I want to talk about a dream I had last night.

 

It was particularly powerful because it was a perfect example of my own deep healing and evolution in action.

 

In the dream I was in conversation with a man I didn’t know. He was a stranger.

And in our conversation and in what unfolded, it was a beautiful example of having clarity, discernment, and boundaries.

A note: Before getting deep into the validity of what I’m about to share because it was “just a dream”, I want to be clear that this is actually a kind of affirmation of what has actually unfolded in my real life.

Rather than talk about those details, I am going to share with you the exact patterns that were mirrored in my real life, using the dream for context just to clarify because this is the internet and boundaries 🙂

 

Let’s break this down.

The Beginning

I sit down and this man engages me in conversation by presenting me with a kind of quiz. He asks me how I would answer the questions. I take some thought and consideration into the questions, however they don’t resonate with me and I tell him so. He implores further, his demeanour is mysterious, enticing, and it feels like he wants me to believe he knows something special about me.

There is a part of the old me that wouldn’t raise any kind of alarm bells about this mans interaction with me, however, the present, embodied me is cautious. Where the past me would feel flattered to receive this attention and interest, the present me feels that something is off. The present me is curious why the focus is all on me. She wants to know why this man is asking all these rather personal questions while withholding any information about himself.

The Hook

Sensing my natural curiosity and openness in the conversation, the man uses a hook. He tries to distract me and reel me in by trying to engage with my ego and self identity. It’s definitely a tactic that has been used by others to successfully reel me into toxic relationships, self abandonment, and oversharing in a boundaryless kind of way in exchange for his attention and love, but the present me has done some deep healing around this hook, and I see it for what it is – a hook.

We all have different hooks, but they work in similar ways. Someone tries to engage with your ego self to try to distract you from who you really are. It’s ok to feel this part of your ego self get “triggered” but it’s important to see it for what it is – a response.

 

I want to peel back on more layer in pointing to the exact spot – the hook.

In the first part of the conversation, this man had gleaned information about me, then attempted to use simple tactics that work with most of us to try to hook me. He knew that I was a very self reflective person and so tried to use this self identity to try to challenge me. Essentially, he said something along the lines of “Oh, yeah you’re so self aware? Then why is your throat chakra so closed? You are literally choking on your words?”

Here he is trying to challenge my sense of who I think I am – my egoic self identity as a “wise” person, as a “craniosacral therapist” and “healer”.

In the past, this type of challenge would have worked. I would have started to try to prove myself as indeed being “wise”, “knowledgeable” and I would have tried to prove to him that I really did know myself.

But in my present embodied self, I felt this line of defense coming, I paused, and then a clear sense of reality became present.

I don’t know this man. I don’t owe him anything. I don’t owe him an explanation, and there is a clear and strange dynamic going on in our conversation. Something tells me to stop and pause.

So I don’t engage. I take note.

This is clearly not an equal and balanced conversation.

This man seems to be testing me or interviewing me more than he is interested in having an open, engaging, conversation and is not at all demonstrating healing relationship dynamics.

 

I tell him that I’m not going to answer or address that topic.

Yet Another Hook

He changes tactics. Clearly that hook is not going to work, so he tried another.

He gets hurt and offended by my response.

 

Remember the victim triangle?

He’s hoping that I fall into my role on the triangle.

Except I see it very clearly for what it is.

He plays the victim, hoping that I will come in to rescue.

Except that I don’t.

 

I tell him that I’m not willing to discuss this topic further. He gets upset and asks me “Why not?”

I tell him the truth.

I don’t know you. I don’t know who you are or anything about you. With neutrality, I clarify.

If you want to engage in this type of open conversation with me, you will have needed to built a framework of trust. You have so far not demonstrated that is your intention here, so I politely decline further discussion in the topic.

 

He gets upset and offended. Are you calling me untrustworthy? Are you judging me without even knowing me?

Again, he tries to hook me. He is trying to speak to the parts of me that want to present in the world as a “nice” person, a “good” person who “cares about the feelings of others”.

Except that I know that there is a difference between being an honestly compassionate person and playing a role that is run by my ego. There is a part in almost all of us that wants to be perceived as “nice”, “kind”, and inherently “good”.

Through my own healing process, I’ve been willing to let this go.

I cannot control another person’s perception of me any more than I can control another person. Any attempts to do so are actually a form of me manipulating them.

I’ve learned that if there is an external opinion of me that I am willing to listen to, it is the opinion of those who have built a loving, respectful, and healthy relationship with me. Those who have earned their place inside the sacred inner circle of my trust.

To be clear, that doesn’t mean that when someone I love says they don’t like a certain behaviour of mine, that doesn’t mean I’m going to change it to be more pleasing to them just because I love them – no. It simply means that through trust, love, and respect, they have earned the right to be listened to, to be heard.

 

A Clear No

I feel both attempts to hook.

I now see very clearly that this man is not interested in developing a relationship of any kind with me. Well, at least not the kind of relationship I am interested in engaging in.

I tell him no.

I have boundaries.

They are clear.

If they offend you, or if you have issue with that, that is ok, however I am going to remove myself from the interaction all together.

I tell him that it’s not personal, but I do not entertain in any way this kind of dynamic.

I get up and leave the room.

 

I wake up from my dream with a deep sense of affirmation.

I have done a lot of work in excavating the places in my own spirit where my ego, my humanness, gets tangled.

Sometimes the consequences of this entanglement have meant arguments and ego wars with other people, but more dangerously, they have also lead me to entanglements in toxic relationships, and abusive dynamics.

The latter which lead me to finally address the depths of these patterns and do the deep healing work required to end the cycles.

 

Healing our hooks and sticky places means that we honour our humanity and the humanity in others.

Thinking or meditating away our problems does not make them go away.

These are just tactics. They are temporary.

Truly repatterining our nervous system means we need to unravel the sticky protection and defense patterns we’ve adopted (intelligently, actually).

We must be willing to take responsibility in our own being to be able to see where our own patterns intersect with the external “triggers”.

We must have a certain level and capacity for compassion and kindness for ourselves in order to hold the messiness and contractive nature of our shame.

 

I wanted to share this as both a testament to my own healing process and how far I’ve come in my own path, but also peel back the curtains to perhaps uncover where my own path intersects yours.

Can you see yourself in parts of my story?

Where do you get snagged in the web of manipulation?

Where does your ego need to defend and protect you?

 

I share my own story to shed some light, give permission for our shared humanity, and open the portal of growth.