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The other night I had a dream.
While this might not seem Earth shattering, one of the implications is that I actually got a full night’s sleep-significant because the responsibilities of my life had eroded my precious rest time until I was more than tired; I was totally stressed. I’d just spent four days (and wee morning hours) in the emergency room and hospital for my mother. Searching for advice, I googled “Stress Relief,” hoping for a few actually useful insights.
All the oft-quoted action steps came up, like “Take Time Off,” which I filed under “Mission Impossible“; and “Do Yoga,” basically a sub-set of “Take Time Off.” I stored this advice alongside its predecessor, but also cross-filed it under “Suicidal Action,” as the last time I’d pretended to be Gumby, the flexible action doll, I’d ended up with a twisted neck and $1,000 in chiropractic bills.
There also was the ever-popular vote, “Breathe Deeply,” a suggestion I immediately tossed under “Forget It.” The only safety mechanism preventing me from speaking my mind to my mother was the aptitude for holding my breath developed while taking swimming lessons as a youngster. My search did, however, yield a number of interesting reports about stress relief, of particular interest this time of year. Who isn’t stressed at the holidays?
Stress is our reaction to a change that requires an adjustment. I’d love the opportunity to adjust to a Power Ball win. Unfortunately, most stressful situations don’t promise to favor us, at least immediately. Nonetheless, most stress relief experts insist that our responses can at least shape the outcome for the better, or at least, avert the “worst.”
One of the most important stress responses involves feeling and honoring our emotions. I’m a believer in crying. Crying with a loved one relieves tension and invites bonding. To not cry (when we need to) is to internalize our tears-and our fears, which then build up, causing everything from bad relationships to depression to physical illness.
Anger is another solid line of defense. If the situation has angered us, it’s good to acknowledge and express our anger. Anger doesn’t always have to be rational; in fact, sometimes it doesn’t make sense.
Through my intuitive healing business, a recent client admitted something she felt really guilty about; a secret that she hadn’t told anyone. She was angry with her son, who had committed suicide. “How dare he do this to me?” She ranted, communicating that not only was she struggling with the guilt and anger, but also migraine headaches, weight loss, insomnia, and thoughts of committing suicide herself. Having expressed her anger, she returned home. She called a week later. Her physical symptoms had completely disappeared within the week, but most important, she stated that she now understood how feelings could drive someone to the edge. She felt nothing but compassion for what her son had done to himself.
To repress anger is dangerous. Studies from renown institutions including Stanford University have shown that buried anger causes a significant increase in the occurrence of autoimmune disease, cancer, heart problems, and infections, as well as recovery from the same. Bottling up ANY emotion is potentially lethal; bottled up memories and emotions, such as from abuse or exposure to alcoholism, increases the chance of suffering from cardiovascular disease between 25 and 70 percent.
As with anything, however, expressing emotions as a way to reduce stress usually only goes so far. I don’t know about you, but following the rest of the typical stress-reduction tips doesn’t always ring my bell, either. When I received a phone call telling me that my oldest son was in a head-on car crash, no amount of sobbing, shouting, chanting, mantra recitation, or prayer did a thing to reduce my stress. For months afterward, any time he was late after school I totally freaked out.
And the situation with my mother was doing a pretty good job of freaking me out; that is, until I had a dream-the dream I promised to tell you.
I am in a huge school, as are zillions of other people. I wander room to room, trying to figure out where I fit in. Everyone seems so compulsively accomplished. There are gymnasts winning medals and scientists conducting Nobel Peace prize experiments. Teachers teaching and clowns clown and everyone but me seems to have a place.
I feel unaccepted, unequal, and unlovable. Stressed, you might say.
Finally I make my way to an auditorium and am handed a billet that says, “God In Person Any Minute Now.” Along with millions of others, I sit in expectancy. Then Mel Gibson appears in drag and begins dancing.
Everyone begins to boo and hiss. Evidently they had expected an older gentleman in long white robes. Eventually, they filter out of the auditorium, leaving me alone. Bereft, I stare at Mel, who isn’t my favorite character in the best of times. Then he winks.
I look around, but there’s no one to confirm that yes, I’d been winked at. Mel winks again, and I know he’s letting me in on his secret; he really IS God. I like his lipstick. I wonder why my childhood Sunday School didn’t get God’s personality right, but I also I ponder this:
What good is a “God” that no one recognizes?
