Tag: habit | In your dreams …

One small adjustment

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

What if you were just one small adjustment away from having the life you want?

In the movie How do you know, George (Paul Rudd) gives Lisa (Reese Witherspoon) a can of Play Doh for her birthday, and tells her how Play Doh was invented.

Joe McVicker of Kutol Chemicals invented a putty-like wallpaper cleaner that sold well until vinyl wallpaper was introduced after World War II. Vinyl wallpaper was easy to clean with soap and water, and Joe’s putty cleaner was fast becoming obsolete. The company’s future looked dire. Then his sister-in-law, Kay Zufall, a kindergarten teacher, gave her class some of Joe’s wallpaper cleaner to play with because it was easier for them to shape than the standard classroom modelling clay. It was also non-toxic and less messy. They both saw potential for repurposing Joe’s wallpaper cleaner, but it was still missing a magical element.

“What if you make it bright yellow?” Kay asked. And that’s what they did. One small adjustment, and Play Doh was born. It was 1955. Joe became a millionaire before his 27th birthday, and more than two billion cans of Play Doh were sold over the next fifty years.

“We’re all just one small adjustment away from having the life we want,” George tells Lisa in the movie, ‘How Do You Know’.

The movie, How do you know, was not such a resounding success, going on the record as one of the biggest flops of 2010, but George’s Play Doh story sticks (oops, sorry) in the mind. “We’re all just one small adjustment away from having the life we want,” George tells Lisa in the movie.

George isn’t talking about a business success outcome. He’s talking about Lisa’s happiness and her sense of purpose and connection with life.

Does Lisa know what small adjustment she needs to make to have the life she really wants? And does she make it? Watch the movie to find out!

So what if you were just one small adjustment away from having the life you want? What might that adjustment be, and would you make it?

The catch is that we’re generally blind to the adjustments we need to make, otherwise we would make them. And if we’re not blind, we lack courage because we haven’t discovered the small adjustments we need to make to overcome our fears.

What if your small adjustment was a shift of focus, a new way of looking at a situation, a change in approach?

The answer is in your dreams. Your dreams reflect your mindset and how it results in the life you are experiencing.

Just as a chiropractor makes one small adjustment to free your stiff neck …

Just as a mechanic can look at a broken engine and know what small adjustment is needed to make it work, or a chiropractor can look at your stiff neck and know what small spinal adjustment is needed to free it up, or a Kay Zufall can see that a small adjustment to colour can change a family fortune and bring creative pleasure to hundreds of millions of children, a professional dream interpreter can look at a dream and identify the small adjustment that you can make – the one you are currently blind to – that can bring positive, sunshiny yellow changes into your life.

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Your tune

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 2 Comments

If you were a song, what would it be? Which lyrics spring to mind to express the essence of your being, or even just the way you feel today?

I’m taking you through a tune up, or maybe a change of tune, and all this is courtesy of a recent life coaching client* who dreamed of telling a singer he was putting emphasis on the wrong syllables – darling instead of darling – and losing the essence and power of his song.

Where do you put emphasis in your daily life? What might happen if you changed this? What might happen if you began to put more energy and attention into areas of your life that you usually tend to downplay or dismiss? What might happen if you put less energy and attention into things you generally regard as high priority? Your gut response answers may be enlightening and insightful in ways you cannot imagine, so get a pen and piece of paper and let your answers flow.

While the details of my client’s dream are confidential and related specifically to her life, the analogy offers life changing potential for everyone, so let’s play some more:

If you were a song, what’s your chorus? What’s the recurring story you tell yourself or other people? What’s the repetitive line?

Is this chorus serving you well? Could you rewrite it? What might happen if you sang a new chorus to yourself and to others?

What might happen if you change the rhythm of your life, (your day, your relationship, your work, your social life), changed your regular habits, created a new pattern?

Is there harmony in your life? How can you increase harmony?

Imagine changing the style of your song, perhaps a jazz version, techno, string quartet, country, brass, folk, hip hop. What might happen if you change your (life)style?

What if you changed the pitch of your tune, pitched to a different market, pitched to a different audience, pitched to match ears and hearts that are important to you?

And what if you change the tone (modulate your message), the conductor (the pace, control, integration, interpretation), the instruments (your methods and means of expression)?

