In the dream, I am on a chair, like a dentist chair, and two men are near me. They have pretended they wanted my opinion on something and as I am analyzing the situation the one on the right puts his hand over my mouth and then begins to bring his hand to my nose to plug it.

I realize he wants to kill me, suffocate me and before he can get his hand to  my nose I already get an idea of how to get out of his grip and out of the chair. I woke up in that moment.

Our culture teaches us since infancy to stay away from things we fear otherwise we will get hurt.

But if we think of our biggest fears as being the biggest areas for growth then we can get excited about moving into our fears instead of avoiding them.

The first thing I thought about when I had this dream was that fear is one of the most exciting emotions to work with. I recently read an article about facing big fears and the fear of being assaulted was one of them. Consider this:

“The fear of being assaulted =  the fear of being assaulted comes when someone forcible (using their material power) tries to take something from you for their own selfish benefit.     Spiritual opposite– reaching out to people and providing a service that will benefit others using your positive capacities.”

This quote gives me some encouragement and some ideas about how to begin to transform the metaphor of being suffocated.

Before I do that I break down the symbols in the dream. It looks like this:

Air = future

Dentist = someone who fixes teeth

Teeth = the part of the body which chews food, the first part of the digestive system

Mouth/lips = the way we communicate/express ourself

Hands = Skill

Nose = Air passage & sense of smell

I can ask myself where in my life is someone with material power trying to take something from me for their selfish benefit?

I can also ask myself where in my life am I using material power to take something from myself? 

The reason this is important to ask is because of the principle that whatever is happening in a dream I am doing to myself. 

When I ask myself where am I suffocating myself and answer comes to me right away.

Yesterday, I started writing a proposal for a project I am excited about. When I started out I had a lot of enthusiasm for the project but as I got to the bottom of the document I started to doubt. Fears & worries came in as I remembered times before when I proposed something and others abandoned the idea in the beginning, middle or end of the project. 

So I stopped writing the draft and moved through my day. Later I cried & I cleaned my kitchen floor. I couldn’t go back to the project.

But today is a new day. And now the dream has given me an image to work with that adequately describes my fear.

And it fits right in line with the article I’m writing about dealing with re-occuring issues.

Notice that the spiritual opposite of being attacked is this: “reaching out to people and providing a service that will benefit others using your positive capacities.”

This was exactly the nature of my issue yesterday. I have an opportunity and an idea for something that will move me far ahead in my career. This idea will help me to reach out to people and provide a service that will benefit others using my positive capacities.

As I overcome this fear, I am creating a new positive future for me and my daughter. And when I overcome it, it will be like having lots of fresh air all the time which no one can take away from me.