In this dream scenario, John finds himself caught up in the details of events he has an expectation about, i.e., he wants things to work according to his schedule and his rules. This is an attitude that we all can be guilty of, and yet it is an inner mannerism that we hold onto even as it prevents us from flowing easily in life. (At the end of this post there are instructions and a link to download this recording to your computer.)
John: In my particular case, I may start off as if I’m free flow, but I’m still afflicted by these qualities and these traits that I carry as a mannerism, as a nuance, as a neurosis, as regimentation, however it is. I still carry this and it bugs me. It keeps me from grasping the greater Whole.
And so in this first dream I arrive at a place, it’s like a motel or whatever. I’ve been traveling and I have arrived at this place. I don’t know anybody necessarily there. It’s just a stop for the night.
When I go in to get the room, there’s no one around to check me in. So I seem to check the place out, because I create the appearance of instead of just waiting to be waited upon, I create the appearance in terms of other guests who are observing me flowing around, that I might be acting and carrying on without paying – but this isn’t so.
I can see how someone might think that because of the way I have free flowed around until the owner or the person who is in charge of checking me in finally arrives. It’s not like I have a lot of time. I have a busy schedule. I have to get to bed. I have to get up early in the morning. I have to be on my way – so I am pressed to get to bed.
It feels like there’s a checklist of things that have to occur before I can get to bed, and so I don’t even get the proper orientation in terms of how to use the key, or what the key is like, or anything like that. I know that the key is supposedly tricky in terms of how to open the room and I seem to be handed this whole huge set of keys, and also on this whole thing is kind of a type of key or button that I push that even is connected to opening my vehicle, so I have all of this on there.
Now, what is unsettling is I have to figure out, without any guidance or help, because I have to keep moving along here and this stuff isn’t all being perfectly laid out to me, in other words I’m carrying this tone inside me that makes it like that, and so I have to figure out how to get into the room, or what key, and how all that works on my own.
Sure, I’d have preferred to have everything explained and understood up front, but this isn’t the tone or mannerism I’m carrying. And so I’m having to take out that kind of detail distraction inside of me, as if I’m going to make things copacetic that way.
What I’m describing is a condition of not being able to simply settle back and appreciate what is. I’m like this because I have gotten into a routine. I’m used to things being a particular way, and routines become controlling.
My room is at the end of this complex, and I like kind of being at the end because it’s more private, but it is a room that is the farthest room away from where my vehicle is parked. When I go inside, just like I had the key problem, now I have another problem: inside there are radios playing and I have to figure out how to turn off the radio and the obvious way of turning off the radio doesn’t work.
And there are also various kind of lamps that are on and no obvious mechanism to turn them off and there are cords and wires going everywhere, so I have to try to trace this grid out in order to turn all of this off. This is a lot like the keys and all those keys and what is the key I need? Now I have all these cords going everywhere and what is it that works out of all of this?
So the meaning of what I’m doing here is, there’s this momentum in my nature. It’s kind of a mannerism that you adopt. You can call it a momentum where you get into a focused flow, and you take on a demeanor in that, which keeps you kind of on an edge where you’re trying to kind of get this done, and get that done and whatnot; it’s like a checklist before you can finally let go.
And when I’m like this, I am affected by everything that there is around me that I must contend with, so I’m unable to be at ease until all is made right. By carrying this kind of inner edge that I feel about myself, I put undue pressure upon myself and I’m not able to be as openly free flowing as you should be.
You should just be able to just let go and just kind of move about. You don’t have to carry any sophistication. But in my case, I’m constrained by it, as if I have the checklist mannerism. Because I’m in a scenario that should be able to just settle back and flow with everything in the environment.
In other words, you just go through the basics. So I’m not able to do that because I’m obviously holding on to a tone, or a nature, inside me that is blocking that from happening. So this tone or mannerism that’s inside of you that’s blocking this is something that you have to resolve, or otherwise it has its own voice, or dictates, which keep you spun out, which have to live out, or play itself out.
And so you’re not able to catch up with this deeper part of a flow, which is in the overall, which is a letting go, in which behind that is a natural knowingness. You don’t have this natural knowingness when you have to move about having to be caught, or trapped, or contending with a checklist of mannerisms, or neuroses, or nuances.
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