CHAPTER 35

Lies My Ego Told Me
or
Dueling Dreams
Creating Living Nightmares

 

   In the movie Starman, the Earth woman explains love to the alien as “It's caring about someone more than you care about yourself.”

   I would add: If that's so, when you're loving another, be sure they share the same theory, or your heart is bound to go bankrupt because you both end up caring about the same person — the other person. You care about him (or her) and (s)he does too. I know. I lived it.

   My last bout with Chagrin & Bare It forced me to travel full circle to explore the deeper implications within my idea of One Life to a Customer, per Journey. I needed to figure how I could:

  1. Mix that idea with my desire to love others;

  2. Quit letting my good intentions backfire;

  3. Encourage others to be the best they can be, without my sinking in the process; and

  4. Give 100% yet not end up with zero.

   The answer was that by not having learned how to receive or realize the value of receiving, not just for me but for the giver as well, I had cast myself into relationships where I did the only thing I knew how to do: GIVE.

   So naturally, I linked with TAKERS.

   I made the success of my life contingent on my ability to help others achieve their success and happiness they claimed they wanted.

   I made my life contingent on my ability to live for the desires and needs of other people.

   Emotional reruns forced me to see the fantasy island my assumption had shipwrecked my life upon.

   I woke up when I realized the dreams were impossible to occur, yet were the ones I made contingent on others not only dreaming, but wanting to live them.

   I forgot that dreaming is a Solitary Sport, and we can only dream for ourselves.

   I can only create my dream world as long as I'm the only one for whom I need to make my dream come true — with the endorsement of the higher spiritual powers.

   If another happens to share my dream, Hallelujah! But, that's a by‑product. Not something I can make happen.

   The biggest lie I ever absorbed from my ego was that the Cosmic Girl Scouts were worth joining. That lie had me believing my past relationships could blossom into what I dreamed if only I gave out, gave in and gave up enough.

   My ego left out one important detail: We are all unique, especially when it comes to dreaming. Even when it seems we're sharing the same dream, heading toward the same goal, we still approach it on separate tracks fueled by our own motivations.

   At first I resisted following my own dreams because I thought that was selfish. I thought service to others — no matter what! — was the ultimate mission in life.

   When the song Looking Out For #1 rang through my inner radio, I switched channels. I vowed to never sing it. But, what was I singing, a medley of swan songs? While I was not living the song Looking Out For #1, I encouraged others to sing it.

   Stress told me it was time to reformat my theme song.

   I'd been over stuffing the Giving Pot and starving the Receiving Vessel by not knowing it existed. Not knowing it was OK to fill up my Godian Goblet.

   I began seeing marriage and parenthood as the ultimate challenge for how to wisely serve; how to live our dream without forcing others to share it or, give up living another's dream. There's a great challenge in learning How to Love and Give while not turning into a human Lost and Flounder Department.

   It's so easy to get sucked into the dream-deferring lie that if we sacrifice everything for a relationship, it has to work out in line with our dream. That one day our day will come.

   Poppycock!

   This fools us into not admitting we are still focused on our dreams no matter how emphatically we deny them or seek to cover them with sacrificial surrender to others. Problem is that dream‑deferring feeds personal frustration.

   Dreams never die no matter how a dreamer may seek to bury them beneath the covers of denial.

   It's most obvious in marriages where one partner is frustrated with the other for not achieving what the frustrated one is actually dreaming to be achieved, be that a wealthy lifestyle, a less social life, a couch potato persistence, a cause raking reality or, as in my case, when my mates were not becoming The Most Happy Fellas I dreamed they could be. Nor was I happy being the unpaid maid, the lifal skeptic, the punching bag or the religious fanatic they wanted me to be.

   This frustration occurs when a mate fails to become our ideal marriage partner. Look how many women marry sport jocks thinking they can alter their mates' dream of the ideal life, then gripe when they end up becoming a sports' widow.

   How many men marry thinking marriage will cause their mate to live their dream of keeping the gal down on the farm content to cook, clean, serve as a full‑time house maid (After all, mom did it!) just because that's his dream.

   How many husbands quake under the reality shock of discovering their wife has her own dream to live?

   How many marry to fulfill their dream to change their mate who was perfectly satisfied living their lifestyle dream. They stress themselves silly struggling to change the other's choice of clothes, likes, ideals, manners, speech, cleaning techniques, habits, or how they raise kids and so on.

   This holds true between parents and kids. Heck! The Dueling Dream Plot is hackneyed. Parent has a dream of who and what their kid ought to be, and forget that the kid's ability to create his or her own dream, be it for a haircut, career, mate, or whatever.

