Stacey Says

I shared the book with my friend Stacey, who read the part of the book that recounts the dream and said, "I'm sure you already realize this" (this is how people always preface revealing insights that I am completely blind to) "but it's interesting that you were saying to that part of yourself how much you love her, and how great she is, and she said she wanted to be alone and went away." She went on, "So, there's this part of you that can't really take that in." 

I would say this is my number one problem. 

This is what I love about dreams. You can read the same dream over and over from different angles and get different messages, all of them revealing and relevant. Other people tell you things about your dream that you didn't see and those things verify your best/worst suspicions. I suppose, in a way, the whole book was a love letter to that part of myself, and I do believe it was received. It won't be enough. I'll have to keep making things and reaching in to that wounded aspect.

I remember a time when my husband and I were on sort of a shamanic journey, if you will, and he said there was this fierce little warrior living in my second chakra ready to kill anyone who tried to get too close. She is the same one who will not be loved, or she is at least closely related to her. I see this so often in my clients, in my friends, in myself--defense mechanisms that have become independently functioning beings who will act out in ways that saved us when we were kids but which are hurting us now. Being wounded and defensive... can I begin to let that go? Wait, what the hell's wrong with me? The question is, can I begin to embrace and own being wounded and defensive so that those qualities might be integrated into my whole self, rather than split off... 

The question in the book: How would it feel to embrace that part of the self, instead of leaving it behind like some loss you have to cut to survive? How would it feel not to reflexively look away?