I awoke with huge anxiety yesterday morning, to the point that I had to put my head between my knees and breathe slowly until I could get up. It was nightmares that did it to me, two in a row believe it or not.
The first one was about a trip I was taking with my uncle and grandma. I was driving them home from shopping and we were supposed to catch a boat to Canada, but I missed the exit on the highway and figured we should just go home. Upon arriving home I took packages out of my car and they proceeded to put them back, and an argument ensued on the way in which I locked the doors. I said I needed something from the other side and they started screaming about how I was wasting time and we could still make it to Canada and the only reason they were doing this was because of me and I was ungrateful and Uncle knew the way and why didn't I let him drive.....the screaming was what woke me up finally.
But I fell back asleep and my second dream landed me in a hospital. This time my uncle and my mother were there with me and presumably we were in the hospital because my grandma was in there. I don't remember why my uncle was screaming at me in this setting but he elevated his anger to the point that he hit me in the face, which caused my mom to scream more and also take a swing at me. So I woke up in a total panic attack and had to give up on falling back asleep. I don't know why any of this happened but my intuition is telling me that he blames us for all the trouble Grandma has to go through, and all three of them have severe anger management problems, and they are all disappointed in me.
Ok, so that's my hypothesis on them. But what do the dreams say about me? Something is upsetting me enough to enter my dreams and cause panic at 5am. Is it simply a reminder to stay 2000 miles away? Is it a prediction of what is to come? Or is it just a reflection of what has been on my mind lately due to hearing of all their grievances back home? I definitely spend way too much time worrying about what they all think of me when I really shouldn't care. I shouldn't let their screaming infiltrate my brain and my independence no matter where I am. If people want to scream their heads off insulting you endlessly then you have to decide that it's their problem, not yours. Of course I have not yet been able to do that and have sought help numerous times.
Something I'd like to learn in the next year is how to remove focus of exterior influences and solely concentrate on what I want to do. I felt so tense and achy all day yesterday, the dreams nearly ruined my entire day. I didn't know if I could make it to a yoga class but I forced myself and I was in for a pleasant surprise. It helped to take myself away from all those thoughts and pay attention to my movements. Amazingly a handstand seemed easier than ever before. The pose still needs work but my body gave me this gift today, maybe so that I could spend some time up-side down and gain clarity. The only thing that stopped me before was the brain saying "no don't!" at the last minute. But it wasn't there today. There was no little voice nagging at me this time.
My friend S is a triathlete and when I expressed to her my dislike of running, she said that she used to hate it too. But then her trainer explained that we hate these things because we decided to. We decided to give ourselves a hard time about it and make it impossible to succeed. And then when we try to get past it, it feels like a forceful anger inducing crazed attack on the body. She says these are the demons in our mind telling us how to think of the way we do things. We have to silence them, or brush them away or let the running unfold into something relaxing over time without even thinking about it. I may have finally reached this hurtle today with the handstand and I nearly cried tears of joy right there in class. I couldn't wait to get back home and try again.
Handstands are supposed to have the following benefits: getting over fear, increased clarity, improved digestion, increase of blood circulation, core strength, and greater balance. Since all of these things are destined to bring about sweeter dreams, I am committed to practice handstands. I am feeling pretty lucky to have found the exercise that I love. It improves my quality of life and helps me get rid of exterior influences and demons. I realized yesterday that I started what will be a lifelong practice. I completely forgot about my bad dream for the rest of the day and had a restful sleep last night.
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