The World Beyond BetterMost > Anything Goes
Dream Interpretation
Front-Ranger:
What about this, then. By swaddling the heads in cloth, you and your companions are being prepared for a journey or something new, but you are blindfolded as though it were a kidnapping. However, you can see a little and are not as hampered as some of the others. You are looking forward to setting out on this journey and following your beloved. Indecision and ennui are kidnapping your life, and you seek an escape.
But, not so fast! You are bound to this existence by your commitment to your Mom to look after your father. These bounds may feel restrictive, and only allow you a glimpse of what awaits you someday. You may have very mixed feelings, longing for the feeling of freedom to live your life and to travel, etc. You must fortify yourself both mentally and physically. Use your dreams and creative visualization to find uses for your time that are regenerative. Using self-soothing techniques waste your energy and life force. Everything within you, waking and sleeping, is telling you that. Circle back and find a better way; that's what I think your dreams are telling you.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on January 31, 2020, 01:15:17 pm ---Using self-soothing techniques waste your energy and life force.
--- End quote ---
I don't know what this means.
Front-Ranger:
I just recently learned the difference between self-soothing and self-care myself. This blog post explains it very well: https://stacyrocklein.com/self-care-vs-self-soothing/ . When you practice self-care, you feel better afterwards. When you practice self-soothing, you feel the same or worse afterwards.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on January 31, 2020, 07:43:48 pm ---I just recently learned the difference between self-soothing and self-care myself. This blog post explains it very well: https://stacyrocklein.com/self-care-vs-self-soothing/ . When you practice self-care, you feel better afterwards. When you practice self-soothing, you feel the same or worse afterwards.
--- End quote ---
I haven't read it yet but I'm looking forward to it! I've definitely been doing self something-or-other (and no, I'm not referring to *that* self thing) and generally feel only slightly better. It usually involves me whispering to myself would-be conversations that would address the problem. But anyway, I think of self-care as, like, taking a bath or sauna or putting on lotion or getting a massage. None of those particularly interest me. I was even doing yoga once a week for at least a couple of years. But I may be using self-soothing incorrectly because whatever it is I'm doing I need an alternative. I might do the online therapy stuff I get through work -- three sessions for free.
serious crayons:
The other thing is, when we discuss "changing your life" as if that would almost definitely mean or at least include travel, we're kind of limiting it. Travel is great -- attitude changing and enriching and enjoyable and all of those things. But most of us can only do it a few weeks a year at most. Plus, Jeff has done a fair amount of it, even if he can't for now. I'm lucky to get a trip or two a year, and in recent years I've been lucky enough to get most of them paid for by professional organizations. Recently, Brokies on either coast have invited me to visit, but I don't think I can anytime soon.
But anyway! I think long-term significant life changing would most often entail getting extremely involved in another time-consuming social or educational thing. Like Lee's permaculture, for example. Obviously that particular thing probably wouldn't work for you, Jeff, but I mean something like that -- where you're really invested, engaged, interested, meeting new people, have a steady schedule of activities, etc. I'm not sure what it would be for you, but I feel like it should be something you're fairly deeply engaged in.
A coworker wanted to learn French because her daughter was living in Paris. So she started taking classes and she organized a French club at work. I was in it, but some of the members had lived in France whereas my French is rusty high-school level. I felt like I needed subtitles. So that probably wouldn't be the best thing for me -- although I will say going to the sessions was like taking my brain to the gym and it was interesting to see my coworker get increasingly fluent as weeks went on). She made friends in the French learning/speaking community. has since retired, but I bet she's still doing French stuff. And last time I saw her, a year or two after she retired, she looked great: happy, healthy, vibrant.
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