Energetically, the world responds to your vibration.

Energetically, the world responds to your vibration. Shift your vibration and you shift your world. My client’s dream gifted her a beautiful analogy – liken your vibration to a song, then shift emphasis to ‘get it right’.

Look ahead to where you would like to be, then choose the song that matches that place. Sing it with all your heart.

* Thank you to my client for allowing me to share her dream’s analogy.

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A knitting yarn

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 2 Comments

My first grandchild, a girl, is due in January and we are all getting very excited. My daughter, Rowan, and her husband, Michael, are renovating, painting, building the nest, and consulting the book of a thousand and one names for children.

And I’ve bought some wool and knitting needles. It’s been 30 years since I’ve knitted anything, and that was a baby cardigan for Rowan, but they say it’s like riding a bike – you never forget.

January is hot in Brisbane, so I’m knitting a few sizes up so she can be warm in a Brisbane winter. “It’s tradition,” I told Rowan. “You have to knit for a new baby, even when you live in the subtropics. It’s in the bones.”

So, on Saturday, I chose my wool and cast on. 65 stitches. Clickety clack, it all came back.

I remembered being about four years old, sitting with my mother listening to the wireless, while she clickety clacked her way through her afternoon knitting. We had a special arrangement. If I was quiet while she listened to Women’s Hour, she would be quiet for Listen with Mother. She must have pitched it well: Listen with Mother was a ten minute show.

I kept the bargain. I was very quiet. I said nothing. I found some knitting needles and sat next to her, playing at knitting. Clickety clack, clickety clack, clickety clack, until the noise became too much for her and she decided it would be much quieter if she taught me how to knit. And so we began. I knitted a square, then a doll’s scarf, graduating to tea cozies with pompoms, hats, mittens without thumbs, mittens with thumbs, gloves, and on and on we went.

There was always a knitting project on the go for English girls of my era. (Don’t worry, Rowan, it’s not pink!)

There was always a knitting project on the go for English girls of my era. Icelandic jumpers with intricate patterns (by then I was in my 20s and living through freezing Scottish winters), and, finally, lacy baby clothes for my first baby.

And then it all stopped. For thirty years. Euan missed out on his knitted cardi when he was born the following year. There had been no time to sit, let alone knit. And now here I am, shaping the shoulders on the back of my granddaughter’s little jumper, rows and rows of nicely tensioned stitches trailing from my fingers, as if I’ve been doing this all my life.

The things we learn as children – consciously and unconsciously – anchor deep, as we so often discover when we explore our dreams and identify beliefs and experiences stretching way back to childhood that still influence the way we go about our lives. It’s tradition, you see. You have to knit for a new baby, even when you live in the subtropics. It’s in the bones.

And I’m loving it. I’ll post a pic when I’ve finished.

The jacket I knitted.

PS. 21 December.

I finished these last month, and just remembered I said I’d post a pic:

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Hole in the road

Posted on May 18, 2010 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 2 Comments

His father’s voice would always sing out from the back of his mind, ‘There was I, a-digging this ‘ole’.

Out driving recently, we slowed down to pass road works. Orange witches’ hats marked off a hole in the centre of the road. Intrepid road workers were jack-hammering their way, waist deep in rubble, ear deep in mind numbing noise.

“You know,” Michael began, “whenever we passed road works when we were children, Dad would always sing, ‘There was I, a-digging this ‘ole, ‘ole in the ground sort of big and sort of round …’. And I would vow never to be as predictable and repetitive when I grew up.”

“And you’ve succeeded,” I replied, “I’ve never heard you burst into song and we’ve passed plenty of road works in our life together.”

“Yes and no,” Michael cringed. “I may not sing but I’ve never passed a road works without hearing my father’s voice striking up from the back of my mind, ‘There was I, a-digging this ‘ole’. He just won’t go away!”

We can drive on past the hole in the road without bursting into song … but what about the holes we can’t see?

We can laugh about these perpetual voices that echo on from our past. Parents, teachers, priests and school bullies, for example, often leave their mark. All the while we are aware of them we can shrug our shoulders and smile. We can drive on past the hole in the road without bursting into song, talk to our children without old-fashioned admonishment, and be assertive without fear of the school bully hurting us.

