‘Never-Enough-Feeling’ with Mom

This is such an interesting dream carrying a very important message. Because the dream is short and mundane, many would overlook it. If I didn’t know better I’d be thinking “I’ve been speaking with my mother on the phone nearly every day for years, and now I’m dreaming about it at night! What’s so special about this dream?” Those of you who know me, will have heard me say that every dream is a gem so don’t be fooled by what it looks like on the outside. Let’s dive in and see what happened with this one.

Never-Enough-Feeling’ with Mom Dream: January 17, 2020

I called my mom on the phone but was distracted and not connected with her. At some point I say I have to go and she makes me feel guilty for wanting to leave the conversation.

What I made of it …

I woke up from this dream feeling annoyed and resentful. I was triggered about the fact that no matter what I do for my mother, it’s just never enough! We speak almost every day but that’s not enough for her and this dream clearly put that in my face to look at. I have invested so much energy and time into this relationship but it seems like it’s just never enough. I felt defeated by this feeling and deeply irritated with this dream, especially since it came just as Ian and I arrived in Guatemala. I felt my space was being invaded by something I did not want to deal with now. I was presenting my embodied dreamwork at an ecstatic dance festival in San Marcos and it was a time of expansion for me, not a time of feeling limited by old stories.

“It’s never enough” is something I have been feeling with my mother yet I wasn’t sure when it started. As triggered as I was, ultimately, I know and trust from experience, dreams are here for my own good and for a good reason. Even though I felt huge resistance, I went ahead and worked on this dream as I do with all the dreams that I remember.

Embodied Dreamwork

I led myself through my process with Ian as my witness. I re-entered the dream and allowed myself to amplify through movement and breath the disconnection I was feeling in the dream. She is speaking to me with a lot of presence and love and I’m vacant and distracted. It’s interesting that from this embodied vantage point the experience began to change almost instantly. My triggered emotions started to settle as I began to feel the way I have not been present for my mother in conversations with her. I allowed myself to feel the pain of that. Tears started rolling down my eyes as I could feel how much my presence means to her and how distracted I have been. When we do carve out space for each other, I’m not present. I carry the weight and guilt of not having our needs met all the time and it’s exhausting! My mom is simply calling me out on this dynamic in the dream.

“At the moment of insight a potential pattern of organized behaviour comes into being.”
Rupert Sheldrake

The Heart of the Matter

The simple truth was revealed. I developed some bad habit of double-tasking while on the phone with my mother. I would look through my emails and do other work-related things at the same time. She was repeating the same stories that I’ve heard so many times before and I started tuning out during our phone calls. The truth is that I don’t know what came first, her repeating herself or my non-presence. This dynamic slowly crept up and became a bad habit on my end and she started to sound like a broken record.

What the dream is asking for is clear and I responded to the call to action. I made a conscious choice to give her my undivided attention and fully drop in and connect with my mother. It was effortful in the beginning because I didn’t realize how strongly rooted this behaviour really was. I noticed the impulse to be productive, but I resisted it in favour of presence and connection.

A cascade of gifts came from making this shift. I started to feel I was part of the conversation, meaning that she wasn’t talking at me and repeating herself, instead we were both contributing to the evolving dialogue. The feelings of ‘never enough’ melted away and were replaced with a deep sense of satisfaction and joy. I felt seen and heard. I felt liberated of the weight our conversations seemed to carry for me. I realized how much I need the very same connection she was calling out in me. Looking back, I see how I was projecting the problem onto my mother whereas I had the key to shift this dynamic the whole time.

Reflections

We’re not aware until we are aware. Sometimes we know the behaviours that aren’t serving us and other times these behaviours live in the dark. Dreams have a wonderful way of holding up the mirror so we can see what we otherwise may not.

Several months later, I’ve been on the receiving of a whole lotta love from my mother and my heart is radiating the same back to her. Our conversations are no longer something I partially dread and do out of duty. I am uplifted and inspired when we get on that call. Surprisingly, I am now the one who calls my mother far more than she calls me. I acknowledge that I need this love and connection. I feel respect flowing between us. As opposed to being non-present and continuously feeling bad about it, I now consciously nourish our authentic connection and fully drop into the time we have together. I am in a continuous stream of love with my mother and it feels really good.