Then other characters suddenly appear on stage.
There are children on crutches and mothers missing limbs, men bleeding from bullet wounds and elders with sores. The needy, the abused, the poor, and the hurt-the people with the real stresses; the people we all are, on the inside. What is Mel-God-going to do? Once again, what can “God” do if no one recognizes “him”?
As I watch, Mel indicates that I should come up on stage. I do. He then touches my heart, and I begin to feel the realities of the people on the stage. I feel their pain and suffering, their needs and dreams, and ultimately, their hope, which is that someone will care. And I feel something else. I feel love for them. I feel this love because I know what it’s like to need to be cared about. Every problem, every illness, heartache, heartbreak, and need is ultimately the same-a need to be loved.
Mel now starts to walk off the stage. I feel panicked. What am I going to do up here? How can I possibly help all these people? He just smiles, and I know what he is saying. I simply start to touch a few hearts, and I notice after a while, those whose hearts were touched, begin to touch the hearts of others. And at some point, someone comes to me and puts her hand on my heart. It feels good.
The dream ended because I awoke to a phone call. My mother needed me again. I sighed, but I noticed I didn’t feel as uptight as usual. Instead, I recognized that all that was really required of me was an expression of love – and that didn’t need to cost me anything. In fact, it just might provide me with something.
In order to care for her, I had to awaken my ability to give. To be cared for, she had to activate her ability to receive. No matter the stressor, the antidote – the medicine – is contained within the problem.
Maybe stress isn’t really a demand for adjustment; perhaps it is an invitation to love. Maybe “stress,” that awful, gut-wrenching shakiness, points out the area where we have bought into lovelessness. Where we’ve failed to recognize our ability to love or give love, we perceive only a cost.
Maybe what’s hard is that “God” really does come in many forms and disguises; as many as there are now people – beings – walking this earth. Never the same way twice.
© 2009 Cyndi Dale/Essential Energy • All Rights Reserved
*Photograph 1 provided by akshay moon
*Photograph 2 provided by Phillie Casablanca
*Photograph 3 provided by aussiegall
About the author:Cyndi Dale - is the author of The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy, and eight other bestselling books on energy healing, including The Complete Book of Chakra Healing. She has worked with over 30,000 clients in the past 20 years. To learn more about Cyndi, her work, books and products please visit: www.cyndidale.com
11 Comments to “Essential Energy with Cyndi Dale: The Dream of Love”
Hi Cyndi and Evita, this is beautiful. I know my comment doesn’t directly respond to the stories and dreams told here, but it is what came to my me upon reading this.
For me this line says it all: “Maybe stress isn’t really a demand for adjustment; perhaps it is an invitation to love.”
The older I get the more I’ve learned that if I am stressed, worried, anxious or whatever…if I simply let go of all that and turn to love, it all goes away. But it goes deeper; I not only let go and turn to love, but I ACTIVELY reach out and love others (all beings) everywhere I go. For me, if I am stressed I have stepped away from love. Not only is there peace in that love, but I am stronger, clearer and calmer and will deal with any stressful situation much better.
Someone was recently telling me of a story they read of the Jewish people in the German prison camps. They said the story told of someone who had been in one of the prisons, and how people who were able to stay in a place of love(sometimes even after seeing their whole family slaughtered), and the people who shared their almost non-existent food with others, and the people who helped others when they themselves had nothing were often the ones who stayed healthier and were better able to survive.
This just moved me to tears. I really enjoyed this article.
Thank you and hugs to you both,
Robin
When I have a lot of stress I often cannot figure out whether the stressor is a good or a bad thing. Ultimately it can be either I suppose depending on our reaction to it. But in this case can we really assign a value to it? Stress and change simply exist. The nature of our response gives it a name.
Hi Cyndi and Evita,
Stress never really accomplishes anything. I have found that when I start to get stress it is because there is some kind of fear. Once I see that, I remind myself to just let the stress go and to remember that life has a way of working things out for the best. So I just go back to going with the flow.
And I love the dream. My spiritual journey has taken me all over the world and through all kinds of experiences. As a result, I have come to see that there is so much more to God than we see. God is so multi-faceted.
Thanks Cyndi, this is a beautiful piece of writing. I very much agree about expressing our emotions too. (Fighting ourselves – our emotions – is a recipe for stress I think.)
I guess I’d put it a little differently: the adjustment we need is to love.