   There are multitudes of socially successful parents frustrated with their kid's dream to bum the rest of their life away in a self‑pleasing low pressure job.

   Also, parents who never aspired to career success and are frustrated by their kid's crazy dream for a Wall Street seat or star on Hollywood Boulevard and can't understand the in‑ house tension.

   Possibly the Blood is Thicker than Water adage is what fuels Dueling Familial Dreams. Thickness covers insight into Truth in that no matter how linked we are through blood, it does not automatically link our souls to common dreams.

   When parents play Dueling Dreams with their kids, the parent usually loses. Either the kids walk, saying: “Forget it! It's my life and I'm going to live it as I want. You had your chance” Or, the kids surrender their dreams by donating their life to fulfill their parents' dream which, in turn, creates nothing more than a superficial victory, while stirring the kids' boiling pot of unspoken frustration.

   Friction continues as long as the battle lines are held. As long as the parent remains inflexible that their kids will become who and what they fantasize they should be by duty of having birthed them — no matter what!

   When guilt is levied on a kid, they may grow up believing that dreaming is futile. Even convinced that the only way to be loved is to acquiesce to another's dream. Not the best fuel to run on when they enter the Marriage Selection Sprint.

   But, that may be where frustrated parents come from. They may have been denied their dreams as kids and are just replicating the view that kids are their Dream Fulfillers.

   The reason I say it's up to the parents to halt the Dream Duel is because they hold the whistle‑blowing power on the game. And unless the child is a born controller, a kid rarely forces a parent to live the kid's dream. Usually they're too involved in exploring their own life, creating their own dreams and too self‑consumed to write one for their parents.

   On the flip side, I notice when successful parents raise successful kids, some parents often over extend their credit line. The most public examples are in politics and show biz, as with the Kennedys, Kirk and Michael Douglas, Martin Sheen and sons, the Fondas — though I'm sure there's a multitude of less public examples.

   Yet, I bet even if we looked behind those dreams, there are still variations on why and how their kids manifested their versions no matter how parallel the results may seem.

   As I've seen it, the most we can do is love and care for our kids, offer them every possible word of encouragement. But, we can't live their life, nor force them to be us. All we can do, if we don't agree, is wish them good luck, let go and re‑energize our own dream machine.

   My relationships caused me to see: No matter how much I thought another seemed unfulfilled, or not living up to their potential, or miserably locked in the greatest whine cellar of anger and bitterness, on some level they were living their own dream. Or at least a distilled by‑product.

   Though I didn't want to believe it, I had to face facts.

   There're many people who love to suffer and make others suffer with them. Misery loves company; sufferers go further by wanting to sigh-up shareholders in their shady enterprise. There are many sufferers who love the power of intimidating and feigning helplessness in order to draw others into obeying their whims.

   Many who live to make others die, in a spiritual sense. And no amount of love we serve can change their Motivational Dream if they do not want to change it. We may detour them for a while, but people always return to what they originally dreamed.

EXAMPLE:

A TV news story just snapped me back many years to my days as a kid actor working with that off‑off Broadway group captained by George Howard. There I met a then unknown actor who really stood out. When we shared a scene, I almost forgot my lines due to his intensity. He made every word feel so real.

   My GUT Buddy said this guy's going to be a very famous actor one day. He's so damn good!

   Feeling that thought caused me to do an emotional 180 when we talked one night in the laundry room of the building where the shows were presented. He hung out there to mentally prepare himself.

   Somewhere between spin cycles, I asked about his dreams, and where he wanted to grow. He told me what he really wanted to do was to work as a social worker.

   What? This actor who I felt HAD to become famous held the inner dream of civil service work? I couldn't figure it.

   We never saw each other again after I left the group. But, over the years he exploded in the public spotlight with projects like The Subject Was Roses, Apocalypse Now, and Wall Street. The fellow was Martin Sheen.

   Over the years, I recalled our discussion, wondering about his original dream. Was it a noble fantasy, a whim, or what?

   Then the news began carrying stories of his butt‑kicking achievements; his championing of people causes. I heard a story of his donating time and energy to his Malibu cause for equality. He was even televised marching with a picket sign, righting another injustice.

   When I heard people criticize him for his out‑spoken ways saying “Why doesn't he stick to acting and stay out of the news?”, I figure they never heard of his original dream when he was an unknown.

   His life sure illustrates: No matter how fate detours us and whatever that detour promotes, no matter how far it seems we have detoured from our kidhood dreams, those Dreams never die. They're always waiting to be energized.

