A Dream of Being Lost - Part IV

I had another dream in relation to the point of alcohol. I was at a bar, inside the bar with a couple of people that I knew, but not enough to remember their names. I had been trying for some time to get a beer and was getting a little frustrated feeling more and more thirsty. Then I walked outside (I guess in search of a beer) and saw tables outside, open spaces with a  flowing river and I knew that, outside in the open air was where I wanted or needed to be. When I saw my friends again, I explained to them that, as they didn’t know me very well, as demonstrated by me not yet remembering their names, they of course wouldn’t know that I prefer to be outside. Thus, I suggested that we go outside in the open air instead of hanging around inside in a closed space. Then the bartender came back and I told her that I wanted a beer, a good beer one of those traditional ones. She ran off a list and then said, how about a Fighter, there are still a of them left. I’ll have a Fighter, I replied and then I awoke from my dream. I wonder if I’m even employing sarcasm in my dreams to avoid actually getting to the heart of the matter. I’ve noticed that this is another means of preoccupying or diverting myself away from the subject, talking or writing around the it rather than diving straight into it.

The addiction character, played by me is of course of and as me, at least a part of me, one that I have sometimes done battle with - perhaps symbolized sarcastically by the word “fighter” in the dream. In the past, I used to call myself a working or functional alcoholic because I would drink alcohol most nights of the week, never at work or during working hours - hence the term working alcoholic. Drinking was simply how I spent much of my time when I wasn’t cleaning the house, working or taking care of other business. Even my postgraduate and extracurricular studies,  thousands and thousands of hours of them were often done with beer, whisky or wine, sometimes all together and sometimes even with cigar. In looking back, although I was not always necessarily happy or unhappy during those times, I do not recall ever feeling fulfilled. In fact, there were several times in my life when I just dropped a good job or a successful business to search for something more. The problem was that I kept searching for more out there to fulfill me, rather than creating that fulfilment from within.  

Then about ten years ago, when I found Desteni and as I began investigate information about our existence and apply the tools of self-improvement or self creation, I began to realize that perhaps there is in deed more to life and living. It was The Design of Alcohol and Alcoholics that most caught my attention.   Actually, it did more than catch my attention. It presented to me the design of an obstacle, one that  I knew from that moment on would be perhaps the biggest obstacle of my process in this lifetime. Thus, over the years, I investigated, as per “the design’s” advice, pushing myself  to observe and experiment. The first real experiment I did consisted of focusing on the point of drinking and stopping it via mind over matter. Unfortunately, what I didn’t realize at the time was that, in focusing on not drinking (as the positive or opposite polarity in relation to drinking), I was also charging the point of drinking as the negative polarity. Accordingly, one day about 8 or 9 years ago while I was shopping for some food, out of the corner of my eye I saw some beer. I didn’t even attempt to try to stop myself from buying it, because at that point the energy of that polarity had built up to such an extent that I as that entity or personality was already completely consumed and possessed by it. It’s a sly, patient and devious mind of mine, which brings me to another point that I’ve been considering in relation to freedom within control or “structure” which I would also prefer to use instead of the word control.

In considering that the addiction character as a mind entity (like a parasite that is aware and living off the physical body) is within and as me, it is also important for me realize that this entity, perhaps like a personality of the mind, probably has full access to me as mind, perhaps even more that I am aware. As such, there’s no way I’m going to to go to battle (as I did before) with this point because it would be like starting a war within myself, one that no one would win. Why? Because no matter which strategy I employ, short of complete self-honesty, there’ll be a counter strategy to keep me cycling around and around. Thus, my plan is to work with the mind, being and body for the benefit of all of me.

It’s kind of like my approach to dealing with viruses. As viruses are part of what is here within and as, why should I be instructing my body to attack what is within and as me, while voicing words of oneness and equality? This is not to say that strong antibiotics are not sometimes essential to dealing with viruses and physical ailments, but that our sometimes bellicose or warlike approach to dealing with viruses, AI and other designs should perhaps be reconsidered.  In short, when dealing virused in the body (and this is another experiment that I’ve been working on), instead of imagining and/or sounding instructions for one’s immune system to attack the viruses,  perhaps a better approach to sound words or instructions of unity, embracing the viruses and all else within and as the body equally as one from the starting point of cooperating to coexist in a way or form that is best for all. Like so much of this existence, the viruses just want to survive. Herein, the choice is to continue competing, cycling through the stages of winning and losing or to change tactics, changing our starting point from one of opposition to one of cooperation.