But what about the echoes we are not aware of? Deep in your unconscious mind are the records of every conversation, event and experience you have lived through carefully filed alongside the feelings these evoked in you. These experiences and feelings have shaped your life, even though you do not remember them. They form a blueprint, a pattern that exerts an influence on how you respond to the world. They may be unconscious patterns, but that fact alone makes them far more powerful than the patterns you are consciously aware of. The hole in the road you know about is not a problem. You won’t fall into it. But the very real hole in the road you are NOT conscious of is a danger.

How does this relate to dreams?

Dreams are reflections of both your unconscious and conscious minds, with special highlights on the conflicts between the two. When you know how to cut through the language of your dreams and interpret them, you can understand the blueprint patterns that are still operating in your life. Your dreams bring to light what is usually hidden to your waking eyes. Your dreams reveal the holes in the road, how they got there, and how they are affecting your waking life today. What powerful information!

“Money doesn’t grow on trees”, she said, speaking without thinking her own mother’s echoing words which were also her grandmother’s.

For example, you may have forgotten the day when the other kids in your street were given money to buy ice creams from the ice cream van, but your mother didn’t have the change. She told you, “Money doesn’t grow on trees”, speaking without thinking her own mother’s echoing words which were also her grandmother’s. She didn’t realise you were the only kid in the street to miss out, and she certainly didn’t know the others taunted you about it for weeks.

As a five year old you felt deeply hurt, by the other kids and by your mother. You mistakenly learned that money was available to other people but not to you. When a deep feeling is associated with a belief (remember that children’s feelings are big) the belief is all the more strongly anchored. The child, in this example, grew up and forgot the incident, but his unconscious mind remembered and dug a huge hole in the road. As an adult, he wondered why he encountered difficulties with self-esteem and self-value. He didn’t know that his unconscious mind had established a belief pattern that he was less worthy of reward than others.

The problem is that the unconscious mind is far more powerful than the conscious mind, so its blueprint wins over conscious mind ideals, thoughts and goals.

Those plans you have that seem to keep misfiring are most likely overpowered by your unconscious beliefs in holes in the road and other perceived pitfalls and dangers. Your unconscious mind will sabotage realisation of your plans to ‘save’ you from such fates.

The solution? Change the blueprint.

This is easily done once you can interpret your dreams. There are various techniques (dream alchemy practices) that use the symbols of your unique dreams to change your unconscious blueprint.

Let your dreams enable you to build a smooth road forward, splendidly lit by diamonds gathered from the deepest pitfalls that once lined your route.

Think of the process as mending the holes in the road so that you can make smoother and faster progress. You can’t remove a hole. The way to mend it is to fill it in. You can’t simply remove an unconscious belief; you need to fill the hole it occupied with a new, more appropriate belief. Dream alchemy practices are designed to do this.

But first, dream alchemy encourages you to look deep into the hole your dreams have revealed, for the best gems and treasures are discovered by mining deep into the earth, deep into the self.

Let your dreams enable you to build a smooth road forward, splendidly lit by diamonds gathered from the deepest pitfalls that once lined your route.

[Copyright Jane Teresa Anderson, March 2003. First published as a Dream Sight article.]

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Trash tells all

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

People say, “Dreams are just the brain filtering through daily stuff.”

“I don’t believe in dream interpretation. Dreams are just the brain filtering through daily stuff, sorting out the trash. That’s why you get bits of work, bits of television, bits of things you’re worried about. You wouldn’t want to analyse mine! Let the trash go, I say. Wake up fresh.”

I love it when people tell me that dreams are the result of the brain processing the day, clearing out the garbage. I love the look on their faces when I agree.

“If someone went through your garbage,” I jump in between the lines of their jaw-dropped bewilderment, “how much could they tell about you?”

Big business takes trash seriously, shredding papers and wiping hard drives to prevent secrets being exposed while many a prospective high security employee has unwittingly had her home garbage bin trawled by company detectives while she slept.

Stop for a moment and think about what you throw out with your trash and what it says about you.

If someone went through your garbage, how much could they tell about you?