   Perchance, destiny took Martin on a needed detour via public success from portraying roles focused on social issues, so that when he gained the clout, he could live his dreams on a higher level than paper shuffling at a county office in Brooklyn. Not that service on that limited venue isn't important, but Life may have needed him to work on a global level so as to cause the public turn‑arounds for the issues he now champions.

   Martin's life sure endorses the idea that we all return to our Soular Root Dreams — NO MATTER WHAT.

    MORE NO‑MATTER‑WHAT EXAMPLES

   No matter how we feel others are sabotaging their lives, there is absolutely nothing we can do or say to make them alter their energies into what we deem is correct for them. If coerced, they may respond by placating us. But, when they return to their own whirl, they dance their own style to their own chosen melody and to their own pre‑assigned study plan in this Cosmic College.

   No matter how we may love and give our all to kids, they return to live in their soul's original personality.

   For instance, if a kid is a born slob, no matter how much we stress ourselves via struggling to reverse their habits, via forcing them to be organized, if it's not in their spirit, just getting them to clean their room becomes a perpetual battle. Even if it seems to work while they live at home, as adults on their own, they tend to return to their own style of living.

   All that results is parental ulcers and loss of the closeness that might have developed due to playing Taskmaster to a rebelling Task‑Doer or Non-Doer, while serving the nasty rider that sloppiness may equal unlovability.

   After all, absent minded professors and couch potatoes came from somewhere and, I bet many of them came from highly organized homes. My rule of ulcer‑numb is when the struggle to make kids keep their room clean begins messing up nerve endings, it's time to reassess priorities.

   My solution was to say: My sanity, our friendship and the hope of you're not growing up to think: I won't love or approve of you unless you live your life my way, isn't worth this battle. SO! Your room is your territory to treat as you will. I don't want to see it. No I Strain, No Pain.

   BUT! The line's drawn at your door. Invade the house with scattered stuff, dirty dishes or rearrangement of my stuff, and you've breached our deal. You're then on my turf, the family unit's turf.

MEANING:

I then get to revamp your room rules.

   It worked for me because it didn't create a battle between right and wrong. Rather territorial preferences of lifestyle.

   I swear, parenthood may be the ultimate dare to Let Go and Let It Be. As I've seen it, no matter how parents think they can control kids' thinking, kids ultimately mature to live their own soular personality, consciously or subconsciously, as they are meant to, as we are all meant to do.

   I've met people who've endured horrible kidhoods yet became fun‑loving, considerate, good‑hearted adults. So too, people who've had loving and supportive families, matured into irresponsible adult brats. The sort causing a parent to ask: Where did I go wrong?

   The only wrong may have been assuming a kid naturally shares the same values and dreams. It doesn't work unless they truly carry the same soular plan. A thought that urges us to enjoy the moment and not live waiting for our results to manifest.

   As I now see it, if doing for another causes so much stress that you find you're feeding yourself opiates of “One day this HAS to be worth it!” it might be a primo signal to stop the unmerry‑go‑round long enough to ask: Who's taking who for a ride?

Dueling Dreams produce Living Nightmares.

   I restored sanity and serenity to my life with a simple Truth: No one is born to be a one‑on‑one crusader, or a Character Alterationist for another.

   Since a far higher energy has orchestrated the individual purpose for each journey (in conjunction with the needs of our soular growth chart), we are singularly responsible for refining our own actions, reactions and attitudes, sharing love without leashes and joy without judgment — or not.

   Though our lifal questions may be generally pre-designed, we alone are accountable for the quality of our responses.

   Ergo! Being that it is such a cryptic safari to clarify our own reason for beingness on Planet Earth, only a foolish assumption would cause someone to believe they can define and direct the design and destiny of another.

   No one has the soular right, nor magical ability, to reform another if the other person is an abusive parent, a battering mate, a thoughtless kid, a rude in‑law, a repressive boss or anyone who lives contrary to how we believe life ought to be lived or how we desire to live it.

   But! We do have the right to object when their actions infringe on our physical, emotional or spiritual welfare and freedom.

   If so, we have the option of either getting suckered into the other's attitude or bidding their stress bye‑bye.

   For me, it was a misuse of energy to believe I could carry the gauntlet for individual members of humanity. To believe I had the right to force others to accept the success and happiness they were missing via their fears and denial.

   I had no right to force them to see the potential I saw.

   Thinking it was OK to cheerlead reluctant players was the biggest lie my ego ever told me — no matter how good the cause seemed at the time. Pursuing it hurt only me.

