Slow down and hang on

Thursday is the day of the week I try to slow down. Or, to put it another day, Thursday is my speed hump day. Because when I slow down, life often gets a little bumpy. So, like the sign, I know what is ahead and I can prepare for it. I can plan. But life often does not fit into my plans!

I have very vivid dreams. I remember having vivid dreams when I was in school and I know they increase with times of stress and anxiety. Often I can wake from a dream emotionally exhausted. Sometimes I wake up crying. My counselor and psychologist have said that dreaming is a way for the unconscious to work things out. It is a way for my unconscious mind to bring things to the surface.

I have noticed that my recent dreams have a common theme: my past life. The dreams are about me returning to a life that is now past. A life that was often filled with pain and suffering. A life in which I was not me – I wore the mask of a role assigned to me.

I think I have a tendency to seek safety (in a role) even if that means pain and suffering for me. And somehow I have convinced myself that I can escape the darkness of the present by returning to the pain and suffering of the past.

So today, I slow down, and I think about my current life. Not to run away from it, not to seek an escape from it. But to think about how my life is now more a reflection of me than previous ones. I need to grief previous lives. And I need to be open to the consequences of those lives. But today is the day to celebrate the weirdness and awkwardness of me – a day to celebrate that I cannot be measured and put in a box. To sing off-key and dance like Peter Garrett, to talk to people long dead, to enjoy a cup of tea, and to rejoice in Jesus as The Way, The Truth, and My Life!