Over a period of time a good garbage detective could produce a personal profile of your eating habits, what medicines you take (what conditions you suffer), your interests and political persuasions (newspapers, letters), your financial situation, what you spend your money on (shopping dockets), where you’ve been and when (train tickets, theatre tickets) and much more. And then there’s your electronic trash, the recycle bin on your computer and the decipherable ghost of every email you’ve received or sent and every website you’ve visited still etched on your hard drive way after you’ve pressed the delete key.

Trash tells all. Well, a great deal, anyway. To put it simply, everything you put in the trash represents a decision about what you decide to keep and what you decide not to keep. Sometimes you make mistakes and throw out the baby with the bathwater, or hang on to stuff that is more of a hindrance than a help to you. Sometimes you cleverly recycle your trash, finding new ways to make use of things you no longer need. Or you foolishly recycle garbage, perhaps rescuing a rain-soaked item only to introduce mould or vermin into the house, or reusing an envelope bearing revealing sender ID, for example.

When you sleep, your brain filters through your experiences of the last day or two. It filters not only the experiences you were aware of, but also the ones your unconscious mind registered.

Your dreams are a work in progress, an ever-changing sculpture of your personal worldview.

Dreams do the job of sorting out your recent experiences in an effort to make sense of the world and your place in it. From babyhood your dreams have helped you to form your unique view of the world updating it nightly to accommodate your new experiences.

So, on the surface, dreams “are just the brain filtering through daily stuff, sorting out the trash”, but on a deeper level they paint a picture of the dreamer.

Your dreams are a work in progress, an ongoing, ever-changing sculpture of your personal worldview. Take time to stand aside and contemplate your sculpture, to decide which lines to enhance, which to erase, and which to change. Whether you see elements of your sculpture as trash or treasure is … well, revealing of your worldview, really, isn’t it?

Contemplations

Where and when, in your life, have you thrown out the baby with the bathwater? Have you had dreams of losing things or being lost?Where and when, in your life, have you held onto stuff (physical or emotional) that has hindered your progress? Have you had dreams of obstacle courses, or carrying heavy baggage?

What, in your life, has been the result of clever recycling: getting gold from physical or emotional dross? Have you had recurring dreams with successful outcomes (where they had previously been unsuccessful)?

Where or when, in your life, have you recycled old attitudes or patterns of behaviour to your disadvantage instead of changing them? Do you have recurring dreams with unresolved or unsatisfying endings?

Contemplate your sculpture: decide which lines to enhance, which to erase, and which to change.

[Copyright Jane Teresa Anderson, June 2004. First published as a Dream Sight article.]

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Episode 53 The Dream Show: Apples for apples

Posted on April 23, 2010 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (21.1MB) | Embed

A new podcast every Friday. Listen here or subscribe on iTunes.

Episode 53 of our free weekly podcast, THE DREAM SHOW, is now up.

Is there a right interpretation to every dream? If you’re interpreting your own dreams, might you sometimes interpret according to what you want to believe about yourself and your life?

Are you a stickler for seeing things the same way, doing things the same way, and is this seeing and doing taking you where you want to be? Where do you want to be? How tough does life have to get before you look for a new way forward?

Today’s show offers some universal truths, insights and inspirations to get you moving ahead with ease when things seem a bit too tough. And plenty of dream interpretation tips as always, of course.

You can listen here (Episode 53)

Comfort zone: the things we do!

Posted on February 25, 2010 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Comfort zone: the things we do!

When was the last time you stepped out of a comfort zone? What did you do? How did it feel? How did the experience enrich your life?

We create and inhabit comfort zones to protect ourselves from facing our fears. We erect boundaries beyond which we prefer not to step. Often, though, the greatest danger lies inside the comfort zone, as this dream (posted to our old dream forums), portrays so vividly:

“I was nursing a baby and the baby was me. She was tired so I put her on my shoulder and she started to drop off. Then I got the idea of putting her into a 2 litre milk bottle, a nice cosy place I thought! The milk came up to her chest. She obviously found it comfortable and dropped off to sleep.

But then I kept having problems. I realised I had to take the lid off or she would suffocate. The milk was slopping into her mouth and making her cough, and I thought she might get chilled too.

I was walking round a tourist area and wanted to sit down for a coffee but I was too preoccupied with the baby.