As the addiction character within and as me is perhaps an entity, kind of like a virus, it is not to oppose it - as this will just energize it more. Instead it is to… This is my question or quest that I’ll continue investigating as I walk this path of letting go of the secrecy while expanding my self-honesty - which is also an investigation for me.

A Dream of Being Lost - Part II, Analysis

A Dream of Being Lost - Part II

From writing out part I of A Dream of Being Lost, I’ve been able to pinpoint various fears or energetic definitions of inferiority - that which I’ve been standing in fear of. For example, “out drinking” and “alcoholic” being at the beginning and the end of the dream indicate to me the primary fear that a part of me is pointing out to myself, which I am now in the process of facing by writing/righting it out of the mind to a more organized, more manageable view, my computer screen. In relation to alcohol, even though I’ve  moderated my alcohol consumption as I’ve grown older over the years, I am still  holding onto  a fear of falling back into a pattern of drinking excessively. Herein, an interesting point or lesson that I’ve learned in relation to fear is, that which I fear, if I hold onto it and keep charging it, will eventually manifest into and as my  reality. The reason this fear was coming up over the last couple of weeks had to with my plans to go to the Earthfest, Taiwan music festival for for the weekend. In the past, I had been to these kinds of festivals before and always ended up feeling like shit, driving home and for the next week because I had partied too much and burned myself out. Therefore, in pinpointing the fear, I considered how I was going to release it so not to manifest it as my  reality and instead, go have a fun weekend.

Having written out perhaps over a thousand pages of self-forgiveness and self-commitment/correction statements, I have realized one of many important points. Writing out and sounding self-forgiveness and self-commitment statements assist in releasing the fear energy; however, there is still the point of following through with the commitments in real time physical living so to manifest real change again and again as self trust expands to solidify the changes = self creation as the directive principle. Therefore, after sounding self-forgiveness and commitment statements in relation to this fear, I realized what I required to do was simply a matter of trusting myself to do as I had committed to do. It was actually quite simple: don’t drink too much and make sure I got to bed at a reasonable hour. This is exactly what I did on Friday night and Saturday. Then, on Sunday morning (today) as my old and new friends were having their beer breakfast, I was packing up my gear and getting ready to drive home, wash clothes, do some writing and take a walk. To sum it up, as with so many things I participate with in this world, including breathing polluted air and eating potato chips, not all of fun things are what’s best for my body. Thus, my goal is to manage myself in/as awareness of how I’m standing and this requires self-trust that I will in deed live my commitments as the directive principle determining in the moment who/how I am. In conclusion on this point, this weekend was a successful opportunity to do just that, build self trust within to create myself as the understanding that I am able to remain the directive principle even when surrounded by temptation.

There is still some more points to look at from this dream and I will do that in part III

A Dream of Being Lost - Part I

 

In this dream, I had been out drinking somewhere and then I found myself trying to get back home, but I was lost. I wanted to go back to Taoyuan city, the place I’ve called home for many years now. So, I got on the back of rickshaw and the driver peddled his three wheeled cycle all over the place, but he didn’t take me home and I didn’t know where I was. In the next scene, a large angry man was confronting me as though I had done something to him or one of his friends who were standing behind him. I was frightened that he would hit me and I imagined having to hit him back and try to escape - not what I wanted to do. I started to speak and then as though to say, “not another word,” he raised his hand in the air as though he were contemplating hitting me. In the next scene, I was being chased. I ran into a shop and locked the door behind me. The shopkeeper offered no help to me and called the police. On the phone, it seemed as though the police were willing to come and help me, but they had no idea where I was and I was unable to tell them because I didn’t know, either. Then, I was walking with the phone and though the police stayed on the line for a long time, they finally had to go and I was once again alone. The last thing I heard from them were a series of numbers that I guessed were GPS coordinates that I could put into my phone to help my find my way home, but there were too many numbers for me to remember and once again I was lost and alone. Then I came upon a group of people building homes that looked very expensive and secure. These people seemed to be of high status or class, beautiful, almost perfect looking. One woman asked me what I did (meaning, what was my position in life). Thinking that they would be more likely to give me a ride if they thought I were of high status, I told them I was a professor at a local university - even though my job classification is Special Projects Instructor, kind of like a hire and fire at will position. The same woman said that they were Bahal (or Baha'i, of a religion I guess) and then she asked me why I didn’t like (the name of another religion).  I said, because I don’t believe in anything. I wanted to give her an explanation on this, but another woman chimed in as though it saddened her,  like she were going to cry. You’re just an alcoholic, she said. To that I replied, you got it right, you’re a smart one. And then I awoke. As a lot is opening up here, I will analyse this dream in the next post, part II