to have a friend around – just in case. But you don’t fail unless you refuse to rise again. Don’t even bother counting the times you were “brave”.  It’s only the “getting back up” that counts. As long as you’re doing that,you’re a true winner.

                  Danger – Life never goes the way we planned.  There’s the excitement of finding a plan,investigating goals, making them ours, and committing to the plan – and then there’s living the plan.Suddenly we don’t know how to get through the next ten minutes –worse, we make a “big mistakes”unconsciously. The rational self we’ve planned for fails to show up and instead we turn into someirrational monster who threatens to kill when momentarily frustrated. 

                  This is like sport-learning. Allow each new behavior to penetrate every fiber of your whole body. Rehearse over and over. (10,000 times?)  It’s ALL mistakes at first. Our mental concepts of “perfection” and “purity” arecompletely misplaced here; this is more like forming calluses over tender new skin. It feels funny atfirst, sore. It might actually “hurt.” We’re on the early steps of a long journey to a wonderful place;and we won’t get there unless we forgive ourselves, pick ourselves up and keep going.

                  Opportunity –  We wish happiness was “automatic’ but it requires planning. Pledge to contrastplanned empowerment with benumbed abandon. Think about what this means. Who envies loss of consciousness?  Wouldn’t it be better to remove the source of the pain, the shame we are escaping from? Is this nostalgic fantasy really some faint memory of union, with an equally desperate hordestanding in for the lost, beloved Other? What would it mean to give up these blind yearnings, thiscultivated pain and these unbearable memories to lead a fresh, released and intentional life? It means accepting and becoming a new self in all our exquisitely uniqueness, exploring everything that implies. It doesn’t mean we’ll never have another recurring dream. Dreams become a conversation we are having with our deepest selves, by the light of the universe. Recovery is “self-forgiveness”;going forward with a clear-eyed, honest appraisal of ourselves, resources and desires. “I am free”

                  Models & Mentors – “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life” – J.K. Rowling

                  “The airplane takes off against the wind, not with it” – Henry Ford

                  “Believe you can and you’re halfway there” – Theodore Roosevelt

                  “The best way to predict your future is to create it” – Abraham Lincoln

                  Meditation –

                  #Haiku: Recovery = Rebirth

                  Mulligan –

                  Rare gift;

                  A “do-over”

                  ‘Cause you DO know

                  What you know now

                3. #DreamTherapy – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

                  Rainbow – Serendipity – 

                  Do You Dream of Pots of Gold?  Magic transferences? Breaks in the laws of physics benefiting only you?

                  You Were Born Lucky – Consider: What is the greatest piece of good luck you’ve ever had? Your parentage? Talents? Home town? Best friend? A piece of advice? A special teacher? Think about it. Have you ever been offered apiece of good luck you couldn’t take advantage of, but wish you had?

                  How lucky do you NEED to be? Are you familiar with the faces of gamblers seated hour by hour at the slot machines, wearing special gloves so their skin doesn’t fall off? Seriously, who would want to be them? Is it luck itself that wegive thanks for, or our ability to recognize good fortune? Perhaps it’s our ability to take advantage of a piece of good luck when we’re offered it. These memories have one thing in common- i.e. “ability”, which is not luck, which is YOU. Give thanks for these abilities. Let’s learn to develop them. Open up your Dream Journal.

                  Challenge – A different way of thinking about fortune is not all the wonderful things that didn’thappen, but the terrible things that COULD have happened – and didn’t. In other words, let’s tryadopting a “glass half full” perspective and see how far that gets us.

                  Danger – The danger is always the same – giving control of our psyche over to some other entitythat may not (almost certainly doesn’t) have our best interests at heart. We’re usually not evenaware we’re doing this. But when you want to “be lucky” what does that mean? In whose eyes?Let’s put ourselves firmly in the driver’s seat and take a look at the path ahead. Do we want to gothere? Do we really trust these people? Are we the dog throwing away a real bone to reach theillusory bone we see pictured in the watery reflection of Aesop’s Fable?

                  Opportunity – As we negotiate our mortal existence we have a unique opportunity to takeadvantage of chance appearances and encounters – that’s serendipity. If we recognize them. Thenwe can compare our steps to the immortal framework of eternity and ask, How am I doing?

                  Models & Mentors – “Serendipity is when you find things that you weren’t looking for because what you are looking for is so damned difficult”

                  – Erin McKean

                  “Steer into the skid” – Alysse Aallyn

                  “Here you are moving ahead bravely in spite of everything going wrong” – Rithvik Singh

                  “Take advantage of happy accidents” – Vincent van Gogh

                  “There are no coincidences” – Sigmund Freud

                  Meditation –

                  #Haiku: Rainbow – Serendipity

                  Happenstance –

                  Fortuitous

                  Chance; we’re

                  Born lucky

                  We just don’t know it.