Then I wondered how I was going to get her out of the bottle again. I would have to cut the top off. But she looked fairly comfortable and was soon asleep so I left her there.”

Did you notice all the references in this dream to comfort zones? There’s the ‘nice cosy place’ which she found ‘comfortable’ and where, despite the obvious dangers, she remained comfortable.

The things we do! This dreamer really wanted to explore unknown territory (the tourist area) and was on the verge of realising that her familiar comfort zone was so restrictive it was potentially suffocating. Even though she could see solutions, she ultimately settled for what seemed ‘fairly comfortable’. She was limiting her potential, and probably not achieving her desires, by suffocating in a comfort zone instead of stepping out into new territory to grow.

If you ever need encouragement to step beyond a comfort zone so you can grow, personally and spiritually, remember the baby in the milk bottle.

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ABC QLD Recurring death dream

Posted on November 4, 2009 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 0 Comments

Dream interpretation on Radio ABC QLD today

“Three nights in a row this week I dreamed I died in a car accident, and I was frantically trying to contact my husband to discuss the funeral arrangements,” said Gail, one of the callers to my dream interpretation segment on Stacey Katter’s afternoon show today on Radio ABC QLD.

What does it mean?

“It’s symbolic,” I assured Gail, “so you’re perfectly safe to drive your car.”

Dreams of death often come up when something feels like it’s ending, whether it’s a good ending (finishing a course) or not such a good ending (losing a business). More subtly, death dreams come up when we experience inner change, when old habits, attitudes and beliefs have to die so new ones can take their place.

Gail saw herself die, suggesting a big change in her life, something akin to a total makeover.

Where was she going in her dream car? She died before she got there, suggesting a sudden end to her previous direction, ‘drive’, or goals.

What worried Gail most was not her death, but making arrangements for her funeral. A funeral is a time to review and celebrate a person’s life, to write a eulogy, to begin to let go, to move on.

Gail’s dream was about needing to review and celebrate whatever has suddenly ended in her life, so that she can begin to let go, to move on.

A dream always reflects the last 24-48 hours, and Gail had this dream three nights in a row, so what happened for her 4-5 days ago?

Gail got it. Her husband has been accepted for a new job – a new town, all change. Gail’s task, awakened by her dream, is to make sure she reviews and celebrates, so she can move forward in the best possible way.

What change would you like to see in your life? What would need to come to an end? An attitude? A belief? Imagine making that change. Review. What would you write in a eulogy? What would you celebrate?

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Watch your feet

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Jane Teresa Anderson • 1 Comment

The path

“Just watch where you’re walking when you come home,” Kit said, “the dog does her business all over the lawn, so watch your feet.”

We’re looking after Kit’s dog and house while she’s on holiday for a few weeks. Much as we love living in the city, we’re enjoying the opportunity to live closer to the sea, and working so much online, we can do this easily.

If you’ve listened to the last two podcasts, you’ll have heard the dog snuffle, snort and woof her way into the recording. We promised to stick with her routine, so she also sleeps by our bed, snoring throughout the night.

Routines. How many routines do you go through, stick with, live by, each day?

Looking after someone else’s home – and dog – means changing routines, questioning the way you habitually do things, finding new ways.

Which brings me back to the poo-laden lawn. For three weeks we did exactly as we had been instructed. Whenever we came home, we parked the car, opened the garden gate, and stepped gingerly across the lawn. We put a torch in the car to help when we came back after dark. No matter how often we cleared up behind the dog, she randomly and abundantly deposited her little piles of poo to welcome us home.

We were so focussed on carrying out Kit’s instructions to the letter – following her lawn-tiptoeing routine every time we came home – that it was only yesterday that I saw the light: right by the car parking place there’s a little fence, so small that all we have to do is step over it onto the nice, clean, poo-clear brick pathway that leads all the way to the front door. No lawn, no watching our feet, no poo worries.

How easy is that?! The moral of this waking life story? We follow routines and focus on daily habits for the strangest reasons, many of which leave us blind to an easier way. Far from making our lives easier, routines can complicate matters, leading us the long way through … well, I’ll leave you to contemplate the metaphors while we enjoy more of that lovely sea air.

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Tag Archives: habit

One small adjustment

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Your tune

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A knitting yarn

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Hole in the road

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