I remember God with me at a young age. From an age of six or seven I have memories of going into the bathroom in our upper stairs apartment in my Grandparent’s house closing the door behind me, sitting and talking with God. I would ask and plead with him to please help my family and me. My parents were constantly arguing and my life already was complicated living in an unsafe environment with underworld violence around me. For me there was constant fear and the lack of emotional support except for my Grandmother Bena.
Living above my Grandparents I would go downstairs to be with my Grandmother, feel her love for me and smell the wonderful food she continually cooked daily. This was the only time I felt safe and acknowledged. The remainder of the time I worried and it consumed my life. Worry became such an integral part of my life and so pathological I have not recognized it until recently. I believe it consumes every conscious moment for me as far as I can remember.
My relationship with God began early in life. I first trusted God from the moment I felt him. Then I was hurt by the world, had a life of total fear and chaos as a small child, lost God, rejected God, tested God, was angry with God and then rejected God again for decades. I was just an innocent six year old boy with no one to guide me. This lasted for over forty years of my life. Living in emotional deprivation, shut down, lost in the world and trying to make sense of my relationship with God. This was more pain than I thought I could handle. He never turned his back on me only me on him. I traded his love for the love of the Dark Mother and the world. Also my father was not emotionally available although I yearned for his love and affection.
Those years I searched for my spirituality in the world, family, therapists, therapy groups, Alanon whatever would relieve the pain. I always came to the same plateau and emptiness. Always projecting and acting out my passive aggressive tendencies, disappointments and anger into relationships around me. I did not know how to be in my heart and feelings. I reached a point of desperation before beginning the Work in January of 1990 where I was dangerously depressed and emotionally broke. My son was twelve and I was emotionally unavailable to him and every relationship with women I ever had. I sadly accepted this depressed life as my reality and never thought I would come out of my narcissism and nihilism.
In my work I began to learn how narcissism and nihilism destroyed any possibility for archetypal support and connection. When I began to see and feel the narcissism and nihilism this was a difficult few years in my work. This part of my pathology beat me up and down. Constantly telling me I was worthless, showing me every mistake I had made in my life and telling me it would never end. I had a difficult time breaking the cycle because I continued to believe it every time I had a dream pointing to another issue.
The two dreams I have chosen to share in this piece are significant dreams for me because they are blatantly truthful and I did not have a clue at the time what their meaning was.
Dream:
I go to Burlington and feel depressed. I decide to leave and go for a walk. When I go to get in my car there is a guy getting off his motorcycle.
I look and it is Bruce Springsteen. Immediately I am shy and walk away. When I return he is still there hanging out at his motorcycle. I acknowledge him and he says to me, “I needed a break so I came up here to Burlington to get away for a break. I need a six pack of cold beer.”
He wants to have a beer with me and I just cannot take it in, I leave and go for a pizza, however I cannot get in anywhere because everywhere I go the restaurants are full. I awaken
This dream is all about the animus (Bruce) wanting me, wanting to embrace me and give me his love and support. This is reoccurring in my work. I did not feel worthy of his love. He was foreign and not real to me. The narcissism was embedded throughout me and it took years of this work to get through it.
Now I can see him, feel him and accept his love. I continue to struggle with it though. He continues to come to me over and over and I continue to need to be reminded in my dreams and homework that he wants me all of the time, not some of the time.
Dream
I am on a stage to sing a song at a concert. I do not know how I came here and how I am going to sing this song called “Wake Me Up”.
Waiting on the side of the stage I am thinking what are the words and I hope they come to me. Out on the stage there are 15 women as back up singers on each side of the microphone.
I am nervous and walk back stage and on a table I see a table with a CD. On the cover in the center there is a picture of me and I think how did this all happen? I cannot remember any of it.
A woman escorts me to the microphone. The curtain is pulled and I look at the women on both sides of me and they begin singing and I am blank. Totally blank, I do not know the words. A woman puts a microphone in my hands and I make some sounds into it.
I am terrified. Everyone is looking at me. I back up and the woman promoter says to me, “what the hell was that?” I look at her and say, “What am I doing here?” I awaken
Again I will say this is a significant dream for me. I went from being a totally submerged member of the Dream community, the Bache, Men’s Group, and the Dream Class to not remembering I was even involved. How could this happen?
I opened a restaurant in Montpelier and my dreams directed me to open the restaurant and supported this opportunity. It was an opportunity to surrender to the Animus and allow me to work for him in his restaurant. What happened instead was I took over the reins of the restaurant. I became submerged in the world and my pathology. My control and fear took over. The loneliness and loss I felt daily was excruciating. This dream came three years after opening the restaurant. I had this dream to wake me up. I wish I could say it woke me up immediately, however it did not. It took more pain, darkness and separation from the archetypes. I rejected becoming deeply involved in NOE and within the year I needed to sell the restaurant. This was the only way to cut off this horrid, painful and crushing entangled pathology I was in, to cut my losses in the world and fully commit again to deepening my inner work. This was a difficult period for those who loved and knew me from all of those years of work and involvement. I could not hear them. The only thing I had to hold onto was my sessions with Marc and the little inner support I could feel.
My reawakening took moving to Indianapolis, IN, the refocus of my archetypal support and being patient with my inner work. I had to feel the love and support of the animus. I had to realize making money and being the Corporate Research Chef for a $700 million dollar company was not what I wanted. When I woke up I wanted NOE and the NOE community and knew it. This is a humbling experience and takes the willingness to be obedient and truthful. I am finding my way back through the love and support of my work and the people in the work.
In my work I have crawled though the darkness and pain of my life and I have also found the joy and hope of the Archetypal connections. I have an internal family that is always available to me loving me, guiding me and always there even when I get lost. From the beginning of this work I wanted to go deeper and I did not know what that meant or how to get there. I have been given unending love and guidance to spiral down into myself. I have been fortunate and grateful to have the love and support of the Dream Work Community embracing me and always hopeful and encouraging. There is a reason this is called “the work”.