On July 23, 2018 I dreamed I was in a house which was being invaded by bears the size of Sasquatch. Someone told me to not worry they know what they are doing, and they had some sort of trick to get them out, but it seemed to me the bears were going to attack. I felt so small. The presenting feeling was being over-powered – standing close to the bear and it looking down on me. But when I saw it that close it looked like a person in a bear costume who stood about 7 feet tall.

Author Richard Hastings says empowerment is the ability to be able to finish what you set out to achieve by doing what it takes to get where you are going.   It means that you are using your power, your strength, your skills to get to the positive end.   You need strength and skills because any goal worth achieving puts up a lot of obstacles that makes it challenging to get to.    Bears, especially in northern climates, represent empowerment because they are big, powerful creatures who go unchallenged.

In this dream, someone is trying to dominate me with a show of false power or strength. They are just human but dressed up as a threatening bear. This is a metaphor for the way some people get so addicted to power they let their ego take over. Then there is very little left of their True Self as they are covering it up as though by a costume.

In my real life, when I had this dream there were a number of people in my life who were acting like the big bears in this dream – trying to invade my life, my home, my sense of Peace. At times, I felt as though I did not have what it takes to withstand the aggression but then, just like in the dream, I discovered strategies to remain Peaceful and Determined despite the negative behaviours people were demonstrating around me. I learned to avoid the conflict, which Buddha describes as The Middle Way, and I learned to detach. It was not easy and it didn’t happen over night but dreams like this were helpful reminders to stay the course, learn as I go, and not to feel threatened by people who were putting on a false show of strength out of their own sense of fear and insecurities.