   Stress is the Signal: to Look, Learn and Let Go; to cease combat and examine our road map, our motivation fuel, our emotional transport and then explore the reason why our journey is not working. It's the Signal to examine without using others as an excuse, by thinking:

   If only they lived as I told them to, if only they did it my way, then all would be fine and I could then be happy and then be able to relax for a while!

   I doubt it since taking control as well as giving up control to another mortal can become very addictive. Especially, if the pattern stems from a past life where it was detrimental, and it's one they've now been setup to confront and best.

   Stress is a common Signal, as a school bell, to tell us we are in the midst of an important seminar concerning that which we are here to learn. A Signal that we've reached a Testing Crossroad and our time has come to reroute our destination — and why.

LETTING GO vs. GIVING UP

CHALLENGE:

To discern where the fine line is drawn between Letting Go and Giving Up. It's a tricky line to locate and Tradition, and many New Age philosophies, often work against our ability to draw that line.

   Tradition tells us: Nothing comes easy! If at first you don't succeed, try, try again! Life's a struggle! A woman's work is never done!

   Tradition promotes hanging‑in even when it hurts.

   No Pain, No Gain — OK. I can see the Pain/Gain bit when it pertains to building body muscles. But! When it goes to ripping down anothers' beliefs or habits so as to adopt ours, and if our objective is one in which we need another to complete it, then to me, it's a waste of energy … as usually, the other person is also struggling to achieve her dream which, for many, may be to see our dream fail.

   Outside of my creative self‑chosen challenges, I see no worth in struggle. It caused me nothing but frustration until I listened and lived the Positive Signal within its futility.

   New Age philosophy tells us affirmation and visualizing will cause what we desire to appear. Yet, the promise is empty if our Soul Goal requires another to manifest it. As in being promoted at work by a reluctant boss, or being loved by a reluctant other, or being a lottery winner when fate tumbles out the numbers.

   What if those manifestations are inappropriate for what we're here to spiritually achieve?

   We can only manifest that which is within our own life and attitude without needing a specific other as a co‑worker in that manifestation.

EXAMPLE:

I visualized myself writing this book and I am. But, I cannot image a specific other to publish it, nor image others to read and love it. All I can do is my best for me. If others respond, that's terrific.

   As with all social tenets, visualizing holds partial Truth.

   It works when we focus our energy on our dreams for self.

   But, I've never seen positive results when it is directed toward making another — who is dreaming of, and searching for, another dreamscape — to share or adopt, ours. It often promotes unrequited love on many levels. As in:

We can lead someone to our heart,
but we can't make them love us.
We can share our dreams,
but we can't expect others
to dream nor live them as we do.

   It's the same with self‑help books. They're just glued stacks of printed paper if the reader chooses not to consider or adopt the author's suggestions.

People only buy
what their soul has already bought.

   On overview, it becomes a stickier paper heap if we believe we can apply those “self‑help” techniques to convert others, be they a mate, lover, child or friend. We cannot.

   That's why they are called self‑help. To prove this, try taking a reluctant other to a lecture or a concert that jazzes you, not them. You can't make them listen, or get what you get from it. You can't make jazzed interest happen if it's not a topic of exploration in their spiritual make-up kit.

   Stress dissolves when I remind myself: All I can do is WALK MY OWN TALK. Live the best life I can for myself. Look out for #1 by being true to me and my conscience. If others ask how I discovered my secret, all I can do is point out the doors I opened, and tell how I opened them. No more. No less. Then Let Go of the results as to how, why or if they follow my lead.

   How others react is their issue. It's not my mission.

   Again, as I can't Proxy Diet for another, nor am I meant to, I can't Proxy Live or evolve for another. No one can. I guess cheating ain't allowed on this Cosmic Campus.

   Even though we may have lived and logged a multitude of philosophies and actions that have clarified the meaning of our life and led us toward our dreams, we can't transfer that data file to another's See Drive.

   We can't because no matter how well we think we know someone, and what's “good” for them, we really don't know what program their soul is looking for, or what puzzle they are here to assemble.

   Even if we discover the greatest secret of life, the best we can do is live it. Not struggle to enforce it.

   A good analogy is the teacher/student interaction. No matter how skilled, knowledgeable, patient and giving a teacher may be, if the student chooses not to receive, store and use the data, the learning session is only an exercise in futility for the teacher if that teacher makes her ideal of successful completion contingent on the student's acceptance of those ideals.

