Putting the Linear in Non-Linear Healing
Listen to this if you need a pick-me-up!!!
So, like many of us who are connected to our higher consciousness, I have experienced somewhat prophetic dreams. Sure, they are often steeped in symbolism and its up to my waking self to decipher the meaning, but sometimes the meaning is incredibly clear.
Several years ago, I had one such very obvious dream.
It was my birthday and I was working at a water park. I am often at water parks in my dreams. I spent a lot of time at water parks as a kid and they hold a lot of happy memories for me (some not so good as well). There’s a hefty amount of nostalgia, regardless. Water parks/water slides tend to represent going with the flow. This can be a negative thing (being too passive) or a positive (surrender to what is). I took this one to have the positive interpretation.
The staff at this water park had to do a rigorous obstacle course test to make sure you were up-to-snuff when it came to physical fitness and safety. This test took place in an arena that looked a lot like a barren desert. This thing was straight-up dangerous—you had to scale cliffs and dodge boulders, every time you thought you were on solid ground, it would collapse beneath you. It was challenging and scary, but I. Was. CRUSHING IT. I was dippin’ an dodgin’ and divin’ and duckin’. I was present and quick to respond and I finished without so much as a scratch.
When I was finished, instead of a congratulations from my clipboard brandishing boss, I was informed that while I was testing, the arena was deemed unsafe and was no longer qualified to be a training facility. I would have to test again.
I was pissed.
Pissed at my boss, at the company, at crapitalism (yes, even in my dreams, lmao), pissed at God and at myself for giving it my all and it not mattering. But, I took a deep breath, and prepared myself for take 2.
Before my second test, I had to attend my birthday party. It took place at a comically long mad hatter style table filled with food and sweets and pastel flowers in an emerald green garden surrounded by 7 foot tall hedges. All of my loved ones were there (some I hadn’t even met yet irl yet!!). We ate and laughed and talked until my boss came to tell me it was time to go.
To my surprise, everyone at the party stood up with me. We all walked to the obstacle course together and continued through it together, too—every step of the way. It was abundant with plants, flowers, butterflies, babbling brooks, cute little corgis; there were children laughing and playing and beautiful conversations happening all around me. And then, at the end, there was a lazy river filled with the bluest water which we all drifted down into the sunset.
I think of this dream daily because the message it held for me was so profound. Sometimes you have to do things more than once. Some days it seems like all your hard healing work was for nothing. Sometimes you get triggered by unfairness or frustration and you just don’t think you can take another day. Sometimes you’re stuck in the falling down desert so long you forget what solid ground feels like. Sometimes there is no love, no light, no safety, no joy anywhere to be found. Sometimes you have not choice but to create it yourself. Sometimes, one step at a time, a path opens up— you may not know where you’re going but you know it’s gonna be better than wherever the hell you’re at. And you keep walking on.
Healing isn’t linear. Our default settings are always one bad day away from running the show, choosing recovery isn’t a destination, it’s a daily practice. It can often seem thankless and daunting; especially if you’re surrounded by people and situations that resent your growth or can’t come with you.
When I was traversing that obstacle course, it was clear that I had done it before—I knew it like the back of my hand. I wasn’t new to healing, either. Wasn’t new to betrayal or heartbreak, abuse or addiction, poverty or chronic illness. I knew this terrain. I knew I could get through it.
By the time my friends and family got up to go with me, I had all the confidence in the world that I could handle anything life threw my way. I knew how to do hard. I was good at it. What I didn’t expect was easy, joyful, loving, cooperative, abundant. But when it arrived, I opened my arms and I reveled in it.
If you’re stuck on your rocky road, full of back slides and mudslides and self-doubt and frustration, if your heart is broken or you’re afraid to face the parts of you you haven’t yet, if you’re angry at the non-linear nature of recovery and you’re wondering if it’s worth it, I’m reporting from the light of a clear blue morning, to assure you that it absolutely is.
Listen Here
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