The Mystery Of A DreamWritten by Susan Rutter
Dream Appreciation The minute parsing of dream meaning can be revelatory. As same time, if we are not careful, it can become another way of distorting image, like a lepidopterist mounting a butterfly on a trophy board rather than marveling at its living presence. It is a convention in psychology to talk of "dream mechanisms," but psyche is not a steam engine or a computer. We are investigating an ecosystem, not innards of a device. What I am referring to as appreciative mode of dreamwork involves a vivifying encounter with imaginal realm. Here images not only stand for something, they exist in their own right. Instead of labeling and sorting them, extracting their meaning and discarding them, one enters open-handed into their world. Jung used a technique he called active imagination to particpate in a dream's livng presence. He describes his discovery of this method in his autobiography. While sitting at his desk one day, trying to come to grips with his own intractable fears he abruptly had sensation of letting himself inwardly "drop" to a deeper level of imagination. He felt himself plunge down, "as if ground literally gave way beneath my feet," eventually landing in a dark cave where he encountered various mythological creatures, personages, and symbols -- dwarves, glowing red crystals, enormous black scarabs. Dreams can have such an authoritative feel -- their presentation as deliberate, exacting, and inalienable as director's cut of a film -- that dreamer's first challenge is simply accepting them as they are. Psychologist Mary Watkins counsels against imposing a burdensome conscious structure upon a spontaneous creation: "Try to take image as a given and as completed," she writes, "rather than a play which you, as ego, must rework and finish." This, she ads, counters "ego's attempts to consume image as bird would spider." The act of appreciating is in spirit of what poet Keats once characterized as "being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable grasping after fact and reason." We take position of opening ourselves to dream without unsheathing sword of interpretation. I have often found myself returning to certain images I have allowed to live, gratified that they still retain power to inwardly move me, and have not been "analyzed to death".
| | What is your Recovery Rate?Written by Graham and Julie
What is your recovery rate? How long does it take you to recover from actions and behaviours that upset you? Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks? How long? The longer it takes you to recover more influence that incident has on your actions, less able you are to perform to your personal best. In a nutshell longer it takes you to recover weaker you are and poorer your performance.Just ask yourself: How many times have I got upset with my spouse or partner for something children did hours ago? How many times have I missed an opportunity because I was still focussed on an upset and all I could say was ‘NO’ to everything? How many times have I driven my car erratically because I was still thinking of an incident that made me angry? The point is: a poor recovery rate affects your health. A poor recovery rate affects your well being. A poor recovery rate stops you from living to your potential. You are well aware that you need to exercise to keep body fit and, no doubt, accept that a reasonable measure of health is speed in which your heart and respiratory system recovers after exercise. Likewise faster you let go of an issue that upsets you, faster you return to an equilibrium healthier you will be. The best example of this behaviour is found with professional sportspeople. They know that faster they can forget an incident or missed opportunity and get on with game better their performance. In fact, most measure time it takes them to overcome and forget an incident in a game and most reckon a recovery rate of 30 seconds is too long! How long does it take you to recover and overcome and forget and incident at work or at home? A method that I and many others use to help us reduce recovery time is method of FULL STOP. Imagine yourself to be an actor in a play on stage. Your aim is to play your part to best of your ability. You have been given a script and at end of each sentence is a full stop. Each time you get to end of sentence you start a new one and although next sentence is related to last it is not affected by it. Your job is to deliver each sentence to best of your ability. Now think about your life. Imagine life is no more than a play, a drama and we each have a role to play in that drama. Your job is to play your part to best of your ability and better you play your part more chance that you will inspire others around you to improve their performance. Each incident you face is a new sentence. Just put a full stop behind it and start again. Accept that every time you meet someone or have a conversation with a person on telephone or even send an email it is a new incident. You have both moved on since you last met, so remembering last occasion only keeps you in past and stops you moving forward. Stops you seeing new opportunities. The next time you see person that upset you, or you upset, is a new occasion there is nothing to be gained by continuing from where you left off. The incident has finished. You are both in a different place now. It is a new sentence so start again. My grandmother used to call it destiny. “Accept what has happened as part of your destiny and live with it”, was a favourite phrase of hers. You cannot change what has happened. Sulking or Brooding will not help. Analysing will only give you a headache and keep it fresh in your mind. In same way that you cannot enter same river twice, you will never face exact same incident again so why analyse that one? You can however notice whether you have a habit or thought pattern that clicks in in certain circumstances and stops you performing to your best. You can then look at habit and decide how you can change it.
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