Some of this task is inherited and some comes from our childhood experiences.
Working on it can awaken us to the process behind our long-term problems.
A simple start:
Recall your earliest dream or memory.
Identify the most interesting, scary, exciting, wonderful, or unusual element.
If the dream/memory wasn’t so dramatic just identify your core experience.
If the strongest part of it was a person, animal, or other agent, visualize it.
If there were no other figures recall the feeling you had.
Then feel into the figure or feeling. Amplify it. Imagine you ARE it. BE it. Make your mind like it too.
If it’s negative, explore how to use its power in a positive way.
Finally, apply this experience to a long-term problem.
Some brief examples:
A depressed client’s earliest dream was of a giant dog that scared him. He playacted the dog and connected with a fierce inner power. His depression eventually disappeared.
A client suffered from chronic anxiety. Her earliest memory was of drinking cocoa in her grandmother’s garden. She imagined herself as “cocoa,” and got in touch with a warm, protective part of herself that’s beyond her anxious feelings.
An anxious client lost his brother when they were children. It happened the day after my client pretended to talk to people in heaven, so he thought the death was his fault. I had him imagine being a dead person/spirit and he had a revelation that cured his anxiety: He didn’t cause his brother’s death nor any other catastrophe; he was simply a sensitive psychic.
A client felt trapped in a bad long-term marriage. Her earliest memory was running down a dirt path in bare feet. We reenacted the experience and she connected with her free spirit; she eventually got the courage to leave her husband.
A client had frequent panic attacks. His earliest memory was of being spanked by her mother for breaking a vase. He playacted his mother, got in touch with
being powerful, and learned to use it in a positive way instead of becoming an abuser. His panic attacks ceased.
Your earliest dream or memory is a map for your growth—use it!
