O ye friends of God! Beware! Beware of differences! By differences the Temple of God is razed to its very foundation, and by the blowing of the winds of disagreement the Blessed Tree is prevented from producing any fruit. By the intense cold of the diversity of opinions the rose-garden of Unity is withered, and the fire of the love of God is extinguished! ~ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

This quote is just so perfect. It captures the essence of growth, change and transformation which is found in Dreamwork.

Have you ever dreamed of walking in snow and not being able to move? Or of a giant iceberg blocking your path? What about being in a train and having cold air come in through an open window? I have had these kinds of dreams and believe me, the metaphor of cold really sticks.

At the time when I had these dreams I had not yet developed the skills or capacities needed to deal with the cold produced by different opinions in relationships. In fact, some of my strongest nightmares were about traveling hours with two people who were extremely negative and we were traveling far, far North. I also had dreams of being in the north with them and then returning. That was like hell too.

At the time I didn’t understand but now I do. Seven years later.

This quote helps put words to what was happening.

My mom and my sister had such different opinions of me and my life than I had of myself and my life that it was like they were trying to drive me into a cold northern environment and abandon me there. When I didn’t go along with their plans, it was like they threw ice at me, like they built a huge iceberg which I couldn’t figure out how to pass at the time.

They would never think of what they were doing as creating cold environments, of course. And that’s okay. When they showed up in my dreams it was not really them anyway, it was just a metaphor and it gave me something to play with.

So, how to turn the negative cold of differing opinions into positive warmth of loving and unified relationships?

The key is to do the work every day to notice the negatives, find out where the issues are, and then work through them. By finding really positive ways to let go of the negative cold and then creating warm environment to enhance and grow positive qualities such as Enthusiasm, Strength, Determination and Patience then life can be like a divine rose-garden, so fragrant and radiant and bright.