Thanks for a beautiful and insightful post.
Hi Cyndi and Evita,
Evita, what a wonderful and moving guest you have here today! You both touch upon parts deep inside, and that is so beautiful.
Cyndi, I love the dream you have shared. It makes me think about God in my daily life, and am I recognizing Him in all the encounters each day brings? Or do I miss Him all too often? Your true compassion and caring shine through here. And as I leave today, I take with me an image of God always there in my life – I just have to recognize Him…
Hello Cyndi and Evita!
I was really moved by this article and it spoke to me in many ways. Cyndi, I love the way you write.
The last line in your article “Maybe what’s hard is that “God” really does come in many forms and disguises; as many as there are now people – beings – walking this earth. Never the same way twice.” This reminds me of something I often say to people. I say “There are over six billion people on this planet and just as many different views of God.” Even though that is quite a few, I think God is even bigger. It’s pretty awesome to think about.
Thank you so much for this uplifting, and thought provoking, article. :-)
Cyndi – this was fantastic! Wow – you presented people here with so many great ideas….
You have shared with us all that as life happens, sometimes our physical side comes through no matter what we read or learn, and that is okay.
You stressed the importance of letting our feelings come through – not bottling them up.
You have enlightened and expanded the view of God – and how many people do and will miss God in their everyday life, as they just don’t recognize “him/her”.
And finally you have presented stress in perhaps the most beautiful way that I have ever seen!
In the end, it is so true, all that is really required in so many of life’s situations is an expression of love.
Couldn’t be put any simpler or said any better – thank you – this was truly fantastic!
———————–
Thank you so much Robin, David, Nadia, Evan, Lance and Keith for adding such beautiful comments, and sharing some of your experiences here in addition to what Cyndi has written. Your comments are very much appreciated.
As I reread my own dream, I have to challenge myself to REMEMBER that everyone wears God’s face–and hands and dreams and hopes. My therapist is a Sufi and she often brings our emotional work back to the need to accept who I really am; that I am a single expression of the Divine, as is everyone else, and all are important.
I’ve had some interesting awarenesses lately, wondering if anyone else has, that of a second or “true” reality interspliced within the one we call real. Every so often I shake my head. The edges of life blur, the constructs of a room disintegrate, and it’s like I am where we really are–that idea of heaven in earth. I used to struggle a lot with the idea that life is an illusion, that we really are in a grand place…how can that be with so much evil and darkness? I’m not so puzzled anymore-
as a client recently expressed about his own soul journey, there are several stages:
o innocence
o a trauma
o need to fight
o need to learn not to fight
o need to love
o desire to give
o ability to receive as much as possible so as to be as great as possible; the purpose: to be part of the transformation of the kingdom of earth as the kingdom of heaven
anyway!!!
Hi Cyndi — the dream story is hilarious! The interpretation of stress as an invitation to be more loving — particularly toward yourself — seems spot on to me. Whenever I feel stressed, my sense is that I’m getting all caught up in the image I’m portraying to the world as opposed to who I am and what I want, and letting go of that concern can be so liberating.
I love reading dreams.
Mel Gibson is a reflection of your self that you deny. However, you are learning that God is in everything. Gibson is a strong male character. It is something you may be denying in your self. You hold him away from you. Allow him to enter you without judgement and you will energize the masculine within, bringing you in closer alignment with your Higher Self. We have forgotten that everything is spirit and is a reflection of love unless we block the love from our core, thereby seperating us from the source. Everyone is wearing a costume and is playing a game, but they have forgotten and therefore have repressed it.
You are now on stage because you know can create miracles because you have found the God within. Now revisit your mind and from your Heart you can wave your hands and make everything ok again. See the children dropping their cruthes and have them begin to play. Have them sing and dance and be alive. Reignite the child within. Show the mothers that they still have their limbs intact and that it was only an illusion that they were missing in the first place. Become the doctor and dress the males wounds. Show the elders respect by listening to them from within so that they no longer hate themselves because they are not being heard. The sores will then heal.
Dreams are powerful: we can re-enter them and redesign them with the symbols of our making.
Your dream shows that you hold much love and with this love you can heal the world from within your self.
b
This uplifting article is a gentle reminder to everyone how discomfort is a profound teacher. Stress or any other perceived reason for restlessness is all encouraging us to shift our frequencye and attune more consciously to love. I relate to the story in different ways. Happy Holidays to everyone!