Dream: I am with a group of children who are about 6 or 7 years old. The children are climbing up to the top of what appears to be a mast of a ship. They easily climb up to the top and come back down. There is a new group of kids now and I want to show them how to do it. It had looked so fun and easy when the other kids did it. I climb up almost to the top and I start to slip a little. The fun and excitement turns to panic and fear of falling. I am clinging to the mast afraid to move. Somehow a man shows up and is giving me moral support. He doesn’t physically help me but with him there I am able to find a stable spot to wait for help to arrive. There is now a tiny platform area that we are resting on. My fear decreases as I wait there with him. While up there I see a weird colored spider climb out of a hole. I take interest in it, pointing it out to the man.
The theme of this dream could probably be stated as – “excitement turns to fear”. I climb up the mast with such excitement. It’s a new experience and I feel sure that I can easily do it like the other kids did. But then I get to a place where I slip a little and the excitement turns to overwhelming fear. Frozen in that fear, I panic as I cling to the mast. Rodger asks me where this happens in my life. In what situations do I get excited about something and then shut down or freeze up? In a way, I realize that this has been one of the stories of my life. I get excited about a career, an interest, a hobby…. I even feel a sense of passion for it …. and then it fizzles. I shut down, freeze up. Rodger thinks that I become fearful and freeze up – it’s just that I don’t feel the fear. The dream puts me in a situation where I can feel that fear. Rodger also points out that fear and excitement are positive and negative sides of the same thing. For example, when you are about to do something exciting, often you feel fear up until you do whatever it is… and then you feel the excitement. But it can go the other way too. First you are excited about something and then it turns to fear.
As I am in that intense fear, the animus shows up. He is there to help me face it. So with him there, my fear begins to subside. I am even able to look at a spider with interest. This is significant because I have had arachnophobia since I was a small child. The animus is helping me face my fear of the spider, which then leads me to shift back towards excitement and even interest about it. So, I can learn to do the same thing with the mast. Face into the fear and then feel a shift, a feeling of excitement again.
I love this dream because it so elegantly points out one of the predicaments of my life. It is one that I ponder quite often. There are so many places where I have felt passion and excitement for something only to find that feeling fizzle. If I can get a sense for why this happens, maybe I can stop that pattern…..the recurring pattern that leads to a feeling of unfulfillment in my life.
Where have I had passion only to find it fizzle???
As a young college student I was SO excited to become a Physical Therapist. I worked hard to get accepted into the competitive program and was so thrilled to be accepted. Once accepted though, slowly a malaise crept in and I began to lose my passion. After 5 years into my career as a PT, I had lost all passion for it. What was the real reason for my lack of passion? Was it an underlying fear of some sort? I decided to choose another path. When I look back at the decision I made, I still can’t believe it.
Rehabilitation Engineer! That was to be my new career. I was SO excited about the idea. There were many career possibilities and so I was energized, excited once again. I spent the next 3 years getting a degree in engineering to move toward my new career goal. I loved the challenge of the difficult classes. I loved succeeding in them. I loved being back in the college environment again. I graduated, and found a great job as a Research Engineer at a Children’s Hospital. Sadly, the passion for the new career I had worked so hard for … been so excited about, also began to wane. I felt inadequate. The other engineers I worked with seemed so much more savvy. I felt in over my head. 5 years in this job, and I ended up leaving. At this point I had two small children, so I had a good excuse to leave.
These are career related examples of passions that waned. Sadly, there are many other places in my life that have held a similar pattern. As I think of them I wonder where the excitement turned to fear. It is disappointing to think that if only I had pushed through the fear or the feelings of inadequacy, I might have had a fulfilling career or life experience. Well, life’s not over yet! Recently I was lamenting to my daughter Melissa about wishing I had done this or that in my life and she said, “Mom, you still have another 50 years!” I loved that remark of hers and I recall it often. My plan (God willing) has always been to live to at least 100 and so she is right.
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