   That thought caused me to totally Let Go of one‑on‑one giving to anyone not anxious to receive. To take the blinker of indifference or rebellion as a Signal to detach and take some self‑R&R, Rest & Regrouping.

   I do this because I've learned everyone feels correct in their choice of vintage gripes or grins, lifestyle, behavior, attitudes and actions. Heck, even killers feel right in killing.

   Earth houses a judgmental specie.

   Being rough on others, even self, is a popular global sport.

   Possibly that's because in so many areas of life we're not in control, particularly those areas involving another's input.

   Many assume it's OK to cast verdicts on the low worth of others if they were victims of judgment, real or imagined, and thus seek revenge by jumping into the crowded Get Even Pool.

   But the Pool is shaped as a boomerang. Two wrongs don't make a right — just a bigger wrong.

   I dropped anchor on Serenity Isle of You by accepting that my attitude is the ONLY area of life I have any control over, by virtue of the easy access for my doing so.

   Ergo! I do my best and don't sweat the rest.

   OK. How was I to continue life knowing my system had been satiated with the lies my ego formatted within me?

   For one, as with an addict dumping a habit, I knew it was a day by day effort; a conscious looking before I leaped to see if the dream I swam into was mine, if it was shared or was it another's dream appearing to be aligned with mine.

   Several questions arose after my no-more‑o'‑Les union:

    If I met someone I wanted to spend my life with, but linking meant re‑shaping my dreams, how much re‑shaping do I allow so as not to lose me? How much renovating is too much? How do I love another without losing myself?

   My answers I worked out were:

    Only renovate my dream if it will be enhanced through sharing or linking it with another's dream. Only redo if the sharing is mutually supportive, satisfying and synergistic.

   Every now and again when I feel frustrated I check in with my conscience to see if I'm still dwelling within my own dream and soular vision. Or, if I've slipped into other's.

   If so, is it causing me to neglect my own?

   If so, why have I allowed it?

   If so, what are the trade‑off benefits, if any?

BOTTOM LINE:

I can't lose in love as long as I love and give for the joy of it without placing a contingent energy on how another ought to respond, or what my kickback ought to be.

I do not love 'til it hurts, I love as long as it feels good, as long as it heartens, breeds happiness and creates more love. Not just for the other person, but within myself.

   I figured if I was to ever be part of a successful union, I'd be sure to check out the man's perception of a wife, and his perception of a good loving husband, as well as his concept of an ideal marriage to see how and if our visions blended.

   After my last marital arts tournament, single ladyhood was my new dream. At that vulnerable time, between leaving violence and heading toward the unknown, I was served with the opportunity to explore my own life.

   As I pondered my criteria list for another mate, I knew I could not get involved before I animated my inner dreams and gave them my best shot for life.

   I consciously blocked myself from linking to an immediate relationship. This had its advantages, as long as I kept in mind that it was a wall of my own devise. As long as I did not live behind it, or ever believe it was a granite cell with no exit.

   My last question to be answered was: What Is Love?

   I could not then corral my answer into words. Possibly, because of the many interpretations and motives within its meaning. It's truly so different for everyone.

   Though I may not know exactly what love is, I do know what it feels like to me. And I noticed that when I feel good about myself, my love for others escalates.

   Life always returns to Square Me.

MEANING:

How much I CAN love you =
How much I DO love me.

BOTTOM LINE:
(for the need to be true to ourselves is)

If we don't choose to live out our dreams
we risk living out our nightmares.

   I'd like to share a story with you that illustrates the futility of forcing our ideas of what's right (to us) onto unwilling others.

   Many years ago, in Manhattan, a religious troupe decided to rescue the Bowery bums and cruised the streets in their conversion van in the wee small hours of the morn. They launched a mass reformation of derelicts. They pulled 'em out of the gutter. Led 'em groggy eyed into their van. Sobered 'em up with stale black coffee. Handed 'em their religious booklets. And tossed 'em back into the streets.

   Well! These folks worked long hours on funding enough ripple to accomplish a satisfying stupor. And here comes the knights in upright armor reversing their efforts, only to leave 'em with a pamphlet and the cold fright of reality. And off they drove on the righteous fuel of fulfilling their goal.

   In defense, the bums rebelled. Next time the conversion van pulled up, the bums' team defended their dream by loudly combating the cult's forced bussing trip.

   Result: Reformers 0 — Bums all.

   We can love another, but we can't live for another. And if we seek to live another's life, it may well be time to ask ourselves: Why are we avoiding our own lifal journey?

Copyright © 2004 by Krystiahn