Self Acceptance or Self Abandonment?

Yesterday was the 4th day of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) annual conference, and it was my most challenging day of the event so far.

Here’s a bit of what happened.

The day started off great. I got up, got a blog article written and posted, and was off to a dream work group I am participating in during the conference.

We each shared a dream. My dream was quite humorous and made people laugh. I always like to make people laugh.

Somehow I had gotten it into my head before the sessions began that I wanted to compliment at least five people that day. I think It is an Idea I got from the Comedian Dusty Slay’s podcast. ?

One participant in the dream group has a real trickster spirit. She likes to rib me and try to get my goat in a fun and playful way. I told her I really appreciated her feistiness and humor.

Another man, who will come back later in this article, allowed us to utilize his dream in an enactment/role-play of the dream. It sounds stupid, I know, but it’s actually kind of fun—like playing as kids again. After the session ended, I told him how much I appreciated his vibe, that he came across as a good soul.

Another woman sang a song she had heard in her dream. I know, it sounds sort of cringe, but she is a lovely person from what I have observed at this conference, and she has a beautiful voice. After the session, I let her know how much I enjoyed her singing and asked if she was a musician or something similar.

No, but yes—she does play piano.

Evidently, she said she was extremely nervous during the whole session. I would have never known this. I got self-conscious that maybe she thought I was hitting on her or something. No, not really. She is quite attractive, but I think I just wanted to tell her that I thought her singing was great and try to connect, but I quickly ended the conversation and took off.

It was interesting.

She also comes back into the story later.

it was time for the first Session, so I headed to it.

There was a guy here who was sort of rubbing me the wrong way for some reason, but I decided to go to a session he was facilitating. He is a bit over-the-top and boisterous, and that may have been the thing I was reacting to.

However, he is actually a very talented and insightful group facilitator, and very witty. I made sure to tell him so later in the day.

In reflection, I think he reminds me a little of myself, and my being put off was a bit of self-loathing being projected. Yeah, I think most of us do this, myself included, but we’re usually not aware of it.

Nevertheless, another lesson learned, and I am glad I abandoned—or at least bracketed—my pre-judgment.

It was a good session.

The next session I attended I picked at random, but I was glad to see a woman I had met earlier and have really connected with in a good way. Someone commented at the art show the night before that we appeared to be siblings.

Well, we have had very similar life paths in a way, so that was an astute observation.

As for the session, it was an experience of witnessing extreme egotism at play.

The facilitator spent the majority of the time going into excruciating detail about her life path working with dreams—from 1965 until today. I felt like I was in a therapy session.

Then she had us break out into groups, and one of us was to share a dream so we could utilize the method she had been teaching.

One of my group members was very adamant that she share her dream.

So we let her.

As SpongeBob says…

Two hours later…

How am I like these people?

I kept asking myself that all day.

Well, here you go. My personal reflections on my experience are perhaps just another form of this egoism, but I hope they are at least entertaining, informative, and helpful.

That is my intent, at least.

Lunch break came.

Yes, my weight is still coming down. Muscle mass is going up. But that dang visceral fat is still hanging in there at the same level.

Rats.

I did a flip of a coin to decide which session to attend after lunch, and it suggested one that the witty facilitator from the morning would be participating in.

So I headed over.

I walked into the room, and there was the singing woman in the corner. She waved, and I ascertained that she was volunteer staff and was recording the presentation.

I heard the facilitator say that the dreams being discussed were provided by Palestinian and Jewish people, and I thought:

Uh oh, I am in the wrong room.

So I left.

I went to the other presentation, sat down, but didn’t feel at home there either. So I got up and went back to the first session.

Was I embarrassed?

Yes.

Did I care?

A little.

Then the session began, and I found the facilitation to be exactly the kind of thing I don’t like. It was painful.

Some people got up and walked out. I’m not sure why they did, but I wanted to as well.

But no.

I told myself to just grin and bear it.

And I did.

Self-abandonment?

Perhaps.

I don’t know.

After the dreams were read and we were “facilitated” to embody and experience the content, it turned to group comments.

The man with the good vibes from my dream circle was one of the participants there. He asked for the microphone.

One of the Palestinian or Jewish dreams that was shared—we were not told which—was about being caught in a drone attack.

The dreamer was desperately trying to escape, screaming for her mother to open a door so she could come inside and get away from the bombing.

There was a small boy in the street.

She yelled at him to run and take cover.

He just stood there and asked her:

“Why did you abandon me?”

My friend from the dream circle wanted to comment on this dream.

This man was born during World War II in Germany. I believe he said Dresden.

His family was almost completely wiped out by Allied bombing toward the end of the war, and he was orphaned.

A couple of years later, his mother finally located him, and they were reunited.

He said that what the little boy said in the dream was exactly what he asked his mother when they were reunited.

“Why did you abandon me?”

Powerful stuff.

Today, maybe I can try to be a little more accepting and realize a bit more of the difference between self-acceptance and self-abandonment.