December at USM - Day 2

Saturday was a very powerful day for me at USM this month. I still felt that vague, raw feeling but now it was topped off with the sense that I wasn't to be trusted, that somewhere in my past I'd betrayed myself. Things were pretty murky!

In the first exercise of the day, I shared my current experience of feeling completely inadequate and unable to fulfill my dreams. I had never articulated these goals out loud, and it was very hard to say the words now, but I recognized my two reasons for coming to USM were 1) to regain that feeling that I had had as a little kid of being directly connected to God and able to talk to God and angels, and 2) to make real my childhood dream of talking with dolphins (by which I mean conversations in which they understand me and I can understand them and there is a real exchange, a dialog, a shared connection, a meeting of minds - call it psychic, call it intuitive, call it soul-to-soul, whatever you want). I felt like I needed to achieve the first goal before the second could happen because I felt like that kind of communication was a spiritual endeavor.

In the same moment that I articulated these goals, I knew, with deep conviction, that I would fail. Of the 270 students in the room, I was confident that 269 of them would reach their goals and that I would completely fail. "It's a pipe dream." "It'll never happen." "You can't do that." These were the words that I heard inside my head.

Six months earlier, last June at an On Course I workshop, I had drawn a picture of my dreams. When the exercise began I had no idea what I would draw, but then I felt that dolphin energy swirling around me and in my mind's eye, I saw a close-up picture of a dolphin's face. All I could see was the side of his face, part of his slightly-open mouth, his melon, and his eye. Where the pupil should have been, I saw a black shape - an outline of me standing with my arms stretched above my head. I clearly heard the words "We've got you in our sights." And that is what I drew that night when asked to draw my dreams.

I thought of this picture now, and I remembered the feeling I'd had this morning of being surrounded by dolphin energy. And the comforting message that the dolphins have me in their sights.

Later that afternoon, I got the opportunity to explore the connection between trusting myself and failing to achieve my goals. I looked far back into my early childhood and remembered not being believed when I told someone in my family that I was talking to God and the angels when I was about 5 years old. This was a regular thing for me and I thought everyone could do it. I was surprised that my ability to do it was denied and I was told to stop making stuff up and that I was imagining things. Today at USM I realized that I had, in my infinite 5 year old wisdom, I decided that I could not be myself and be loved and accepted in my family. I realized that I had to reject this part of me in order to fit in. (Not ignore it or keep it secret, but reject it completely.) And so I did. In my current exploration of my memories of the past, I realized that I felt like I had completely betrayed myself when I did that. (See why I can't trust myself? Clearly, I'm not to be trusted.)

Once I recognized these feelings, thoughts and beliefs, I decided to re-accept and embrace that spiritual/psychic part of myself that I had been hiding and denying for 40 years. I forgave myself for ever buying into the belief (that I had created) that I had to deny myself to the world in order to receive acceptance and love from others. What a feeling of power and relief and peace! (Five year olds should not be running the world!) As the exercise concluded, I felt like I was glowing - with peace and love and acceptance rippling through me. It was a truly wonderful feeling.

(Interestingly enough, in this exercise I also had the same deep longing for time alone, time to just be with myself, time to rediscover who I am by just being that I had felt the night before.)

That evening, I said a little prayer before going to sleep: Dear God, given my gifts, my talents, my abilities, and my heartfelt desires, please show me how I can be of service and how you would use me.