Weakness

In some dreams we are suddenly weak and unable to fight off an opponent, or too weak to run. This represents fears of not being able to deal with the situations that face you, or the urges or emotions that arise from within you. It might also mean you feel too weak to say no to someone; or your resolves are weakening.

This can be about weakness you sense in your body or as personality traits or emotions. Very often dreams show emotional difficulties as physical problems.

Example: The unconscious fears of illness, or attitudes about such fears we have are not simply ideas or feelings as many believe but are inextricably woven into the structure and cells of our body. So, bringing them out of the body is like tearing out from the fabric of our intellect, emotions, and body, it is like a growth or structure that is built into our being. One man in class during a relaxation period said, “As you began the I had the terrifying sensation that you were calling a dark shape out of my body.” Questioning him afterwards I discovered that he had a fear of weakness regarding his heart, and the “dark shape” was probably a representation or embodiment of his fear.

A weakness of body or mind is frequently revealed when we create a lot of stress by what we are doing or what happens to us. A man I knew experienced his wife suddenly and unexpectedly leaving him. The stress was so great for the man he was put in a psychiatric ward because the pain was too much for him to bear.

Example: Yesterday while in a multi story car park sitting in my parked car, I saw a woman who is in a friend’s yoga class. She drove up near me, and then called me. She was almost rigid with tension, as she had not parked her huge and expensive car alone before and asked me to help her. Noticing her tension, I saw the episode as yet another symbol of how we relate to Life – afraid often that we cannot handle the enormous power of the car and life and our emotions because they might, or they will, run away with us.

My strength in the situation hasn’t arrived easily. I had slowly learnt, with failures, to handle more powerful vehicles, even a massive removing vehicle. The woman was not weak but cautious and her caution led her to fear crashing the car. We gain such strength by practice; children often start with a scooter and slowly work up the scale. When we handle the power we have within us we too should practice – women often say they have no power by that is not true, learn to apply it, everybody, women and men meet failure and resistances, learn how to meet them. It may not be by being an unflinching warrior, but someone who learns how to adapt, how when you are uprooted put roots down elsewhere and water them and also you can learn new tricks. I started work as a photographer and then I was drafted into the RAF and learnt nursing. Meanwhile I took a course in journalism as a writer, then a yoga teacher, which led to becoming a psychotherapist, but as I didn’t believe in charging enormous amounts, I washed dishes for nine years in a restaurant. That led to learning building work, knocking down walls and rebuilding – and so an electrician, a plumber, then a newspaper journalist, a cook a landscape gardener, a book writer and publisher – and so on. The thing is, apart from nursing and journalism I didn’t take a course or seek diplomas, I learnt because there was work to do and I did it – sometimes failing, like the time I said I would wallpaper a room with woodchip wallpaper and put it on back to front – well I learnt something that day. 🙂 Don’t hold yourself back. See Work I Did – Degenerating.