14 October 2017

This situation I’m in right now is a unique situation. Most people seem to have a well-organized life and there is a lot which is predictable about the day-to-day activities of their families. At the moment, there is not too much which is predictable or orderly about my life but I’m okay with it. It’s not easy, but I can cope.

Ever since my plans changed at the beginning of the month I’ve been creating a new vision for next steps for my family.

The problem is that I had a plan which I had been working on and implementing for 2 months and then “POOF” just like that someone made a decision which changed the direction I was going in to such a degree that everything I worked for vanished completely. Without going into the (boring) details of what happened, I’ll just say that I had a course of action laid out and then someone changed their mind and it affected everything. We were supposed to leave for BC on September 29th and settle in the first week of October. Instead, now it’s October 14th and I’m still no where closer to getting there.

The person has since apologized and they have tried in many ways to show their support and to help in many ways but the problem is now much bigger than what they can fix.

The big challenge for me is that since I had put myself 100% into the plan and now it has fallen apart, it feels like I’ve experienced a small death of sorts. It was the death of a dream and I’m grieving. The problem is the grief is effecting every area of my life and I can’t seem to get my mind around a new plan. Up until this morning I couldn’t imagine what to do next. I couldn’t imagine leaving and I couldn’t imagine staying. It’s like being stuck in some sort of painful purgatory. That is, up until last night when I dreamed of ordering a gluten-free sub at Subway.

Now finally I have a way to think about how I’m going to get through the next stage of my life in order to get to where I want to go.

Subway restaurant is a place where you can choose a customized sub from the menu and then move through an assembly line-like process to get a customized & personalized assortment of ingredients. The end result is a sandwich made exactly the way you want it.

My life at times feels exactly the opposite of a subway sandwich. Without sounding pessimistic or pathetically doomsdayish, it seems that nothing I have wanted in my life has materialized. Not in the regular sense of the way life usually goes for people. A good friend commented recently that I seem to be really good at dealing with messes people create and I’m so calm in the midst of what others experience as a storm. So I guess that is a somewhat positive way to look at things.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit but yesterday I was feeling a bit confused about what to do next and no matter how hard I tried no vision of what to do next would come to my mind. Literally, I had no idea what to do next.

Then the dream of ordering at subway came last night and now I see how I can get through the next transition of my life.

All I have to do is have a vision in mind of what I want, like thinking of the sub of my choice, and then I can just go through the process day-by-day to get through all the steps which create the end product, the end vision.

The problem is that when something somewhat negative happens, like being told you can’t go through with something you wanted to do, the ego can try to step in to do its protection thing. It takes persistent effort and diligence to break through the ego and find a way to be uplifted, free and playful.

So the Subway dream is telling me that I can in fact get back on track and get the vision I want by remembering what it is I want and just going through the steps one small bit at a time to build it.

I’m grateful for this subway dream because today I feel inspired and hopeful whereas yesterday I felt confused and lost.

This is how a dream can provide a script for next steps to move forward towards the positive vision of a bright and fulfilling life.