This week I’ve been writing about a negative figure who showed up in my dream, who grabbed onto my hand and squeezed their nails into my skin and at the same time was smiling to others and giving eye contact as though I was the problem and they were helping out. Meanwhile, their sharp nails were cutting into my skin and I couldn’t ask for help because people around me believed the woman who was squeezing me was the good guy.

What to do?

Earlier in the week I wrote about how to take this metaphor and use it to do really positive work in real life.

Now I want to explain in more detail how I have been able to turn things which others thought were pretty negative into really positive situations.

In the dream, there was a feeling of 5 nails digging like daggers into my skin. When I am reflecting on how to transform that experience of positives I can think about 5 ways in real life that I can press in. The positive quality of something piercing like that is this idea of being able to cut through or pierce old customs, old and out-dated practices, old and useless patterns of thought & behaviour.

So I can do this in many ways. I can write 5 piercing articles and share them to 5 personal friends. Or I can make 5 phone calls and offer encouragement. I could make 5 loaves of banana bread and share with neighbours. It doesn’t matter really what I do so long as I have the intention to share a positive expression of genuine kindness.

I’ve once heard that Courtesy is the prince of all virtues. Well, if we carry that metaphor forward we can think of how a prince carries a sword. Swords cut through things. So in this way, I can be like a prince and cut through old customs and pierce through old ways with virtues such as Courtesy and Kindness.

The big difference between me and the negative figure in the dream is that my kindness comes from my heart and is genuine. In the dream, the negative figure looked kind on the outside but was really quite nasty on the inside and when no one was looking.

Can you imagine the confusion of people who are not trained to think for themselves, to see through their own eyes? They would see two people being kind to one another and not be able to tell which one was really kind and which one was just using kindness to mask their torturous ways.

Ultimately, the reason it is possible to be kind even when others are being malicious is because the path each of us walk in life is our own path and when we move to the next world we have only our own selves to account for. We cannot control other people nor should we want to or try to. We can only decide for ourselves how to we want to live and do the best job we can trying to be Courteous and Kind at all times.