Dream: Taking Care of Myself

I have a two story home where the back yard or possibly back rooms in the upstairs portion of the house are somehow not visible from the outside or just not places I use very often, so I’m not always aware of them. The back yard is somehow on the second story level, and there is a large tree there.

I have been away for a period of time…days or weeks, I’m not sure. When I return I find that a family has moved in to the house. The vision I have of them is that they are sitting under the large tree in the back yard, but somehow I know they’ve been in the house. They have somehow let themselves in even though the house has been locked.

At first they try to hide from me, thinking I won’t notice because the area is not highly visible, but I do know they are there, even before I actually see them.

This family consists of a woman who is sometimes white with long black hair and sometimes black with long hair and her two children; a white girl with pageboy length dirty blond hair and a black boy. Both children are around 10 years old.

When the woman realizes I have discovered them, she approaches me and tries to convince me to let her stay. She has, after all, been moved in and living there for quite some time.

I am livid! I shout my anger at the woman. I can not believe this woman actually thought it was okay to move into someone’s house unannounced. And the house has been locked. How did she manage to get in? Who does she think she is, anyway?

She offers to pay me rent – has even written out a check already and is trying to hand it to me. I repeat my issues with the woman being there in the first place. Who would do that and think it was okay?

I finally tell the woman that she is going to have to leave. This is not her house, it is mine. And she may be in a bad situation, but I cannot be responsible for her. She should have family of her own to help her out. I can’t be responsible for her because I have to focus on taking care of myself. I can’t be put out by her problems. I have problems of my own.

FIRST THOUGHTS:

My initial thought on this dream is that I’m in a stage of my life where I know I must give more focus to taking care of me and spend less time worrying about what others are doing. I’ve come a very long way in the past few years, but I still have a long way to go, and there are LOTS of things right in front of me that could potentially derail my progress if I let myself get caught up in them.

I truly believe we create our worlds and we can do whatever we set our minds to…if we believe. I also know that when we lose focus of our wants and desires, we can feel sidetracked. This can lead to feelings of anger, guilt and general unhappiness. Been there, done that.

But I also believe that we experience everything we do for a reason. And so when we do get sidetracked it is because from that experience we will receive something that will serve us on our own path. So in the end, taking care of oneself requires that we not exclude the wants and desires of others, but embrace them. Play with them, but listen to our heart about how deeply to become invested in them. And when we do find ourselves temporarily diverted, we should take some time to be quiet…and consider why we might have chosen to go there.